© 2007 by Farm Foundation This book was published by Farm Foundation for nonprofit educational purposes. Farm Foundation is a non-profit organization working to improve the economic and social well being of U.S. agriculture, the food system and rural communities by serving as a catalyst to assist private- and public-sector decision makers in identifying and understanding forces that will shape the future. ISBN: 978-0-615-17375-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007940452 Cover design by Howard Vitek Page design by Patricia Frey No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher: Farm Foundation 1301 West 22nd Street, Suite 615 Oak Brook, Illinois 60523 Web site: www.farmfoundation.org First edition. Published 2007 Table of Contents R.J. Hildreth – A Tribute v Prologue vii Chapter 1: Legge and Lowden 1 Chapter 2: Events Leading to the Founding of Farm Foundation 29 Chapter 3: Creating Farm Foundation 47 Chapter 4: Hiring Henry C. Taylor 63 Chapter 5: The Taylor Years 69 Chapter 6: The Birth and Growth of Committees 89 Chapter 7: National Public Policy Education Committee 107 Chapter 8: Farm Foundation Programming in the 1950s and 1960s 133 Chapter 9: Farm Foundation Round Table 141 Chapter 10: The Hildreth Legacy: Farm Foundation Programming in the 1970s and 1980s 153 Chapter 11: The Armbruster Era: Strategic Planning and Programming 1991-2007 169 Chapter 12: Farm Foundation’s Financial History 181 Chapter 13: The Future 197 Acknowledgments 205 Endnotes 207 Appendix 223 About the Authors 237 R.J. “Jim” Hildreth: A Tribute “Education is the process of moving from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.” —R.J. “Jim” Hildreth rom his boyhood on a farm near the “Norwegian Ghetto” of Huxley, Iowa, to his sunset years at the Beacon Hill Retirement Community in Lombard, FIllinois, Jim Hildreth touched thousands of lives. I count myself lucky to have been one of them. I first met Jim in late 1997, at the Farm Foundation offices near Chicago. He introduced himself, refused to shake my hand because he had a cold, tried out a few jokes and puns, and then proceeded to drill me about Texas A&M University and College Station, Texas. A few minutes later, I learned the source of Jim’s fascination with Texas A&M. He had once served as assistant director of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station before coming to Farm Foundation. Jim had found a new friend and so had I. As I saw Jim more, I was a frequent victim of his dreadful, worn-out jokes and puns. Although I had heard the same stories many times, Jim was shame- lessly unrepentant. His enthusiasm was contagious. How could you not laugh? In subsequent visits, our conversations turned to the history of Farm Foundation. Surprisingly, Jim knew little of the history and lore before his tenure (1962-1991). Walt Armbruster and Steve Halbrook thought writing the history of Farm Foundation would be a good project for a retired managing director and a researcher from Texas A&M. With cocksure ignorance, we began. Details were very sketchy, evidence was hard to find, and most of the founders had died 50 or more years before. Jim and I worked on it off and on for about three years. During this time, Jim was battling illness, but he dutifully learned word processing, explored archives and worked on drafts. Jim was frequently amused to rediscover some of his accomplishments. v Farm Foundation Jim was very reluctant to write about himself or to identify credit. It just was not the Farm Foundation way. To listen to Jim, it was almost as if he had been on vacation from 1962-1991. I was crushed when Jim died in May 2002. Ron Knutson and I completed the draft of this book. The only consolation we have is that this book includes Jim’s lifetime of achievements and the hard work of other staff members. —David P. Ernstes vi Prologue umerous individuals in both the public and private sectors owe at least a portion of their success to their involvement with one or more Farm NFoundation networks. As a catalyst for change, Farm Foundation has fostered discussion of current and evolving issues for 75 years. It has done this by laying a factual foundation through underwriting research and education proj- ects and programs. By wise investment, expenditure and leveraging of its relatively small endowment, it has had a much greater impact than could have been imagined when it was formed or at any point in its history. The success of Farm Foundation in fostering adjustment to change is attrib- utable to visionary leaders who served as its founders, as managing directors or presidents, as Trustees and to those