In May 1932, with farm prices and income falling, 2,000 farmers gathered on the state fairgrounds in Des Moines, IA to form the Farmers' Holiday Association. Its aim was to organize a farmers' strike- its slogan: "Stay at Home, Buy Nothing, Sell Nothing." Hopefully, this would motivate the federal government to act on its demands: guaranteed costs of production for farm products, mortgage relief, and inflation.
Milo Reno
FHA members hardly stayed home. In February 1933, several hundred farmers surrounded the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines, demanding a halt to farm foreclosures. Iowa legislators got the message, passing a moratorium on farm foreclosures, which was signed by Governor Clyde Herring. Leading this demonstration, as well as the FHA, was Milo Reno, a fiery populist orator in the William Jennings Bryan mold, according to historian David Kennedy.
In Washington D.C., the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt took over in March, which included Iowan Henry A. Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture. Both were aware of the unrest on the farm and were working on passing the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This contained the domestic allotment plan, which paid farmers to reduce output and therefore raise commodity prices. The AAA would also have farm mortgage relief and general inflationary measures.
Meanwhile, delegates at the FHA convention in Des Moines on March 12 were demanding a more ambitious bill than the AAA. They proclaimed the domestic allotment plan as "worse than silly." Reno, declaring Wallace an ignoramus, insisted "that our trouble is not overproduction, but underconsumption [brought about] by the monopolization and manipulation of our circulating medium." The FHA threatened a strike if its demands were not met by May 3.
Martial Law
The farmers didn't wait till May 3 to cause trouble. In a LeMars, IA courtroom, Judge Charles C. Bradley tried a foreclosure case, defying the moratorium. Angry farmers packed the coutroom and they exploded when Bradley rebuked their appearence. The farmers dragged him from the bench and whisked him away in a truck blindfolded. Then they threatened to lynch him, tying a rope suspended from a telegraph pole to his neck. They ended up leaving him beaten in a roadside ditch.
Another incident was in O'Brien County, IA. The county sheriff attempted to enforce a foreclosure but a group of farmers forced him to kneel and kiss the American flag to demonstrate his patriotism since foreclosing on farms was deemed unpatriotic. Combined with other disruptive acts, Governor Herring decided to declare martial law in six counties. National Guard soldiers arrived in the counties of Crawford and Plymouth (where LeMars is located) with fixed bayonets.
An additional means of intimidation the farmers used were "penny auctions." Throughout the farm belt, farmers attended foreclosure sales and chased away outside bidders, making sure that every item up for sale sold for pennies. The banker would only get a total of a few dollars. This and other obstructionist activity decreased when the farmers' political allies, such as Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olsen, persuaded Reno and the FHA to give the newly signed Agricultural Adjustment Act (May 12) a chance.
Communists
Meanwhile, the violence by the farmers led some to believe that a communist revolution was afoot. After observing khaki-clad soldiers with rifles rolling by on trucks, a New York Times reporter heard an Iowa farmer remark, "I guess this is Russia now." If the talk of communism seemed exaggerated to some Americans, the New York World-Telegram still insisted "that actual revolution already exists in the farm belt."
Working on that revolution was Ella Reeves "Mother" Bloor. A member of the Central Committee of the U.S. Communist Party who had attended Comintern meetings in Moscow, Bloor moved to Sioux City, IA in 1932. With the help of her son Harold Ware, a Soviet agricultural expert, Bloor hoped to organize local farmers into Soviet-style collectivist units. She was prominent at FHA events in Iowa and Nebraska. Eleanor Roosevelt protege, Lorena Hickok, reported from Sioux City that the city was a "hotbed of the reds."
By October 1933, the FHA movement seemed more susceptible to communism as the AAA had little initial affect on farm prices and farmers were frustrated. An Indiana farmer wrote FDR saying he would "do every single thing I can to bring about communism." Reno again called for a strike and an October 30 meeting of five governors (North and South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) endorsed FHA demands. Farmers returned to their obstructionist ways: blocking roadways, repeling deliveries, overturning milk vats.
October/November 1933 would be the high tide of the Farmers' Holiday Association. Eventually, the policies of the AAA kicked in and farm prices and income modestly increased, taking the energy out of the FHA movement. Although Louisiana Senator Huey Long might disagree. When he asked the FHA delegates at its 1935 convention if they wanted wealth redistribution, they resoundingly answered "yes!"
Sources:
- Cohen, Adam, Nothing To Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America, New York: Penguin Press, 2009.
- Kennedy, David M., Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1999.
- Piller, Dan, "Iowa's Hardest Years: Tranquility Disrupted," Des Moines Sunday Register, Page 8A, November 28, 2010.
- Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Coming of the New Deal, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
William L. Wunder - BA in History, University of Iowa, 1994, with Dean's List honors. History Buff- constant reader of books in American ...
