Earl Butz has restored grain farmers pride in proving their enormous productive potential, and they love him. He believed that a free, global market would bring higher prices, and for the few years that Russian agriculture struggled, he was right. Earl Butz (1909-2008) American government official (1909-2008) - Earl Butz was born in Albion (town in Noble County, Indiana, USA) on July 3rd, 1909 and died in Washington, D.C. (capital city of the United States) on February 2nd, 2008 at the age of 98. By artificially increasing demand for food, food production became more efficient and drove down the cost of food for everyone. 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. In his time heading the USDA, Butz revolutionized federal agricultural policy and reengineered many New Deal era farm support programs. US Presidential Cabinet Member. Butz said to be furious, but took no steps to stop such shifting. When prices threatened to go too high, the payments would end and the land would go back into cultivation. 0000043106 00000 n Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. 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. In the chart below, it looks like there was an unprecedented spike in corn prices in 2008. A few years after he left the government, Butz got busted for tax evasion. Anyone can read what you share. 0000065712 00000 n 0000071060 00000 n 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. He was the uncle of NFL defensive tackle Dave Butz, an All-American at Purdue University and All-Pro with the St. Louis Cardinals (1973-74) and Washington Redskins (1975-88). Earl Lauer "Rusty" 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. 0000029423 00000 n It is possible, too, that domestic food prices would drop, although, because of the middleman factor, that is far from certain. October 11th, 2021. While somewhat dated, this work is unique in that it comes from the source. Then, during President Fords election campaign of 1976, Butz told a racially offensive joke, and he was forced to resign. 0000054470 00000 n 0000064144 00000 n 5In 1832, under Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court promoted tribal sovereignty, which recognized Native American tribes as domestic dependent nations. The court asserted in Worcester v. Georgia, Indian Nations had always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original and natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the soil. 6The Marshall Courts opinions were overlooked in nearly all forms of territorial expansion (most notably by the Jackson Administrations Trail of Tears), including future land policy such as Lincolns Homestead Act of 1862 that continued to promote the growth of agriculture. 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]. "[11] A spokesman for Cardinal Cooke of the New York archdiocese demanded an apology, and the White House[11] requested that he apologize. In lean years say, when drought struck the government would release some of that stored grain, mitigating sudden price hikes. 0000028915 00000 n In 1970, the Government was paying farmers $3.7 billion in subsidies, mostly as an incentive not to plant. 0000010640 00000 n Instagram, Follow us on [16], The reference in Time was to John Dean's article published in Rolling Stone issue #223. All rights reserved. They are making money nowand it was Butz who was there when the going got good. 0000065934 00000 n [4] In his time heading the USDA, Butz drastically changed federal agricultural policy and re-engineered many New Deal-era farm support programs. Wallace would have seen these as the glory of his department.. He was also fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties. Butzs great policy change had given rise to the deepest rural crisis since the Depression. 0000041732 00000 n [28], Butz continued to serve on corporate boards and speak on agricultural policy. 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 His policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs. He wouldn't embarrass a Cabinet member. Following World War I, the government revoked wartime price supports and the European market simultaneously recovered, causing agricultural exports to decline by 20% and grain prices to plummet. "Federal Farm Policies Hit". Top 10 Earl Butz Quotes (2023 Update) - Quotefancy Top 10 Earl Butz Quotes (2023 Update) 1. The dust bowl was a fresh memory. Butz says he was notand is notan enemy of the family farm; he is against the inefficient family farm. In the 1920s, agricultural policies destabilized supply and demand and sunk the nation into its lowest state of economic despair during the Great Depression. Earl Lauer Butz was born near Albion, Indiana, on July 3, 1909. BY TAKA YAMAGUCHI In 1976, then-U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz coined the now infamous phrase, "food is a weapon.". He is blamed for high food prices, accused of hurting small farmers and of playing politics with malnutrition and hunger and he is charged with disrupting the nation's foreign policy. 