4 02 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



is simply not interested. He does not think in national terms, and the effect 

 of a decadent and peasant agriculture on the nation's future is something 

 entirely beyond his comprehension. . . . The real 'hicks' of America live 

 along the Atlantic seaboard. They are far less well-informed than the 

 average Middle- Western farmer, and their view point is far narrower." 85 " 



The Corn Belt Committee, in its April meeting, already had made 

 known its intentions of fighting Herbert Hoover in the event that the 

 Republicans nominated him for the Presidency. 88 Bill Hirth, chairman 

 of the committee, in a warning that was typical of many of the militant 

 proclamations that emanated from the Middle West, bluntly informed 

 the Republicans that "as certain as they dare to nominate this man for 

 President, the great Corn Belt states will bury him under an avalanche 

 of votes that the Republican party will not forget for the next fifty years 

 and if there are those who think that I am talking through my hat, let 

 them remember the cyclone that made Brookhart senator two years ago 

 in the great erstwhile conservative Republican state of Iowa." 87 H. A. 

 Wallace, a member of a family for years prominent Iowa Republicans,, 

 smarting under the defeat of his pet, the McNary-Haugen bill, which 

 he espoused with almost evangelical vehemence, and remindful of the 

 fact that Herbert Hoover was an archenemy of his father, was rapidly 

 moving into the orbit of the Democratic party. 88 George N. Peek, as ex- 

 pected, denounced the Republicans and expressed the belief that farmers 

 could "expect sympathetic action from the democratic nominee." 8 



In June some 2,000 farmers representing the Farm Bureau, the Farmers* 

 Union, the Corn Belt Committee, the Committee of Twenty-Two, and 

 lesser groups officially appeared before the Republican National Con- 

 vention in Kansas City, where they reiterated their faith in the principles 

 of the McNary-Haugen bill. 90 Shortly thereafter, farm groups visited the 

 Democratic National Convention in Houston, Texas. On July 16 and 17 

 the Corn Belt Committee reassembled to review the attitudes of the two 

 major parties. The Republicans were assailed for their failure to adopt 



85. Prairie Farmer, quoted in Minnesota Farm Bureau News, July i, 1928. 



86. Farmers' Union Herald, April, 1928. 



87. Missouri Farmer, quoted in Farmers' Union Herald, March, 1928. 



88. See Lord, The Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 275-80. 



89. DCS Moines Tribune, July 16, 1928. 



90. Farmers' Union Herald, June, 1928. 



