I am glad to be here at this important season --- the season of planting. I have come to plant an idea.
The seeds of this idea were first sewn by the President a year ago this month when he established the Peace Corps. I am proud to say that with nurturing by men and women like you, Americans with roots in the soil and the interest of the country at heart, the Peace Corps has grown, prospered, and born fruit.
We have sent 680 Peace Corps Volunteers overseas into 12 countries. Two hundred additional Volunteers are now in training. We expect to have 2400 Americans overseas or in training by June 30. And we have requests from 31 countries for over 5000 more Volunteers.
Of the original Volunteers, only four have left their duties: one because of illness; one because of a death which left him responsible for his mother’s support; one because of a postcard, and one because he was a misfit. Few farmers are as lucky with their first crop.
In many ways the American farmer is the right man for the Peace Corps. Resourceful, adaptable, self-reliant, he has the courage and initiative required for demanding tasks abroad. Just this month historian Arnold Toynbee said of the Peace Corps: “Here is a movement whose express purpose is to overcome the disastrous barriers that have hitherto segregated the affluent Western minority of the human race from the majority of their fellow men and women. And the initiative in this has come from the country that is now the recognized leader in the Western world. Service in the Peace Corps is not an easy option. It calls for adventurousness, adaptability, human feeling, and above all, self-sacrifice. There is something in human nature that responds to a challenge like this. I believe that in the Peace Corps the non-Western majority of mankind is going to meet a sample of Western Man at his best.”
Why has this learned man singled out the Peace Corps Volunteer as an example of Western Man at his best? I can only believe that he, like Senator Barry Goldwater and other Congressional leaders who have endorsed the Peace Corps after seeing the kind of people who are in it, and like the foreign states who have enthusiastically asked for more Volunteers, and like farm leaders such as Jim Patton who have supported the Corps enthusiastically, has been deeply impressed by the quality of men and women who have joined.
I think these people have also been impressed by the rigorous, thorough, and concentrated training which Volunteers receive. This summer we will have some 30 training programs being conducted simultaneously throughout the country. In every one of these training programs eminent American specialists will be instructing young Americans, and some not so young, in the languages, customs, history, culture and traditions of foreign countries; in world affairs, American studies, physical and health education, and in their skills -- teaching, engineering, nursing, and agriculture. No other country in the world has the educational resources to mount such a concentrated and effective program.
At Ohio State, for example, the Peace Corps trained a group for agricultural work in the Punjab region of India. The Dean of the School of Agriculture told me personally that the fully packed training schedule 66 hours a week for ten weeks - gave the Peace Corps Volunteers at Ohio State the equivalent of a full year’s graduate work.
Has it paid off? One of the young farmers in this group, Phil Snell, the 26-year old past President of the Rural Youth of the United States of America Conference, is now group leader of 11 Volunteers in Ludhiana, Punjab, where he is teaching local farmers the best way to run a small dairy, advising on breeding, feeding, housing, yield and marketing. He and his fellow Volunteers are living in the “blocks” or farm areas among the people they are helping. Phil’s initiative, his farming-know-how, his Ohio State training, and his willingness to help others is already producing positive results in the farming communities of Ludhiana.
Another young American farmer who is sewing seeds for a better way of life among the people of the newly emerging nations is a Peace Corps Volunteer from Colorado. Jim Gregory, of Longmont, exemplifies the young men skilled in agriculture who are sharing their skills, their muscle, and their sweat to help village people help themselves. Like most of you, Jim is a born farmer. There was never any question of how to keep young Gregory down on the farm. A farmer’s son, he was contributing to the production of his father’s 80 acres while still in his teens. In Colombia, South America, he is coping with farm conditions unlike any in Longmont. In one letter, he wrote:
“They plant with sticks and plow with oxen and poles, harvest by hand, and use the wind to do their threshing. They farm on fields that have 60 to 70 degree slopes. Their livestock is plagued with malnutrition and parasites. Herefords tend to sunburn and go blind in the high altitude. The grain is of poor quality and yields are very low...”
But Jim Gregory is not discouraged by this picture. Like his forefathers on the farms of a younger America, he accepts its challenge with optimism, vitality and determination. He overcomes discouraging hardships with admiration. His letter continues: “They are the most friendly people I have ever met. They will do anything for you and they work very hard. I have seen women and children carrying water two miles up the side of a mountain...but no matter what I say about the conditions, it is wonderful here. I am having an experience most rewarding and I will not fully appreciate it for years to come... Perhaps you at home might understand a little about the problem, but until you see a mother following the funeral of her child, or see a little girl searching the trash for a pair of discarded shoes, all the words in the world by the best writer cannot describe the feeling I have developed for these people.”
Colorado’s Jim Gregory is one of almost 300 Peace Corps Volunteers in training and overseas who are assigned to agricultural extension projects in 15 countries. One fourth of our present crop of Volunteers have farming backgrounds and training. One fifth of our total pool of available applicants have lived at least two years on a farm.
