The Agrarian Tradition and Its Meaning for Today

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Mr. Fite, who grew up on a South Dakota farm, is research professor of history at the University of Oklahoma and one of the country's leading agricultural historians. This essay was delivered as the McKnight lecture at the 118th annual meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society.

The AGRARIAN TRADITION and Its Meaning for Today

GILBERT C. FITE

ONE of the most notable developments in today. Although wealthy former Senator American history during the last hundred Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma used to picture years has been the rapid decline in the eco the log cabin of his birth and distribute jugs nomic, political, and social position of of good old country sorghum during cam American farmers. Not many years ago, the paign forays, neither Averell Harriman nor most idealized man in American life was the Nelson Rockefeller — both multimillion hard-working, independent son of the land. aires— found it necessary to have his pic He was viewed as the prototype of every ture taken hauling hay or milking cows thing good and worthwhile. As Thomas Jef during the 1958 election in New York. ferson proclaimed, farmers were "the chosen So great has been the impact of industrial people of God, if ever he had a chosen peo ization upon our culture that Christ's par ple." 1 But history has a way of being fickle, able of the sower is in danger of losing its and in her unfaithfulness Clio has produced meaning to modern young urbanites, who a new national idol far different from the neither sow nor reap, but who spend a life self-reliant yeoman of earlier generations. time on asphalt or concrete. Many of today's The farmer has been replaced by the image children know cows, horses, sheep, and hogs of a prosperous business or professional man only as animals that stand idly and sleepily who works in a white collar, who lives in beside bears, elephants, monkeys, and gi the suburbs, and who is more likely to spend raffes in the city zoo. James Whitcomb his early evenings with a cocktail glass than Riley's "When the Frost Is on the Pumpkin a milk pail. and the Fodder's in the Shock" is meaning The declining importance of agriculture less to a generation which hardly recognizes and the weakening of the agrarian tradition pumpkins outside a can and which thinks is perhaps best reflected in our national po that fodder may be a new breakfast food. litical life. No longer is it necessary to boast Indeed, the rural imprints have been rapidly of a rural background or of agricultural fore blurred by factories, shopping centers, air bears in order to run successfully for public fields, apartment houses, and suburbs. office. During the presidential campaign of Only recently, however, has the secondary 1924, Calvin Coolidge was shown in the field place of agriculture been recognized and ac pitching hay, but this would look ridiculous cepted in American national life. And even yet many citizens espouse the idea that there ^ Quoted in Everett E. Edwards, Jefferson and is something particularly desirable and mor Agriculture, 23 (Washington, 1943). ally good about farmers and farm life. In a

Summer 1967 293 book written in 1960, Ezra Taft Benson, sec "Farmer George." Benjamin Franklin, one retary of agriculture in the Eisenhower ad of the best known and most highly respected ministration, wrote: "We have always had a citizens in Colonial America, held that agri feeling that there is something basically culture was the most valuable economic pur sound about having a good portion of our suit, much to be preferred over industry. people on the land. Country living produces Although a town dweller all his life, Frank better people. The country is a good place lin deplored the social evils associated with to rear a family. It is a good place to teach manufacturing and exalted the joys and the basic virtues that have helped to build moral values he thought were connected this nation. Young people on a faiTn learn with agricultural enterprise. how to work, how to be thrifty and how to The development of a strong agricultural do things with their hands. It has given mil orientation should not be surprising when lions of us the finest preparation for life."^ we consider the fact that during the ma The sentiments and ideas expressed by Sec jority of man's existence he has been a retary Benson have been prevalent through farmer or herdsman. The shift to industrial out American history; agriculture has always ism and urban living in Western Europe and been praised both as a business and as a the United States is almost a current devel way of life. opment and has no parallel in the broad sweep of history. Many people still living IN TAKING this position, Americans have can remember when the nation was pri simply continued and fortified a strong marily agricultural. In 1790, when the first agrarian tradition which went back to the United States census was taken, over 96 per time of Greece and Rome. Centuries before cent of the people were considered rural. Thomas Jefferson became this country's Only five towns had a population of 8,000 most outspoken and influential purveyor of or more. Philadelphia and New York, num agrarianism, Plato, Cato, Seneca, Cicero, bering only 42,000 and 33,000 respectively, Diocletian, and other ancients had estab were the largest cities. The vast majority lished the tradition. Agriculture, it was said, of the people actually lived on farms, and was the most noble of all employments; it according to the best estimates, agriculture was useful, enjoyable, righteous, healthful, was responsible for nearly 40 per cent of the and even blessed of God. private production income, compared to less The idea that peculiar and highly de than 5 per cent for manufacturing. The sired virtues were associated with tilling the country's exports consisted almost exclu soil was strengthened and solidified in sively of farm products. Under these condi the Medieval and Early Modem periods tions it is not surprising that the nation's throughout Western Europe. Indeed, by the leaders saw the greatness of America in her eighteenth century reverence for farming soil, in the people who tilled it, and in the and farm life had become nearly a cult. In institutions which grew out of a rural way both England and France numerous treatises of life. praising agriculture were written and widely Many of the founding fathers were strong read. Arthur Young, one of the best known agrarians. George Washington loved farm and most prolific writers on farming and life and each time he left Mount Vernon, agricultural reform in England during the where he settled in 1759, he departed with late eighteenth century, declared in his book. greater reluctance. Moreover, unlike many Rural Economy, that "perhaps we might, without any great impropriety, call farming the reigning taste of the present times." ^ ^ Ezra Taft Benson, Freedom to Farm, 109 (New York, 1960). Even King George III operated a farm and ' Arthur Young, Rural Economy: or. Essays on seems to have taken delight in being called the Practical Parts of Husbandry, 173 (London, 1770).

