Disputed Ground: Farm Groups That Opposed the New Deal Agricultural Program. By Jean Choate. ( Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002. vi, 232 pp. Paper, $32.00, ISBN 0-7864-1184-8.)

Abstract

The New Deal, in ushering in a political revolution in the United States during the 1930s, stimulated both adulatory praise and strident dissent. Political polarization was the rule of the day. Much has been written about Communists, Socialists, Farmer-Laborites, Progressives, and the movements spawned by such leaders as Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, and Dr. Francis Townsend on the left; less work has been done on congressional Republicans, journalists such as Robert McCormick, and groups such as the American Liberty League on the right. Jean Choate, in analyzing seven different, but somewhat overlapping, farm groups that opposed New Deal farm programs, delves into an important area of government operations that has been relatively neglected—the politics of agricultural policy. This interesting study draws upon farm publications, interviews, secondary sources, and especially the papers of farm groups and participants in the debate such as Milo Reno, John Simpson, Elmer Thomas, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The organizations spotlighted are the Missouri Farmers Association, the Farmers Union, the Farmers Holiday Association, the Farmers Independence Council, the National Farmers Process Tax Recovery Association, the Corn Belt Liberty League, and the Farmers Guild. Some of these criticized the New Deal for not going far enough in promoting agricultural recovery, some for going too far in the way of regulation and coercion. Several groups and their leaders began as hopeful supporters of the New Deal before exiting the fold; others, such as the Farmers Independence Council, which had close connections to the American Liberty League, were conservative in orientation and anti—New Deal from the start. John Simpson of the Farmers Union and Milo Reno, leader of the Farmers Holiday Association, supported the New Deal in the beginning but grew disenchanted when Roosevelt and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace rejected the idea that government guarantee farmers their “cost of production.”