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In 1919, after making plows for 23 years for Deere & Co., George Nelson Peek became president of Moline Plow Co. at $100,000 a year, made General Hugh Johnson his chief counsel. As a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, he naturally became deeply interested in farm problems. As a politician, he began agitating for an export subsidy for the U. S. farmer. When Republicans did not solve the farm problem according to his lights, George Peek became a Democrat. As a Democrat he became head of the AAA. As head of the AAA he quarreled with Braintrusters over the agricultural codes, finally resigned. President Roosevelt made him special foreign trade adviser and head of the Export-Import Banks. Then came the reciprocal trade treaties, which George Peek thought Secretary Hull was mishandling. So he quit the Democrats for good. Last week he completed the cycle, announced, after twice publicly postponing his selection, that the man who would give the farmers the best break from the White House in 1937-41 would be Republican Alf Landon.

Speaking on a Republican National Committee radio broadcast, Plowman Peek declared he had decided to support Nominee Landon because "the Republican platform promises three things of paramount importance to agriculture: "

1) The American market for the American farmer.

"2) Government assistance in disposing of surpluses in foreign trade through selective bargaining.

"3) Tariff benefits on export crops. Any student of U. S. farm legislation could quickly recognize these principles as the basis of Peek's 15 years of agricultural agitation, as the basis of the McNary-Haugen bill he instigated and lobbied through Congress to be twice vetoed by President Coolidge. In 1932, said Mr. Peek last week, he rushed to the Roosevelt bandwagon because these same principles were stated in the Democratic platform and reiterated by Nominee Roosevelt in campaign speeches. "I was fooled by President Roosevelt's promises; I believe that Governor Landon is the kind of man who keeps his promises," concluded George Peek.

For his desertion of the Democratic Party and for denouncing President Roosevelt, George Peek received a quick rebuke from his former partner Hugh Johnson. The crusty old cavalryman and columnist, who, like Peek, left the New Deal after bickering with Braintrusters, stepped up to a microphone in Philadelphia two evenings later, declared President Roosevelt had broken no agricultural promises, declared Peek's attack "the most unfair yet launched at the President."

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