294 MINNESOTA History of those who praised the virtues of farming, ground was considered a definite political Washington was a successful agriculturist asset. in his own right. In 1786 he wrote to Ar Moreover, by the 1820s and 1830s agricul thur Young that "agriculture has ever been tural journalism had become well estab amongst the most favourite amusements of lished, giving farmers and their spokesmen my life."* additional opportunities to express the ideas The most influential and articulate spokes which composed the agrarian tradition. man for agrarianism in the late eight Among these spokesmen were John S. Skin eenth and early nineteenth centuries was, of ner of Baltimore, Thomas G. Fessenden of course, Thomas Jefferson. In his Notes on Boston, Jesse Buel of Albany, and scores of Virginia Jefferson argued that the main ef others. As might be expected, farm editors forts of American citizens should be in de filled their columns with praise of agricul veloping the soil. "While we have land to ture. labour then, let us never wish to see our Yet long before the Civil War, it was ob citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirl vious to a great many people that farming ing a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, paid small dividends and that the sources are wanting in husbandry; but, for the gen of real wealth were to be found in com eral operations of manufacture, let our work merce, industry, or trade. Complaints were shops remain in Europe." Jefferson declared widespread that returns from agriculture that he had never known "corruption of were small. A farmer near Hillsdale, New morals in the mass of cultivators,' but "the York, wrote in 1849 that farming might be mobs of great cities add just so much to the the most happy pursuit of man, but it cer support of pure government, as sores do to tainly was not the most profitable. It must the strength of the human body." To Jeffer have been discouraging to farmers and plant son the cultivators of the land were the most ers to read Moses Yale Beach's Wealth and valuable citizens; they were the most "vig Biography of Wealthy Citizens of New York orous, the most independent, the most vir City, published in 1845. Beach found that tuous, and they are tied to their country, there were 962 men or women in New York and wedded to its liberty and interests by City alone who were worth $100,000 or the most lasting bonds."'' more, a sum which seemed astronomical to most farmers. John Jacob Astor headed the THROUGHOUT the early nineteenth cen list with property valued at $25,000,000, tury farms and plantations produced a heavy accumulated through business and land proportion of the country's political leader speculation. ship. Most of the presidents as well as other To make matters worse, tarmmg was as leaders in the pre-Civil War period had suming an ever lower social status in the strong agricultural ties. Andrew Jackson, for minds of many people. A contributor to the example, owned many acres of land around Nerv England Farmer wrote that "every the Hermitage near Nashville, Tennessee, farmer's son and daughter are in pursuit of and was a practicing farmer when not away some genteel mode of living. After consum serving his country. Henry Clay was also a ing the farm in the expenses of a fashionable, successful agriculturist. Indeed, a rural back- flashy, fanciful education, they leave the honorable profession of their fathers to be * Quoted in Everett E. Edwards, ed., Washing come doctors, lawyers, merchants, or min ton, Jefferson, Lincoln and Agriculture, 14 (United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agri isters or something of the kind." *^ Jesse Buel, cultural Economics — Washington, 1937). founder and editor of The Cidtivator, la ° Quoted in Edwards, Jefferson and Agriculture, mented that "thousands of young men do 23-26. annually forsake the plough, and the honest ° Quoted in Percy W. Bidwell and John I. Fal coner History of Agriculture in the Northern United profession of their fathers . . . [because States, 1620-1860, 205 (Washington, 1925).

