Wallaces benefited agricultural history

When Jim Nicholson, a Struble native, was approved Jan. 26 as Secretary of Veteran Affairs, he became the 13th Iowan to reach Cabinet level.

Iowans have been especially praised for their contributions in leading the Department of Agriculture. Few were better known in their time than father and son, Henry C. and Henry A. Wallace.

* Henry Cantwell Wallace (1866-1924), editor of Wallace's Farmer magazine, was appointed by President Warren G. Harding as Secretary of Agriculture, directly following Iowan Edwin T. Meredith.

Henry C. Wallace was born in Illinois, but moved with his parents to Winterset in Iowa's Adair County. During his agriculture studies at Ames, he took a five-year break to start farming on land once owned by his father. Returning to Iowa State, he earned his degree and briefly took on an assistant professorship in dairying. He and his brother John started a partnership in owning the Farm and Dairy newspaper, which evolved into Wallaces' Farmer magazine.

Henry C. Wallace came to the nation's Capitol on his nomination by Harding in 1921, just as the farm depression was beginning. He served as Secretary of Agriculture until unsuccessful gallbladder surgery resulted in his death Oct. 25, 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge ordered that his body be allowed to lie in state in the East Room of the White House before traveling by train to Des Moines.

* Henry Agard Wallace, (1888-1965) followed in his father's footsteps as editor of Wallace's Farmer magazine and eventually, as Secretary of Agriculture.

After studies at Iowa State, Henry A's interests in breeding high-yield strains of corn led to the founding of the company, now known as Pioneer Hi-Bred. He created the first corn-hog ratio charts leading to market studies.

Henry A. Wallace had left the Republican Party of his father and grandfather to support the 1932 campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt. When FDR became President on March 4, 1933, he chose Henry A. Wallace as his Secretary of Agriculture. Wallace stayed in that post until September 1940, when he was nominated for Vice President. FDR selected his Vice President to chair the Board of Economic Warfare and the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, which became important as the U.S. entered World War II.

Wallace's speech "Century of the Common Man" in May 1942 and a subsequent book became popular, but not with the leadership of the party as well as with Winston Churchill in England. Wallace's 1943 goodwill tour of Latin America resulted in 12 more nations joining the Allies against the Nazis. His committee set up requirements that required contractors to provide fair wages and safe conditions in Latin American countries, which upset the Commerce Department.

Wallace was removed from the Democratic ticket in 1944 due to concerns about FDR's failing health, and the supposed Communist tendencies of Wallace. FDR then appointed him as Secretary of Commerce, where he served from March 1945 to September 1946. President Harry Truman then replaced Wallace with Averill Harriman because the Iowan had been too critical of Truman's foreign policy.

Wallace then became editor of The New Republic magazine, writing strong criticisms of Truman. In 1948 he ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket, but lost. He returned to his agricultural interests. Chickens Henry A. Wallace bred in New York became the principal breed of egg-layers sold around the world.