0000042932 00000 n The Soviets essentially bought up the U.S. grain reserve just as a widespread drought hit the Midwest. [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. Documents From the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 . American Memory from the Library of Congress . In 1954, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Between 1971 and 1972, crop failure in the Soviet Union lead the country to purchase nearly 25% of Americas wheat. America's total grain production of 242 million tons in 1975 represented an increase of 81 million tons from what it was in 1961. As it turned out, nearly all the corn was bought by giants of the trade. 0000047170 00000 n 0000064407 00000 n But New Times magazine enterprisingly sleuthed out Butz's identity by checking the itineraries of all Cabinet members. His only real friends are the big farmers, and, if this summer's expected bumper crop on the Great Plains affects their income as some anticipate, he may soon lose them, too. His technique, Foreman says, is to pose as friend of the farmer and try to pit him against consumers. 0000008094 00000 n Land Ordinance of 1785. Stanford University. 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. 0000063406 00000 n In Iowa, bin-busting harvests gave rise to an explosion of massive concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs). Homestead Act: Primary Documents of American History (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress). Library of Congress Home. Earl Butz has, in other words, clearly become the country's most controversial Agriculture Secretary since Ezra Taft Benson, and, after his recent behindthescenes struggle with Henry Kissinger, he has probably also emerged as the most powerful in history as well. From there, he went on to study agricultural economics, and eventually used his knowledge, along with his knack for political maneuvering and his quick wit, to forge a career that, in leading to his current post in the President's Cabinet, included serving in positions as Assistant Agriculture Secretary in the Eisenhower Administration, dean of agriculture at Purdue University and muchsoughtafter public speaker. He believed that a free, global market would bring higher prices, and for the few years that Russian agriculture struggled, he was right. Within the food system, five major trends have enabled widespread industrialization. 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. He's on the side of people who buy from farmers and sell to consumers.. Plant fence row to fence row, he exhorted from his bully pulpit. 0000068371 00000 n As intended, Nixons agricultural policy lowered food prices, but the imbalance of supply and demand manifested in long-term problems. Butz . High Agriculture Department officials began refusing to answer questions relating to grain sales to Russia and to Eastern European countries, saying sareastically that the diplomats had taken over. Facebook, Follow us on https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/13/archives/why-they-love-earl-butz-prosperous-farmers-see-him-as-the-greatest.html. ), And despite the rise of organic this and local that a trend that annoyed Butz to no end the old campaigners vision of maximum-production agriculture has become more entrenched then ever. The obituaries for Earl Butz who 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. But the ag policies of the day encouraged restraint. Marshall Martin discusses policy with Earl Butz. The New Deal policymakers had seen how high-production agriculture could devastate lands productivity. But you've got to make choices, and you're not going to be right all the time. Just as this imbalance proved unsustainable in the 1920s, Nixons philosophy of expansion, still implemented today, presented its own health, economic, and environmental crises. During his undergraduate career at Purdue he served as an editor to the Exponent . analyzed the issue of executive immunity in terms of general policy considerations, and stated its conclusion, quoted supra, in the same universal terms. D. in agricultural economics (1937) from Purdue 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. 0000056225 00000 n 19Dubbed the Great Grain Robbery, food prices in America soared. 0000061644 00000 n Earl Butz I challenged things that needed to be challenged at Purdue. 0000070292 00000 n Has there ever been a female US Secretary of Agriculture? Earl Butz Pros Of Corn Subsidy. 0000072272 00000 n 0000005254 00000 n Ulrike Butz. It was also epochal. Eating for Strength . In, Pollan, Michael. 0000011887 00000 n 0000043465 00000 n 0000058194 00000 n 0000029355 00000 n 0000009377 00000 n Donate today tohelp keep Grists site and newsletters free. It took a while to convert President Ford and Butz's remarks about that are revealing of the manner of this man who has become the nation's top agriculture policy maker: I told the President that a year ago we had the whole Midwest in the palm of our hand and we piddled it away with interference with grain exports. 0000008170 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. At one time, he headed the Purdue Department of Agriculture. [citation needed], For example, he abolished a program that paid corn farmers to not plant all their land. 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