Joseph & Ezra

And Joseph said unto Pharaoh . . . look out a man discreet and wise . . . and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine.

--Genesis 41: 25-36

Egypt's agricultural adjustment act of about 1800 B.C., outlined in the later chapters of Genesis, did not bring general acclaim to the secretary of agriculture. Given authority over the land, Joseph stored corn in the plenteous years and sold it back to the people during the famine for gold rings, cattle and land. But there has been great dispute about Joseph's right to appropriate surplus crops and then compel the people to pay for them. What is more, his system eventually resulted in state ownership of all the land, and some people thought that was entirely too much government control.

As the U.S. farm problem moved toward a decision on Capitol Hill last week, ancient Egypt's farm plan was drawn into the argument by the Joseph of 1956. On the griddle before the House Committee on Agriculture, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson stood stubbornly by his flexible price supports and his soil bank. Chiding Benson, North Carolina Democrat Harold Cooley said that the soil bank was, in fact, a Democratic idea used in the 1930s. Replied Mormon Apostle Benson: "Its sources probably go back to Joseph in Egypt."

With that, Texas Democrat Bob Poage and Secretary Benson were set to musing.

Poage: I doubt that Joseph was either a Democrat or a Republican.

Benson: He probably was a Republican.

Poage: Probably so. There was some report of his taking golden vessels from his brethren.

Amid the laughter in the hearing room, the exchange did not seem to contribute much to the discussion of the farm problem. But it was a timely reminder that the problem has been around, recurrently, for a long time, and that the solution decided upon by the 84th Congress--whatever it may be--is not likely to be the last.

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