50 Years Ago
Late Spring/Early Summer 1952
by Maurice Telleen
published in The Draft Horse Journal, Summer 2002

You thought the war against Japan was over in 1945 with all the signing on the battleship Missouri, right? That is when Japan surrendered. As for a formal peace treaty, granting Japan sovereignty and officially ending the war, that happened on April 15, 1952. Forty-nine other nations joined with the U.S. in recognizing their sovereignty. The Soviet Union was not one of the forty-nine. The Cold War was mighty frigid.

As for being at war in that part of the world, we still were. The peace talks in Korea drug on and on. So the U.N. (mainly us) stepped up the bombing of North Korea railyards, supply centers, hydroelectric plants and cities, to bring pressure on their negotiators.

The dictator business was alive and well in Cuba, as General Batista, for the second time in his life, seized control of the government. The first time was in 1933. In 1944 he was ousted. In 1952 he was back in the saddle. In 1959 he would be ousted by Fidel Castro and Batista would flee the country.

Overseas commercial jet service was becoming commonplace. Ironically the superliner United States made its first trial run at sea in May of that year. This was our answer to Britain’s Queen Mary. These big luxury liners were built to cross the Atlantic in about three days. The new jet service would soon be doing it in more like three hours.

The presidential sweepstakes were beginning to heat up with that early primary in New Hampshire. General Eisenhower (a non-candidate at that moment) beat Senator Taft from Ohio (a man who very much was a candidate) in the Republican primary. Senator Estes Kefauver from Tennessee (another man who very much wanted to be president) beat Truman (who wasn’t about to run for re-election) in the Democratic primary.

In April, General and NATO Commander Eisenhower requested that he be put on inactive duty. Truman was in no position to turn it down. The General was shedding his ‘I will not seek the nomination’ cloak. As for Truman, he had his candidate picked out. It would be Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois, unless Kefauver generated a groundswell. The “Dewey Republicans” were ecstatic. Senator Taft was silent.

The draft horse business was absolutely terrible. This was the year (1952) when Belgian registrations would touch bottom. Only 171 colts were recorded during the entire year. It was the first time since the very early days of the Association that the number was under 200. There was not a single person in the world (including asylums) who would have believed that 25 years later (1977) that number would rebound to 2,133. For every foal registered in 1952, there would be better than a dozen in 1977. That scenario seemed about as unlikely in 1952 as the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Prophecy is a risky business.

Agriculture Hall at Iowa State was completed in 1892. The second floor was the location for animal husbandry and the rest of agriculture. On the ground floor, there was a livestock room where classes of stock were judged by students. Dean Curtiss, until he retired in 1932, made sure the grass on campus was mowed with teams of horses. - Iowa State University Library/University Archives

Two of the real giants in the draft horse trade died that year. They were Ernie Humbert, Percheron breeder and breed leader, from Corning, Iowa, and Charley Wentz from Wharton, Ohio. Wentz had been a major power in the Belgian breed. Humbert died in bed, Wentz died on the highway when his car was struck by a fast train. There were, I’m sure, hundreds of other “worthies” leaving as the draft horse ranks aged and thinned.

But if there was one man, at least, in North America who was relentlessly optimistic, it was Hardy Salter, Canadian Percheron Secretary and editor of their Broadcaster. He was to Canada what Charley House was to the U.S. There was more real horse news and encouragement in that sheet than in any other. Salter reminded you a little of Wayne Dinsmore in the ‘20s–“We are headed for a real horse shortage, so breed those mares.”

A news item from the April 1952 Broadcaster puts some solid figures into the great liquidation which was beginning to wind down. The Canadian Co-operative Processors Ltd. announced in that issue that it would offer for sale its two horse meat processing plants at Swift Current, Saskatchewan, and Edmonton, Alberta. These were the only two government inspected plants in Canada for processing horse meat for human consumption. In the six years of operation they had processed more than 226,000 horses. One of the reasons given for their sale was the dwindling supply of top grade animals. Well, one would think so–about a quarter of a million horses out of those two prairie provinces in six years of diminished breeding would certainly result in a greatly reduced supply.

Those plants were owned by 36,400 shareholders. The one at Swift Current had recently filled a 10,000 ton contract with the Belgian government, as well as supplying retail outlets through Canada. Owners were being urged to ship their horses while the co-operative still had a stablilzing effect on the market.

Even so, Hardy Salter could always see better times ahead. So could Charley House. And, by golly, they were right.