May 12,
2005: History, as the adage goes, is written by the
winners. And since decency and uprightness rarely leads to
political victory, there is often more creative storytelling
in history than in contemporary fiction. But there are some
historians who choose not to parrot the respectable myths
and instead, as Jean Choate does in Disputed Ground,
tell a history from the perspective of the losers. Choate
details the struggles of seven farm organizations against
the Agricultural Adjustment Act (known as AAA), part of Franklin
D. Roosevelt’s suite of New Deal programs. Disputed
Ground suggests that, at least with respect to farmers,
the New Deal was not quite the little man’s messiah,
or even his ally.
Choate dedicates a chapter to each farm organization under
examination: the Missouri Farmers Association, the Farmers
Union, the Farmers Holiday Association, the Farmers Independence
Council, the National Farmers Process Tax Recovery Association,
The Farmers Guild, and The Corn Belt Liberty League. Most
of these groups were formed during the Depression years when
farmers faced bankruptcy and foreclosure (in 1932 farm income
was half of what it was the previous year). Many of these
farm groups initially supported Roosevelt during his 1932
election campaign because he promised to establish ‘cost
of production’ prices—prices that represented
all costs, including labor, necessary to produce a product.
Some group leaders, such as William Hirth and John Simpson,
campaigned vigorously for Roosevelt. But once Roosevelt was
elected, it became clear that he was not going to deliver
the ‘cost of production’ legislation. Instead,
he imposed production limits combined with compensation for
the decreased production. Many of the farm groups that had
supported his candidacy then turned against Roosevelt's New
Deal farm package. The President also filled the Agriculture
Department with wealthy farmers and academics more devoted
to big business than to small farmers. Milo Reno, the head
of the Farmers Holiday Association, called these men “his
inefficient economic idiots known as the ‘brain trust’”
(p. 63).
Disputed Ground is replete with interesting excerpts,
whether from the unedited letters of earnest followers of
radio broadcaster D.B. Gurney (“I am for the 16 principles
what our radio preast preches to us” [sic]) or from
the suave diplomatic rhetoric of the newly elected president
(“Your letter…was buried in the flood of congratulatory
messages…I know you will understand and excuse the delay”)
or from a farm group leader’s blunt response when Roosevelt
acknowledged there were imperfections with the Agriculture
Adjustment Act (“It stinks”). That said, much
of the excerpted correspondence seems excessive. Choate includes
some ping-pong exchanges between farm group representatives
and politicians that are probably only relevant to certain
academics or the most fanatic history buffs. If you want a
taste of what it would be like to lobby on agricultural policy,
you will get it.
In the preface, Choate says that what follows is the story
of people who struggled and lost. They lost because none of
them was able to fundamentally change the New Deal agriculture
program. There were, of course, successes along the way. For
example, the Farmers Holiday Association—contrary to
what its name might suggest—was busy informing the public
about the plight of American farmers and organizing strikes,
often massive ones capable of shutting down whole cities.
But they were unable to overthrow or overhaul the Agriculture
Adjustment Act.
At the end of the book Choate writes that “these old
letters and records of the New Deal remain to remind us of
people’s concerns in an earlier day—concerns that
are echoed in the rallying cries of farmers’ protests
of more recent years” (p. 193). That is as polemical
and rousing—in an activist sense—as Disputed
Ground gets. Choate is not out to tear down FDR from
his populist pedestal or to glorify the various farm groups.
She does not hesitate to document the relations between the
Farmers Guild and the anti-Semitic, fascist-leaning magazine
Social Justice, which proclaimed that Zionist Communists were
seeking to dominate the world and destroy Christian civilization.
Many of the farm groups, in fact, were in opposition with
one another: The Farmers Independence Council opposed the
New Deal because it wanted the government out of the farmer’s
life, unlike most of the other groups, which sought increased
governmental legislation.
Disputed Ground is important precisely because it
offers us a piece of history that would otherwise remain unknown
or, worse, unremembered. And no better photograph could have
been chosen for the book's cover: A dapper Roosevelt is shaking
hands from the back of his chauffeured car with a farmer,
who is standing in his overalls, his free hand resting on
his shovel. Roosevelt is smiling and looking at the farmer.
The farmer is not smiling and he is not looking back.
Constantine Markides currently lives on the Vermont shore
of Lake Champlain. He can be reached at cons76@yahoo.com.
|
