- Earl Butz
Infobox US Cabinet official
name= Earl Butz
small
order= 18th
title=United States Secretary of Agriculture
term_start=January 21 1971
term_end=October 4 1976
president=Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
predecessor=Clifford M. Hardin
successor=John A. Knebel
birth_date= birth date|1909|7|3
birth_place=Albion, Indiana ,United States
death_date= death date and age|2008|2|2|1909|7|3
death_place=Washington, D.C. ,United States
party= Republican
religion=Earl Lauer Butz (
July 3 ,1909 –February 2 ,2008 ) was aUnited States government official who served as Secretary of Agriculture under PresidentsRichard Nixon andGerald Ford .Background
Born in
Albion, Indiana , Butz worked on his parents' convert|160|acre|km2|sing=on farm while growing up. He was an alumnus ofPurdue University where he was a member ofAlpha Gamma Rho Fraternity. He received a Bachelor of Science degree inAgriculture in 1932, and then a doctorate in Agricultural Economics in 1937. He was the uncle ofNFL playerDave Butz .Career
In 1948, Butz became vice president of the American Agricultural Economics Association, and three years later was named to the same post at the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. In 1954, he was appointed Assistant
Secretary of Agriculture by PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower . That same year he was also named chairman of the United States delegation to theFood and Agriculture Organization of theUnited Nations . He left both of the aforementioned posts in 1957, when he became the Dean of Agriculture at his alma mater,Purdue University . In 1968, he was promoted to the positions of Dean of Education and vice president of the university's research foundation.In 1971, President
Richard Nixon appointed Butz asSecretary of Agriculture , a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned as the result of theWatergate scandal in 1974. In his time heading the USDA, Butz revolutionized federal agricultural policy and reengineered manyNew Deal era farm support programs. His mantra to farmers was "get big or get out," and he urged farmers to plant commodity crops like corn "from fencerow to fencerow." These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the declining financial stability of the small family farm.Butz took over the Department of Agriculture during the last period in American history that food prices climbed high enough to generate political heat. His legacy would be to make sure that never happened again. In 1972 Russia, suffering disastrous harvests, purchased 30 million tons of American grain. Butz had helped to arrange that sale in the hope of giving a boost to crop prices in order to bring restive farmers tempted to vote for George McGovern into the Republican fold. [ Pollan, Michael. 2006. Omnivore's Dilemma. Penguin Press ]
He was featured in the documentary
King Corn (film) , highlighted as the person who started the rise of corn production, large commercial farms, and the overabundance of corn in American diets.candals and resignation
At the 1974
World Food Conference in Rome, Butz made fun ofPope Paul VI 's opposition to "population control " by quipping, in a mock Italian accent: "He no playa the game, he no maka the rules." [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908948,00.html "Quiet Please,"] "TIME Magazine," December 9, 1974]A spokesman for Cardinal Cooke of the New York archdiocese demanded an apology, and the White House requested that he apologize. [http://www.believermag.com/issues/200310/?read=article_dean "Children of the Corn Syrup,"] Shea Dean, "The Believer," October 2003.] Butz issued a statement saying that he had not "intended to impugn the motives or the integrity of any religious group, ethnic group or religious leader."
Butz resigned his cabinet post on
October 4 1976 after a second gaffe. News outlets revealed a racist remark he made in front of entertainerPat Boone and former White House counselJohn Dean while aboard a commercial flight toCalifornia following theRepublican National Convention . TheOctober 18 1976 issue of "Time" [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946703-1,00.html reported the comment] while obscuring its vulgarity: [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946703-1,00.html "Exit Earl, Not Laughing,"] "Time", October 18, 1976.]:"Butz started by telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a
skunk . When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign. Butz said that "the only thing the coloreds are looking for in life are tight p - - - - , loose shoes and a warm place to s - - -.":"After some indecision, Dean used the line in
Rolling Stone , attributing it to an unnamed Cabinet officer. But New Times magazine enterprisingly sleuthed out Butz's identity by checking the itineraries of all Cabinet members."In any case, according to the "Washington Post", anyone familiar with Beltway politics could "have not the tiniest doubt in your mind as to which cabinet officer" uttered it.
While the Associated Press sent the uncensored joke over the wire, Columbia Journalism Review says that only two newspapers - the Toledo, Ohio Blade and the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times published the remark unchanged. Others bowdlerized the quote, in some cases replacing the feline reference with "a tight [obscenity] " and the scatalogical reference with "a warm place to [vulgarism] ". The
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal said the original statement was available in the newspaper office; more than 200 stopped by to read it. The "San Diego Evening Tribune" offered to mail a copy of the whole quotation to anyone who requested it; more than 3,000 readers did.According to
Timothy Noah of "Slate", this incident was "epochal" because while prior to this, politicians assumed such offensive remarks could be uttered safely in private, after Butz's resignation, politicians "could no longer assume your fellow whites would protect you for telling a joke insulting to blacks, and you could no longer assume your fellow blacks would protect you for telling a joke insulting to Jews." [Timothy Noah, [http://www.slate.com/id/2183658 "Earl Butz, History's Victim: How the gears of racial progress tore up Nixon's Agriculture secretary"] , Slate.com, Feb. 4, 2008.]The infamous quote was the origin of the movie title "Loose Shoes" which includes a skit "Darktown After Dark". In it, the quote is put to music in a lavish Big Band number.
Retirement and death
Butz returned to
West Lafayette, Indiana and was named dean emeritus ofPurdue University 's School of Agriculture. OnMay 22 1981 , Butz pleaded guilty to federaltax evasion charges, for having underreported income he had earned in 1978. OnJune 19 he was sentenced to five years in prison; however, all but 30 days of the term were suspended. He was also fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E1D9163BF936A15754C0A967948260 " Butz Released 5 Days Early"] , "Associated Press", July 25, 1981]Butz died in his sleep on February 2, 2008, aged 98 at his son Bill's home in
Washington, D.C. . [Bob Scott, [http://jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080203/NEWS0501/802030328/1152/NEWS "Butz remembered as one of agriculture's biggest boosters"] , "Journal and Courier", February 3, 2008] At his death, Butz was the oldest living former Cabinet member from any administration.References
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