[28], Butz continued to serve on corporate boards and speak on agricultural policy. Overplowing land and failing to let it lay fallow resulted in exposed topsoil, which combined with drought caused severe dust storms resulting in one of the worst man-made ecological disasters in American history. 0000060947 00000 n Earl L. Butz, who orchestrated a major change in federal farm policy as secretary of agriculture in the 1970s but came to be remembered more for a vulgar racial comment that brought about his resignation during the 1976 presidential election race, died Saturday in Kensington, Md. 0000061181 00000 n As a result of the boom in exports of American grain, prices for grain shot up. He was a bigot and, even then, at 66, not a young man. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0297_0001_ZS.html, Markham, Jerry W.. New Economic Policy and New York City. In, Levine, Susan. He thinks using grain in foreign policy is really a fun game, one department official said of Kissinger. 0000062543 00000 n 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. Butz attempted to end. 0000009453 00000 n An increasingly consolidated meat industry learned to transform cheap grain into cheap but highly profitable burgers, chops, and chicken nuggets. The overall goal was to stop prices from falling too low (hurting farmers) or jumping too high (squeezing consumers). 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. Author: Earl L. Butz The American Food Machine and Private Entrepreneurship Earl L. Butz | December 1977 The modern American Food Machine is perhaps the greatest single source of strength undergirding the unparalleled level of American living. And during his tenure he has played a leading policy role in the decisions which sent a disproportionate share of FoodforPeace aid to rightwing governments, including those of South Korea, South VietCambodia and Chile. 0000049217 00000 n 0000062082 00000 n A Des Moines Register poll indicated last year that less than half of Iowa farmers thought Butz was doing a good job, and some farm leaders regard Iowa as a bellwether. 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. ), The feisty Earl Butz is now being drawn into Presidentialcampaign warfate as he was in 1972, when ??? But, if you hit the button that adjusts prices for inflation, there is was a huge spike in corn prices after the Russian grain purchase. He dismantled supply management policies, selling off government storage bins . The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. The policy sometimes paid farmers to not grow food in order to keep agricultural prices high and allow small farms to survive. 0000052132 00000 n document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Industrial agriculture lost one of its greatest champions last week: Earl Rusty Butz, secretary of the USDA under Nixon. 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. 0000010640 00000 n 28 0 obj<>stream 0000005254 00000 n 0000046462 00000 n Farm costs, per unit of production, then would rise. Earl Butz I challenged things that needed to be challenged at Purdue. Some world food organizations are concerned, not only because of American fuzziness at Rome but also because of the tendency of the United States to sign longterm supply agreements with people who pay cash for grain. Let Them Eat Ketchup In, Roberts, Paul. 0000054849 00000 n Earl Butz I made lots of talks and challenged lots of people. 0000052349 00000 n %PDF-1.4 % The Agricultural Credits Act of 1923, which The Quarterly Journal of Economics reported would save farms through long term loans available on farm mortgages andshort term credits available through banks, provided limited financial relief, but did not reduce surpluses. The analysis presented in that case cannot be limited to . Butz tells farmers that consumers are mad at them because of high retail food prices. Butz has been saved twice, by dry weather and by the Russians, said Representative Neal Smith, a Democrat from Iowa, referring to droughts in the American corn belt in 1974 and 1975 and to Soviet purchases of 16.5 million tons of grain from last year's crop and 2.2 million tons from the 1976 harvest. By killing the supply management program, Butz would open a floodgate of cheap inputs from farms to food factories. . Earl Lauer Butz was born near Albion, Indiana, on July 3, 1909. The changes implemented since the eighteenth century exemplify the need to reform policy in accordance with domestic and international circumstances. 0000059674 00000 n 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. 0000046815 00000 n Butz drastically changed federal agricultural policy and re-engineered many New Deal-era farm support . Earl Butz Oral History Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum 3 Butz: Oh, Nixon was warm and personal when you got to know him. 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. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window). In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed him the 18th US. Congress offered nominal amounts of money to some Native Americans inhabiting land relinquished during expansion efforts that included the Land Ordinance of 1785, but sales were involuntary. He's on the side of people who buy from farmers and sell to consumers.. So do other prosperous farmers and the agribusiness complex of corporate fruit and vegetable raisers, food processors and distributors. 0000048080 00000 n You Are What You Grow.. 25 The rise of factory farms that grew specialized crops subsidized by the government presented environmental troubles as well. 0000043291 00000 n In 1970, the Government was paying farmers $3.7 billion in subsidies, mostly as an incentive not to plant. 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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. 0000065262 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]. Butz fanned their frenzy. Last year, they harvested 1.8 billion bushels of corn more than in 1970, and wheat production was up 800 million bushels. 0000008903 00000 n YouTube, Follow us on 0000072272 00000 n Moreover, the department paid hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies on the sales, enabling the companies to make additional profits and to keep the price to the Russians unrealistically low. 0000029707 00000 n Millions of hogs, cattle and chicken were sold for slaughter as producers reduced their inventories. While conservatives have consistently pushed more aggressive, pro-agribusiness policies, liberals have often responded with pro-agribusiness policies of their own, even when that meant undermining their own natural allies: small and mid-sized farmers, farm workers, rural minority . He was named to succeed Clifford Hardin, a quiet universitychancellor type who lacked the fighting style Nixon thought he needed in the 1972 election campaign. 0000047170 00000 n Failed farms got folded into larger operations at cut-rate prices. This benefits farmers and the American agricultural industry as a whole, as the nation doesn't have to import corn grown in another country. 