Summer 1967 295 they believe] agriculture is not the road to of Lincoln. The number of farms increased wealth, to honor, nor to happiness."^ from about 2,000,000 to more than 6,000,000 The more evident it became that agricul in the fifty years after 1860. In Minnesota ture was not the way to wealth or social alone 138,000 new farms added some prestige, the more vigorous did supporters 25,000,000 acres of land to the nation's agri and propagators of the agrarian tradition cultural production in the half century after become in its defense. A writer whose letter 1860. was published in the Southern Cultivator Never before in the history of the world in July, 1844, declared that "the farmer is had men seen such a flow of farm commodi the main support of human existence. He is ties from fields and ranches. Wheat produc the lifeblood of the body politic, in peace tion jumped from 235,000,000 bushels in and war, . . . Freedom, patriotism and vir 1870 to 695,000,000 in 1910; cotton increased tue, after being driven from the degeneracy from around 4,000,000 to nearly 12,000,000 and corruption of the cities, will find their bales in the same period. Railroads creaked last resting place in the bosom of the agri and ship bottoms bulged as this torrential culturist.""* After relating the story of Cain output moved to markets at home and and Abel, Benjamin F. Thomas of Boston abroad. Indeed, agriculture was expanding said that many young farmers were going at a faster rate than at any time in history, out from the presence of the Lord and de and under the circumstances, it is no wonder serting the quiet rural life for the sins of the that the agrarian tradition waxed strong. cities. In an effort to refute the idea that farm It was soon evident, however, that agri life was unprofitable, he continued: "no culture's historic position of economic su shares — factory, bank, or railroad — ... premacy was being seriously threatened. In in the long run pay better dividends than 1889, for the first time, the federal census the ploughshares." Even New England ag reported that the value of manufactured riculture, he declared, would bring a man goods surpassed that of farm products. De as much wealth "as it is good for a man to spite reversal of this in some years after have." ^ 1889, the tide had definitely turned in favor of an industrial America. The period around DESPITE THE LOSS of some economic 1890 was a kind of watershed in American and social prestige before the Civil War, economic history, and after that time agri any serious challenge to the supremacy of culture dropped rapidly in economic, politi agriculture in American life seemed remote cal, and social importance compared to in 1860. Some 80 per cent of the country's industry, transportation, and finance. population lived on farms or in villages of The census of 1920 reported that slightly less than 2,500, communities almost totally over half of the nation's population was dependent upon agriculture. The value of urban. A decade later, only 25 per cent of farm land and equipment was about six the American people actually lived on farms, billion dollars in 1859 compared to less than and by 1963 this figure had dropped to a two billion dollars for all of the 140,000 mere 7 per cent. The population trend, how manufacturing establishments. Moreover, ever, was only part of the story. By the early tremendous agricultural expansion was in 1960s a mere 8 per cent of the nation's labor the offing as the vast expanse of the west force was employed in agriculture, and farm ern prairies and the Great Plains became ing produced an ever smaller proportion of settled. Between 1860 and 1910 some 400,000,000 acres of land were added to the " Quoted in Bidwell and Falconer, Agriculture in the Northern United States, 205. nation's agricultural domain — more than ' Southern Cultivator, 2:120 (July 24, 1844). had been brought under cultivation between "Benjamin F. Thomas, "Advantages of Rural the founding of Jamestown and the election Pursuits," in Massachusetts State Board of Agricul ture, Annual Report, 1862, p. 46-55.

