Portland observer., October 21, 1976, Page 3, Image 3

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Portland Observer
Blitz legacy; Agricultural revolution
by Peter Wiley
(PNS) Earl Butz may be remembered
today for his ethnic jokes, his attacks on
food stamp recipients and the $150,000
dining room be built at the Department of
Agriculture during the height of the
world food crisis.
But he will go down in history as the
man who oversaw the most dramatic
change in U.S. farm policy since the New
Deal and the biggest jump in food prices
- 45 per cent in the last four years - in
recent memory.
Under Butz's stewardship the USDA:
•eliminated taxpayer-financed price-
support programs that had idled 38
million acres at a cost of $4 billion annu­
ally,
•pushed farm exports to their resnet
all-time high of $22 billion, making farm
exports the single largest item in U.S.
trade;
•drastically reduced the Pood for
Peace program: a foreign-aid effort, set
up in the wake of World War II, to help
poorer nations and get rid of U.S. sur
pluses;
•took on an unprecedented role in
foreign policy by pushing the use of the
U.S.’s massive food supply as a diplo­
matic weapon in international power
struggles.
When Butz went to Washington in 1971
from his post as dean of agricultural
sciences at Purdue University, he took
charge of the nation's biggest - and the
one, outside of defense and aerospace,
most heavily dependent on public funds
and government control and direction.
Butz, a firm believer in modern agri
business and the free market, vowed to
reduce the role of the government and
revive the power of the market in the
food business.
The food system that he inherited was
still under the control of policies devised
during the Roosevelt New Deal and the
immediate post-war years. These policies
were designed to deal with vast food
surpluses produced by a smaller and
smaller number of U.S. farms.
A t home farmers were paid not to plant
all their acres. And surplus production
was dumped overseas through aid pro­
grams. both direct giveaways and sub­
sidies, to make food available to less than
market price.
Butz argued that these programs re­
duced the efficiency of U.S. farms, raised
prices and coat the taxpayer roughly $4
billion a year. Pushing “trade not aid,” his
first efforts were directed at procuring
new markets for U.S. food overseas. He
succeeded brilliantly with the now
famous 1972 Soviet grain deal, the largest
such transaction in history.
Massive sales to Russia and other
communist countries are now a regular
feature of the U.S. grain trade, and
overall food exports have more than
doubled since 1972. In turn the U.S.’s
improved trade picture, which is depend
ent on these sales, has vastly improved
the international standing of the dollar.
The grain sales plus the elimination of
U.S. grain reserves, another Butz
scheme, drove wheat prices - and the
price of bread and grain fed meant -
skyward. In 1973 prices rose 20 per cent.
According to a New York Times
estimate, this one deal coat consumers
close to $5 billion on their grocery bills.
In addition, massive grain sales con
centrated greater power in the hands of
the huge grain exporters, two of whom
control half of U.S. grain exports. Later
Butz identified the growing share of
the food dollar going to middlemen --
processors, exporters, distributors and
commodity speculators - as the main
cause of higher food prices.
The Soviet grain deal coincided with a
worldwide reduction in food output and
the onset of famine particularly in Africa,
but Butz contineud to push sales and
reduce foreign aid - "giving the stuff
away,” as he called it.
This led to a bitter attack on the U.S.
at the 1974 Rome Food Conference,
where third world nations condemned the
U.S. for failing to meet its responsibili­
ties. Butz's response sparied further con­
troversy: “Some people are always starv
ing somewhere."
Meanwhile, the shrinking food aid
dollar was being distributed according to
principles of food as a diplomatic weapon
advocated by Butz and the CIA. For a
time aid was increased dramatically to
the failing pro-U.S. regimes of Vietnam
and Cambodia.
More recently, the U.S. has sent its aid
to the pro-U.S. junta in Chile and to the
Middle Eastern nations of Syria, Jordan
and Egypt in hopes of influencing the
diplomatic situation situation there.
