Corn Quotes
The Congress had voted to require 10 percent of all the gasoline sold in America to be alcohol made from corn to reduce the air pollution of car driving. They precluded using Brazilian alcohol made from sugar cane which was already available and far less expensive. In a classic example of unintended consequences the price of grain worldwide increased harming some of the very poor nations. The price of corn run increased in the United States because the law required corn alcohol and nothing else was allowed. Farmers across America switched from wheat, soybeans and other grains to corn to earn more money. This then diminished the American supply and raised the price of wheat and other grains which Americans could afford but much of the rest of the world could not. And now the U. S. had less grain to export driving the world price higher. Worst of all, the environmental impact was negative—not positive. In addition to the carbon dioxide problem Daschle discusses in this quote, the electrical energy that was generated with oil and needed to turn the corn into alcohol required more oil than was saved by using the alcohol. Everyone lost except the corn farmers. The political promises to make corn alcohol required were made by most of the candidates during the Iowa presidential primaries the previous year.
More and more whites had been encroaching on land of the Chickasaw Reservation which the United States was bound to protect. However, soldiers fighting whites was politically unpalatable and the Government came up with the idea of providing land West of the Mississippi as a new reservation in exchange for the existing reservation. The Indians expenses of moving would be paid and they would be given generous provisions in the new lands. The U. S. negotiators were surprised when the translator for the Chickasaw negotiators made this speech which was then reported to the President and Congress. Andrew Jackson was strongly in favor of Indian Removal and he had forced other tribes out of their lands. Eventually the Government upped the ante and agreed to pay the Chickasaw the large sum of $3 million to move and they Chickasaw realized that if they did not accept, they would be removed as other tribes had been, The promised payment was delayed over Congressional arguments over appropriations but eventually the Chickasaw were paid.
To Roman citizens clamoring for distributions of corn: Marcus Porcius Cato
At the time, the Chamber of Commerce represented the small and medium business which were being decimated by the large businesses and their monopolies. A century later, the Chamber became a creature of the large business and their money and by 2010, the Chamber had virtually become the representative of the large businesses outside of the high technology field and had become a campaigning arm of the Republican Party, In 1880 however, they called public attention to the abuses of the large corporate monopolies.