296 MINNESOTA History the national income. In 1900 agriculture was this with unusual vigor and sincerity. Con still responsible for about 20 per cent of the gressman William C. Lankford of Georgia national private production income, but by illustrated the agrarian dogmatism that has 1929 this figure had declined to around 10 been so common in American history when per cent, and by the early 1960s farm income he told his House colleagues in 1919: "Who had dropped to less than 5 per cent of the built our Nation? The farmer. Who gained nation's total. our independence? The farmer. Who kept our nation going since its beginning? The DESPITE the growth of an industrial econ farmer. . . . Who will save this Nation from omy and the development of an urban so its downfall? The farmer." ^^ ciety, the agrarian tradition continues to With some 70 per cent of Americans liv flourish. Indeed, as farming has experienced ing in cities, one would expect contempo a sharp relative decline in American national rary Americans to have rejected the agrarian life, the claims that agriculture is vitally tradition and substituted an urban phi important to the country's welfare have losophy more in keeping with the facts of actually increased. American life and society. But this has not The Grange, which is commemorating its happened. Indeed, scarcely anyone sings the hundredth anniversary this year, has played praises of city life or argues that urban living a major part in fostering agrarianism. Like is a source of moral and spiritual strength other farm organizations, it has drawn on for the nation. The great majority of Ameri the ideas associated with this tradition to cans still seem to believe in the main ele justify its demands for improvement in the ments of the agrarian tradition: that virtue, social and economic life of the farmer. honesty, righteousness, hard work, and free Leaders of the Grange have argued for a dom are more likely to stem from the soil century that to help farmers would be to than from the pavement. President Dwight benefit the entire nation. Oliver H. Kelley, D. Eisenhower, discussing farm policy be father of the Grange and a prominent Minne fore Congress in 1956, explained that "more sota farmer, wrote in 1868 that the object of than prices and income are involved. Ameri the new organization "is not only general im can agriculture is more than an industry; provement in husbandry, but to increase the it is a way of life. Throughout our history general happiness, wealth and prosperity the family farm has given strength and vi of the country."^" Another early Grange tality to our entire social order. We must leader declared that farmers were organiz keep it healthy and vigorous." ^^ One of ing to protect their own interests, "because Minnesota's most illustrious citizens echoed we know that our interests are fundamental, these views. Testifying before the House that our prosperity means the prosperity of Committee on Agriculture in 1960, Gover the nation."^* nor Orville L. Freeman said that "the disas It is not uncommon for a group to identify trous decline in farm income must be halted its special interest with the general interest, and reversed in the interests of our entire but farmers and their spokesmen have done economy." In a special report Freeman told House members that the family farm was '" 0[hver] H. Kelley, Origin and Progress of the an efficient unit of production and that it Order of the Patrons of Husbandry in the Unitedwa s "an indispensable factor" in maintain States, 125 (Philadelphia, 1875). ing "sound rural life and a healthy economic "Quoted in Kelley, Origin and Progress of the . . . Patrons of Husbandry, 258. base for towns and cities in rural areas." ^* ^ Congressional Record, 66 Congress, 1 session, Some recent writers have become lyrical 4989. " New York Times, January 10, 1956, p. 16. in their praise of agriculture and farm life. " General Farm Legislation: Hearings Before theTh e editor of the Daily Oklahoman, a mil House Committee on Agriculture, 86 Congress, 2 lionaire urbanite, wrote on April 20, 1957, session, serial SS, part 1, p. 467-471. Summer 1967 297 that, while farming was "no bed of ease," the largest items in the federal budget, outside farmer's position had abundant compensa of national defense and interest on the public tions. He went on to say that "no man who debt. sees the dawning and hears the whisper The influence of agrarian beliefs is evi of the passing winds and beholds the stately dent in other areas of American national life. march of the seasons can fail to appreciate On the basis of need and importance, we that he is among the most fortunate of all should have had a department of urban God's children. However cruel his lot may affairs fifty or sixty years ago. But this pro be at times and no matter how bitter his posal was either not considered or was de disappointments . . . , he has the realiza feated until after the nation's population tion of knowing that he is living close to the had become more than 70 per cent urban. heart of the Infinite." Wheeler McMillen, It did not make any particulai- sense for writing in the Farm Journal in May, 1957, the federal government to maintain a de asked: "Doesn't America still need a sound partment to look after the welfare of farm backlog of farm-grown, farm-experienced ers, while refusing to set up one to deal with people with farm-grown character?" ^^ Ex urban problems. But that has been the situ pressions such as these could be multiplied ation. The whole question of reapportion endlessly from current literature and they ment of state legislatures has been closely indicate that in the minds of a great many tied to a widespread belief that state gov people the agrarian tradition is still a com ernment in the hands of predominantly ur pelling idea. ban legislators would somehow be a bad thing for American democracy — just as THE INFLUENCE of this idea can be seen Thomas Jefferson said. The survival of rural in the national concern over the welfare of influence in education is seen in the fact agriculture itself during the last forty years. that high schools offer vocational training Scai-cely any other domestic question has in agriculture long after most high school received so much attention in Washington. graduates have ceased going into farming. The New Deal administration of Franklin D. Further examples of the hold that agrar Roosevelt gave vigorous support to the res ian values have on the American imagina toration of agricultural prosperity through tion can be seen in our national advertising. such measures as the Agricultural Adjust Goodyear tires have as firm a grip as a good ment Acts, credit laws, and resettlement team of horses; a rugged westerner smokes a measures. After World War II farm spokes satisfying, dependable cigarette. State Farm men continued to draw on the strength of Insurance is sold mostly to people who live agrarianism as they sought to pass additional in town, but the company does not drop farm relief laws. A good example of this the word "farm" from its name. Nickerson can be found in the introduction of the Farms is a chain restaurant and curio shop "Family Farm Income Act of 1960." After found along superhighways and patronized stating that the family farm was a main bul almost exclusively by city people. But the wark against all kinds of collectivism and word "farms" in the firm's name engenders the foundation of free enterprise. Congress the idea of good food served in a relaxed, declared that "it holds for the future the homey atmosphere. Some of the largest greatest promise of security and abundance banks have retained "farmers" in their names of food and fiber and that it is an ever- long after they ceased doing business with present source of strength for democratic actual tillers of the soil. Advertisers would processes and the American ideal." i" Since World War II, appropriations for conserva ^° Farm Journal, Southern edition. May, 1957, tion, price support operations, and other p. 23. ^° General Farm Legislation, 86 Congress, 2 ses farm relief measures have been among the sion, part 1, p. 1.

