(Excerpt from Why Quit Our Own
I have started with the as...)
Excerpt from Why Quit Our Own
I have started with the assumption that we as Americans have as our primary interest the welfare of the American people.
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George Nelson Peek was an American businessman and agricultural economist. He was also the first Administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
Background
George Nelson Peek was born on November 19, 1873 in Polo, Ogle County, Illinois, United States. He was the second son and third of four children of Henry Clay Peek, a seventh generation member of a New England family (the name was originally spelled Peake), and Adeline (Chase) Peek, whose family were New York Quakers. Henry Peek engaged in the livestock business in Polo, served as sheriff of Ogle County, and in 1885 moved to a farm near Oregon, Illinois. He provided an average living for his family, but farming did not appeal to young George.
Education
After graduating from the Oregon high school in 1891, George Nelson Peek attended Northwestern University in Evanston for one school year (1891 - 1892).
Career
In January 1893, George Nelson Peek obtained a job in Minneapolis with Deere and Webber, a branch of the John Deere Plow Company. In 1901 he was named general manager of the John Deere Plow Company in Omaha, and a decade later Peek moved to the company's home office in Moline, Illinois, as vice-president in charge of sales at a salary of $12, 000 a year. Peek first achieved national attention in 1917 when he was appointed industrial representative on the War Industries Board. He became the board's commissioner of finished products in March 1918, working closely with the new chairman, Bernard M. Baruch.
In February 1919, after the W. I. B. had finished its work, Peek was appointed chairman of the ill-fated Industrial Board in the Department of Commerce. Without real power to influence the economy during the period of reconversion, he and his fellow board members resigned in disgust in April. Shortly after leaving government service, Peek accepted the presidency of the Moline Plow Company. (He had resigned from Deere & Company when he became chairman of the Industrial Board. ) He had scarcely settled in his new $100, 000-a-year job when the postwar depression hit agriculture with special fury and the sale of farm machinery dropped sharply. It was the farm depression which started Peek and his vice-president, Hugh S. Johnson, on the search for a program which would restore agricultural prosperity.
In 1922 they came up with a plan of "Equality for Agriculture" which called for federal help in removing price-depressing surpluses from the domestic market. This was to be done through a special government corporation which would buy up farm surpluses and dispose of them abroad; any losses thus incurred were to be recouped from a tax (or "equalization fee") on each unit of a commodity sold by the farmer. Resigning his business post in 1924, Peek thereafter devoted all his time and effort to organizing support for his farm relief plan. Peek's ideas were incorporated in the successive McNary-Haugen bills, which were before Congress almost constantly between 1924 and 1928. As lobbyist he coordinated the efforts of farm organizations supporting the bills, lined up testimony before Congressional hearings, and himself talked to Congressmen and federal officials. Twice, in 1927 and 1928, a McNary-Haugen bill passed both houses, only to be killed by presidential veto. In the party conventions of 1928, Peek sought, without success, to get the Republicans to endorse the McNary-Haugen plan.
When the Democrats incorporated its essence in their platform, Peek left the Republican party to campaign in the farm belt for the Democratic candidate, Alfred E. Smith. Though his program failed of enactment, Peek had organized supporters of farm legislation more effectively than at any previous time in American history. He pointed up the special nature of farm problems, promoted the concept of "farm parity, " and convinced a growing number of people that the federal government had a responsibility to assist agriculture. During the 1932 presidential campaign, Peek acted as an adviser on farm problems to Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Congress created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in May 1933, Peek was named as its head, despite the opposition of New Deal "intellectuals", to ensure the support of farmers and businessmen.
Almost immediately, however, George Nelson Peek found himself in sharp disagreement with Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. Peek opposed acreage restriction as a permanent policy and favored expanded sales through marketing agreements as a means of reducing surpluses; a prickly subordinate, he also worked to make the AAA an independent agency. His differences with Wallace became so severe that in December 1933 President Roosevelt shifted Peek to a post as special adviser on foreign trade.
But on November 26, 1935, George Nelson Peek angrily resigned following a conflict with the administration over its reciprocal trade policies, which he opposed as "internationalist" and as "unilateral economic disarmament. " Peek now became a bitter and vocal critic of the New Deal. In 1936 Peek campaigned for the Republican presidential candidate, Alfred M. Landon. Increasingly isolationist, he worked vigorously in 1940 for the America First Committee. Heorge Nelson Peek died of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 17, 1943 at his home at Rancho Santa Fe near San Diego, California, where he had lived since 1937, and was buried in the family plot in the Moline (Illinois) Cemetery.
Achievements
George Nelson Peek was known as the first Administrator of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and the first President of the two banks that became the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
(Excerpt from Why Quit Our Own
I have started with the as...)
Religion
George Nelson Peek was not a churchgoer and had no religious affiliation.
Personality
Six feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, George Nelson Peek was an energetic, self-confident, and forceful person who rose rapidly in the farm machine business.
Connections
On December 22, 1903, George Nelson Peek married Georgia Lindsey of Omaha, the daughter of Zachary T. Lindsey, president of the Interstate Rubber Company. The Peeks had no children.
