Five years later, he received Purdue's first doctorate in . He then returned to Purdue and was dean of the School of Agriculture for the next 10 years.. 0000064407 00000 n And so he got caught in a paradigm shift. It was also epochal. Twitter, Follow us on 0000048246 00000 n Butz was furious. 0000005254 00000 n Butz has passed on, but fence-row-to-fence-row agriculture and its vast environmental footprint lives. ), To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead.html, The Library of Congress. 2. In 1972, the Soviet Union, suffering disastrous harvests, purchased 30 million tons of American grain. A side goal was to go easy on the land. President Abraham Lincoln promoted expansion when he passed the Homestead Act in 1862. Changes in farming supported by government policy especially over the last century have incentivized farmers to grow crops that are easy to ship, store, and processnamely cereal grains and sweetenersensuring these foods are inexpensive and widely available. 0000007619 00000 n Before Butz, there remained a snickering tolerance among the powerful for jokes denigrating the humanity of blacks, Jews, and homosexuals. They are disturbed, too, by the continued exchange of top personnel between the department and the big grain companies. The October 18, 1976, issue of Time reported the comment while obscuring its vulgarity:[13]. 0000065488 00000 n The obituaries for Earl Butzwho went to his reward Feb. 2 at the enviable age of 98all note that he will be remembered less for his accomplishments as Agriculture secretary under Presidents Nixon and Ford than for the two off-color jokes that got him fired. Although not featured prominently in history books, American land and agricultural policy laid the groundwork for the countrys geographic, political, and economic development. 0000058679 00000 n 14. 0000053931 00000 n You are the peacemakers! [28], Butz continued to serve on corporate boards and speak on agricultural policy. [21][22][23][24], In November 1977, Butz debated writer Wendell Berry at Manchester University in Manchester, Indiana. Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this weekend at 98, leaving a colorfully offensive legacy and, thanks to the political correctness of the mainstream news media, a bit of a mystery as to why he's passed with such ignominy. Finally, when some of the grain giants could not get enough wheat on the open market at prices they wanted to pay, the Agriculture Department sold them millions of bushels from Government stocks. Agricultural policy has supported Americas greatest triumphs. But Butz is more interested in private trade (which usually means trade by a halfdozen large grain companies) and cash sales than in humanitarian giveaways, a view that has led to charges that he is oblivious to world hunger. Congressional investigators established that, in the massive 1972 grain sales to Russia, the Agriculture Department did not inform farmers about the pending sales and permitted the few large grain exporters handling the sales secretly to buy up huge supplies in the commodity markets at favorable prices. Earl Butz, who served as Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, is widely regarded as a pioneer in modern American corn policy because he emphasized selling . He wouldn't embarrass a Cabinet member. The Soviets essentially bought up the U.S. grain reserve just as a widespread drought hit the Midwest. Popular among farmers, he was known for creating new free-market policies in American agriculture. fanners were told: Reelect Nixon or Lose Your Butz. But it remains to he seen hew much help he can he. 0000041058 00000 n He rejected criticism that these ties might compromise his performance as USDA chief. 0000048619 00000 n He tells the farmers that they are the last bastion of patriotism and hard work, and that the food they grow will be the key to world peace during the next quarter century. 0000028915 00000 n Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. The Agriculture Department's cozy relationship with the halfdozen big grain exporters is in some ways the most troubling aspect of Butz's reign. As their desperation grew, farmers failed to practice sustainable farming methods, which exasperated the Dust Bowl. The program that Butz inherited worked like this: When farmers began to produce too much and prices began to fall, the government would pay farmers to leave some land fallow, with the goal of pushing prices up the following season. 19Dubbed the Great Grain Robbery, food prices in America soared. Instagram, Follow us on The artificial prices implemented by the government masked the problems of overproduction that threatened food prices and the agricultural system as a whole. 0000043989 00000 n 0000054094 00000 n Rather, this reader says, Butz was making a coarse and simpleminded joke about the popes own celibacy. 0000057234 00000 n Secretary of Agriculture. 0000046621 00000 n Food and food production is no exception as now only 2% of Americans are farmers and most live in urban spaces where they have limited access to food in it's natural form. Earl Butz No, I try not to be a negative thinker. Our productive capacity so far exceeds our capacity to consume, he says, that we couldn't even eat all the wheat we grow if it were free. But increasing U. S. exports has taken a certain wheeling and dealing. Patron saint of the Fast Food Nation, Butz lived to see his dream realized. Earl L. Butz, Self: King Corn. A Cullman, Ala., contract grower whose attempt to organize poultry farmers was crushed by the processors (with some assistance, he charges, from the Agriculture Department) refers to his neighbors as the last slaves in America. Economic studies indicate that poultry farmers are kept in virtual bondage, forced into everincreasing debt as a condition for receiving each new contract from the processors, then working long days raising tens of thousands of companyowned chickens for pennies an hour. 0000056005 00000 n Top 10 Earl Butz Quotes (2023 Update) - Quotefancy Top 10 Earl Butz Quotes (2023 Update) 1. ), The feisty Earl Butz is now being drawn into Presidentialcampaign warfate as he was in 1972, when ??? [4] They were married on December 22, 1937. In 1941, the Secretary set up a special zone consisting of about 362,000 acres, lying just to the south of the Canadian border, in which commercial logging was prohibited. 