Rex the Red

At my mother’s funeral a lifelong friend of the family took me aside and told a story that interested me enough that I wanted learn more about it.  This friend, we can call him Charles, was a young boy at the time when he witnessed an incident he still remembers.  His parents were getting ready to leave the place and had vacated their house, but they decided to hold a little community dance in its empty rooms before moving on.  Some in attendance even danced on the chairs, but more about that later.  Now we’ll hear from a major player who set things in motion so people could relocate.

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So many years have passed that I wonder if my name Rexford Tugwell is remembered.  Some called me “Rex the Red,” an inaccurate tag that opponents hung on me because of actions I took.  I died in 1979 so you’ll have to suspend disbelief and imagine we’re visiting over a cup of coffee in this cafe.  My name was mentioned often during those hard times of the 1930s when I became involved with the establishment of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, commonly known as the government pasture southeast of Sheldon.

This country had been experiencing a long drought plus a severe economic depression when FDR took office in 1933.  We’ll just talk about the local area, the Sandhills region.  A local paper reported how cattle from adjoining counties were being crowded into its pastures.  Sandoun Township alone could handle 1,000 head with proper moisture, but now almost 4,000 grazed in it.  The over-pasturing weakened the turf, gave the strong winds a foothold and exposed blow sands which easily lifted to intermingle with the destructive dust storms of the “dirty thirties”.  

I was a university economics professor who received the “Rex the Red” label after visiting the Soviet Union in 1927 where I studied their central planning philosophy and recognized “the power of the collective will.”  Don’t read me wrong on this,  I am a true-blue American who never advocated communism for America, just greater control over the negative aspects of capitalism.  Ill will towards me because of that visit to the Soviet Union plagued me the rest of my government career, but I strongly believed in government economic planning.  When FDR took office he chose me along with four others to join his Brain Trust and advise him on his New Deal.

It might be hard to believe now, but in the 1930s, 70 percent of Americans earned their living from the land.  Needless to say, with no rain, no crops, and no money, farmers were forced to leave the land with no particular place to go.  FDR put me in charge of a program where I knew I could do some good - the Resettlement Administration.  We made the decision to have the government buy the land at a fair price and withdraw submarginal land from private ownership.  The object was to give the owners an opportunity to establish themselves elsewhere on more productive land.

The plan met with approval by some, but a negative response also developed.  A group in McLeod organized to oppose the purchase by saying this land was not submarginal, that with proper rain it would support cattle again.  Wyndmere merchants objected fearing the loss of business from too many farm families leaving the community.

We kept on in spite of resistance and prevailed.  A well-staffed office in Lisbon helped us identify the submarginal acres in this region which in your day totals 70,000 acres that’s been converted to public land.  Add an additional 65,000 acres of privately owned land and you have an area that comprises the Sheyenne National Grassland.  A grazing association operates that presently permits 60,000 head/months of livestock grazing shared among 56 allotments.

If you were to drive out that way in the summertime you’d see a beautiful countryside that’s environmentally sound with its green grass, rare wildflowers, and fat livestock.   The National Grasslands is under the U. S. Forest Service, a federal agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  It was one of those programs that became identified as the 3Rs, i. e. relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.  The programs we established became known by their acronyms:  CCC, AAA, WPA, NIRA, TVA, FDIC, SSA, FERA, and others.  

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Rexford Tugwell’s tenure as head of the Resettlement Administration lasted only two years, 1935-1936.  He agreed with FDR’s philosophy of democratic capitalism that imposed regulations on business, instituted Social Security,  besides accomplishing much more.

As for that neighborhood dance held at an empty house, it was my parents who danced on the chairs.  They weren’t married yet but they were having fun, at least Charles thought they were.

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lynn.bueling@gmail.com.