[20], Butz returned to West Lafayette, Indiana, and was named dean emeritus of Purdue's School of Agriculture. 0000067449 00000 n Susan Demarco, one of the founders of the project says, Secretary Butz is not the friend of the family farmers; he is their funeral director. In its report, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times. the project stated, There will be a million fewer farmers by 1980 for the same reason that there are three million fewer farmers today than in 1945because Earl Butz and company will not lift a finger to prevent it.. They werent a secret at the time of Butzs firing; Time magazine reported them, albeit with some dashes substituting for letters in the dirtiest words, in full. Yet the food-production machine Butz created kept cranking. D. in agricultural economics (1937) from Purdue University. 0000009377 00000 n This led to the domination of the bigger farms over the smaller farms . An agricultural hot line to Washington was established by the Agriculture Council of America, and thousands of calls poured in to farm leaders and Congressmen manning the phones. Earl Butz, 2006. 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. (See Henry Wallace's "Ever-Normal Granary".) [4] In 1968, he also ran for Governor of Indiana, but came in a distant third at the Republican state convention to eventual winner Edgar Whitcomb and future governor Otis R. Bowen. Secretary of Agriculture. He has antagonized or alienated food shoppers, environmentalists, labor leaders, social reformers and religious and ethnic groups. The Butz farm policy is one that involves risk. I tried to interview him last fall for Grists Sow What? Harvest failures came repeatedly and were usually severe. At an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland (sponsored by the Agri-Energy Roundtable (AER) on May 23, 1983, Butz warned his audience (concerning ethanol production and subsidies), "Those who ride the Tiger may find dismounting difficult". 0000007858 00000 n The abundancy associated with land expansion policies remained intrinsic to the nations success through World War I, as America provided for the home front and the allied nations. He also advised farmers to get big or get out adapt or die, in the belief that bigger farms were more productive. Valuating is itself the value and jewel of all valued things. Others bowdlerized the quote, in some cases replacing the female genital reference with "a tight [obscenity]" and the scatological reference with "a warm place to [vulgarism]" or "warm toilet seats". In 1976, just weeks before a tight presidential election, he left the USDA in disgrace after making a stunningly crude racist remark. Butz resigned his cabinet post on October 4, 1976. Beginning in 1973, policy changes promoted by Nixon Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz deregulated the corn market. QB&qGN(>[:#u*@uE(RMkc'-b!zkxyzh+i2kGCvF7X-8S @Z635U5=TX7>*{7rV@9ia":{ VTLpGs8ph-{H ;ZI'}KVG;(aS0"&c~Q[Bb;,I>q0Tj#TR=N8nqvEuYJc]}Lh*$SEPavX":7I$+* $GyYAjL_4&-ttt4`z4(%]O1%D|Ar {7}sa8y-(]1&$Pr~kLd" >t(. But the man likes confrontation, and uses it to disarm his critics. He envisioned a hyper-efficient, centralized food system, one that could profitably and cheaply feed the world by manipulating (or adding value to) mountains of Midwestern corn and soy. 10Despite a surplus of agricultural commodities, farmers increased production to compensate for low prices, worsening the imbalance of supply and demand and further devaluing their crops. l6 =w)[PXrYq4VWDmlM_8oCH^IKd}$!s( xp}@_o1PxuROpy4.t8z|Pe+oX,*Db30L.G+Q/KA^3xG=fa=b$D=f50;u+nYc%d!EEslOYK]ZEPURlWHwIM There was some question whether or not Butz realized that the Soviets were buying up one quarter of the entire U.S. wheat crop, but he did nothing to stop the sale despite the fact that it eventually raised food prices. Butz and . 0000063118 00000 n To improve westward migration, President James Monroe passed the Land Act of 1820, lowering the price of land per acre, which facilitated the settlement of 3.5 million acres. Until the 1920s, agricultural policy targeted territorial expansion, and as farms thrived, the relationship between rural and urban markets fostered the growth of American cities. As the supply of grain dried up and U.S. stockpiles were depleted, Butz advocated increasing production. But the ag policies of the day encouraged restraint. It's like naming someone from Gulf Oil to be consumer representative at the Federal Energy Administration., This March, an independent group of scientists who operate the Center for Science in the Public Interest named Butz to its Terrible Ten list of persons and institutions that favor unwise food policies saying that the Department of Agriculture has changed beefgrading guidelines in a way that gyps the consumer, has liquidated the pricestabilizing grain reserves and has sought to undercut the foodstamp, schoollunch and other Federal food assistance programs., George McGovern says that although Butz is often referred to as the greatest Secretary of Agriculture, he isn't even in the same league with Henry Agard Wallace, who conceived of and administered many of the innovative programs designed to lift farmers out of the Depression of the 1930's: Wallace had a dimension that Butz can't even comprehend the concept of food as a humanitarian instrument. What readers find is that Ford did not want to fire Butz but was left with no choice. 0000008397 00000 n Now lets face it, they are. By 1976, though, most whites in positions of influence were learning not to say such things. 0000041878 00000 n 0000071240 00000 n He exhorted farmers to ``plant fence row to fence row'' to meet global demand, helping to drive down surging food costs. 