History of Controversy
Butz's administration was surrounded
by controversy from the start. A t his
nomination hearing, his appointment was
almost blocked when‘consumer and small
farm groups accused him of being an
agent of giant agribusiness corporations.
They pointed to his directorship and
stock holdings in a number of large cor­
porations, including Ralston-Purina, J.I.
Seminar teaches job search
A seminar to teach Vietnam veterans
how to get jobs they want will be held in
Portland, Wednesday, November 17th,
from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.. at the Pacific
Power & Light Auditorium, 920 S.W. 8th
Avenue.
Sonny Jepson, director of the Portland
office of the National Alliance of Busi­
nessmen, said the seminar will offer
Vietnam veterans an opportunity to learn
from businesamen and employment ex­
perts how to get the jobs and information
they w ant
“Y-<ung veterans returning to the job
market need to know more about self­
marketing skills, job options and oppor­
tunities,” Jepson said. "A t the seminar
we will show them how snd where to go
for jobs and employment counseling, how
to prepare a resume, how to go into
business for yourself, and veterans bene­
fits and programs that can help them in
their pursuit of a career.
Based on follow-up studies on the last
four seminars, at least 50% of the veter­
ans who attend this program will have
jobs within 30 to 45 days.
Jepson added that the seminar is free
of charge but requires registration as
participation will be limited to 50
veterans.
Interested veterans should call Chuck
Long, Manager. Jobs for Veterans for the
National Alliance of Businessmen, at
228-4083.
Joe Joseph
Naw York Life Ins. Co
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8.W . 3rd 4 Morrison St. Portland. Oregon
Take Elevator to 2nd Floor 3rd St. Entrance
Rhone: 228-7345
Case (a tractor-producing subsidiary of
Tenneco) and Stohely Van Camp.
The small farmers and consumers
focused particularly on Ralston-Purina,
one of five corporations that control 90
per cent of the broiler chicken Industry,
as an example of the growing domination
of farming by large corporations.
Then came the housewife's boycott of
rising beef prices, followed by more con­
troversy during the Soviet grain deal
.over the tight interlocks between the
USDA and the leading export firms that
virtually control U.S. grain sales abroad.
Food prices continued to soar, though
at a somewhat lower rate. Consumers
complained that what they saved in taxes
through the reduction of govenment pro­
grams was more than offset by higher
food prices.
And the Federal Trade Commission
charged that consumers paid an extra
$2.6 billion for food because of concentra­
tion in the industry.
Farmers were furious over the brief
embargo on wheat and soybean sales in
1974, a move designed to slow the rise in
food prices. (Butz, however, opposed the
embargo.) Farmers, watching their in­
come begin to decline from its 1973 peak,
also objected bitterly to the growing
share of the farm dollar going to middle­
men identified by Butz as the main cause
of the rise in food prices.
Today, with prices rising again despite
a recent reduction in this trend. Congress
and the FTC are looking cautiously at the
growing concentration of power in the
food industry suspected by many to be
the most important legacy of the Butz
era. In 1974 the FTC, embarking on a
10-year study of the industry, told con­
gress that 50 food manufacturing corpor­
ations "control most of the important
producing positions in all of the individual
food industries and produce classes.”
Although
Butz
was
intimately
connected with agribusiness through his
directorships, these studies have been
hampered by lack of cooperation from the
industry and a lack of congressional
funding.
In the future Butz sees "more highly
concentrated capital, higher levels of
management, more specialization of
labor, and, if you choose, with a higher
degree of integration.” His warning to
farmers: "Adapt or die!”
Earl Butz was the last of the brash,
innovative policy-makers of the Nixon
administration. Despite his departure his
policies will continue to be the center of
controversy for years to come in the
nation’s number one industry.
Copyright PNS 1976
Thursday. October 21st, 1978
Register and vote.
ft could mean the difference T
Jimmy Carter and Gerald
A A Too many have had to suffer at the hands
of a political and economic elite who have
shaped decisions and never had to account
for mistakes nor to suffer from injustice.