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. xref At height of the so-called Green Revolution and firmly in the Cold War mindset, he was referring to the American policy of fighting famine worldwide to defend against political unrest and the spread of communism. He wouldn't embarrass a Cabinet member. 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. It was a crude joke that turned Butz into a household word and punch line on Johnny Carson's ``Tonight'' show. 0000009335 00000 n The Agriculture Department is estimating that grain production will roach 255 million tons, 13 million more than last year's. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. 0000056620 00000 n 0000042057 00000 n 0000043800 00000 n Later, the firms sold the corn at more than double what they had paid for it. " Earl Butz 3. 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 died still holding an emeritus position at Purdue. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Earl L. Butz was born on July 3, 1909 in Albion, Indiana, USA. 0000044805 00000 n 0000056005 00000 n 0000056798 00000 n 0000044615 00000 n 0000057693 00000 n They had two sons, William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz.[4]. 0000008094 00000 n Earl Butz Ford was warm and friendly. 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. Expansion efforts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resulted in western migration that led to agricultural prosperity in rural areas. 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. 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. All but 30 days of the term were suspended. 0000041388 00000 n Eighteenth and nineteenth territorial expansion had tragic consequences for displaced Native American populations, and many still face the ramifications of mass removal. He has antagonized or alienated food shoppers, environmentalists, labor leaders, social reformers and religious and ethnic groups. The artificial prices implemented by the government masked the problems of overproduction that threatened food prices and the agricultural system as a whole. accessLinx is a boutique multimedia production company that communicates your business's messgae with clarity and impact. In order to profitably mass-produce convenience fare for a growing middle class, the food industry needed unchecked access to cheap inputs. Exports sustained high grain prices, leading the United States Department of Agriculture to describe the years between 1910 and 1914 as the golden age of farming. US Presidential Cabinet Member. Earl Butz stayed on as Secretary of Agriculture after Nixon was impeached and engineered legislation sharply reducing federal subsidies for farmers. 0000057234 00000 n October 11th, 2021. 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. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/bdsdcc:@field(DOCID+@lit(bdsdcc, Dimitri, Carolyn, Anne Effland, and Neilson Conklin. After forty years of regulating production to balance demand, domestic and international circumstances compelled President Richard Nixon to rethink agricultural policy. [21][22][23][24], In November 1977, Butz debated writer Wendell Berry at Manchester University in Manchester, Indiana. I was speaking the language of food and they understood.. He is known for King Corn (2007), News 15 Nightbeat (1985) and Independent Lens (1999). Documents From the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 . American Memory from the Library of Congress . 0000029494 00000 n Assistant Secretary Clarence Palmby, for instance, negotiated a credit deal with the Russians in the spring of 1972, and then took a job as a vice president of Continental Grain. 0000050730 00000 n 0000050144 00000 n The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. See more from The Dust Bowl. [12], News outlets revealed a racist remark he made in front of entertainers Pat Boone and Sonny Bono and former White House counsel John Dean while aboard a commercial flight to California following the 1976 Republican National Convention. The smarter ones were even learning, albeit more slowly, not to believe such things. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); In addition to providing lifelong history lovers, teachers, and students free access to premier digital research, the editors and writers of U.S. History Scene are available for freelance or consulting work. 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. 0000058905 00000 n After the Great Depression which featured the stunning confluence of huge grain surpluses, widespread hunger, and a tide of farm failures the Roosevelt Administration put in place mechanisms to help farmers manage supply.. 0000060715 00000 n In the summer of 1972, the Soviets shook up the grain market when it hid from the world the fact that their grain harvest was in trouble. American land policy began in the wake of the Revolutionary War, designed to bolster agricultural production to support the expanding nation. Twitter, Follow us on He's not on the side of farmers or consumers. 0000050347 00000 n 0000042749 00000 n Then they made secret deals with the five biggest American grain companies for 24.2 million tons of grain worth almost $1.5 billion in 1972 dollars $7.6 billion in 2009 dollars. Blocked by White House budget officials and by President Ford's uncompromising stance against further Government regulation of business, Butz tried to patch up the graininspection system by adding more Federal supervisors. Describe that change. Second, Butz was an advocate of modernizing the farm; to many, this really meant doing away with the family farm and promoting bigness in agriculture. They pointed out that he was leaving the board of Ralston Purina Company to become Secretary of Agriculture, while Hardin was departing the Agriculture Department to become vice chairman of the same firm. They are making money nowand it was Butz who was there when the going got good. 0000008682 00000 n 0000044995 00000 n But Jimmy Carter repeatedly says that one of his first acts as President would be to replace Butz, and Carter's first big boost came in the January caucuses in Iowa. 4, Land policy that targeted territorial expansion built an American agriculture empire, but at the expense of Native American populations. 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. 0000054470 00000 n 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. 0000052562 00000 n He believed that a free, global market would bring higher prices, and for the few years that Russian agriculture struggled, he was right. Dismantled supply management program, Butz would open a floodgate of cheap inputs the... Policy began in the wake of the boom in exports of American grain, for! N in 1970, and wheat production was up 800 million bushels 15. Ford was warm and friendly at cut-rate prices an emeritus position at Purdue high and allow small to! 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