Guest opinion: The demise of the Kennedy Center and the American farmer

We are witnessing, in real time, the demise of the Kennedy Center and the American farmer. It is fitting, then, to reflect and remember John F. Kennedy's reverence for farmers and ranchers.

The legacy of JFK is the words and speeches he left. While JFK gave soaring speeches about Americans, he frequently stressed the plight of farmers. 

One of his speeches, given at the Midwest Farm Conference on October 24, 1958, is as applicable today as it was 67 years ago. 

In his opening remarks, he stated: “There can be no prosperity in the city without prosperity on the farm.” 

Kennedy delivered his frequently quoted observation that “the farmer is, after all, the only man in our economy who has to buy everything he buys at inflated retail – sell everything he sells at depressed wholesale – and pay the freight both ways.” 

In this speech, Senator Kennedy laid out six fundamental principles needed in any farm bill. 

First, farm abundance should be a blessing, not a curse, which he elaborated on in detail in his speech. 

His second point is as applicable today as it was 67 years ago. He observed, “Any national farm program should be based primarily on the promotion and preservation of the family farm.” 

He noted that if we, as a country, looked out for the family farmer, then the farmer would look out for the land and the future. 

His third point was that the farmer knows best. “No bureaucrat, no economist or scientist, knows the needs and trends and variations of the local farm picture as well as the local farmer.” 

Kennedy’s fourth tenet was the importance of farmer co-ops. Co-ops are often the backbone and salvation for farmers. 

His fifth was the need to “concentrate on cutting the farmer's costs.” Kennedy would have been heartbroken at what the current administration has done to drive the family farm out of business. 

His sixth point stressed that a “farm program should assure our nation's farms of a fair share of the national net income.” By pointing out a farmer’s significant capital investment in his farm and equipment, he observed that farmers need a comparable return on that investment. His investment and incredible long hours, year-round, require comparable wages for his labor. 

I particularly liked Kennedy’s acknowledgment of farmers' intelligence. He pointed out farmers weren't only concerned about farm problems. They were no country bumkin. They, like all Americans, cared deeply about war and peace, inflation or recession, public power, transportation, education, etc. Kennedy stressed that farmers, like everyone else, “want to look at the record – and his memory is long.” 

Kennedy’s was worried and disturbed by young people leaving ranches and farms. “I am worried about what is going to happen to our soil when there are no younger people to take over the farm. What is going to happen to our rural churches and schools and small town stores that so depend on our young farmers and their growing families?” 

Kennedy’s speech also addressed unnecessary division among Americans. “I do not understand those who seek to preach disunity and division – setting city against country, East against West, neighbor against neighbor.” Instead, Kennedy preached “a common cause – the interdependence of all Americans.” 

I encourage all farmers and ranchers, and more importantly, all Americans to read Kennedy’s speech in its entirety. It is a message that will resound in these hard times. 

[Source: Papers of John F. Kennedy. Pre-Presidential Papers. Senate Files, Box 905, Folder: "Midwest Farm Conference, Springfield, Illinois, 24 October 1959." John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.] 

Tom Muri is a 5th-generation Montanan and retired military JAG Officer. He writes from Montana and Sedona. He is from Whitefish.