When unemployment prevails, they never
stand in line looking for a job. When depri­
vation results from a confused welfare
system, they never do without food or
clothing or a place to sleep. When the public
schools are inferior or tom by strife, their
children go to exclusive private schools.»
Jimmy Carter
made that statement
when he accepted the
Democratic nomina­
tion for President. If
it hadn’t been for
Black support, Jimmy
Carter would never
have gotten that far.
For it was Blacks
who put Jimmy
Carter over the top in
the Democratic pri­
maries. Because he
understands our
needs. And because he’ll do something
about a government that ignores them.
Now we have a chance to make a differ­
ence again. In the general election Novem­
ber 2nd. It can mean the difference be­
tween politics as usual or real leadership
for a change.
We can drift along with an economy
that’s choking the working people of this
country. Or we can elect Jimmy Carter—a
leader who will check inflation and put
America back to work again.
We can continue with a lack of justice in
this country. Or we can elect Jimmy Carter
—a leader who
doesn’t think big shot
crooks should go free
, while the poor ones
go to jail.
We can suffer
through a welfare sys­
tem that’s bloated
and confused. Or we
can elect Jimmy
Carter— a leader who
will straighten out the
welfare system and
make it fair.
......
........... '
We can struggle
with a government that does nothing to
help the cities. Or we can elect Jimmy
Carter—a leader who will move to relieve
an unemployment rate among Blacks
that approaches 17%. We can continue to
have a government that caters to the
special interests, the powerful and the
privileged. Or we can have a government
of the people, by the people, and for the
people. A government led by Jimmy Carter
and Walter Mondale.
can’t
■ - It —
. - - happen
r ~ without i your
, help.
■.
That s why it s so important for you to
register. And to vote Democratic.
Vote for Jimmy Carter
Paid for and authorized by
1976 Democratic Preaidant
Campaign Committee. Inc.
A leader, for a change.
Urban League
endorses # 7
The Urban League of Portland an­
nounced its enthusiastic endorsement of
Ballot Measure 7 for partial public financ­
ing of statewide and legislative candi­
dates through a voluntary tax “check­
off.”
James Brooks of the Urban League
said the League had taken this action
i feeling that “minority candidates would
fare better under the system set up
under the provisions of Ballot Measure 7
simply because they cannot often raise
enough money to be at a parity with
other cadidates.”
The Urban League of Portland joins a
growing list of groups who have now
endorsed Ballot Measure 7 including
Oregon Common Cause, the American
Civil Liberties Union, Oregon,AFL-CIO,
the Oregon Consumer League, the
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, the
Portland Chapter of the Women's Politi­
cal Caucus, Oregon Student Lobby,
Oregon High School Republican League,
and the Democratic Party of Oregon.
Executions
(Continued from p. 1 col. 6)
three-foldd:
"One, there will still be economic and
racial discrimination in the administrat-
tion of the death penalty. Two, the
statutues, although constitutional on
their face, are administered arbitrarily
and capriciously in violation of the court's
1972 ruling. And finally, convictions and
death sentences «Gained in trials where
juries were selected by exclusion of any
juryman with conscientious or religious
scruples against the death penalty are
void."
Meanwhile, the newly formed national
Coalition Against the Death Penalty -
consisting of some three dozen religious
and legal organizations - is mounting a
massive public education and lobbying
campaign, hitting on the issues of
whether capital punishment is an effec­
tive deterrent, the possibility of irrevo-
able mistakes and basic moral questions.
“Already," says Levy, "people’s atti­
tudes have changed since the Gragg deci­
sion because they now realize there may
be an actual execution.
“I think that when we come to that first
execution, we"ll discover once again that
we're ashamed of it, that we really don't
want it.
"That's the feeling people have to get
in touch with - a real feeling of revulsion
about an electric chair with an exhaust
fan overhead to carry away the smeil of
burning human flesh.”
