George Nelson Peek (November 19, 1873 – December 17, 1943) was an American
agricultural economist, business executive, and civil servant. He was the first administrator of the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part ...
(AAA) and the first president of the two banks that would become the
Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Early life and business career
Peek was born in
Polo, Illinois, on November 19, 1873;
[Shearer, Benjamin F. ''Home Front Heroes: A Biographical Dictionary of Americans During Wartime''. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing, 2007. ]["George N. Peek, 70, Farm Expert, Dies". '' The New York Times''. December 18, 1943.] His father was a farmer.
[Halcrow, Harold G. "Reviewed work(s): ''George N. Peek and the Fight for Farm Parity'' by ]Gilbert C. Fite
Gilbert C. Fite (May 14, 1918 – July 13, 2010) was an American historian best known for his numerous works on American agricultural history. Fite's lengthy catalog included works that focused heavily on how farmers affected the political enviro ...
". ''Journal of Farm Economics''. 36:3 (August 1954). Peek graduated from Oregon High School in
Oregon, Illinois. He attended
Northwestern University from 1891 to 1892, but did not graduate.
He joined the
Deere & Webber Company of
Minneapolis in 1893, and was named vice president of the John Deere Plow manufacturing division in
Omaha, Nebraska, in 1901.
In 1911, he was named president of the Deere & Co. subsidiary in
Moline, Illinois.
["Republicans: Back to Beginning"](_blank)
'' Time''. October 12, 1936. In 1919, he left Deere & Co. and became president of the
Moline Plow Company
The Moline Plow Company was an American manufacturer of plows and other farm implements, headquartered in Moline, Illinois, USA.
Moline Plow was formed in the 1870s when the firm of Candee & Swan, a competitor of Deere and Company (also of M ...
, where he earned the relatively large salary of $100,000 a year.
He immediately hired retired
Brigadier General Hugh S. Johnson as the company's general counsel.
[ Hamby, Alonzo L. ''For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. ] Peek and Johnson were deeply interested in farm economics, especially since the
post-World War I recession. Peek and Johnson became strong advocates of the
McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, proposed federal legislation which would have established the first national system of
price supports for agriculture.
Peek was a member of the
War Industries Board during
World War I, and after the war was a member of the Industrial Board advising the
United States Department of Commerce on post-war reconversion.
New Deal
When the
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
*Republican Party (Liberia)
* Republican Part ...
refused to support the legislation, Peek became a
Democrat.
His support for the McNary-Haugen bill led President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to appoint him administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) in 1933.
Peek had sought the
US Secretary of Agriculture position, but it had gone to
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. S ...
.
[Culver, John C. and Hyde, John. ''American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace''. Reprint ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. ] Instead,
Bernard Baruch
Bernard Mannes Baruch (August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965) was an American financier and statesman.
After amassing a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange, he impressed President Woodrow Wilson by managing the nation's economic mobilization in ...
, who knew Peek from their service on the War Industries Board, convinced Roosevelt to put Peek in charge of the AAA.
Peek fought with Wallace over the administration of the agency. Peek asked Roosevelt to make the AAA an
independent agency, rather than part of the
United States Department of Agriculture; Wallace convinced Roosevelt to deny the request.
Peek demanded full authority to run the AAA; Wallace withheld it.
Wallace installed
Jerome Frank
Jerome New Frank (September 10, 1889 – January 13, 1957) was an American legal philosopher and author who played a leading role in the legal realism movement. He was Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a United States circ ...
, a liberal young lawyer whom Peek loathed, as the AAA's general counsel.
Peek also disagreed with one of the three fundamental programs created by the
Agricultural Adjustment Act, which created three programs designed to boost farm prices. It established marketing programs designed to increase the purchase of American agricultural products overseas. It established a system of price supports. It established a system of incentives to discourage overproduction.
[ Cochrane, Willard Wesley. ''The Development of American Agriculture: A Historical Analysis''. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. ]
For farmers to participate in the price support program, they had to agree to cut production.
Peek was adamantly opposed to the production quotas, which he saw as a form of
socialism.
Instead, Peek preferred to promote informal
cartels of large producers and large food processing companies, which would collude to boost prices,
but Wallace repeatedly denied Peek the authority to institute such cartels.
When the
Commodity Credit Corporation was established in the early fall of 1933, Roosevelt refused to make it part of the AAA out of concern for Peek's attitudes.
On November 15 and again on November 25, Peek demanded that Wallace fire Frank for insubordination; Wallace refused and threatened to have one of Peek's most trusted aides fired instead.
In early December 1933, while Wallace was out of town, Peek announced a marketing program designed to sell American butter in Europe at rates below the national domestic price.
Rexford Tugwell, acting secretary of agriculture in Wallace's absence, rescinded the program.
Wallace quickly convinced many of Roosevelt's top advisors to ask for Peek's resignation.
Tugwell himself threatened to resign if Peek were not fired.
Faced with a united front, Peek resigned from the AAA on December 11, 1933.
One reporter called the forced resignation "the coolest political murder that has been committed since Roosevelt came into office." The same day, President Roosevelt named Peek his special advisor on foreign trade.
Roosevelt created the
Export-Import Bank of Washington by
executive order on February 2, 1934, and named Peek president of the bank.
[Becker, William H. and McLenahan, William M. ''The Market, the State, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States, 1934-2000''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ] Roosevelt created a Second Export-Import Bank of Washington by executive order on March 9 and named Peek president of the second bank as well.
Peek's tenure at the Export-Import Bank was also short-lived. He clashed repeatedly with
US Secretary of State Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871July 23, 1955) was an American politician from Tennessee and the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years (1933–1944) in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ...
over a series of reciprocal trade agreements in 1935, and resigned from the bank on December 2, 1935.
In 1936, he published a book on economic matters, ''Why Quit Our Own'', which he co-authored with
Samuel Crowther.
[''Why Quit Our Own''. By George Nelson Peek with Samuel Crowther n the desirability of a balanced domestic economy in the United States New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1936.]
Retirement and death
Peek retired to
Rancho Santa Fe, California, in 1937 with his wife, Georgia.
He rejoined the Republican Party, and supported
Alf Landon in the
1936 presidential election
The following elections occurred in the year 1936.
Asia
* 1936 Ceylonese State Council election
Europe
* 1936 Belgian general election
* 1936 Bielsko municipal election
* 1936 Danish Landsting election
* 1936 Finnish parliamentary election
* 19 ...
.
Peek died at his home in Rancho Santa Fe on December 17, 1943.
He was survived by his wife.
During his lifetime, Peek received numerous awards and honors, including the
Distinguished Service Medal, the
Légion d'honneur, the
Belgian Order of the Crown, and the
Order of the Crown of Italy
The Order of the Crown of Italy ( it, Ordine della Corona d'Italia, italic=no or OCI) was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861. It was awarded in five degrees for civi ...
.
Notes
Further reading
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peek, George
1873 births
1943 deaths
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration personnel
United States presidential advisors
Economists from Illinois
People from Polo, Illinois
John Deere
Illinois Republicans
Illinois Democrats
California Republicans
Writers from California
Writers from Illinois