0000058194 00000 n That is one of the most outrageous things I've seen, but it's typical of the way Secretary Butz operates, says Foreman. Earl L. Butz, who orchestrated a major change in federal farm policy as secretary of agriculture during the 1970s but came to be remembered more for a vulgar racial comment that brought about. 0000067623 00000 n Butz had helped to arrange that sale in the hope of giving a boost to crop prices to bring restive farmers tempted to vote for George McGovern into the Republican fold.[10]. [19] The quotation was among the inspirations behind the comedy film Loose Shoes, particularly the sketch "Dark Town After Dark", made in 1977 but released in 1980. Agricultural policy has supported Americas greatest triumphs. <]>> 0000005254 00000 n He died in his sleep, a quiet end for a man whose career shook the earth, causing untold acres to succumb to the plow. Here's How. 0000008094 00000 n 0000055445 00000 n 0000010104 00000 n Before this incident, it was not at all unusual for respectable white people to tell and laugh at jokes that portrayed black men as lazy, shiftless, and priapic. You are the peacemakers! 0000071399 00000 n 0000042400 00000 n The deal came at the same time as the Nixon administration was trying to ease tensions between the worlds two super powers (at that time) and to bolster U.S. farm income to help win that years presidential election. 0000067244 00000 n 0000041553 00000 n 0000057943 00000 n 0000055062 00000 n Reader support helps sustain our work. 0000050911 00000 n That was Butz's kind of deal, according to the Farmers Union and the National Farmers Organization, groups which advocate moderate farm policies and which, in recent years, have supported Democrats. Butz said to be furious, but took no steps to stop such shifting. Twitter, Follow us on Butz died in his sleep on February 2, 2008, in Kensington, Maryland. 0000017516 00000 n And so he got caught in a paradigm shift. A side goal was to go easy on the land. 0000060715 00000 n All but 30 days of the term were suspended. Earl Butz While he was president, it was popular to be a Nixon hater. He took off the restriction that farms had stating what they could and could not produce . Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. [3], The Associated Press sent the uncensored quotation over the wire, but the Columbia Journalism Review identified only two city newspapersthe Toledo Blade (Toledo, Ohio) and the Madison Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)that published the remark unchanged. 4, Land policy that targeted territorial expansion built an American agriculture empire, but at the expense of Native American populations. Perhaps the most widely shared gripe with Earl Butz is that of the food shoppers, over the skyrocketing prices of food. He was Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After the 1973 farm bill, Americans spent a lower percentage of their income on food than ever before, purchasing more calories for less money, a trend that adversely impacted the nations diet. In 1970, the Government was paying farmers $3.7 billion in subsidies, mostly as an incentive not to plant. 0000052349 00000 n naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT87210025/PDF, Bittman, Mark, Dont End Agricultural Subsidies, Fix Them., United States v. Butler. Legal Information Institute. He replaced Palmby with Carroll Brunthaver, a former official of Cook Industries, another leading grain firm. Donate today to keep our climate news free. 0000070488 00000 n 0 0000011491 00000 n Myth: Earl Butz was a pivotal figure. 0000068205 00000 n On the other hand, heavy exports can lead to domestic shortagesand rises in consumer food prices, as they, indeed, did in 1972. 0000063406 00000 n It was a crude joke that turned Butz into a household word and punch line on Johnny Carson's ``Tonight'' show. Earl Butz: Father of the Modern Food Subsidy System. It reduces the need to rely on other countries for corn production. . A few years after he left the government, Butz got busted for tax evasion. 0000059674 00000 n He dismantled supply management policies, selling off government storage bins . 0000047333 00000 n Urged on by Butz and buoyed by high grain prices, millions of Midwestern farmers spent the 1970s taking on debt to buy more land, bigger and more complicated machines, new seed varieties, more fertilizers and pesticides, and generally producing as much as they possibly could. As the scandal spread to include nearly all the major grain companies, and as it became clear that it was the conflictridden inspection system that was the cause, Butz changed course. 0000009125 00000 n )(_C*h-$L=]|OjI:+UzJ3? Butz, who once called Richard Nixon one of the greatest Americans of this century. now says he has very good rapport with Gerald Ford. "Federal Farm Policies Hit". So if youre tempted to feel sorry for the guy for getting torn up by historical forces he never understood, give it a rest. That was true in the Soviet Union, as well. Even after sales to Russia and Poland were finally resumed, the White House was bombarded with an unending stream of criticism from farm organizations. Farm income has shot up from $14 billion in 1970 to $26 billion now, and even after these figures are adjusted for inflation, they still reflect a nearly 20 percent increase. [29] He is buried at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, Indiana. 7. Dont worry about overproduction, Butz told farmers on trips through the Midwest. The what policy did earl butz promote in 1973 prices of food, he left the government was paying farmers $ 3.7 billion in subsidies Fix! Very good rapport with Gerald Ford the man likes confrontation, and uses it to disarm his.! 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