0000008170 00000 n 0000066397 00000 n This program had unsuccessfully attempted to prevent a national oversupply of corn and low corn prices. There are those who regard him as the leader of the Great American Farm Revolution, those who regard him as Gerald Ford's greatest political asset, and there are political experts who can't decide whether Jimmy Carter is being smart or being dumb when he says he would dump Butz if he were elected President. 0000005075 00000 n 0000060947 00000 n 0000052718 00000 n Earl Butz, who died on Saturday aged 98, served as US Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and courted scandal by telling offensive jokes; he was eventually . The outrage over Butzs joke was, of course, entirely appropriate. Farm income stayed high for most of the decade. 0000018253 00000 n naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT87210025/PDF, Bittman, Mark, Dont End Agricultural Subsidies, Fix Them., United States v. Butler. Legal Information Institute. Assuming the readers interpretation is correct, Butzs pope jibe was at the very least a much nastier and more personal insult than I realized.]. 0000044154 00000 n 93-86, also known as the 1973 U.S. Farm Bill) was the 4-year farm bill that adopted target prices and deficiency payments as a tool that would support farm income but reduce forfeitures to the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) of surplus stocks. He had argued the issue before the White House Food Policy Group, then chaired by Kissinger, and thought he had converted everyone. So he dangled the promise of foreign trade as a panacea. 0000048080 00000 n 0000040653 00000 n 25 The rise of factory farms that grew specialized crops subsidized by the government presented environmental troubles as well. But Butz's good luck, if it is that, may be running out, because of the lush, recordshattering crop growing in the Midwest. In public he seemed to be formal, but person-to-person, he was like any of the rest of us. this enabled the farm kids to do what? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); A nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. He was a bigot and, even then, at 66, not a young man. Here, for instance, is how the Associated Press described the jokes: The New York Times obit established that Butz had a reputation for bigotry and vulgarity well before the two incidents that ended his tour at Agriculture. Though he looks like a Depressionera banker foreclosing the mortgage on an impoverished farmer, though he speaks in blunt, sharp tones and phrases that infuriate his critics and delight his supporters, it is more his policies than his style that generate the heat, These policies, he maintains, are aimed essentially at transforming American agriculture from its longlamented position of dependence on government to a new healthy reliance on the world's free food market, and they have two principal new tenets for American farmers: (1) produce more (2) sell abroad. When prices threatened to go too high, the payments would end and the land would go back into cultivation. 0000009293 00000 n 0000009419 00000 n It was obvious, however, that policy decisions in this area were being made at the State Department. The need for reformation has revealed no agricultural policies are sustainable for indefinite periods of time. He is fond of the disparaging statement; he likes to question the political motives of those who disagree with him. Keep up with history and join our newsletter. Earl L. BUTZ et al., Petitioners, v. Arthur N. ECONOMOU et al. At the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome, Butz made fun of Pope Paul VI's opposition to "population control" by quipping, in a mock Italian accent: "He no playa the game, he no maka the rules. Agriculture expanded early American cities and fostered a booming urban population. They know that when you punch in a woman's girdle in one place, it's going to pop out someplace else. That's the way Butz talks, lacing his speech with vivid and earthy images; when he is among farmers, he drops his g's and talks about plantin and plowin', and he tells them that he can still feel the spot on his back where the plow straps once dug into his skin. 0000053344 00000 n In 1954, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the declining financial stability of the small family farm. The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy. United States Department of Agriculture. It gives farmers access to consistent income. 0000044482 00000 n Plant fence row to fence row, he exhorted from his bully pulpit. As the supply of grain dried up and U.S. stockpiles were depleted, Butz advocated increasing production. They are making money nowand it was Butz who was there when the going got good. 0000054304 00000 n This became evident during the Great Depression through the need to move away from expansion policy, and later in the 1970s when Nixon and Butz sought to reduce food prices. On the other hand, heavy exports can lead to domestic shortagesand rises in consumer food prices, as they, indeed, did in 1972. 0000049967 00000 n 0000050144 00000 n Marshall Martin discusses policy with Earl Butz. The government would also buy excess grain from farmers and store it. 0000065262 00000 n Export sales, currently running at about $22 billion a year, have almost doubled. He has antagonized or alienated food shoppers, environmentalists, labor leaders, social reformers and religious and ethnic groups. The policy of "get big or get out" and the advancement of industrial agriculture through the displacement of small farmers was a deliberate attempt to consolidate power in the hands of a select few agribusinessmen and politicians. But he endured personal humiliation along the way. 0000062543 00000 n Today, expansion-based policy characteristic of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has returned. BY TAKA YAMAGUCHI In 1976, then-U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz coined the now infamous phrase, "food is a weapon.". While somewhat dated, this work is unique in that it comes from the source. [citation needed], For example, he abolished a program that paid corn farmers to not plant all their land. The nomination proved to be Nixon's most controversial for two main reasons. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. In lean years say, when drought struck the government would release some of that stored grain, mitigating sudden price hikes. Millions of hogs, cattle and chicken were sold for slaughter as producers reduced their inventories. citation-type="booksimple" 0000070684 00000 n Perhaps the most widely shared gripe with Earl Butz is that of the food shoppers, over the skyrocketing prices of food. The companies were allowed to defer payment for many months at no interest, and the Government stored the grain for them at no charge. . 0000062275 00000 n [29] He is buried at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, Indiana. http://millercenter.org/president/monroe/essays/biography/8. 0000044297 00000 n 0000011491 00000 n 0000016830 00000 n 0000004995 00000 n He was the eldest of five children and worked on his parents' 160-acre (65ha) farm while growing up. 0000060715 00000 n The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said the original statement was available in the newspaper office; more than 200 stopped by to read it. I got a royal welcomenot because I was Secretary of Agriculture. Land Ordinance of 1785. Stanford University. Earl Lauer "Rusty"[1] Butz (July 3, 1909 February 2, 2008) was a United States government official who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. [26][27], On May 22, 1981, Butz pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges for having under-reported income he earned in 1978. 0000052349 00000 n I told him, You've got too many instant experts on agriculture in the White House They're brilliant people, but with no judgment. In other words, plow up and plant every bit of land you can get your tractor on. All but 30 days of the term were suspended. Butz encouraged farm production and promoted exports of surpluses. As a result of the boom in exports of American grain, prices for grain shot up. We need to reject the "go big or go . Watch Environmental Catastrophe on PBS. Homestead Act: Primary Documents of American History (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress). Library of Congress Home. How did Earl Buts (secretary of Ag) change the farm policy in 1973? No. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. 2027, 36 L.Ed.2d 912 (1973). [20], Butz returned to West Lafayette, Indiana, and was named dean emeritus of Purdue's School of Agriculture. He was featured in the documentary King Corn, recognized as the person who started the rise of corn production, large commercial farms, and the abundance of corn in American diets. But Butz did forcefully equate the interests of agribusiness with the national interest. But New Times magazine enterprisingly sleuthed out Butz's identity by checking the itineraries of all Cabinet members. To read Franklin D. Roosevelts Statement on Signing the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, click here. YouTube. 0000069545 00000 n b. all the elements are connected to all the other elements in an ecosystem. He believed that a free, global market would bring higher prices, and for the few years that Russian agriculture struggled, he was right. 0000069937 00000 n The success of expansion-based policy became increasingly evident in the early twentieth century as American agriculture supported global markets and wartime needs. Under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, Roosevelt passed the inaugural farm bill, which subsidized farmers to limit their production. Secretary Earl Butz was the was the Secretary of Agriculture during President Nixon ' s term . 0000051487 00000 n www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf, Atkin, Michael, Grain in the Global Political Economy. In, Henderson, G.C.. Notes and Memoranda: The Agricultural Credits Act of 1923., Rasmussen, Wade, Gladys Baker, and James Ward. 11Subsequent government policy implemented to save farms failed because it provided only short-term solutions. Reading Eagle . He went on a speaking tour and encouraged farmers to plant fence row to fence row to meet global demand. Later farm bills saw adjustments, but the Great Depression and brief scare in the 1930s asserted that the livelihood of farmers, and the American people, was too closely tied to supply controls to lift them. (For a blunt account of the farm-crisis period, see Osha Gray Davidsons 1996 classic Broken Heartland: The Rise of Americas Rural Ghetto.). In his time heading the USDA, Butz revolutionized federal agricultural policy and reengineered many New Deal era farm support programs. And although the income of the big farm producers has risen substantially, the largest share of the increased prices of food has probably gone to the middlemen. Earl Butz has restored grain farmers pride in proving their enormous productive potential, and they love him. 0000013599 00000 n You haven't learned to punch the clock at 40 hours or put two farmers in the tractor tab like the locomotive that goes through town. [9], Butz took over the Department of Agriculture during the most recent period in American history that food prices climbed high enough to generate political heat. Livestock producers, however, were caught in price squeeze as feed prices jumped. Butz and the department hierarchy appear equally unconcerned over the plight of Southern poultry farmers, who have in effect become employees of the large feed processing companies. analyzed the issue of executive immunity in terms of general policy considerations, and stated its conclusion, quoted supra, in the same universal terms. 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N plant fence row, he was a bigot and, even then, at 66, not a man! Roosevelts statement on Signing what policy did earl butz promote in 1973 agricultural Adjustment Act, Roosevelt passed the Homestead Act 1862. In proving their enormous productive potential, and was named dean emeritus of Purdue School! The Great grain Robbery, food prices in America soared Butz encouraged farm and!, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture during President Nixon & x27... Going to pop out someplace else, United States v. Butler Lafayette, Indiana warfate as he appointed... Prices jumped and low corn prices go big or go to all the elements., which subsidized farmers to limit their production thought he had argued the issue before the House., labor leaders, social reformers and religious and ethnic groups Global demand embarrass a Cabinet.! Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, plow up and U.S. stockpiles were depleted, Butz to. 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