Agriculture: Despite Persuasion & Pressure

If victory is all the sweeter when the battle has been hard fought, then the New Frontier was set to savor a very sweet victory when its farm bill came to a House vote. The Administration had battled long and hard for the measure. It survived in the Senate last month by the nervous margin of 42 to 38. It got past the House Agriculture Committee by a single vote—18 to 17. Only a fortnight ago, its prospects of passing the House looked so dubious that the Democratic leadership decided to postpone the scheduled showdown so as to give the Administration more time to round up votes.

During the next ten days the White House used every resource to swing additional Democrats behind the bill. The Administration put together a package of 13 amendments to placate Congressmen from farm districts. White House liaison men prowled the Capitol corridors, cornering and cajoling doubtful Democrats.

Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman set up his own lobbying headquarters in House Speaker John McCormack’s office, drew from one wavering Southerner a reluctant tribute: “He’s the most persuasive man I’ve ever listened to.” Illinois’ Congressman Leslie C. Arends, the Republican whip, charged that Freeman, “by propaganda, by pressure, by political promises, by patronage and by projects, has been clubbing through Congress a bill that will enable him to club the farmer to his bidding.” New York’s Democratic Congressman Otis Pike complained in a newsletter to his Long Island constituents that “my arm aches from the twisting it has taken lately” on the farm bill.

Behind the Setback. On the day of the showdown, the Administration expected to win. But when the decisive vote came on a Republican motion to recommit the bill (send it back to the Agriculture Committee), the result was a stunning Administration defeat: 215 to 205 in favor of recommitting. Republicans voted almost unanimously against the bill—the lone Republican to vote for it (that is, against recommitting it) was Nebraska’s Phil Weaver, a lame duck recently defeated in his primary race for renomination. But the Republicans could not have defeated the bill by themselves: they were joined by 48 Democrats.

There were several reasons for the setback. The bill itself was highly controversial. For the proclaimed purpose of holding down surpluses and thereby reducing the costs of price-support programs, the bill would have clamped on U.S. farmers a system of production and marketing controls far more extensive than any yet seen in U.S. agriculture (see box). On this basis, it was opposed by many farmers, and therefore by many farm-district Congressmen. The American Farm Bureau Federation denounced the bill as “folly” and fought it tooth and nail.

Annoyed at Arm Twisting. But apart from the oppressive aspects of the bill, the Administration’s defeat was partly traceable to resentment of its pressure tactics. The virtual unanimity of the Republicans resulted not from any real unanimity of opinion on the bill, but from their accumulated hostility against the Kennedy Administration’s methods. And at least some of the 48 Democrats who voted against the bill (among them: Congressman Pike) were annoyed at the Administration’s arm twisting. Said the American Farm Bureau Federation’s President Charles B. Shuman: The outcome was a victory for “farmers, consumers and taxpayers,” and for “constitutional government” too. “The American people should know the extent to which the executive branch of Government sought to bully or buy votes with political pressure. It’s reassuring to know that a bipartisan majority of the House was able and willing to resist this shameful interference with the legislative process.”

With its farm bill consigned to cold storage, the Administration hurriedly submitted to the House a substitute measure merely extending Secretary Freeman’s current, noncompulsory grain program, under which producers of wheat and feed grains get special payments for cutting back on their acreage planted to these crops. The high support prices and the enormous surpluses remain.