This grassroots upbringing, I feel, has also had a decisive influence in the development of what Mr. Toynbee terms the ‘Western Man at his best.” For Toynbee may have been thinking in terms of not only training and experience when he qualified the Peace Corps Volunteer, but also in terms of the human factors involved. A Peace Corps Volunteer arrives in a foreign country not only speaking the language of the people of that country and aware of its customs and conditions, but he comes ready, willing and able to live their way of life -- with them! He is not interested in changing their religion, profiting from their economy, interfering in their politics, but to work within their system to help fill their needs for a better life. America’s farm men and women will make her best grassroots “ambassadors.” The American farmer, at home or abroad, is not one to spend the better part of the day lounging at the country club or seeking solutions in a cocktail glass. From dawn till dusk, he is at immediate grips with the basic problems of production, doing his share to contribute to a healthier family, a healthier farm, a healthier economy and a healthier country. In the Peace Corps he will extend this direct application of his skill to the world.
Every country asking the Peace Corps for Volunteers depends on agriculture for its economy. From the beginning of the Peace Corps, we have known that agriculture and its component skills, such as home economics, would play a major role in its success. We knew also that the newly developing countries would need teachers, nurses, engineers and technicians of all kinds, but some of the early publicity and enthusiasm engendered by college students on liberal arts campuses gave many the impression that the Peace Corps was less interested in the farm people of rural areas of the country. Last year, one of the national officers of the Future Farmers of America said to me “You mean the Peace Corps has a place for young farmers? I thought you only wanted Phi Beta Kappas from Ivy League Colleges?”
The whole nation now knows that there is a very important place in the Peace Corps for young farmers and not-so-young farmers. True, there is a place for the Phi Beta Kappas, but there is also a place for the high school graduate and those with comparable vocational training and agricultural experience. Of the Volunteers now in training or overseas, a third are women. Though the average age is 24 for men and 25 for women, we have 42 Volunteers under 20 and six over 60. En route to Brazil now is a Texas farm widow who is 65. She will teach the women of her remote Brazilian community how to can their vegetables and make the most of their garden produce. In the high mountains of Chile, we have a 19-year old farmer whose immediate concern is for the impoverished agricultural town of Curacavi. He is doctor, lawyer, tinker, tailor, farmer, teacher everything to these grateful people but “rich man”. In a letter from this young American, describing his typical day, he mentions half a dozen first aid emergencies he encounters - and attends to - en route to his classes in agriculture. In the brief months since his arrival, the people of Guracavi - thanks to their Peace Corps neighbor - have benefited accordingly:
All children aged 3 months to 7 years are vaccinated against polio. A petition to study the water problem is being considered. CARE kits have been distributed and explained. A 16-hour health course is completed. A course in crop rotation and irrigation has been instigated. The use and preparation of powdered milk has been demonstrated. A Christmas program was organized, the community’s first.
“Now some of the things I have yet to do,” continues this intrepid and resourceful teenage farmer. “Build a model latrine, teach a course in ‘Mechanica’ start an anti-erosion and anti-rodent campaign. Set up a first aid post, initiate grazing control measures, teach English and start a course in furniture making, using the local bamboo.”
The letter closes with an apology for the stationery on which it was written. “It’s the only thing I had out here,” said the Volunteer. This young Peace Corps Volunteer need not apologize for anything. The good he is doing speaks for itself and deserves only praise. Frank O’Hearn typifies this generation of Americans raised on the land who do not say “Let George do it”, or even “Let Frank do it”, but “Let me do it.” It’s the finest sound since the peal of the Liberty bell.
We have come a long way since last year when the young farmer expressed surprise that the Peace Corps was interested in him. We have received thousands of applications from farmers who are qualified for Peace Corps service. They have come from young farmers, old farmers, retired farmers, farmers’ wives, and farmers’ daughters. There are, in fact, many Peace Corps projects in which home economists, rural homemakers and 4-H girls would be particularly suitable. There are opportunities in the Peace Corps for college trained specialists and from those who have acquired their knowledge farming their own land. Many in all of these categories are now overseas, in countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia. More are being considered which will swell the ranks of the Peace Corps to 4800 by the end of this August, to 10,000 by the end of 1963.
Response like this would not have been possible without the support of Jim Patton, his staff and the state officers of the National Farm Union. Your organization has backed the Peace Corps from the beginning. It takes a good farmer to recognize a good crop, and your early support has been a decisive factor in our successful growth. Many of you here today have served as unofficial Peace Corps representatives in your community, telling your friends and neighbors of the need for skilled farmers and homemakers in less fortunate countries. We hope to count on you for continued support in the future as opportunities abroad for farmers continue to mount.
I want to emphasize the word OPPORTUNITY. I understand only one-third of the young men who take vocational agriculture in high school stay in agriculture. Many of them have the knowledge and training so desperately needed by countries overseas. To many of them the Peace Corps offers the opportunity to stay in agriculture, to find in it a new challenge while gaining unique experience. On their return they will be better qualified for positions in our own economy. With their readjustment pay of $1800 for two years’ service, many can return to advanced schooling for special training.
