Nullius in Verba

Walter Lowdermilk was recruited by Rexford Tugwell in 1933 to serve as the second-in-command of the new Soil Erosion Service, later called the Soil Conservation Service. In 1938, he was tasked with studying how soil affects human life and well-being. He spent two years exploring lands once ruled by the Romans to find answers.

This is the beginning of Walter Clay Lowdermilk’s journey from an experimental watershed in Southern California to the center of the New Deal’s campaign against soil erosion. A meeting at a plant-introduction garden in Chico would bring his ideas to the attention of Rexford Tugwell and send Lowdermilk to Washington, where an unexpectedly chilly reception awaited him.

Crisis and Leviathan

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl created an extraordinary alignment of economic crisis, ecological catastrophe, and political opportunity, enabling Roosevelt’s New Deal to transform decades of Progressive thought into bold experiments in governance and conservation.¹

The Dust Bowl exposed the limits of knowledge and boosterism. Samuel Aughey Jr., a professor at the University of Nebraska claimed that broken soil absorbed water and released it back into the atmosphere. Land speculator and journalist, Charles Dana Wilber gave the doctrine its memorable formulation, “rain follows the plow” in his book, The Great Valleys and Prairies of Nebraska and the Northwest.

And Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Ph.D. had bold ideas for worldwide conservation. Having completed his graduate work at University of California at Berkeley, he was the principal scientific architect of the San Dimas Experimental Forest. He selected its paired watersheds, devised its original research plan and experimental procedures, and began the rainfall, runoff, and erosion studies that became the foundation of the project.

Knowles Ryerson’s work intrigued Lowdermilk. Ryerson directed the USDA’s foreign plant-introduction program, bringing legumes, shrubs, and grasses into the United States and testing them at Plant Introduction Gardens, including the station at Chico, California.

Lowdermilk had long imagined something more ambitious: an international exchange among the United States, China, and South Africa of plants capable of restoring gullied land and soils damaged by water and wind erosion.

The Meeting at Chico

In 1933, Ryerson telegraphed Lowdermilk that Rexford Tugwell, then Assistant Secretary of Agriculture and a prominent member of Roosevelt’s Brain Trust would be coming to visit the program, he arranged for Lowdermilk to meet Tugwell at the Plant Introduction Garden in Chico.

Lowdermilk arrived carrying the working plan for his proposed international exchange. He showed it to Tugwell, who asked to keep the copy. Tugwell then spent several days examining Lowdermilk’s research at Berkeley and San Dimas and discussing the national menace of soil erosion.

The encounter changed Lowdermilk’s life. In September 1933, he was ordered to leave San Dimas and report to Washington as associate chief of the newly formed Soil Erosion Service.

Washington and Hugh Bennett

Believing the assignment to be temporary, he left Inez and their two children in Berkeley, packed two suitcases, and crossed the country by train. In Washington, he took a room at the then all-male Cosmos Club and walked and walked the few blocks to the Winder Building to report to Hugh H. Bennett.

Bennett did not offer to shake Lowdermilk’s hand.

¹ It also imposed new regulations, enforcement, and resentment — the machinery of a new administrative state arriving in places that had not asked for it and did not want it.

Sources

Walter Clay Lowdermilk, Soil, Forest, and Water Conservation and Reclamation in China, Israel, Africa, and the United States, interview by Malca Chall, 1969, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, p. 132

Inez Marks Lowdermilk, All in a Lifetime (Berkeley, CA: The Lowdermilk Trust, 1985), p. 104

Jacoby, Karl. Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation p. 34.

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

Now, the conclusion to The Problem with Ben Saada:

February 2, Thursday—Off in the morning to the souks to take the cashmere shawl to be wrapped with the other things, and also to have my picture taken in an Arabian costume in native atmosphere.

The costume Aunt Inez and I got requires a shirt to be worn between the brassiere top and baggy pants, and since I possessed nary a one, he [Saada] gave me a modern costume to wear. It was of beautiful metallic cloth, but I do not like it as well as ours.

Then he took my picture on the Bey’s bed and up on the terrace with the beautiful old tiles as the background and the old towers of the neighboring minarets. After lunch at our hotel Billy, Westher and I returned to the souks where Billy bought a box, beautifully inlaid—but still a useless thing for a fellow.

After dinner Mr. Saada took the rest of us into the poorer quarter to see their life. It was fete night and should have been very colorful, but the rain of the evening had stopped all gaiety. Little ragged children were curled up sleeping in the shelter of the eaves, and beggars squatted near doorways, but other than these pitiful few, the streets were empty and deserted.

