By Ben Johnson

 

In the summer of 1932 picketing farmers shut down Council Bluffs highways in a tense stand-off with law enforcement officials. The scene was not an uncommon one in western Iowa that summer as some farmers mounted a populist revolt to protest years of depressed prices and government inaction that became known as the Farmers’ Holiday Strike. It was the last straw for many farmers after the National Farmers’ Union was unable to gain aid and tariff reform to help them survive falling prices for their crops during the Great Depression and it marked the birth of its revolt movement, the Farmers’ Holiday Association. 

 

The seeds of the Farmers’ Holiday Strike of 1932 were sown during World War I which created a global food crisis that resulted in increased food prices, riots and starvation in Europe. During the war, Iowa native Herbert Hoover was named by President Woodrow Wilson as head of the U.S. Food Administration and he became known as the “food czar” in charge of securing the nation’s food supply and providing supplies to the Allied Powers. As agricultural production in Allied Powers countries plummeted, the Food Administration — utilizing the powers of the Food and Fuel Control Act — was able to purchase, import, store and sell food by supervising domestic food production. As the U.S. government asked farmers to increase their yields to meet high worldwide high demand and prices, the U.S. Food Administration was able to ship 23 million metric tons of food to the Allied Powers, helping to prevent their collapse and earning Hoover acclaim. 

 

To meet the worldwide demand for food during the war many farmers borrowed money to purchase more land and mechanized equipment to increase their yields. Both strategies soon after would prove to be disastrous for farmers when the post-war farm economy crashed as foreign markets in Europe and Russia recovered and wartime price controls ended. As a result, U.S. farmers were planting more crops, but earning less. 

 

While many Americans enjoyed the excesses brought about by the economic prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, desperate farmers, unable to afford coal, burned nearly-worthless corn in their stoves, causing the countryside to smell of popcorn.

 

When the stock market crashed in the fall of 1929 during Hoover’s presidency and the downward spiraling worldwide economy ushered in the Great Depression, the plight of the farmers — who were already suffering from more than 10 years of depressed incomes — worsened when desperate bankers came calling to collect on their war-era farm loans. Soon after, newspapers were printing bankruptcy notices and advertisements for farm foreclosure sales as banks seized properties and equipment.

 

After a decade of neglect by the major political parties, many farmers turned to protest movements and third parties for help. In Iowa, many farmers were unwilling to hand over their inheritances to bankers without a fight. Farmers in Logan, Storm Lake and elsewhere organized mobs to chase away bankers and lawyers. In Le Mars, about 500 farmers stormed the county courthouse and threatened to hang a judge for approving farm foreclosures, going so far as to place a noose around his neck.

 

The National Farmers Union — which received its greatest support from states like Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota and North Dakota — lobbied elected officials to no avail for farm aid and tariff reform in 1932. Frustrated by the lack of results, Milo Reno, former president of the Iowa Farmer’s Union who was born on a farm in Wapello County, decided to take direct, radical action. Forming a protest movement known as the Farmers’ Holiday Association (active from 1932 to 1937), Reno encouraged farmers to stop selling and buying. Reno sought to draw attention to the plight of farmers by withholding crops from the market. “We’ll eat our wheat and ham and eggs,” Reno said, “and let them eat their gold.”

 

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