The Nation: Growing Unrest on the Farm

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THERE is a recession in the Midwest farm belt, a region Republicans have often taken for granted as "Nixon country." Among farmers the recession is sowing seeds of unrest that Democrats hope to harvest next year in the form of votes. Thus it was far from coincidental that President Nixon last week made three announcements to demonstrate his concern about agriculture's current agonies: he 1) accepted the resignation of his pleasant but unaggressive Secretary of Agriculture Clifford Hardin; 2) replaced him with a combative former Eisenhower agriculture aide, Earl Butz; and 3) dropped his unpopular plan to abolish the Department of Agriculture as part of a broad Cabinet reorganization.

To be sure, the President downplayed the politics of his moves. Nixon explained that Hardin, a pipe-smoking former chancellor of the University of Nebraska, had wanted out as early as three months ago to accept "an exceptionally attractive offer" as vice chairman of Ralston Purina Co., a large cereals and feed processor in St. Louis. Yet it was also true that Hardin had, perhaps innocently, become a political liability. Many farmers considered him an ineffective spokesman for their interests; others did not even recognize his name—with the result that Nixon became the object of their discontent. Conceded one of Nixon's political aides: "We've all been saying for a long time that whether it was Hardin's fault or not, he had to go. Instead of commiserating with farmers, he tried to use statistics to show them how well off they were."

Nixon said he intended to retain the Agriculture Department but pare some of its "peripheral" functions so it could "concentrate exclusively" on serving farmers. Actually, his earlier plan to drop the department was going nowhere in Congress, and had become an enticing target for Democrats from agricultural areas. The department has become so unwieldy and inefficient that Nixon's plan to absorb its functions in a broader Cabinet division had administrative merit, but farmers feared, with some reason, that it would further dilute their influence.

Rural Lightning Rod. While no Secretary of Agriculture can hope to be popular, Butz, 62, is an outspoken, Indiana-farm-born veteran of agriculture politics who can serve as Nixon's lightning rod for rural complaints, much as Ezra Taft Benson did for President Eisenhower, and Orville Freeman for both Kennedy and Johnson. A former head of Purdue's School of Agriculture and currently dean of continuing education at Purdue, Butz was an assistant secretary to Benson from 1954 to 1957. Since Benson was highly unpopular among farmers, that makes Butz an odd choice for the job, and Democrats quickly seized the opening. Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien attacked Butz as "one of the chief architects of the Benson policies that forced hundreds of thousands of farmers off the land." Yet Butz served notice that he intends to fight for farm interests. Shortly after Nixon introduced him to newsmen, he turned to Hardin and said pointedly: "The price of corn is too low for comfort, Mr. Secretary —it's below the cost level."