NEW DEAL FARM PROGRAM 4^5 



administer the program was of the utmost importance. Various names 

 were mentioned, not many of which attracted too much serious attention. 

 Among them there were Cully Cobb of Georgia; John Simpson, president 

 of the national Farmers' Union; George Peek of McNary-Haugen promi- 

 nence; Henry Morgenthau, Jr.; Henry A. Wallace; and others. According 

 to a Farm Bureau version, Roosevelt had his heart set on Henry Mor- 

 genthau, "a fellow gentleman farmer and neighbor on the Hudson," 

 as Secretary. According to this same source, "Midwestern, western and 

 southern farm leaders could not see Mr. Morgenthau as head of the gov- 

 ernment agency that would play such a vital part in their anticipated 

 agricultural program." Roosevelt is said to have demurred on Henry 

 A. Wallace and yielded only after "continuing pressure." This same source 

 observed that "when Wallace was finally appointed Secretary, Mr. Roose- 

 velt gave Morgenthau the next most important agricultural post head 

 of the Federal Farm Credit system. He was later promoted to be Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury." 33 



From all particulars ideologically, geographically, and temperamen- 

 tally the appointment of Henry A. Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture 

 was a logical one for the incoming administration to make. Iowa, "that 

 kingdom of fat hogs and rank corn," was a center of unrest and agricul- 

 tural thinking and it was strategically located. "The Middle West hailed 

 the appointment; Iowa was loudly enthusiastic." Much of his thinking on 

 the farm question had antedated that of the new administration. Wallace 

 had favored inflation and a balanced production in agriculture; he had 

 been waging a relentless campaign along these lines during the twenties. 

 His most conspicuous efforts were in behalf of the equalization fee of the 

 McNary-Haugen proposal. 34 



In his last column as editor of Wallaces' Farmer, just before assuming 

 his post as Secretary of Agriculture, Wallace called attention to the differ- 

 ences in conditions when his father assumed the same post in 1921. In 

 1933 agriculture was in a far more desperate position than it had been 

 in 1921, but he felt that he was to have the advantage of "working under 



33. Orville M. Kile, The Farm Bureau Through Three Decades (Baltimore, 

 1948), pp. 186, 194; Lord, The Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 323-25. 



34. Wisconsin Agriculturalist and Farmer (Madison), LX (March 4, 1933), p. 4; 

 Wallaces' Farmer and Iowa Homestead, LVIII (February 4, 1933), pp. 4-5; Busi- 

 ness Wee\ (March 22, 1933), p. 13. 



