I try not to think too much on things – just try to stay above water and not dwell too much. But I have a little more time on my hands these days since they’ve shortened my schedule at South Works If I thought it was to share the burden among everybody at the steel mill it would sit all right with me, but it’s obvious that the boss is giving special treatment based on skin color. Aren’t we all in this together?

I voted for President Roosevelt. For the first time in my life, no one kept me from the polls with fake taxes, impossible tests or beatings. I guess I thought the vote would mean something, but here I am on a three-day work week, sitting in my crumbling apartment on the South Side of Chicago, and I’m hoping for the best and expecting the worst. My wife and daughters aren’t home. The girls are in school, and Susan is looking for housework. They can’t see me just sitting here, listening to the radio. So many celebrations around me, but I just can’t help thinking:

I left my home in Mississippi for this?

Daddy says I have to turn down the Gramophone. But doesn’t this make you want to dance? I want to be a The Rockettes, we went to go see them a few Christmases ago, but Mommy says I should just forget about them. But I don’t want to! They’re more fun to remember than anything SHE wants me to think about right now. SHE wants me to think about Peter and Eric all the time like she does, or to watch over Kurt and John. But there’s so much else to see, right here in New York! Like the dancing on Election Day.  She said it didn’t matter, because Peter and Eric and Daddy still have no work. My brothers have been out of school for a year now, trying to find work. Gracie Adler asked me at school yesterday why they don’t just stay at home like Daddy if no one is hiring anyway. Daddy can’t find work after the Saloon closed and didn’t need him there. I think Gracie’s right, because Peter told me a secret that he and Eric are thinking of sneaking onto a train and going far away so they’re not a burden anymore. I promised not to tell, but I really don’t want them to go.

…..Daddy let me turn up the radio, but only because they’ve stopped playing music and now President Roosevelt is speaking –

“We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity, with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values, with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike.”

Mommy’s crying again. I am too, but because “stern performance of duty” makes me think President Roosevelt is going to force me to do more chores.

I’m a long way from home, now. Working for Secretary Perkins is going to be quite the change from being a social worker back in Indianapolis. I got the call that the office of the President could use a woman with my capabilities within the Public Employment Bureau. Imagine my surprise! The Labor department is going to be a meaningful place with Roosevelt taking office. Part of my job will be to cooperate on interdepartmental initiatives and communicate policy properly. Although, based on the speech happening behind me, the President will be quite effective at communicating on his own. Can you hear that?

I was not a part of his Brain Trust or even the New York governor’s office, which means I still do not know what to expect. Other colleagues with a social worker background have been speculating that the President’s hatred of the Dole is going to keep us from helping the poor the way we would like to. Maybe I am naive, as some of the men in the office have already started to insist, but I think it is our job to show him that these times call for more than what governments have offered in the past. I can see that in him.

But enough about that – It’s time to celebrate, then I will get to work!

We have come a long way from Thomas Jefferson’s concept of the idealized yeoman farmer. It is almost laughable to think a small, independent farmer could survive, let alone thrive today. Industrialization and nation building dramatically impacted farming in America. As people moved westward in the mid to late 19th century, fulfilling the country’s quest for manifest destiny, the Great Plains were opened up for homesteading. Throughout the center of the country, homesteaders cultivated acres upon acres of rich farmland by busting up the sod that covered the Plains as fast as they could.

Industrialization brought new machines and methods to increase farming efficiency and production of crops, which we farmers paid for by taking out mortgages. Increasingly, the once independent American farmers developed dependent relationships with numerous banks, suppliers, and middle men to get their products to the market, an unstable industrial economy, and the national and international markets themselves.

The whole system of agriculture that developed fundamentally clashes with our ideals of independence and control and we want a new approach to agricultural policy that could give us that power back. We want higher prices, cheaper credit and minimum governmental interference, which ultimately resulted in an us against them mentality in which we farmers tried to either organize in cooperatives or win political backing for legislative/regulatory controls to alter the marketplace.

The crash in ’29 was not the beginning of the Depression for us, since the early 20s, following the Great War we have been struggling with drought, surplus and devastatingly low prices for our crops. Just due to the nature of farming, being at the mercy of the weather and the non-agricultural economy, we are extremely vulnerable. It also didn’t help that around the turn of the century in what might be considered a “golden age of American agriculture” we tripled the output of goods. Too much sod was busted and land cultivated, so now there is too much product. But there is a new president in office today and I’m optimistic things will change; I’m a farmer after all, it’s in our nature. How else could we survive the inherent ups and downs of farming?

In light of the recent earthquake that has nearly crippled our area, causing thousands of dollars in damage to homes and businesses, it was very nice to hear the strong and reassuring voice of our new president, Franklin Roosevelt. Tonight our whole neighborhood gathered at the fire station, to listen to Mr. Roosevelt’s radio address to the country since the fire trucks are the only vehicles with radios in them around here. The president discussed the banking crisis, explaining what he and the government were doing to fix the problems.

After listening to him say how bad it was for the banking system to hoard money and certifying the legitimacy of the banks that are slowly reopening, Al said on the way home we should do our part to help the economy and put our savings back into the bank when it opens. I am so grateful my whole family is safe, but I am deeply concerned what the damage from this earthquake in the midst of this depression could mean for us and our community. I need a job now more than ever.

I have to say, the beer is flowing all over the Black Belt. Last month they started allowing bottles with a 3.2% alcohol content. I’m thinking, maybe there are factories re-opening or expanding because of the new laws. Maybe there’s a job out there for me with more hours.

