Hey y’all! It’s DZ, your friendly neighborhood nerd, reporting in for this treat. Here at Hightower HQ, one of our favorite media moments from the archives has always been this clip of Reagan Brown, then-Agriculture Commissioner of Texas, showing the television cameras just how much he knew about fire ants during his 1982 campaign to beat back Hightower’s insurgent campaign to take over the Department of Agriculture and turn it over to whom it belonged: the People. I sat down with Hightower to chat about that political moment, and what progressives can learn from it today.
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Transcription of the video:
Please note: this was an automatically generated transcript that we cleaned up as best we could with a short amount of time, but there still may be awkward mistakes/typos. :-)
TV reporter:
Recently, Brown took reporters on a tour of the Capitol grounds to point out the danger of fire ants. He shocked them when he stuck his hand in a fire ant mound.
Reagan Brown:
I have to them there. They're really hot, you know, little baby, little baby, playing out in... oh boy.
TV reporter:
Brown suffered 32 fire ant bites in that stunt and got a rebuke from his opponent, Jim Hightower.
Jim Hightower:
You know, Mr. Brown's been saying that I'm not qualified to be agriculture commissioner, but I tell you, I'm smarter than to put my hand on a fire ant mound.
Deanna Zandt:
Something else! So set the scene for us, Hightower. What is happening in this clip?
Jim Hightower:
Oh, well, Reagan Brown is his name and he was the agriculture commissioner of the state of Texas, having been appointed by the governor due to the resignation of a previous ag commissioner. And he was a he was an after-dinner speaker. He was a a and an official over at Texas A&M University. But he'd never been in a statewide campaign.
Jim Hightower:
He was a Democrat, elected as a Democrat, though he was it was more Republican in policy, which is the reason that I took him on to challenge him in that election.
Deanna Zandt:
I mean, they're saying this was sort of vibe at the time, right? This was Texas politics.
Jim Hightower:
Texas was then developing a Republican Party and hadn't had one in many, many years. But they were they were coming back. And and so but we were in the primary the Democratic primary election. And and so Reagan Brown and again, had no particular political experience and no no connection to ordinary people about the issues that matter. So he he set upon on almost set upon the issue of fire ants, fire ants.
Jim Hightower:
He was going to ride the fire ant to victory. And indeed, fire ants were a problem at the time, and particularly his Africanized fire ant species that came really out of South America. And and it was a it was kind of rampaging little ants rampaging across the state. And indeed, they could be a problem that they were very poisonous in the in terms that could make you ill if they bit you.
Jim Hightower:
And so so there was a big campaign to get rid of fire ants. And Reagan Brown's answer was chemicals. Of course, we will just nuke those little bastards and and spread this chemical called androblah blah and, there were other ones. But anyway, spread these chemicals all across the state, and and exterminate these fire ants. But the press took it seriously.
Jim Hightower:
But, you know, it wasn’t the number one issue for for the media or for anybody, really. But Reagan. It was number one for Reagan Brown. And so he took it on. And to demonstrate, to get the media attention, he went on to the Capitol grounds here in Austin, Texas. And there there was a fire ant mound right there.
Jim Hightower:
And and he he called the media together there. I mean, all the TV cameras were there and reporters. And that zeroed in on Reagan Brown taking on the firings. And he said, now, see these? This is what I'm talking about right here. Now, these are vicious little critters. You know, you and I'll just put you see saying, got my hand down in the mound now.
Jim Hightower:
And now they're climbing up on me and you see? They’re biting me now, they're biting me. And and he had to go to the hospital as the video showed, what was it, 37 bites that he got from these fire ants, which is a substantial infusion of fire ant juice and so forth. Poor Reagan Brown had to go to hospital.
Jim Hightower:
And then and then, of course, then the media turned to me to to see what I had to say about it. And there it was.
Deanna Zandt:
That is fantastic. Oh, my God. And and the the campaign at that I mean, was was not. Were you struggling? You know, like as far as you know, how to frame the issues and stuff? Or was that kind of a natural fit to walk in and say, hey, this guy really didn't care about you, you know? Like, how did you how did you work some of that with with the campaign.
Jim Hightower:
I was more positive about it. I said there are other ways to deal with fire ants instead of spreading poison, more poison all across, Texas. We’re the number one pesticide manufacturer in the country and the number one pesticide user. So we had too much pesticide. And I was campaigning on that issue, not about fire ants but about farm workers being poisoned and even farmers suffering cancers because of the poisons that they were spraying on their own land and they was getting into the water, etc..
Jim Hightower:
So that was a big issue for me. And then I was able to to campaign on alternate ways to deal with that fire ant. You know, one: hot water made a big difference-- if you poured a bunch of boiling water down those fire ant holes, it got them. Anyway. Yeah. And there were other there were other methods, too. I mean, it was a real problem.
Jim Hightower:
I don't want to underestimate that this was a pest that was, as Reagan Brown found out, stinging. And so so something had to be done. And and but people began to realize because farmers are very creative, you know, there was, I would say, rather than creative, just innovative. You know, I've got a problem here now. And what do I do about this problem is, you know, okay, you could put more poison down.
