The Wheat Vote

Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman picked up his phone, heard President Kennedy ask coldly: "What happened?" Freeman gave an honest answer: "I don't know."

What Freeman did know was that more than a million wheat farmers had gone to the polls and, in a vote that may well shape the future of U.S. agriculture, overwhelmingly turned down his plan for high Government supports and strict production controls.

In 22 previous years, wheat farmers had voted on similar but milder plans; each time they said yes by at least the two-thirds majority required for approval. But the margins had steadily dwindled, and Freeman had long known he was in for a real fight this year. He and his sprawling Agriculture Department campaigned tirelessly, told farmers that their choice was between $1 wheat and $2 wheat. Freeman's major antagonist was the big American Farm Bureau Federation and its president, Charles Shuman. The Farm Bureau's slogan: "Freedom v. Freeman."

To follow the returns, the Agriculture Department set up a regular election-night headquarters, expected to chart the ebb and flow of the vote late into the night. But by 7 p.m., Room 6768 in the department's main Washington building was a glum place. Far from giving Freeman's plan the necessary two-thirds, farmers refused it even a simple majority. The final vote was 547,151 for, 597,776 against (see box on following page).

For Flexibility. Only six states gave the Freeman program a two-thirds majority. One was Maine, where a mere 32 farmers cast ballots. The other five were all in the South: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. In none of these states is wheat nearly as important as cotton and tobacco. Both of these crops have long operated under high-support, strict-control programs, and Southern farmers have become so fond of the supports they will accept almost all controls.

Outside the South, the vote against Freeman's program cut across all regional lines. Of the nation's top wheat-producing states--Kansas, North Dakota. Montana, Oklahoma and Washington--only North Dakota, with 65.8% in favor, even came close to giving Freeman a two-thirds majority. Among the so-called corn-belt states, those west of the Mississippi tended to favor the Freeman program, although not by two-thirds. In these states --Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska--the price of corn often follows the price of wheat. Many farmers plainly feared that lower wheat prices would pull down corn prices.

The eastern corn-belt states were still another story. Michigan, Ohio. Illinois and Indiana cast about 300,000 votes, or one-fourth of the national total, and in each state the returns went lopsidedly against Freeman's proposals. In these states, the secret to successful farming is flexibility. Farmers there like to shift from crop to crop--mainly wheat, corn and soybeans--as prices and supply conditions change. But under Freeman's plan, a farmer's past wheat production would determine his marketing quota; farmers were apprehensive that establishing this wheat "history" would lock them into wheat production at the cost of flexibility.

For Workability. Historically, the political arguments for expensive Government farm programs have insisted that high subsidies are necessary to keep the "small farmer" in business. But last week, for the first time in any U.S. wheat referendum, farmers with fewer than 15 acres of wheat were permitted to vote--and they turned out in droves to say no. So did feed-grains (corn, oats, barley, sorghum grain) farmers with small wheat holdings; they figured that strict marketing controls on wheat might set a pattern for their other crops. Moreover, since Freeman's program called for about 20% of U.S. wheat production to be reserved for nonhuman use, sorghum, barley and corn growers were concerned about protecting their livestock feed markets.

Throughout the U.S., wheat farmers were resentful of the high-pressure campaign put on by the Administration to seek approval of Freeman's program. They were resentful, too, of Freeman's insistence that farmers must either accept his plan or live with an existing voluntary low-support program. It was against this take-it-or-leave-it proposition that Shuman's Farm Bureau campaigned most effectively.

Farm Bureau spokesmen argued that if Freeman's program were voted down, the Congress out of political necessity would enact other, less restrictive farm legislation. "Surely," said Shuman, "a nation that can send an astronaut into space can devise a sound, workable wheat program in the months ahead." The Farm Bureau favors a voluntary land retirement plan, under which the Government would rent land from wheat farmers, thereby taking it out of production. At the same time, farmers would be cushioned against economic disaster by continued, but lower, price supports. After last week's vote, several Republican Congressmen introduced bills following the general lines of the Farm Bureau proposals. Freeman argues that such land retirement would cost taxpayers $1 billion a year, that farmers would set aside only their poorest land, and that it would make no dent in existing surplus stockpiles.

The Hazard. In the absence of some sort of new legislation, wheat production will go uncontrolled and, Secretary Freeman predicts, produce a glut that will drag prices from the present support level of $2 a bushel to a supported price of only $1.25 to those farmers who accept acreage allotments. In all, Freeman forecasts. U.S. wheat farmers stand to lose some $600 million. And that, rather than endorse a substitute plan, is precisely what Freeman proposes to let happen. He insists that the farmer has made his choice--and now must live with the consequences. At his press conference last week, President Kennedy expressed continuing confidence in his Agriculture Secretary and backed Freeman's stand against a substitute wheat program. He would, he said, be willing to "take a look" at any alternative plan, but by and large he intended to "accept the judgment" of the voting wheat farmers.

The Administration's present notion is, then, in the words of one insider, to "let the farmers stew in their own juice." The Administration believes that the eco nomic results will be so adverse that next year, in another referendum, wheat farmers will reverse last week's vote. Tempting as this strategy may be, it is also filled with political hazard. To leave farmers in the lurch would almost certainly mean abandoning all hope for their vote in next year's presidential election. In major wheat-growing states, six Democratic Senators are up for re-election next year: Montana's Mike Mansfield, Indiana's Vance Hartke, Ohio's Stephen Young, Missouri's Stuart Symington, Minnesota's Eugene McCarthy and North Dakota's Quentin Burdick. Only one wheat-state Republican, Nebraska's Roman Hruska, is up for challenge. The Democrats, therefore, stand to lose considerably more than the Republicans from the farmers' wrath.

Yet the significance of last week's vote goes far beyond party politics. For a full generation, U.S. farmers have been saddled with controls in return for subsidies.

The cost is enormous, running between $4 billion and $5 billion a year for all agricultural programs. Despite the production controls, the surpluses have continued to pile mountainously high. Now, for the first time in his history, the American wheat farmer has voted for freedom --and, given a fair chance, he may grow to like it.

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