The Peace Corps also marks a “first” for the American farmer. Teachers and doctors can study abroad by taking advantage of exchange programs. Students can compete for overseas scholarships. With the establishment of the Peace Corps, the farmer can receive an experience abroad formerly limited to a highly trained elite. Someone has even suggested the Peace Corps is the farmer’s Fulbright Scholarship. I’m sure every farmer is familiar with the advice given me by a Midwesterner many years ago. He said “You’ve just got to recognize Mr. Opportunity before he gets to you. Because he’s got a great big forelock to grab onto as he gets near, but as he passes you, there ain’t nothing on the back of his head.”
In America’s frontier days, the best men and women of our country accepted the challenge of agricultural opportunities. In the past decade we have heard more talk about the American Farm Problem than the American Farm Opportunity. I’m sure farmers still have problems. The Secretary of Agriculture must still have a worry or two, but I think we can bury “The American Farm Problem.”
With every shipment of agricultural products sent abroad goes this image of the American farmer and his progress during the past century. It is an image that the Peace Corps farmer takes with him to the newly emerging countries of the world. Where does Communism falter? In that area of American endeavor which is unrivaled in the world farming. For this reason, Secretary Freeman and his staff, particularly John Baker and E. T. York, Administrator of the Federal Extension Service, have asked their state and county personnel to work with us in getting qualified people to serve as agricultural Volunteers with the Peace Corps. That is also the reason why every country where Peace Corps Volunteers are now working have requested more of the same. That’s why almost every country is asking for Volunteers with agricultural training. And that is why an American farmer is a far-off community, noted for its suspicion of outsiders, found an anonymous bag of precious potatoes on the seat of his jeep with the crude message “For our Volunteer.”
Better than any other American, the American farmer has the ability to understand the universal problems of people who live by the soil. He has the stamina and character to share their way of life as well as their problems. He has the capacity and training to help them.
One of the finest letters I’ve ever read was written by a Peace Corps Volunteer in South America. I would like to read his entire letter, but a few paragraphs will express the message of the writer and of the Peace Corps: “Although proper medical attention is available to all the campesinos, or rural peasants, the problem is to reach a clinic or hospital. We took the “Senora” of one man some 50 miles over dirt roads to a hospital... He brought her to where we were from his home, a two-hour journey on horseback from the road. She was unconscious and had been that way for two days.
“This problem of mobility affects the campesino’s life in many ways. It means he is unable to arrive at a market frequently or stay there very long if he wants to return home the same day. He has to travel part of the way on horseback then hitch a ride on the back of a truck. The inaccessibility of the market means two things - he can’t buy economically and he can’t sell economically. He must buy where prices are twice the normal cost, and to sell he must hand his produce over to a middle-man who pays him little. We are collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture to bring the campesinos a new free market where they can sell directly. In another area, two Peace Corpsmen spent the entire month carting the campesinos lettuce to market in a truck. With a better market and greater profit motive, these particular farmers are already showing enthusiasm for better use of their land.
“They have no idea of farm finances. They will raise a turkey or two and sell it for less than invested in labor and feed. With a few new farming and husbandry techniques the campesinos could make a better life for themselves. It is this fact which makes our work more challenging than discouraging.
“The most important problem of all is lack of education. In the rural areas the average child has four years of schooling. If they understood the connection between dampness and tuberculosis; between the fly, the outhouse and the babies’ fevers; between the irrigation ditch and dysentery, they could avoid much illness. If they were taught that an egg is more nutritious than a potato the same size; if they learned the real needs of a woman in labor or a child in its first year of life, they could satisfy many of their problems with what they already have.
“It is in this area of rural education that the Peace Corps is working in Chile. We will use the direct approach by giving talks, explaining the advantages of simple farming and homemaking techniques. “But we must also use the indirect approach...for the most important thing we can teach the campesino is what they can do for themselves.
“All the Chileans have been extremely hospitable. They have an expression which translates “My house is your house,” and when they use it they mean it. Our Peace Corps group must have 400 houses by now.”
Every farmer here appreciates the challenges, the problems, the opportunities expressed in this letter, for I firmly believe American farmers understand the Peace Corps as well if not better than anyone else. Rural life in this country has always been dependent on the spirit of helping your neighbor. Now with a shrinking globe, we are simply extending that principle to our neighbors in need of help throughout the world.
Not long ago, I asked a young American farmer who applied for the Peace Corps why he wanted to join. “For a relatively simple reason,” he said. “I couldn’t in all conscience follow any other course.” When this Volunteer completed his training course for duty with the Peace Corps overseas, he gave an address to the citizens of the Texas city where he trained. I would like to end mine as he did his:
“Each of us is convinced that America is a strong country, a great country. Each of us realizes its responsibilities to less fortunate countries. We don’t want them to feel economically indebted to America...We want them to feel that America’ strength is best realized by the amount of help we are able to offer...We have chosen to match our actions with our convictions.
“We submit that we are not dewy-eyed zealots, out to save the world, but mature American citizens with a skill to offer others.”
