Claude Raymond Wickard was born on Feburary 28, 1893 on a 200-acre corn farm near Flora, Ind. , the son of Andrew Jackson Wickard, a dirt farmer, and Iva Lenora Kirkpatrick. Wickard's childhood was typical of rural youth at the turn of the century and made him acutely conscious of being thought of as a "hayseed. "
Thus, when he graduated from high school, he insisted, over his father's strenuous objections, that he be financed in the pursuit of a degree in agriculture. He graduated from Purdue with a B. S. in 1915.
He took over the management of his father's land, added another 100 acres to it, and named it Fairacre Farms. As America entered World War I, Wickard modernized the farm, introducing bathroom plumbing and electric lights. Occupationally deferred from the army, Wickard cash-cropped the farm to pay off his debts. When the war ended, he started to draw on the knowledge of "scientific agriculture" he had gained at Purdue. He refertilized his soil in the 1920's and started raising fine hogs to process his corn crops into pork and bacon. His agricultural expertise led to a close relationship with the Indiana State Extension Service and to leadership in the state Farm Bureau; this in turn led to Democratic party politics. In November 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency, Wickard won a seat in the Indiana State Senate. A corn-belt Democrat was rarity enough, but one who had both administrative and political experience was certain to be noticed by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, who was at that moment creating a vast army of people to manage the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) programs. Wickard had served less than a year in the state senate when he was called to Washington, D. C. , to begin his twenty-year government career as an assistant in the Corn-Hog Section of the AAA. Although it was widely assumed that Wickard's appointment had been a "political" one, he came to be regarded as an effective administrator. When Wallace first aspired to the vice-presidency in January 1940, he named Wickard as undersecretary of agriculture. Seven months later, on September 5, 1940, Roosevelt agreed that Wickard should succeed Wallace as secretary of agriculture in a semitemporary arrangement while Wallace went on the campaign trail. In January 1941, with Roosevelt a third-term president and Wallace his vice-president, the agriculture portfolio fell to Wickard. But now everything had changed. In 1933, Wickard and the AAA created scarcity by plowing under crops so as to raise prices. With the coming of World War II, the burgeoning arms economy meant full agricultural production, rising farm prices and industrial wages, and the hovering threat of inflation. If Wickard were to keep his congressional and farm backing, he would have to raise farm prices as high as they would go. If the secretary of agriculture were to keep his job in the cabinet, he would have to keep food prices down. Wickard was a loyal, liberal New Deal Democrat. But he was also an Indiana corn-hog farmer who remembered the dreaded surplus and the specter of agricultural ruin. Wickard viewed the conflict with the Axis powers from the perspective of a back-forty war between too much and too little. As Wickard trod the taut line between glut and plenty, he began to overreach himself administratively. Roosevelt had said that the New Deal was gone and that winning the war was all that mattered. Whereas most cabinet members had already deferred to war-production, price, and allocation directors, Wickard wanted to be both a secretary and a director. He asked to be named food administrator, and in December 1942, Roosevelt reluctantly gave in to him. Within four months, Wickard had made a series of disastrous staffing decisions and so was superseded as "food czar" by someone else. He retained his position as secretary of agriculture, however, throughout the war. By the time the war in Europe ended, Roosevelt was dead and the new president, Harry Truman, had made it clear that he wanted to select his own cabinet. Not yet ready to return permanently to the farm, Wickard was given his choice of Agriculture Department programs. He chose the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). When Congress created the REA in 1936, only 10 percent of American farms had electricity. When Wickard became REA administrator in May 1945, 46 percent of farms had been electrified. His administration of the REA was an unqualified success. By the time he left Washington in January 1953 and returned to Indiana, over 88 percent of all farms in the nation had electric lights. Three years later, Wickard campaigned to unseat Republican Senator Homer Capehart and lost. He spent the balance of his life as a trustee of Purdue University and as the proprietor of Fairacre Farms. He died in a car crash near Delphi, Ind.
He was a stocky, balding man with the hands of a farmer, gruff and abrupt one moment but then self-deprecating and uncertain the next. His leadership came from the power of office, not from charm or charisma.
On April 17, 1918, he married Louise Eckert; they had two children.
