National Affairs: Furrows

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It was political planting time in the farm belt. On the same day last week, both presidential candidates climbed on a tractor-drawn flatbed wagon, rode around Henry Snow's gently rolling land in Dodge County, Minn., and sowed the seed from which they hope to reap the farm vote. The occasion was the National Plowing Contest, and 40,000 Mackinawed and jacketed residents of the farm country came to see the new machines, the tests of plowing skill (contour & level land) and the candidates.

A Specific General. Dwight Eisenhower came first. Ike, who had been accused of speaking in generalities, was as specific as a candidate could be. He left no doubt about 1) what he is against, 2) what he is for, and 3) the differences he sees between his program and Democratic practice. Most U.S. agricultural laws, said Ike, are based on the principle that farmers themselves should have much to say about management of the programs. "But what happened? Do you have a voice that carries weight with the Washington agricultural autocrats? Or should I call them 'agricrats?' . . . You've seen them grow cynical and arrogant . . . Systematically they have tried to use the vast powers of the Federal Government to make the farmer a political captive.

"You don't have to look far for evidence. The case is now perfectly clear in the grain-storage hoax of 1948. It is a story of perversion of Government responsibilities and powers−the story of a giant federal farm agency, backed by the people's dollars, deliberately driving down the price of grain to instill fear in the minds of farmers. It is a story of a Government agency spreading panic—using press, radio and speeches to paint a picture ... a false picture ... of the lack of storage space for grain.

"You were told at Dexter, Iowa in 1948* that the 80th Congress had prevented the Administration from providing storage bins for farmers. You were further told that this would make it impossible for many of you to get price-support loans.

"The facts are now well known—and here they are: 1) the 80th Congress did not prevent the Commodity Credit Corporation from furnishing storage to farmers for their grain; 2) there was no shortage of storage space; 3) contrary to the implication, the Commodity Credit Corporation never has furnished storage to farmers—it hadn't before and it has not since; 4) the Commodity Credit Corporation was selling its own grain bins as surplus at the very moment the Democrat candidate accused the Republicans of having 'stuck a pitchfork in the farmer's back.' Now, who actually stuck that pitchfork in your back? It was none other than the Democrat Administration itself."