Jim Hightower:
But by then farmers were saying, I think we're using too much poison, you know, and my baby’a sick, you know, and my mother died, you know, etc.. And so so they were looking for other ways and they were inventing ways themselves. So I learned about this water matter from farmers. They said, yeah, you just go out and you gotta have a big tub of boiling water and but that's a that is an effective way to to deal with them.
Jim Hightower:
So but there there were plenty of other issues, you know, because I was campaigning on a wide range of how we can help family farmers, but how we can rally consumers and labor and environmentalists together with farmers to make a difference for our grassroots economy. And so that.
Deanna Zandt:
And it worked!
Jim Hightower:
Yeah. Yeah. I was getting response from that. So support from I mean, you know, most I would go into the cities and say, you know, you you whether you like it or not, you're going to elect an agriculture commissioner and it might as well be one who gives a damn about you. And here's why. Labor, you know, labor is a constituent of the Texas Department of Agriculture, certainly the the farm workers, but also grocery workers, a warehouse workers, a meatpackers, so, you know, etc., etc..
Jim Hightower:
Huge. There are more workers involved in agriculture than there are farmers involved in agriculture. And we've got to make them a part of our coalition. Obviously, consumers are as I said, if you eat, you're involved in agriculture. It's simple. So so we put that coalition together and then with Reagan Brown's Help media landscape, we were able to convey that particular message.
Deanna Zandt:
And I'm going to link to this in the notes for this episode, but the People's History in Texas is talking a lot about the work that you actually did end up being able to implement around this stuff, around these constituencies. And I'm I feel like it's such a wacky idea that you're talking about here, a politician going to the people and asking them, what do you need?
Jim Hightower:
Yeah, I spent a year I spent a year campaigning for this office and I went just about every place that's got a zip code. I showed up and I rallied those farmers with labor and got the endorsement and the black Democrats and the Mexican-American Democrats and etc., and and gay Democrats and so on. So I was all across, you know, because, you know, agriculture is food.
Jim Hightower:
And so it's it's it's everybody. And the department should belong to everybody. But under previous ag commissioners, including Reagan Brown, it belonged to the pesticide industry, basically, not even farmers, but the pesticide industry. And the Farm Bureau. Yeah. Which is a right wing political organization that essentially is in the chemical business and it sells chemicals. And so so I was making that point all over you know, I acted it was like, well, what about the Farm Bureau? They’re for Reagan Brown?
Jim Hightower:
I said, Yeah, they're the biggest chapter of the Farm Bureau is in Houston, Texas. Were people who were buying the chemicals for their yards. Exactly. And so so, you know, we were able to do to take this this issue fairly esoteric issue down to a a digestible level. And and help people see their own interest in it and then and put a campaign together that would rally those forces to to take over the Department of Agriculture and turn it back to the people.
Jim Hightower:
And we did that. And one of the major things that we did was we passed the first ever state run pesticide safety issue program in the nation, and we did that with the support of farmers. Well, there were also opposition, of course, and and certainly Republican and right wing opponents were against it. So and they even tried to hold a hold, a hearing to take up in the state legislature to take the pesticide authority out of my office and to make my office the point it rather than like.
Deanna Zandt:
I wonder why?!
Jim Hightower:
Republican Governor at the time. But that's that's where we we went to the people again. And and there was a hearing in the state capitol on this legislation. And my lead off... it and it it was going to be in a small room, just a small hearing room, but they had to move the hearing to the largest room in the state capitol, the House chamber itself, with the galleries full and etc., people pouring in because my lead witness was Willie Nelson.
Deanna Zandt:
Oh, I'll put up a picture. Yes, I know. Exactly. It's amazing.
Jim Hightower:
And again, beautiful testimony to the short and to the point, talking about his cousin Cecil, near his hometown of Abbott and where he'd grown up, and he and Cecil sitting around one day not long ago and and Cecil said, saying, well, you know, well, they said, Cecil, I notice that there aren't any horny toads anymore. What happened to the horny toads?
Jim Hightower:
And Cecil said the pesticides got them and, and then, and then say, some said you don't see any mockingbirds anymore either. And why is that. Well, pesticides got them. And so when he said I'm here for the mockingbirds and the horny toads. So at the end of that hearing, Barbara Jordan, by the way, was my second witness, and the third witness was the chairwoman of the Dallas Republican Women's Organization because Republicans don't want their babies eating pesticides either.
Jim Hightower:
So so we put that coalition together and it would had. And the big lesson here for for progressive politicians is, is go to the people because you're going to lose inside. Inside is where money matters and the lobbyists win. That fight. But if you go to the people and bring them inside, which is what we did in that hearing with Willie Nelson, Barbara Jordan and there's a Republican lady out of Dallas, then you've got some going and people are going to pay attention to it in a way they otherwise wouldn't.
Deanna Zandt:
Fantastic. Thanks. Hightower, Oh, I love this. I love all the context for my yeah, my nerdy Texas history. So, yeah. Appreciate it. Hightower. Appreciate your time.
Jim Hightower:
You bet. Take care. Bye bye. Stay away from fire ants.
Blast from the past: Hightower, Reagan Brown, Fire Ants, Willie Nelson and Turning Over Power to the People