Evening star., 1943-01-13
Wickord- He Feeds the World
BY GEORGE KENNEDY

Nominated for the l94a man on
the spot-Claude Wickard, War
Food Administrator.
He has to hold the food end of
the line against imitation. He has
TO see that the public gets enough
food so that it doesn't ask for more
money to buy more food.
In this he has to fight of the
demands of his own people, the
farmers, sizeable portion of the
public in themselves and a powerful
portion politically.
THE farmers want higher prices
so they can compete for men with
the shipyards,' Mr.. Wickard said
last night when asked about it.
THAT would be fine, wouldn't it,
for the white collar workers with
their salaries frozen? My hardest
job is one of informing the farmers.
I've got to make them see that there
wouldn't be any more men even If
they could pay more money"
Many Promises to Fill.
Crops are bumper - but Mr..
Wickard has taken responsibility for
any shortages.
He is to fill the promises Of food
to Russia. He is to help feed the
IS 100000 of the British Isles. The
other day 16,0OO,0 900 more showed up
on the receiving line-a new mar
ket 1t. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower
opened in North Africa.
Why any one should want the
job is hard to understand. But Mr.
Wickard had to step fast and talk
persuasively to get where he Is,
Former Gov. Herbert H. Lehman of
New York was mentioned for 1t.
Lee Marshall of Continental Baking,
the man who put vitamins in bread,
was another. But James F. Byrnes.
economic stabilization director. said
it ought to be Mr.. Wickard and so
it was.
That is quite rise for an Indiana
farmer who was asked to come into
the Agriculture Department in a
minor position 10 years ago. He
might have believed he was getting
somewhere when he became Sec
retary of Agriculture, head of $4,000
full-time and 100000 part-time en-
ployes-a cabinet officer entitled to
10 guns should he stop in at Fort
Myer to see how the soldiers were
doing. (He HASN'T :. He might
nave thought he was making history
on that Sunday night when he was
called to the White House for his
advice, along with the other cabinet
officers, and told that the Pacific
Battle Fleet had been blasted at
Pearl Harbor.
Always a Farmer.
But now Mr.. Wickard is more than
cabinet officer. He is czar-the
food czar and all he has to do is to
feed the United States and its armed
forces and help feed the United
Nations.
What fascinates many In the Agri-
culture Department is that he is a
farmer. He has never made his
living at anything else. One of the
problem children fostered genera
ton after generation by that great
institution has become its head. His
predecessors, it is true, made a great
show OF the mud on their boots
when they entered the marble ad-
ministration building next to the
Smithsonian Institution. But the
Wallaces, father and son, were farm
publishers and Jardine and Houston
were professors. Mr.. Wickards as
slstants are economists and public
relations men and an ex-minister.
He is the wonder of them all and
they never tire rernarking about it.
He is farmer!
Yesterday was M day In that
other world of America, the agri-
cultural world. When the kids filed
out of the schoolhouses the farmers
filed in and tried to make them
selves comfortable at the little desks
all over the land. Over the radios.
they heard talks on the urgency of
food production from Maxim Lit
vinoff, Soviet Ambassador, and Mr..
Wickard from Washington, Lord
Woolton, British Food Minister