Word: farming
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...special congressional election in Iowa's Fourth District was important enough to bring Governor Herschel Loveless hurrying down from Des Moines. Loveless, the leading Democrat in a state that was once a Republican stronghold, had a big point to prove: the Democrats are in the Farm Belt to stay. To Loveless, the whole election turned on one big question. "Ezra Benson is the only issue in the campaign," he cried. "Benson is Republicanism...
...over his Democratic rival, C. (for Charles) Edwin Gilmour, 41. The election fascinated politicos for two reasons: 1) the Fourth District, with a large population of corn-hog farmers and smaller but important groups of factory workers and merchants, is a good litmus for testing the trends of the Farm Belt; 2) only a year ago the district sent the first Democrat in its history to Congress. (The Democrat, Representative Steven Carter, died in office, thus last week's by-election...
...embattled Agriculture Secretary was, as Loveless sensed, a big factor in the campaign. The Fourth District's farmers have been hit by falling prices,* and they reflect accurately the national discontent with the Benson farm program. Kyi, an attractive, articulate TV newscaster and clothing merchant, was careful to dissociate himself from Ezra Benson: "Please note that I do not run the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Mr. Benson most certainly is not a candidate in this district." But Democrat Gilmour, associate professor of political science at Grinnell College and a hardworking, handshaking campaigner, poured it on: "A vote...
Where the two campaigns diverged was on the issue of positive thinking. Republican Kyl bore down hard on Eisenhower's peace and prosperity, offered his own constructive solutions to the farm scandal (e.g., an acreage-retirement plan, which would pay the farmer a bushel of surplus corn for every bushel taken out of production). Gilmour stuck doggedly to the Benson issue. Said Farmer John Augustine, a Democrat: "Gilmour made a mistake in running against a straw man. He didn't have a positive thing...
...G.O.P. National Chairman Thruston Morton hailed Iowa's Fourth. "An indication that the Republican Party is on its way to a great victory in 1960," he crowed. The election was indeed a useful clue, but it was not quite a harbinger of another Republican springtime. It indicated that Farm-Belt Republicans can withstand attacks against Benson and win elections if they have good candidates and arm themselves with other positive issues. It proved that the nation's farmers are not yet mad enough over falling prices to swing, en bloc, to the Democrats. And it suggested that, even...