Once when driving by a street, and Negro appeared but when she was asked to dance for us she refused and no amount of pleading could persuade her. We all were Mr. Saada’s guests at the one nightclub of the best standing and danced for a couple of hours and then to bed.

February 3, Friday—We were all invited to Mr. Saada’s for a couscous lunch and it was a delicious one too. Upstairs away from the din of the streets, seated on soft rugs in an Oriental Arabian atmosphere, we ate to our heart’s content of chicken couscous (prepared by Mrs. Sato’s mother) and candy, fruit and coffee to finish off the feast.

Uncle had left on an important appointment. I had decided to change my cashmere shawl, since Mother had one of Grandma Moody’s put away for me, for a native woven wool couch cover.

Mr. Saada told the others to sit down and then took me in another room where he shocked me by saying he loved me and was going to divorce all his wives for me. Aunt Inez felt “something in her bones” and so came in just the nick of time. Smelled a lot of perfume. Mr. Saada gave me some and a pair of slippers.

Back to the hotel soon after 5. He appeared on the scene about an hour later with a couple of records of native dances and the pictures taken the day before which were quite good. We had a good long talk with my telling him not to divorce his wives and with him telling me that someday I would love him and come to Tunis—OH YEAH!!! During dinner he returned this time with a box of candy for the trip.

Took a bath and then to bed. What a day!!

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

January 31, Tuesday—Wrote in the morning and then off for a couscous meal at the Baghdad. Got the car and drove over to the Kelly’s to say “hello”, and then to the souks. It’s wonderful to sit tailor-fashion on a pile of beautiful rugs with beautiful tapestries and old Persian rugs hanging on the walls and in this quiet restful atmosphere sip tea and talk leisurely—the Arab gentleman in yellow vest, soft yellow slippers and flowing white burnoose. He gave me a “wedding present” of two rug seat covers. Mac got two gorgeous old Mecca rugs. While we were sitting waiting for the tea to be poured, the Arab, Ben Saada, which means “man of chance” said that the one who got the last cup of tea poured would be married within a year, and he gave it to me.

Then he took us downstairs into a small secluded room and we sniffed and bought the essences to wonderful fragrances. Chanel, Patou and others by the essence from this very man, mix the perfume together with alcohol and sell them for a price. It was after 7 when we left. He took us in his car to our car, for it was raining. He has a Citroen which compares with a Ford or a Packard for traveling.

February 1, Wednesday—Wrote in the morning and then at 12:30 the Kelley’s took us out to a lovely restaurant for luncheon. Aunt Inez went back to the hotel to write, but Wester, Billy, Mrs. Kelley and I went to the souks to pay for some rugs. We made a beeline or as much as a beeline as possible in the narrow, twisting, dirty, muddy streets, for it had been raining, to Palais de Orient, the shop of Ben Saada.

He was waiting for us, and, while I wanted to pay the first thing, we were shown into a small room where we leisurely sipped tea and ate dates, candied quince and Turkish delight. Then I picked out a leather cushion, the best, and he knocked the price way down. We went upstairs and while showing Mrs. Kelley the antiques we came across the Saracen belt. Mr. Ben Saada said I could have it for 80 francs, and I took it. It was just the right size too. Then he picked out several ancient Roman coins for a bracelet and gave them to me.

He also gave all of us a Fatma’s Hand of Chance. The Bey had a wife named Fatma whom he loved dearly, but one day found her with another man. He was supposed to kill her, but he loved her so much that instead he cut off her hand—the Fatma’s Hand of Chance. Then I bought an old cashmere shawl and a tray and by this time it was very late. Mr. Ben Saada took us in his car to get Mr. Kelley’s car which was left at the edge of the souks. First thing we had a flat which delayed us and then the Kelley’s car wasn’t to be found. We left Mrs. Kelley at the Port de France and then went back to look up telephone messages at the hotel, but there were none. In the meantime Mrs. Kelley found Mr. Kelley and everything was OK.

Mr. Saada took the rest of us home to dinner at the hotel. He had wanted to take us out to show us the Arabian nightlife but uncle was gone all day and hadn’t returned—so no go.

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

Apologies for neglecting the travelogue. I have just completed writing the biography of two fascinating people. it is the story of Walter and Inez Lowdermilk, an American couple who came to see soil erosion as a threat to civilization. Their pursuit of land conservation carried them from China and the Dust Bowl to Palestine, where their ideas about reclaiming the land helped build the case for the creation of Israel.

It now will go to some beta readers to tell me if it is as good as I think it is.

The writing and research relied heavily on this young woman, Elizabeth Moody, who married her high school sweetheart, Forrest Daggett in 1941.

This diary entry is the beginning of perhaps my favorite entry in all of Elizabeth’s tales about her travels with her aunt, uncle, and cousins on the trip of a lifetime.

