A Deal in Wheat

It was a proud moment in the life of moonfaced Earl C. Corey when he was summoned to Washington in May 1959 to receive the Department of Agriculture's Superior Service Award. Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson himself pinned a silver medal on Corey's lapel, cited his "significant contributions to agriculture through his fine relationships with producing, warehousing and merchandising groups."

Corey's relationships had indeed been good. While doing his part in trying to cope with grain surpluses as head of the Agriculture Department's Commodity Stabilization Service in Portland, Ore., he was also storing the stuff as a silent partner in a commercial grain warehouse.

Back in 1956, Corey and two friends had put up $30,000 each to lease an old lumber warehouse near Portland and fit it up for storing grain. In three years the partners harvested profits of $83,000 apiece. Last week, too sick from bleeding ulcers to be present in the courtroom, Corey was convicted by a federal jury in Portland of violating conflict-of-interest laws.

The Corey scandal was only a pitch-forkful beside the mountainous scandal of the U.S. farm surplus program, which encourages people to take advantage of it. "The sad part of the whole thing," commented an Oregon agricultural expert last week, "is that all Corey was doing was what the rest of the grain trade is doing legally. It's obvious that there's something wrong when three men can rent a warehouse and make $83,000 apiece in three years by storing Government grain."

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