Faith, Hope & Parity

By all the laws of political parity, the historically conservative farm states should return in resounding numbers to the Republican ranks in this year's mid term elections. Indeed, there can be little hope of a nationwide Republican resurgence in 1968 unless the party can recapture its traditional power base in the heartland. Anticipating an almost reflex "crossback" of G.O.P. voters who helped elect Democrats in 1964, Iowa G.O.P. Chairman Robert Ray contends: "This extreme change from one party to another in our state was as though the voters had suddenly stepped into 20° weather. The shock's been too great. They have to come back this year to where it's a little warmer."

Nonetheless, the farm vote, while seldom predictable, remains one of the most enigmatic elements of all in the November balloting. Perhaps more than any other sector of the economy, agriculture has been hurt by rising prices, high taxes and tight money. A tractor that sold for $6,000 in 1961 costs $9,000 today. Interest rates for carry over credit between crops have risen in recent times from around 4% to as high as 10% a year; in some areas the cost of farm-machinery loans has gone up 4% in the past six months. "A half percent increase in interest doesn't seem like much," says Raymond Robinson, who raises livestock on a 115-acre spread near Marion, Iowa. "But on a big farm operation it can make the difference between profit and loss."

"Slip, Slide and Duck." Disaffection in the farm belt reached a peak last spring, when the Administration pictured the growers as the chief culprits and beneficiaries of soaring supermarket prices. On nationwide TV, President Johnson even suggested to housewives that they buy cheaper cuts of meat. The biggest shock to farmers was Freeman's gaffe in March expressing pleasure at a slight—if short-lived—drop in food prices. Never before had a U.S. Secretary of Agriculture publicly applauded a decrease in farm income, and the incident earned Orville the unofficial title, over much of the prairies, of "Secretary Against Agriculture."

Nor was the farm belt impressed by Freeman's characteristically uninhibited reply when he was asked by Democratic congressional candidates in Washington how they should answer consumer complaints about the cost of living. Advised Orville: "Slip, slide and duck. If you have to choose a side, take the farmer's side. Housewives aren't nearly as well organized." To suspicious rural minds, the comment was hardly reassuring.

Bounteous Breadbasket. Farmers, who have endless faith in the land and endemic hope for the future, still practice grumbling as a full-time avocation. And in fact, farm parity—the New Deal equation for measuring their purchasing power—has itself done some slipping and sliding. Under Truman, parity averaged 107.5%; it dropped to 84.5% during the Eisenhower years; since 1961 it has fallen to 78%. For all the advances in agricultural technology, farmers still earn only two-thirds the average income of nonfarmers. Their discontent was reflected in a poll published this month by the influential Farm Journal. Of 5,000 ballots returned by farmer subscribers, 87% urged cuts in federal spending to fight inflation; 63% voted in favor of getting the Government completely out of the farm-price-support business.