298 MINNESOTA History not be picturing rural life and concepts if tially dependent upon agriculture. More they did not think the agrarian ideal still over, farm groups have become well organ touched the minds and hearts of many ized and have resorted to full-scale lobbying Americans. in both state capitals and in Washington. As important as these practical factors HOW CAN we account for the continued may be in the continued support of agricul agrarian strength in a society so predomi ture in Washington, much of the Congres nantly urban? There are a few fairly obvious sional concern about the position of farmers answers: Something ingrained so deeply in is undoubtedly due to an emotional attach American thought and character cannot be ment to the land and a continued belief in expected to evaporate in a single generation. agricultural fundamentalism. Writing in the Ideas which have become fundamental in a Saturday Evening Post in 1956, columnist society are often justified long after the Stewart Alsop caught the spirit of this na basis for them is gone. Moreover, millions tional nostalgia in an article entitled "Why of urbanites are only a generation, or less, Do I Keep the Damned Place?" He told of away from the farm. As these people reach buying a farm about thirty miles north of middle age they tend to look back on their Washington in Maryland and wondered "if childhood experiences and homes and ideal other farm-bred immigrants to the city have ize them out of any resemblance to the actual completed the same cycle I have." Alsop circumstances. Thousands of persons who wrote: "When you are very young, the coun would not think of returning to the farm try seems a dim and dusty place, and all the to live maintain nonetheless that it repre world's glory and wonder are in the big sents the best way of life. Louis Bromfield, city. Then, after some years of walled-in who made thousands and thousands of dol anonymity, you begin to feel a fretful de lars from his writing, insisted until the last sire for green and growing things . . . [and] that life on a farm was superior to any other. some land, however corned-out and weed- In considering the disproportionate eco infested, that you can call your own."i^ nomic and political influence of agriculture, There can be no doubt, it seems to me, that we must remember that thousands of town many, many of the first-generation citizens and city people have bought land and farms of our cities have been weaned away from in recent years, giving them a personal stake the farm only in body and not in spirit. in the soil bank, price supports, and other Thus, despite the great relative decline measures designed to help farmers. In some of the economic, political, and social impor years since World War II as much as a third tance of farming, there remains a strength or more of the agricultural land which in American life which draws succor from changed hands was bought by nonfarmers. the agrarian tradition that has been such This helps account for the support given to an important part of the country's thought federal farm programs. Of perhaps even and life. Yet in all of this there is a basic greater importance is the backing given irony, and it is expressed in the following these programs by businessmen who handle verse: farm commodities or who sell products to The toiler in the city farmers. While actual farm income is only Admits the country's charm; around 5 per cent of total national income, this by no means represents the importance He toils away and hopes some day of agriculture in our over-all economy. Many To buy a little farm. businesses and industries are wholly or par- The farmer, too, is busy. He salts his profits down; " Stewart Alsop, "Why Do I Keep the Damned The prospect cheers, ere many years Place," in Saturday Evening Post, September 15, 1956,'p. 81. He hopes to move to town. Summer 1967 299 Copyright of Minnesota History is the property of the Minnesota Historical Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles, however, for individual use.

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