who have contributed to the growth of its endowment. These leaders provided the vibrant learning environment that attracted the best minds to assemble facts, to complete objective research, and to present results for study and discussion in words that could be understood by all who were interested. When combined with the values of those who read and lis- tened, those discussions, while sometimes heated, were better reasoned and inevitably led to more informed decisions. This book traces the history of those visionary leaders who have been responsible for Farm Foundation’s success as a catalyst for change from its begin- nings as an idea and felt need through 2007. It also looks to the future of the Foundation in an agricultural and rural environment marked by many new and different challenges. vii Chapter 1 Legge and Lowden arm Foundation owes its origin to the work and fortunes of two remark- able individuals: Alexander Legge and Frank O. Lowden. Legge, the son of Fan immigrant farmer, and Lowden, the son of a blacksmith, were men with Midwestern roots and Scottish ancestry who, through hard work and honesty, rose to assume impressive positions in industry, agriculture and politics. Their lives could have been models for the Horatio Alger stories which were popular in their formative years. Yet, their “rags to riches” tales did not end with the accumulation of wealth and power. Together they donated significant portions of their fortunes to a foundation “to be devoted to the general welfare of the farming population of the United States and improvement of the conditions of rural life.”1 Their legacy continues eight decades later through Farm Foundation. Legge and Lowden began working together on the Farm Foundation project in 1928. This chapter briefly reviews the lives of these two remarkable men until about 1930. The Legge section that follows is based extensively on Alexander Legge: 1866-1933 written by Forrest Crissey in 1936 for the Alexander Legge Memorial Committee.2 The section on Lowden is based extensively on the excel- lent two-volume biography, Lowden of Illinois by William T. Hutchinson. 3 Alexander Legge “I have known a lot of men—eminent men, but none have I known that impressed me as being as outstanding in their own right as Alex Legge. Maybe that does not mean so much for there are many of the great and near-great I never knew; but it does mean a lot when men of the widest acquaintance make that same statement.”4 —Samuel R. McKelvie, The Nebraska Farmer Alexander Legge was born January 13, 1866, on a farm in Montrose Township, Dane County, Wisconsin. Legge’s father had established himself as a successful veterinarian and farmer after emigrating from Scotland with his wife in 1857. In 1874-1875, several crop failures and a poor business decision financially ruined the senior Legge. In 1876, he accepted a friend’s offer to take a partnership in the new 2,000-acre Fuller Ranch in Colfax County, Nebraska. 1 Farm Foundation The move to Nebraska had a profound impact on 10-year-old Alex Legge. He was transplanted from the small farms and tree-lined fields of Wisconsin to a seemingly boundless land. Not only was the landscape vast, but the business enterprise was to be of a grand scale. Planning was paramount as there were fences to make, barns to build and water to provide for the livestock. One of his early memories was watching scores of plows breaking 700 acres of virgin sod on the ranch. Crops were planted on a scale that dwarfed the farms of Wisconsin. Young Alex was with his father as these decisions were made. Although formal educational opportunities were lacking at the ranch, the foundation of Legge’s business education was being honed by practical experience. Legge began to have more and more responsibilities around the ranch. By the age of 15, he assumed the job of foreman of the hired help during his father’s temporary absences. He was very adept at purchasing machinery and also trav- eled throughout the state to pick up feeder cattle his father had previously selected. On one such trip, as Legge was loading up the cattle into railcars at a shipping station, two Iowa farmers offered to buy the lot. Legge sold them at a price $1,500 higher than the price his father had agreed to pay. He added the extra profit to the funds his father had allotted him and purchased a better lot of feeders. By the age of 16, Legge was sent on cattle buying trips with the freedom to use his own judgment. Legge had a keen mind and during his teens attended school in Schuyler, Nebraska. His success convinced his mother that he may even be on the way to a college education.