January 29, Sunday—I had to put oil on my hair before going to wash it for the water is very hard. It took 3 shampoos to cut the oil and I rinsed my hair several times, but even so something was decidedly wrong. My hair felt like a horses’ and was a hopeless mess of snarls and tangles. Aunt Inez came in and brushed and combed it, and it was soap that was still in it. After a half hour it was presentable.

Hurriedly I dressed and raced down the street with Billy to catch up with Uncle, Auntie, Wester and Mr. Abry who were headed for a visit to the souks. We caught up with them and were soon in narrow streets covered above with brilliant-colored scarves and materials hanging on the walls and natives begging us to come in and buy. We drifted into several small shops and looked and bargained. Aunt Inez got several purses and some perfume.

We ate a couple of bananas seated on some steps in the souks—a lot of fun. Then we got in a rug shop and Uncle and Auntie really let themselves go. It was wonderful. We were served delicious mint tea seated cross-legged on a pile of rugs and Auntie and Uncle bought one, and an oriental girls costume, old, with baggy satin trousers embroidered in silver and a brassiere top to match. Then a white net veil with silver design cover face and head.

Oh, boy!

I got a fez too. We all did. We were still looking at more rugs and they serve more tea with cakes, and then we bought some more rugs because the owner said since we had eaten his cakes we were his friends and he gave us a better price. We had a wonderful time. We were in there about three hours and when we came out it was almost dark. Mr. Abry stayed for dinner after which he, Mac and I, went wandering around town looking for the post office and then to dance at the Gaitie.

We visited the palace of the Bey, native ruler of Tunisia. There were only a few rooms of interest, the waiting room in beautiful tiles with a carved plaster ceiling, very interesting and dainty. The throne room with carved wooden ceiling in gold and reds, the old ding room (now the council chamber) in the same work as the throne room and the prime minister’s office with intricate carved plaster ceiling and then a wonderful view from the terrace of the harbor and surrounding city. Lovely rugs on the floor.

January 30, Monday—Got up late and wrote until time for lunch which we had at the Baghdad. A couscous meal with chicken, delicious. Uncle got money at the bank and then we all went to our rug shop at the souks to pay a good-sized bill. They served us tea again and we all talked and Auntie and I bought a lot of handwoven and hand embroidery baby burnouses for gifts. Then while Uncle paid and settled a bill,

Aunt Inez and I went into a shop up the street. It wasn’t pretentious from the outside but some Persian rugs in the windows caught our eyes. It was fascinating on the inside—everything imaginable from jewelry, rugs, native dress, trays, pillows, antiques—you wander from one room into another and into another. A good-looking Arab in a white draped burnouse waited on us and showed us around. The rugs were upstairs, room after room of them. He served us coffee and we found out that he was cousin to the Bey and had three wives, who he loved equally.

That was quite a shock.

We saw then the golden bed of the Bey who slept in the middle with two wives on either side. He showed us his terraced roof, beautifully tiled in yellows and blues with potted flowers around, and far lovelier than the Bey’s palace. I

went back after Billy, Wester and Mac (Uncle had an appointment) and then we started looking at rugs. Two of the most wonderful Persians I ever hope to see. They were gifts to the Bey 70 years ago from the Shah of Persia (intends and blues and one way light and the other dark.) The back of the silk carpet was a wonderful tapestry, but each one while small was $450 apiece. They are not made anymore.

Then we looked at Kairohan rugs and I got one. It is thick and soft and will last years and years. It is in all natural colors and will not fade. It was finally after 6:30 when we left and the souks deserted and closed and quite spooky. We were glad to accept the offer of the Arab gentlemen of an escort and soon found ourselves back in town. M. Abry was supposed to come for dinner but had been away all day in the South of Tunisia and so didn’t arrive until midnight, consequently we won’t see him again until spring. Went to bed but the little cur [Mecktube] cried all night long for me to play with him.

Walter Lowdermilk was recruited by Rexford Tugwell in 1933 to serve as the second-in-command of the new Soil Erosion Service, later called the Soil Conservation Service. In 1938, he was tasked with studying how soil affects human life and well-being. He spent two years exploring lands once ruled by the Romans to find answers.

This is from a letter sent by diplomatic pouch to Hugh H. Bennett the Chief of the Soil Conservation Service. Walter was nominally second in command. The letter was sent somewhere around December, 1938, while he was in Fascist Italy. He champs at the bit to do fieldwork, but alas, “our time is not our own.”

We arrived in Rome about noon amidst many surging ideas and impressions. We proceeded directly to the American Embassy where we were expected. We found a big batch of mail and also to our keen regret that Cohee had left only a few days before. We had hoped to see him in Rome, and would have done so had we not been delayed by the slight accident with the car in France, mentioned in my last letter.

