Apostles to the Farmers

Like all good Mormons, Ezra Taft Benson has served his young man's term (1921-23, in Great Britain) as a missionary for the church. So has his son Reed, 28, who spent 30 months abroad, and for two years more was an Air Force chaplain. Last week the Bensons, father and son, were at large in the U.S. doing another kind of missionary work: trying to propagate the faith in Benson's policy, which is under broadside attack from the farm belt.

A political science graduate of Brigham Young University, and now a field representative of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, Reed Benson was serving as the elder Benson's aide. His assignment covered a wide range of duties. Asked what he did when someone threw a hot political question at his father, Reed said: "I probably just say a good little prayer for him and know everything will come out all right."

A Hassle over Pork. As Ezra Benson moved across the U.S., such assistance was needed. In Chicago he trudged through the manure in the stockyards, spotted and sold (to a livestock commission buyer) a choice lot of hogs at $15.25 a hundredweight, 25-c- above the day's previous high. Given a stockman's cane as a souvenir of his feat, Benson later referred to the cane as a reminder that hogs should never "go below that price again." But before the week was out, the top for hogs in Chicago had slipped to $14.85.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Estes Kefauver, the greatest poser for trick pictures since Laocooen, cried out in the U.S. Senate that Benson's appearance in the stockyards was "huckstering" and a "childish political episode."

Despite the political clamor for his resignation, Benson was still up to his old determination to tell people what he thought they should hear, whether they wanted to hear it or not. At a meeting of the National Swine Industry Committee in Chicago, he read a lecture to the processors and distributors of meat products. Said he: "I have been extremely concerned in recent months that prices to farmers were going down while marketing margins were going up. In other words, low hog prices were not fully reflected in pork values to the consumer ... I am fully aware that total costs of processing and merchandising pork have gone up, as they have in other farm commodities. I believe firmly you're entitled to a fair return. But when one segment of the meat team is suffering, it cannot be too long before other segments also will suffer . . . I urge you in the industry to tighten up your costs. Keep your profits and margins in line . . . This is no time to take advantage of the American farmer."

A quick reply came from the American Meat Institute, which said that "packers" profits are notoriously low--too low, in fact, to provide adequate funds for plant improvement and modernization, research and promotion. In 1955 . . . meat packers' earnings averaged less than a cent per dollar of sales."

A Double Jolt for Corn. From Chicago, the Bensons flew on to Austin, Minn, for a meeting of the Minnesota-Iowa Swine Producers Association. There, introduced to some applause and a scattering of boos, the Secretary of Agriculture soon got around to the plan, proposed by some hog producers, for Government purchase of live hogs. Benson said flatly that it would not work, chiefly because there would be no way to store the live hogs or the processed pork for long periods of time. As for the cost, he said: "If we were to raise the price of hogs 5-c- a pound, as some suggest, it would cost the Government almost $1 billion a year ... If we add 5-c- a pound to cattle, it would cost another $1,250,000,000. Then I'm sure you can imagine the other delegations that would descend upon us."

Flying on to Portland, Ore., Secretary Benson stepped up before the National Association of Wheat Growers. He promised to consider the association's "two price" plan for wheat (high support for wheat produced for food in the U.S., lower support on excess wheat sold on the world market or for animal feed), but he held out no hope that he would recommend its adoption this year. He told the wheat men that no plan will help them until stored surpluses are reduced.

Everywhere he went Ezra Benson outlined and advocated the farm program presented to Congress by the Eisenhower Administration (TIME, Jan. 23) as the best solution to the farm problem. Back in Washington his Under Secretary, True D. Morse, recommended to Congress that the Federal Government pay up to $1 billion during 1956 to farmers who take from 44 million to 50 million acres out of production, under the "soil bank" feature of Benson's program. That figure had a pleasant sound for farmers' ears, but another announced by the Department of Agriculture did not. Because of the enormous corn surplus, the national acreage allotment for the 1956 commercial corn crop had to be cut 15% below last year's. In addition, the new modernized parity formula is expected to push the average price-support level for corn down from $1.58 a bushel to $1.50. This means that corn producers may take a double jolt.

As they flew back to Washington at week's end, Farm Missionaries Benson could not help but realize that they left a lot of unconverted behind them.

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