AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



Milo Reno was hardly an untried hand in farm movements. He had 

 been a leader in the McNary-Haugen campaign and later hurled 

 anathemas at the Federal Farm Board in a manner that few farm leaders 

 could duplicate. In dramatic and vituperative fashion, he had attacked 

 the Coolidge, Hoover, and the Roosevelt administrations, and with equal 

 vigor he denounced the federal and state governments, the agricultural 

 colleges, the county agents, the professors, and all those affiliated with 

 groups he believed were exploiting the farmers. He burst into the national 

 limelight as head of the Farm Holiday Association. 2 



Despite his unorthodox views, Reno had affiliations and ties that were 

 quite conformist. For instance, he served as president of the Iowa Farmers' 

 Union life and automobile insurance companies and was a director of the 

 fire insurance company positions which, according to one source, had 

 netted him a total salary of $9,600 a year. This sum, plus a $10 per diem 

 expense allowance while in the field for the fire insurance company, was 

 cited as evidence that farm organization work was hardly unprofitable 

 to Reno at least, despite all that he had to say about the machinations of 

 the capitalist system. He was also listed as a member of the Masons, the 

 Odd Fellows, the Christian Church, and the Republican party, yet he did 

 not adhere strictly to party lines. In 1928 he supported Al Smith, and in 

 1932 he endorsed Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 3 



His best-known activities before the farm strike were in connection 

 with the McNary-Haugen campaign of the twenties. He was credited 

 with having suggested the idea that led to the forming of the Corn Belt 

 Committee in 1925. In 1928 he broke with Senator Smith W. Brookhart 

 of Iowa because the latter defended Hoover, and then reunited with him 

 in 1932 when both joined in an attack on Hoover. In 1930 Reno called 

 Alexander Legge, the chairman of the Federal Farm Board, a liar and 

 disagreed with Governor John Hamill of Iowa over the creation of a 

 state-wide livestock-marketing organization. When the Corn Belt Com- 

 mittee broke up in 1931, he sided with the anti-Farm Board faction. 



Reno's attacks on agricultural colleges and professors were amusing 



Emergency in Iowa (Ames, 1933). This is an invaluable study by experts, dealing 

 not only with the situation in Iowa, but also with farm relief in general. 



2. Des Moines Tribune, May 5, 1936. 



3. Ibid., August 1 8, 1932; May 5, 1936. See also Roland A. White, Milo Reno 

 (Iowa City, Iowa, 1941), pp. 17-19- 



