Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), p. 232

Farm protesters boast a long and honourable tradition in the United States. The federal government has often been subject to agrarian unrest, as it was in the 1930s. Many US farmers disapproved of the New Deal’s agricultural policies, and some farm organizations actively opposed the government programs. In Disputed ground, Jean Choate presents seven such farm groups, largely from the midwestern states. She seeks to recover the lesser-known organizations and their leaders – an admirable goal. As she says, ‘this is a story of people who struggled and lost’ (p.1).

The first three chapters treat significant figures and groups in agricultural history: John Simpson’s National Farmers Union, William Hirth’s Missouri Farmers Association, and Milo Reno’s Farm Holiday Association. These men had been Populists in the 1890s, continued working for the agrarian cause, and supported Franklin D.Roosevelt for president in 1932. However, they vigorously opposed his major agricultural programme of production control via acreage reductions and payments to farmers, preferring instead government-guaranteed costs of production. Choate adds little to the Simpson and Reno stories, which have been well-told before, as she acknowledges. She offers some insight into editor-organizer Hirth and his Missouri group. Yet, strangely, these chapters devote more space to pre-1933 events than to the New Deal, and none go beyond early 1934. The fascinating figure of Reno reappears two chapters later to spark the National Farmers Process Tax Recovery Association, which played a role in US Representative William Lemke’s attempt to secure refund of a questionable ‘tax’ on hog producers.

Probably the best part of the book is its array of farmers’ criticisms of the New Deal. Scattered throughout are plausible claims that Roosevelt’s agricultural programme undermined opposition movements by ‘buying off’ protest, used the ideas of Big Business and/or university intellectuals rather than dirt farmers, favoured larger producers and hurt smaller ones in distress, sliced food production while people went hungry, instigated political and economic over-regulation, and unfairly attacked critics. One Kansas farmer wrote about the New Deal ‘tax-eaters... all the big shots and Cozack pots from the Agricultural College’ (p.177). Some farmers simply resisted ‘being organized’ by the New Deal (p.192). Many thousands saw the New Deal as undemocratic, the opposite of its self-image. These criticisms are more or less familiar but it is good to read the farmers’ words.

Overall, though, Choate’s book has severe problems. One is organizational: there is no introduction or even context-setting. Nothing more than a short paragraph on ‘the New Deal agricultural program’ (the subtitle) is given until Chapter 7. At least two and a half chapters deal with Choate’s best new story – the Tax Recovery Association’s fight against the corn-hog program – but her diffuse analysis leads to needless repetition. Another serious problem is stylistic. Choate usually writes in short, choppy paragraphs. Few chapters have any introduction or conclusion. Storylines are left up in the air, unexplained. She strings together too many quotations and presents too many unrelated facts. Frequently, the book reads more like an undigested chronology than a coherent narrative.

Other problems are more substantive. Important agencies such as the Soil Conservation Service and the Farm Security Administration were core aspects of the agrarian New Deal, yet they are unmentioned in the book, which focuses solely on the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. The book’s subtitle, then, is misleading. Still, the ‘Triple-A’ was the first and main New Deal farm agency. Choate says, though, that it ended in 1936 (p.134) when in fact it continued into the forties. She does not analyze the Farmers Union’s favourable turn toward the New Deal in the later thirties, nor does she acknowledge the American Farm Bureau Federation’s concurrent turn against the New Deal; the Farm Bureau is presented throughout as if it were always pro-Roosevelt. Moreover, two extremely minor organizations that get a chapter each – the Farmers Independence Council and the Farmers Guild – seem hardly worth the attention. Only slightly better is the treatment of the Corn Belt Liberty League, which may have convinced some farmers to vote against the Democrats in 1938, thus fuelling an anti-New Deal Congress. A case could probably be made for the significance of all three of these ephemeral farm organizations, but Choate does not make one.

She does provide a decent concluding section, admit-ting that the ‘groups were not successful in either attracting a large membership or in defeating the NewDeal agricultural program’ (p.187). Choate tries to explain why, but does not consider the possibility that most farmers actually liked the policies. Although thisbook is not an accomplished work of history, Choate’s substantial research in the relevant primary sources will be useful to scholars studying these seven farm organizations.