The Dismemberment of Orville Freeman

Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman could hardly say he hadn't been warned. For weeks, at first diplomatically and then bluntly, Capitol Hill farm leaders had been telling him that his omnibus farm bill could not win congressional approval. The key and most controversial provision of that bill: to give Freeman the power to consult with farmers and work out subsidy and control plans for each commodity. Congress could approve or disapprove each scheme as it stood, but would not be able to amend any program or write a new one.

But the Congress had no intention of surrendering its power to write farm legislation. When Freeman refused to believe that obvious fact of political life, House Agriculture Chairman Harold Cooley called a caucus of committee Democrats to tell the Secretary to his face that they would not vote for his bill. "It was obvious," says one House leader, "that there were from seven to nine committee Democrats who wouldn't go along, and all the Republicans were against the bill." When Freeman still talked of victory, Cooley patiently took him around to see Speaker Sam Rayburn, who once more spelled out the facts of life.

House Democratic leaders asked Freeman to compromise, but stubborn Orville Freeman declined. That left Congress little choice but to take him apart --and last week both the Senate and the House did just that. In the Senate Agriculture Committee, Chairman Allen Ellender brought up every compromise he could think of, only to have Freeman's scheme scuttled 9-8 by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats. In the House committee, the plan went down to defeat before a similar coalition, although, as a sop. Freeman was given the power to set up marketing-control plans for honey, lamb, turkeys, California apples--and peanuts.

After last week's action, Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate conceded that the only farm bill likely to get through the session will amount to little more than an extension of the existing farm program--which has produced a mountain of surplus food worth $8.7 billion. For the Kennedy Administration, the debacle was a defeat on a major piece of legislation. But Orville Freeman still thought his bill was perfectly sound. Said he in explanation of his defeat: "It was bare bones, with no meat on it. But procedures are never as exciting as the pork barrel."

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