Page 3
l . \
•V BOBBRI
’*4„ *•*
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
From the D epartm ent of Housing and Urban D evelopm ent to
certain homeowners whose mortgages were insured by FHA be­
tween August 1968 and August 1976.
Section 518 of the National Housing Act as amended by the Housing Authorization Act of 1976
authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to compensate homeowners
for certain serious defects which existed at the time of HUD's original inspection of the property.
YOUR HOME QUALIFIES IF IT MEETS ALL OF THESE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW:
1. 11 It was more than one year old when purchased
2. It your mortgage was insured by FHA under Section
203 (b) or Section 221 (d) (2) on or alter August 1 .1 9 6 8 but before August 3 ,1 9 7 6 .
3. It the properly has 1 .2 .3 . or 4 living units
4. II the detects are such that they would have been evident at rt» e of original appraisal
5. II your home is located In an older declining urban area, defined as a community with
a population ol 2 500 or more and a neighborhood mostly
comprised of dwellings built before 1940
8. All
decisions as to eligibility w ill be made by H UD /FHA and such decisions are final
DEFECTS THAT QUALIFY are those which so seriously affect use and livability as to create
a serious danger to life or safety of the inhabitants. For example:
1. Seriously defective plumbing, heating or electrical systems
2. A structural failure in the basic framing, floors or foundations which is visibly evident in an accessible area
3. A worn out root
4. Drainage problems such as surface water in the crawl space or running against the house
5. Rotted siding, porches, steps deteriorated brickwork or other seriously deteriorated exterior surfaces which
affect the structural safety ol the
house
6 Defective paint conditions which as defined in HUD regulations, constitute a health hazard cracking, scaling peeling and loose lead-based paint
on interior surfaces and those exterior surfaces, such as stairs, porches, windows and doors readily accessible to children under seven years of age
For repairs already made you must be able to present proof that the detect existed when home was appraised For example receipts, cancelled checks,
contracts or contractor's statements which w ill show that repairs were required immediately alter purchase
DEFECTS THAT DO NOT QUALIFY are those which do not affect the basic structure of your
home. For example:
1. Decorative and cosmetic work ot any kind
2. Carpeting
3. Cracks In plaster or sheetrock, unless caused by structural failure
4. Defects such as burns, gauges, loosened hardware or doors
6. Inoperative refrigerator, range hot water tank dishwasher disposal exhaust Ian window or central an conditioner or other such mechanical
equipment
6, Broken glass and broken counterweight cords in windows Inoperable windows are not eligible
7. Damages to personal property and damages suftered on account ol persona’ injury.
I.
Rotted window sills and door Irames. unless they constitute a threat to the life and safety ol the occupants
9. Detective light fixtures and outlets, when the electrical system Is otherwise sound
10. Minor cracked or broken floor tiles
11. Cracks In foundation not seriously affecting the structure
12. Root leaks when the roof appears acceptable
13. Plumbing leaks. II the basic system is sound
14. Termite damage, unless It seriously affects the structural integrity ot the building
T5. Rotted out gutters and downspouts
16. Detects m detached garages or other outbuildings unless there is serious risk o l imminent
collapss m which case demolition only is eligible
IF YOUR PROPERTY WAS INSURED BETWEEN AUGUST 1,1968 AND JANUARY 1,1973
THE LAST DATE TO FILE A CLAIM IS DECEMBER 3, 1976
IF YOUR PROPERTY WAS INSURED BETWEEN JANUARY 1,1973 AND AU G U ST3,1976
THE LAST DATE TO FILE A CLAIM IS AUGUST 3, 1977.
If you meet all ot the above requirements, call or write your nearest local H U D / F H A Office You may oMain the address or phone
number from your telephone directory or by callmq any b a n k ^ ^ j n o r t q a g e company or real estate broker for this information
. HOUSING OPPORTUNITY
$