We called on Mr. Clyde Marquis at the International Institute of Agriculture and found a warm welcome. Mr. Marquis furnished us an office so that we could have a place to open out our papers and do some work. The Embassy began negotiations for our visit to typical areas of reclamation and torrent control indicated in our itinerary.

A new rule has gone into effect in Italy which requires that outside contacts shall be made through the Ministry of Popular Culture. We found the Minister Alfieri very cordial and willing to make arrangements for a visit to typical works with officials of the Ministry of Agriculture. It took three days for this to be worked out. In fact a man was sent to North Italy to work out a schedule for my visit. With the writing of this letter we are setting off by train to meet the Presidente del Magistrato delle Acque at Venice tonight.

We have had to fit our plans to the customs of the country. The eating habits of Europeans does not fit field work. For breakfast one has a cup of coffee and a roll, a little butter, and a dab of jam if you insist on it. When one tries to get more it causes a commotion in the management. One morning we attempted to get some eggs in addition to our breakfast. The waiter had to go to see the manager about them; the manager came to us and after considerable discussion we finally got boiled eggs, so we have dropped into the way of the country in taking a very meager breakfast. When we go out to the field we are not well fortified for mountain climbing. But then the continental makes up for it by making sure you arrive at a restaurant to his special liking at noon or one o’clock. Then he insists on a lunch which in reality is the heaviest meal of the day. To this important repast he devotes not less than two hours, and usually three; thus in these short days the very heart of the day, and the best time of the day for photographing, is used up within the walls of some restaurant. I would prefer to have a heavier breakfast and take sandwiches out into the field, or even do without lunch and make up for it at the evening meal. It would not be worth the effort, however, to bring about such a change of custom of the officers with whom we have been making our field trips. For once we have placed ourselves in the hands of the officials responsible for conducting us to places of special interest – our time is not our own. From early to late we are in the hands of officials who feel it their duty to entertain us to the limit. So by the time we get to bed at eleven or twelve at night we are pretty well worn out. We do get a large amount of information this way, but we would much prefer to have our evenings so as to write up more of the information, and prepare for the following day. But this is a part of the game which we have to play and we do not complain about it.

Traveling with French and Roman officials has its thrills. Never have we traveled so fast by automobile. Several times we have been driven by the officials in their cars or by their drivers, at more than 80 miles an hour on roads that I would not think of driving faster than 50 miles. The driver blasts out the way for his car with his horn. With an almost continuous hooting of his horn he warns numerous pedestrians and cyclists of the oncoming car. I am yet unable to explain why more people are not killed on these highways. One driver had two horns on his car, each with a different pitch; his one ambition in life was to travel as fast as the road would let him; he warned pedestrians and cyclists by hooting first one horn and then the other, and if necessary both at the same time, to blast the way for his speeding automobile. Some of these drives have been really breath taking as we have whirled around curves over precipitous slopes overlooking valleys or lakes far below. We must say that these professional drivers, or chauffeurs, do manage to make time over the highways.

“Elizabeth Moody, age nineteen and very beautiful, accompanied her Uncle, Dr. Walter C. Lowdermilk and family on an official trip for the United States government, using their personal car and paying their own expenses, to study old Roman lands for the benefit of the US soil conservation service, and American farmers to find out what could be [learned] of the agricultural successes and failures of the past.” – Forward to Lowdermilk’s niece’s diary

January 19, Thursday—Wrote. Mdm. and monsieur Aubere had lunch with us and we afterward down town and shopped. Aunt Inez bought a zircon ring that looks like a huge diamond. Mac bought a beauty of a real diamond for some girl in the future and Wester, Billy and I acquired a puppy. A ragged Arab was holding a tiny little puppy which was shivering and trembling and we were so taken with a little thing that we bought him for Fr.30 ($.90). I don’t think he is more than a week old but he knows how to lap up milk. We have called him Mecktube which is “it is written” in Arabian, and it certainly fits this little baby. He is adorable. Even Uncle Walter succumbed to his charms. We got a bottle and a nipple and so far Billy M Wester have helped write well in looking after him. Dinner was quite hilarious for Aunt Inez flaunted her new brilliant ring under Uncle’s eye and quite caused a scene of surprise. Uncle knew Aunt Inez had been looking at diamonds and pricing them, so he was quite floored with what he saw. However, a zircon, while a real stone, had no words at all compared with the diamond. After dinner I read for quite some time and gave Mecktube some “doodies” when I came up. Wester and I had him in our room and we were up several times in the night—I hope it doesn’t keep up too long.