Remarks at the National Field Days and Plowing Matches, Colfax, Iowa

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, my fellow Americans:

We are in the midst of a political campaign, so the first statement that I make to you you will find difficult to believe. I shall not make a political speech. In fact, I shall not make a speech at all. I want merely to express to you people some thoughts that I feel today as I have this great opportunity to mingle with so many of my fellow Americans.

First of all, I am here because I have wanted to repay the great compliment tendered me by your officers when they asked me to act as Honorary Chairman of the National Field Day, and I am to have the privilege of presenting some of the awards to the winners.

Secondly, I wanted to come back here because in this Great Plains region was where I was raised. I am quite sure that the boy who was raised on the city streets sees nothing particularly beautiful in the black of fresh-turned soil, but anyone who was raised in the Mississippi Valley does. Moreover, such a boy raised in the city would probably find nothing particularly to admire in a long straight furrow stretching out across a quarter section. But if he had--as I have followed a walking plow when he was so small that he had to reach up to the handle instead of down, he would know what it means to plow a straight furrow.

What I am trying to say to you, my friends, is this. When I come back to this great central granary of the United States, I feel at home. And I have exactly the same feelings of homecoming that anybody does when he comes back to the scenes of his boyhood, the places where he was reared.

Then I wanted to come back today because this National Field Day this year is dedicated particularly to soil conservation. I have a young brother who has spent his life in the study of soil in the universities--the State universities of two great States--and he long ago converted me to the need for having an eye for preserving our heritage of soil and water resources for the future. I believe in it thoroughly, and when I heard there was going to be both contour and straight plowing, I had an added reason for coming. And your officers have taken me through a tent where they are showing exactly how much feed it takes to produce a thousand pounds of beef to put on the city workers' table. I have learned a lot. If I could stay longer I would learn much more.

And, my friends, I come today to pay my respects to the plow. Ever since I had the invitation to this meeting, I have been trying to think in my mind of some instrument invented by man that has meant more to him than the plow. I can think of none. In fact, the plow has become the symbol for peace--in the Bible-in trying to talk about that wonderful future time when there shall be no war and we shall beat our swords into plowshares.

So the plow is a symbol of peace, as the sword is of war. And I think, therefore, that no group of American citizens can feel closer to peace, feel closer to the need for peace, than does the great agricultural community.

Finally, I came to pay my respects to the men and women who produce the food and fiber of these United States. You use different methods than were used in western Kansas fifty and more years ago when I was a boy. Great tractors have taken the place of our horses and mules. You have combines where we had binders in the past. In every way you have improved your efficiency, so much so that today each man on the farm produces food and fiber for 18 of his fellow Americans at a scale level of efficiency never before reached in our farming life. In fact, I believe at the time of our Constitution, there was something like 95% of the population that was rural. At the time of Lincoln, it was about half and half; and now some twelve percent.

So each year the farmer grows more efficient, and yet the farmer has special problems. And, my friends, within a few days I expect to make a talk--a talk to other Americans in another area, where I will make the main point of that talk the problems of the farm, the special problems of the farm, and the special treatment they should receive.

Now many of you here will not agree with me. Some of you, frankly, will probably think I am a little bit crazy, but I am quite sure that none of you will think that I am not honest. Whatever I have to say in this field in telling you what I believe, I hope of course will achieve the earned approval of each of you. I know that it's too much to hope. We are humans. Each has his special problems that he places above all others. But nevertheless, I hold this to be true: if all of us approach all of these problems--the great one of peace, the internal one of the farm problem and others, if we approach them as Americans and in a spirit of conciliation and give-and-take, we shall find right answers.

Only yesterday morning I met in Washington with the advisory committee that I have met most with of the many advisory committees that we have in government on their own time. This was the Agricultural Advisory Committee. On it are men of letters from Cornell and other great universities. There are actual working farmers. There are men who represent the farmers union and the other farming organizations. But as a unit they are the people that help devise every plan, every idea that I have that affects the relationship of the government to Americans, and in this case especially to the farming community.

So, as far as we are able, we get the most efficient, the most widespread kind of counsel that we can. Those ideas, as I say, I shall try to explain shortly--in a week or so.

In the meantime, let me express to each of you here, possibly through you to all of the citizens of Iowa we have chanced to glimpse, the very great appreciation of Mrs. Eisenhower and myself for the cordiality of the welcome we have received along the roadside and in the cities. Everywhere we have encountered a warmth of hospitality that has lifted up our hearts.

And before I sit down, I should like to thank two specific organizations here. One, this fife and drum band over here on the left which has done so much to entertain us; the other the Women's Air Force Band, which I think is probably the equal of any others in our Services--at least I am certainly proud of them.

Now, my friends, I trust that no matter what my duties in the future are, that I can come back more and more frequently to these National Field Days that you have. They seem to me to be rich in all that is good in America's traditions. There is friendliness. There is a cooperative attitude. There is a desire for opportunity, rather than for mere security--although we know that security is necessary.

So I feel, as I told you before, at home. And when a man feels at home, he is happy. I have been happy today, and you have made it so.

Thank you very much.