It was ridiculous, prohibition, to begin with. People always find a way, and all of these politicians were afraid to end this stupidity. Even the President only became “Wet” by the time the convention came around. Why did they stop all this? To restore self-government, protect individual rights, and to put an end to “crime, intemperance and social decay.” I can recall getting flyers from temperance groups in the South, wanting to ban alcohol for these very same reasons.
Susan’s less thrilled than I am; she went to a “Dry” Church in Mississippi. But even she admits it’s better to have saloons than Speakeasyss. Take away the forbidden nature of something and it loses its power. I know a little something about that. It’s the same reason I get along better with my white co-workers after they’ve gotten to know me over a beer. Things are better once they’re less mysterious.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to hit the bottle – I’m just curious to see what’s going to happen next.

I had great hopes for our new president, FDR. He seemed motivated and ready to help our country get out of this banking crisis and depression—which he is, but at what cost? Like many men of my generation, I served my country in the Great War. I saw first hand the horrors of war, being stuck on the front line for weeks in the cold and the mud, seeing my friends die or suffer breakdowns from the stresses of the trenches.

I came out of the war without sight in my left eye and two fingers amputated on my left hand due to a gas attack and exploding shells. Despite the sacrifices my fellow veterans and I made to uphold democracy and freedom, FDR is cutting funding to veterans.

It was a slap in the face last year when Hoover sent the National Guard to attack the Bonus Army, who were merely veterans marching on Washington to draw attention to and demand the bonuses we rightfully deserve now.  I wish I could have made it to Washington last year, a bunch of the guys who were in my company went, but I couldn’t leave my family and my job. The fact that we haven’t received our bonuses yet and FDR is slashing the budget on veterans’ affairs, I know there will be another Bonus Army march and I will be there this year.

They say that desperate times call for desperate measures, so how can anyone be very surprised at the actions of the Farmer’s Holiday Associations? Since 1930 they have been springing up throughout the Plains states, calling for farmers to keep their products off the market in hopes that the prices of the products will rise due to scarcity. We have mortgages to pay and so many of us lost any savings when the banks crashed so it has been necessary for us to try to come up with our own solutions. But these associations simply have not done enough, so a group of us have decided to start what is being called a “Committee for Action” right here in Newman Grove, NE. We use intimidation and force, if necessary, to stop the foreclosures and auctions of nearby farms.

Today our Committee for Action succeeded in saving Hugh Peterson’s farm. Late last night Hugh showed up on my doorstep greatly distraught and hoping the Committee could help him out. I could see it was difficult for him to swallow his pride and ask for assistance, but his only real alternative was to do nothing and lose everything. We all knew he was in trouble, so I was ready to send the word out, even at that late hour.

At the Peterson's farm - mostly Committee for Action men

A group of about a dozen of us showed up at the auction, and in speaking with the bank agent I made it abundantly that no real auction would be going on if he wanted to make it home safely to his family tonight. I don’t make idle threats and I could tell by the fear in his eyes he knew that. By the time the auction commenced three other Committees for Action from nearby communities had joined us to ensure this auction went as we planned it. On a $540 mortgage the property and equipment went for $5.46 and we transferred the ownership immediately to the Petersons.

There was a commotion on the front lawn of the White House this morning. To celebrate prohibition’s repeal, a factory brought a large truck with cases of beer just after midnight. “President Roosevelt, the first real beer is yours!”
I must say, I always thought of beer merely as a vice. Where I grew up, unrestricted alcohol made men and their families suffer terribly. I worked to repair the damage that drinking did to some families. After all, as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union said, “no nation drank itself out of a Depression.”
However, what are our priorities? I work in the Labor department, and have been constantly seeking the ear of the President to argue for more job-creating measures. Congressman Thomas H. Cullen appealed to our offices personally, promising that the bill would eventually create up to 1 million jobs – how could I disapprove of that?
There are other realities that are accompanying this Economy Act that worry me more than beer. It cuts federal budgets, rewriting veterans’ pensions rules, and even forbids women to work for the government if their husbands are already federally employed. That both the House and the Senate have passed it shows how eager they are to try everything they can to stop the hemorrhaging of the Depression. I only wish the President had listened to more of the members of Congress that spoke up on behalf of the needy that will lose pensions, access to federal aid, and more.

Drink up, everyone.

The news around town is that our President is trying to get a bill through Congress that would establish a project in Muscle Shoals, AL to fix up the land, plant trees, absorb marginal land, and provide flood control—essentially fix what we have destroyed through mining and deforestation (I guess I’m guilty of that last one.) They’re calling it the “Tennessee Valley Authority” a pretty fancy name for such a small project. Is this going to mean more projects throughout the Tennessee Valley? I sure hope it does. They are going to need local workers to get all that done and while I may be blind in one eye and have a few less fingers, I can still swing an ax or wield a shovel. I need to find some work, I’m going a little crazy being stuck at home with a farm that won’t grow anything. My wife and daughters have taken up making these mock handicrafts that are sold around the country as “authentic mountain crafts.” It’s their work that is putting food on our table, but they shouldn’t be doing that, it’s my job.

This is an aerial view of the Muscle Shoals area

After a long day of toiling in the fields and keeping up with the chores I like to relax by sitting out on the porch and whittle little figurines for the kids. I’ve become pretty adept at it even without a few of my fingers. My wife is always busy knitting or quilting in the evening. It is funny that she works all day making these fake “authentic mountain crafts” then we both spend our evenings making real “mountain crafts”! Well, I guess we need to do what we can if we are going to make it through this depression!