Earl Butz On October 4, 1976, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigned in the wake of a controversy over an obscene joke he'd made that was derogatory to blacks.You. In a 1973 speech, he accused the housewives of America of having a low level of economic intelligence, and in his office he kept a sculpture of two copulating elephants that he delighted in showing off to visitors. 1. 0000009167 00000 n Ford discusses many of the painful decisions he had to make during his presidencyincluding the firing of Earl Butz. http://www.stanford.edu/group/west/cgi-bin/pager.php?id=49. Despite helping to eradicate acute hunger and malnutrition, the bill devastated small farmers and contributed to decreasing the number of farms in America by 63%, effectively changing rural landscapes and economies. 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. The Agriculture Department's cozy relationship with the halfdozen big grain exporters is in some ways the most troubling aspect of Butz's reign. 0000048818 00000 n Farm income stayed high for most of the decade. The nomination proved to be Nixon's most controversial for two main reasons. Understanding why and how agricultural policy has changed over time contextualizes the shift from farming communities to factory farms, environmental crises, Americas role in international grain trade, and how food travels from farm to table. 0000067623 00000 n In Omaha, President Ford campaigned with Butz at his side and told a farm audience: I'd hate to see a good team broken up in the middle of the game. Paul Johnson, a livestockassociation official, said later that he wasn't sure whether to support Ford or Reagan, but keeping Ford so we can keep Earl Butz might make mind., The President says he respects Butz's ability to influence the farm vote and he agrees philosophically with the Secretary's freemarket views. The Soviets essentially bought up the U.S. grain reserve just as a widespread drought hit the Midwest. Government subsidies would have to be reinstituted, and consumers ultimately would suffer in terms of food shortages, higher food prices and a bigger tax burden., Foreman calls Butz a fraud when he says he's acting in the interest of farmers. " He no playa the game, he no maka the rules. Plant fence row to fence row, he exhorted from his bully pulpit. He was also fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties. In 1970, the Government was paying farmers $3.7 billion in subsidies, mostly as an incentive not to plant. Friedrich Nietzsche. 0000056400 00000 n In order to plant fence row to fence row, farmers tore out shelter belts and other conservation land uses. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Butz pushed farmers into a new, industrial scale of. 0000057234 00000 n naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT87210025/PDF, Bittman, Mark, Dont End Agricultural Subsidies, Fix Them., United States v. Butler. Legal Information Institute. By killing the supply management program, Butz would open a floodgate of cheap inputs from farms to food factories. 0000053560 00000 n 24 Since subsidized crops are less expensive, and therefore more sought after, farmers who grew subsidized crops saw the most success, while those who did not fell behind. Help us continue to bring you the best of the archives without the dust! 0000044615 00000 n His technique, Foreman says, is to pose as friend of the farmer and try to pit him against consumers. " Sometimes my quotes may be too colorful. [Update, Feb. 5: A reader informs me, as kindly as he can manage, that I read too muchsubtle wit intoButzs wisecrack about the pope. 0000018904 00000 n 0000058450 00000 n Expansion efforts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resulted in western migration that led to agricultural prosperity in rural areas. 0000041732 00000 n Land Ordinance of 1785. Stanford University. A key event that drove the global adoption of the Diet-Heart hypothesis was the 1972 US Presidential election in which the incumbent Richard Nixon was confronted by a losing war in Vietnam, rising . Despite the success of the 1973 farm bill in supplying food, America has faced resulting health crises attributed to an abundance of cheap calories, a loss of small farms, and environmental impacts of factory farming. He wouldn't embarrass a Cabinet member. You're working for yourselves, because you're trying to make a little money and save some of it. The 12,500 members of the American Farm Bureau Federation to whom he addressed those remarks recently in Indianapolis roared their approval. 0000049595 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. accessLinx is a boutique multimedia production company that communicates your business's messgae with clarity and impact. [21][22][23][24], In November 1977, Butz debated writer Wendell Berry at Manchester University in Manchester, Indiana. 115-334, Enacted December 20, 2018] 1970 Farm Bill - Agricultural Act of 1970 1965 Farm Bill - Food and Agricultural Act of 1965 1956 Farm Bill - Agriculture Act of 1956 1954 Farm Bill - Agricultural Act of 1954 1949 Farm Bill - Agricultural Act of 1949 Actually. 0000008397 00000 n 0000057693 00000 n Nixon plucked Butz out of Purdues agriculture department and planted him in the USDA in 1971. In 1976, just weeks before a tight presidential election, he left the USDA in disgrace after making a stunningly crude racist remark. [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. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. He's not on the side of farmers or consumers. 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. "Get big or get out," Butz told farmers in 1973, and boy, did they. Butz was furious. While somewhat dated, this work is unique in that it comes from the source. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/13/archives/why-they-love-earl-butz-prosperous-farmers-see-him-as-the-greatest.html. He was the eldest of five children and worked on his parents' 160-acre (65ha) farm while growing up. [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. 0000043106 00000 n Wallace would have seen these as the glory of his department.. You Are What You Grow.. I told him, You've got too many instant experts on agriculture in the White House They're brilliant people, but with no judgment. 