On this date in 1970, The Forum published an open letter to President Nixon that shared local voices expressing deep concerns about recession, inflation, farming struggles, and disillusionment with government policies, while a few still found hope and beauty in everyday life.
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Dear Mr. President:
Your visit to Fargo Friday is being billed as a “Back to the People” trip. We think that is fine.
But it occurred to us that in the three or four hours that you will be in our city, the only people you will be talking to are a few governors and, perhaps, a gaggle of lesser governmental officials.
We feel, Mr. President, that to find out what the people are thinking, it is best to talk to the people. And we know that is impossible for you in the short time you have here.
So we went out through North Dakota and Minnesota and asked them — farmers, businessmen, old people, young people, wage earners, housewives. We tried to cover the spectrum in this Middle America belt.
We found that the natives are restless. But more than that, we found genuine fear in some of our people.
It is not the war that is gnawing on them, Mr. President, although they are concerned about it, nor are they worried about crime in the streets.
It is the recession, Sir — and some of them are even calling it a real depression. There is no money around, and our fields are thin from the less summer. Our farmers say they are hurting — and in this part of the country, Mr. President, when our farmers are hurting, so is everybody else.
But let the people tell you about it.
On a farm near Cooperstown in eastern North Dakota, Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Eggermont, a young couple, are running a tractor and a baler. He looks very tired.
Says Mrs. Eggermont: “This economy is killing us. Prices are way too high and farm prices are nowhere close. We just can’t make it on farming alone.”
So after her husband puts in a full day on the farm, he and his brother take turns working a full midnight-to-8 shift at a little manufacturing plant.
Eggermont says simply, “There’s no other way.”
Frank Fiebiger, one of the biggest farmers in Griggs County, says: “Tell Nixon he should have run an absentee. I’m in deep now. And they sold the auction, it’s too late.”
Norman Heisz, a Cooperstown grain elevator manager, thinks you’re doing a good job in some areas, Mr. President, “but the farm program is bad.”
Heisz wishes you were in the boxcar business, because the day we were there he had to send a half dozen truckloads of grain back to the farms. He has no boxcars.
Farm implement dealers are feeling the pinch, too, Mr. President. Jerry Berube in Lisbon, N.D., says this: “Nixon is going to have to freeze labor to get a balanced economy. Labor keeps getting pay raises and the manufacturer just adds it to the price of the product and we all end up paying for it. The government should get the hell out of farming. These farmers get a lot from the government. I’ll tell you the two things that are killing business — when the government knocked out credit investment and now the high interest rates.”
Car salesman Tom Lemley at Valley City would like you to crack down on labor, Mr. President. It isn’t the big wages so much as it is the workmen’s lack of interest. He thinks it’s shoddy workmanship.
“You can see it on the new cars that come in,” Lemley says. “It’s bad. It seems like workers just don’t care about anything anymore. They want their check, they want the overtime. The quicker the paycheck, the better.”
In Twin Valley, Minn., Mr. and Mrs. George Peterson live in a small one-bedroom retirement unit. Mr. Peterson is 88. He thinks you’re doing a good job in Vietnam, Mr. President, but that isn’t his real problem.
He and his wife live on an old age pension of $84 a month. They pay $25 a month for their one-bedroom house and $20 a month just for electricity. That leaves them just $39 a month for food.
Says Peterson, “It’s not much. We just have to scratch. With food prices the way they are, we can’t buy much. I’m a Democrat and I don’t know of any Republican president who has done anything for the poor.”
Our young people, not yet in the marketplace, say that the war is the biggest problem.
Dan Krantstover, 18, a lifeguard at the resort town of Detroit Lakes, Minn., says: “Nixon is putting too much emphasis on entertaining women in the White House and the war. He ought to concentrate on fighting poverty and to help the black people.”
Another young person, Sari Youngquist, dispenses ice cream in the farm business center of Wahpeton, N.D. and says: “I think he’s doing a pretty good job. But I don’t think he should allow us 18-year-olds to vote. I’m 18 and I don’t think I’m ready. At 18, it’s too easy to be brainwashed.”
Tony Rutter, a Wild Rice, N.D., farmer, wants you to give a message to one of the Cabinet officials with you here, Secretary of Agriculture Hardin. He says, “Tell Hardin that North Dakota is an agricultural state and when the farmers don’t get paid, the whole state is broke. Mister, we’re not getting paid.”
Terry Donnan of Wahpeton was delivering gas to an Abercrombie, N.D., farmer. “Inflation is still our number one problem,” he said. “It’s really hitting me.”
Kent Quamme, a farmer in southeastern North Dakota is disillusioned with the wheat program, Mr. President. “We’re getting less and less and paying more and more,” Quamme said. “Four years ago this combine I’m driving cost $14,000. It’s $18,000 now. We just have to get out of Vietnam and spend some of that money at home. We’ve got people who are going hungry.”
In western Minnesota, a Fergus Falls housewife, Mrs. Ernest Mudson, has had to take a job in a hardware store so her family can make ends meet.
Her husband is a carpenter and she says: “He may be out of a job before long. People can’t get money to build or remodel. Why, just a couple days ago I paid 53 cents for a box of oatmeal. Today it was 75 cents. We just can’t go on. We have two children, 11 and 10, and they have to eat. I just can’t see high prices and tight money. As a matter of fact, I was all set to write a letter to the President.”
Helen Zarling is the vice president of the Farmers and Merchants State Bank in Breckenridge, Minn. “Something has to be done about interest rates,” she wants you to know, Mr. President. “If tight money in one place, you feel it all over. I haven’t noticed that Nixon’s attempts to put on the brakes has helped us.”
Louis Braaten is an electrical worker in southern Minnesota and he has something on his mind, too. “Getting a decent wage is the big problem,” Braaten said. “Seems like every time I get a raise, it’s gone.”
Outside the Hector Airport terminal where your plane will land, a Northwest Airlines striker named Stanley Bartholomey said he farms “a mighty dry half-section of wheat, flax and barley at Wheatland, N.D.” and he said, “I’d like to know what and when Nixon is going to come up with a farm program.”
Perhaps all this sounds too grim, Mr. President. Because on top of everything our people complain about, life in North Dakota and Minnesota can be beautiful.
It is especially beautiful if you are a 14-year-old Nancy Domm, a carrot-topped, healthy farm girl near Wahpeton.
The sun was shining on Nancy’s hair and the wind was blowing her dress around her thin legs as she jumped and skipped, herding a half dozen horses and ponies down the road and across the meadow.
She was humming a little tune, Mr. President, and she smiled and said, “Everything is just fine.” And for Nancy Domm, it certainly was.
Anyhow, we thought you’d like to know how it seems to one small section of the country. Welcome to Fargo — and have a good day.
