Earl Butz
From Philosopedia
Earl Butz (3 July 1909 - 2 February 2008)
Butz, who became Secretary of Agriculture during the Ford Administration, was the son of Harman Lee Butz, a farmer, and Ada Tillie Lower. He had two brothers (Verlo R. and Dale E) and two sisters (Ruth E. and Marie M.).
Born in Albion, Indiana, he was an alumnus of Purdue University, where in 1932 he had received a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture and in 1937 a doctorate in Agricultural Economics.
In 1937 he married Mary Emma Powell and they had two sons, William Powell and Thomas Earl Butz.
Contents |
Controversies
"He no playa the game, he no maka the rules," was how in 1974 at a World Food Conference Butz made fun of the Pope's being against "population control." Later, he apologized by writing that he had not "intended to impugn the motives or the integrity of any religious group, ethnic group or religious leader."
Time (18 October 1976) reported another gaffe, that after telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a skunk, Butz while talking to "right-wing Republican Pat Boone" and White House counsel John Dean, said,
- I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit.
This led to his resignation.
Purdue Days
Named dean emeritus of Purdue University's School of Agriculture, Butz in 1981 pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion, was sentenced to five years in prison, but all but 30 days of the sentence was suspended - he was fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties.
In 1999 Butz donated $1,000,000 to the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue. The university in 2004 dedicated the Butz Auditorium lecture hall to recognize his long service to Purdue. Later, students objected and the building was renamed Deans of Agriculture Auditorium.
Death
According to son William, his father died in his sleep. Butz was a Lutheran.
Obituary
London's Telegraph (5 February 2008) included in Butz's obituary:
- Nutritionists sometimes blamed Butz for the epidemic of obesity that gripped the nation in subsequent years as food manufacturers boosted portion sizes of high calorie convenience foods.
- Whatever the long-term consequences, in the short term Butz was instrumental in reviving the Republican vote in farming areas, where bumper stickers for Nixon's second presidential campaign carried messages such as "Re-elect Nixon or lose your Butz".
- He was described in The New York Times as a "clever platform performer who sprinkles his speeches with barnyard humour, hoary jokes and country talk, all of which delights his rural audiences".
- Unfortunately Butz soon found that his brand of humour did not go down so well with urban sophisticates in Washington and New York. . . .
- In 1971, when Nixon nominated him for the post of secretary of agriculture, there was resistance in Congress on account of his reputation as a subsidy-cutter and friend of big agribusiness.
- In office, however, he soon confounded this reputation, boosting farm incomes with high public subsidies. In 1972 he was dispatched to the Soviet Union to negotiate the sale of American grain, and in the process laid the groundwork for Nixon's later visit.
- Butz got on well with Nixon, remaining his friend after Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal, and was later asked to speak at Nixon's funeral. On a visit to London in 1973 Butz observed ruefully that when the British had a scandal "at least you make it interesting, as it always seems to revolve round sex. Ours is so stupid, it has to revolve round stealing political papers."
The New York Times included,
- Serving under President Richard M. Nixon and his successor, Gerald R. Ford, Mr. Butz was a forceful, sharp-tongued figure who engineered legislation sharply reducing federal subsidies for farmers. He was the best known secretary of agriculture since Henry A. Wallace in the Depression days, when the federal government began to pay farmers to keep some of their cropland and livestock out of production in the face of plunging income.
- Mr. Butz maintained that a free-market policy, encouraging farmers to produce more and to sell their surplus overseas, could bring them higher prices. Farm income did rise during his time in office, in good measure the result of a huge grain shipment to the Soviet Union in 1972, but American consumers paid more for food. Mr. Butz was an important source of political support in the Midwest farm belt for the Nixon and Ford administrations. But he was criticized by Democrats in Congress who viewed him as the voice of “agribusiness,” the corporate agricultural interests, at the expense of small farmers and consumers.
- Mr. Butz said he reflected rural values learned as an Indiana farm boy and he gave no ground to critics. When environmentalists warned against pesticides and fertilizers, he retorted, “Before we go back to organic agriculture, somebody is going to have to decide what 50 million people we are going to let starve.”
- “Butz’s power as secretary of agriculture seemed overwhelming,” Joel Solkoff wrote in “The Politics of Food” (Sierra Club Books, 1985). “He made one decision to sell the Russians massive quantities of grain that virtually overnight transformed the basic problem of U.S. agricultural policy from what to do with the surplus to how to make up for the shortage.”
- During his first months in office, Mr. Butz anticipated at least some of the tumult he would bring to the national political scene. “When President Nixon asked me to come to Washington, he told me he wanted a vigorous spokesman for agriculture,” he told Julius Duscha for an article in The New York Times Magazine in April 1972. “I told him at the time I was sworn in, ‘Mr. President, you may have a more vigorous spokesman than you want.’ "