0000064816 00000 n Yet Earl Lauer Butz is often referred to these days as the greatest Secretary of Agriculture in the history of the Republic. And in 1971 as now, what agribusiness wanted was for farmers to plant lots and lots of corn and soy. Earl L. Butz 0000058905 00000 n The Earl L. Butz file group documents the activities of the Office of the Counsellor to the President for Natural Resources from its inception in January of 1973 until its functions were subsumed by Governor John Love's Energy Policy Office in the summer of 1973. What readers find is that Ford did not want to fire Butz but was left with no choice. So do other prosperous farmers and the agribusiness complex of corporate fruit and vegetable raisers, food processors and distributors. According to this reader, Butz was not commenting onPope Paulsmoresweeping opposition to artificial contraception, which rendered his narrower opposition with regard to food shortages a foregone conclusion. 0000042057 00000 n They had two sons, William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz.[4]. He was Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. 0000004416 00000 n Butz, who once called Richard Nixon one of the greatest Americans of this century. now says he has very good rapport with Gerald Ford. Donate today tohelp keep Grists site and newsletters free. Butz and . First, Butz was called a disciple of Ezra Benson, who, under Eisenhower, had presided over huge grain surpluses, low farm prices and the start of the great exodus from American farms. [26][27], On May 22, 1981, Butz pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges for having under-reported income he earned in 1978. Five years later, he pled guilty to tax evasion and served a short stint in jail. 2027, 36 L.Ed.2d 912 (1973). What policy did Earl Butz promote in 1973? Meet the Press with Secretary Earl L. Butz, Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, Secretary James T. Lynn; Summary Photograph shows Lawrence Spivak (center) with guests Butz, Weinberger, and Lynn and four journalists, including James Kilpatrick and Carl Rowan (second and third from left) on the television show Meet the Press. I fear he may be right. Butzs great policy change had given rise to the deepest rural crisis since the Depression. It was during this time that she first came into contact with drugs. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Butz as Secretary of Agriculture, a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned in 1974 as the result of the Watergate scandal. But as shipments boomed, the department loosened its surveillance over the process and ignored warnings from its own employees that grain inspectors might be taking bribes. 0000011887 00000 n Donate today to keep our climate news free. The need for reformation has revealed no agricultural policies are sustainable for indefinite periods of time. 1973 Farm Bill - Agricultural and Consumer Protection Act [As Amended Through P.L. Facebook, Follow us on Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window). Grain farmers are planting fence row to fence row, and the payments to them have nearly stopped. The Agriculture Department is estimating that grain production will roach 255 million tons, 13 million more than last year's. It was also epochal. When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. After the deprivations of World War II, people all over the world were gradually eating more bread, meat and poultry all food items that require grain to produce, like corn, soybeans and wheat. 0000029423 00000 n 0000051916 00000 n All but 30 days of the term were suspended. 0000046978 00000 n 0000013599 00000 n Gerald Ford dispatches him to farm states, where sometimes Ford has been successful in the primaries, as in Illinois'and sometimes not, as in Indiana and Nebraska. One of Butz's chief antagonists has been the Agribusiness Accountability Project, which has traced the links between the Agriculture Department the landgrant colleges and the agribusiness industry. That is one of the most outrageous things I've seen, but it's typical of the way Secretary Butz operates, says Foreman. Rather than use federal policy as a check on farm output, Butz saw it as a lever to maximize output. 0000055231 00000 n 0000061181 00000 n 0000068736 00000 n a. individuals, species and populations interact among themselves and the ecosystem to create an ecosystem, which are extraodinarily complex. 0000071933 00000 n 0000052562 00000 n 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. Earl Lauer Butz was born near Albion, Indiana, on July 3, 1909. For Butz and his agribusiness cronies, the program amounted to socialism an intolerable check on farmers ability to plant and harvest as much as possible. 0000070129 00000 n You are the most productive part of America! 0000071753 00000 n Assuming the readers interpretation is correct, Butzs pope jibe was at the very least a much nastier and more personal insult than I realized.]. Has there ever been a female US Secretary of Agriculture? 0000007858 00000 n 0000009335 00000 n So if youre tempted to feel sorry for the guy for getting torn up by historical forces he never understood, give it a rest. 0000060715 00000 n We believe in widespread ownership of businesses and farmland. Many were dismayed the government paid farmers not to plant and even destroy crops while much of the country struggled to purchase food and waited in line at soup kitchens. American Agricultural Economics Association, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, American government official Earl Butz dies at age 98, "A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz", "Former Purdue Agriculture Dean Earl Butz dead at 98", "Earl L. Butz, Secretary Felled by Racial Remark, Is Dead at 98", "Rolling Stone's Biggest Scoops, Exposs and Controversies, #7: Earl Butz Mouths Off", "Tight Pussy, Loose Shoes, and a Warm Place to Shit: The Song Parody that Transcendeth All", "Butz donates $1 million to Purdue ag econ department", "Hard work, insight enabled Butz to become agricultural leader", "Wendell Berry vs. Earl Butz debate 1977", "Federal Eye - Spotted: Oldest Living Ex-Cabinet Secretary Releases Book", "Gerald R. Ford Administration Alumni | The Gerald Ford Presidential Foundation", "Meeting King Corn: Earl Butz was a product of his time" 2/19/2008, "The Butz Stops Here: A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz" 2/7/2008, Agri-Pulse article "Memories of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz" 2/10/2008, High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal article: "Memories of Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz" 2/14/2008, Farm Futures article: "A Special Tribute to Earl Butz" 2/4/2008, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earl_Butz&oldid=1136081838, Purdue University College of Agriculture alumni, United States Department of Agriculture officials, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2013, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 28 January 2023, at 17:21. 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