LIFE IN THE THIRTIES

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] closing time the close of an era a great big spree the Jazz Age is over although in the 1920s the great American word was prosperity now the thirties have begun and there is a new word depression [Music] little man what now well you can always sell surplus apples five cents piece on the street corner and if you'd be wildered panicky at what's happening to you in your country you aren't alone one of America's biggest industrialists has openly admitted I am afraid every man is afraid [Music] prosperity is just around the corner say the hopeful headlines but around the corners wind the lengthening bread lines and a whole new class of citizens appears in American society the new poor and when private charity can no longer carry the burden the states are forced to act the New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt is the first to supply direct emergency relief to the unemployed [Music] [Applause] the same paralysis that lames the city's blights the farms and out in the country two men are asking what's wrong what's happening farm prices have dropped disastrously and a man's work no longer brings him a just return the threat of foreclosure of losing house and home spreads through the conservative farmlands and radical talk is boiling into action in Iowa the farmers holiday Association organizes to block the flow of farm product to the city in an attempt to force prices up it is illegal action but one farmer says seems to me there was a tea party in Boston that was illegal too [Music] the crisis spreads from all over the country unemployed veterans of World War one march on Washington 15,000 of them they demand immediate payment of a cash bonus promised them for the future they need it now they want it now but the Senate boats know and authorities see in the bonus marchers a mob animated by the spirit of revolution a menace to the nation's capital troops dispersed the veterans and burn down their shanty settlement [Music] not since the Civil War has such pressure political economic social centered on the White House in the face of a hostile press and a divided Congress Herbert Hoover makes unprecedented use of government power to encourage recovery but his fundamental faith is in the rugged individualism of the American people and in private enterprise economic depression he says cannot be cured by legislative action but the basic causes of the deepening crisis remains stubbornly obscure even to the business leaders summoned to the White House the explanation offered by humorous Robert Benchley is as good as any now the primary causes of the depression as we called it over productions maladjustments in gold distribution overproduction inflation too little thyroid secretions or plant disease too much vermin overproduction and by the same token under production then too there was the Gulfstream all of these help would lead to inflation deflation and overproduction with a consequent depression many are beyond joking a report from Detroit says men are sitting in the parks all day long out of work muttering to themselves some succumbed to apathy some are swept by alarm and bank after bank across the country is hit by panic withdrawals new lines appear on American streets depositors swarming to snatch out what savings they have left before it's too late banks by the hundreds by the thousands are forced to close on the eve of the presidential election of 1932 the whole financial system quakes and toddlers a bitter electorate of frightened people turns overwhelmingly against the party and power turns hopefully toward a new national leader Franklin D Roosevelt his campaign promised a new deal is campaign song happy days are here again Franklin Delano Roosevelt on his inauguration day in the tension and antagonisms of the moment the defeated president and the president of E barely speak as they ride together to the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremony the day is overcast and sullen shadowed by uncertainty in Washington and throughout the land for America something is ending this day something is beginning and no man can tell what one thing only a certain on this 4th of March 1933 the old order changes yielding place to new from the 32nd president of united states in his inaugural address come words that electrify a people desperate for hope and assurance this great nation will endure as it has endured will revive and will prosper so first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself whatever may be said of him this the people sense he is not afraid [Music] that night the new president promptly breaks with tradition he does not attend the inaugural ball instead he launches immediately on a program of legislation and reform without precedent in American history the New Deal begins at once this nation here said asks for action and action now action begins next day Sunday with secretary of the Treasury wooden the president orders every bank in the nation to close the holiday begins in a holiday mood for most but to assure the public that the banks will reopen safely the president hits upon his most popular innovation an informal report direct to the man on the street the fireside chat let me make it clear that the banks will take care of all needs and it is my belief that hoarding during the past week has become an exceedingly unfashionable pastime you people must have faith you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses let us unite in banishing fear we have provided the machinery to restore our financial system and it is a feel to support and make it work it is your problem my friends no less than it is mine together we cannot fail [Music] now every train to Washington brings its cargo of experts to join the great assault on the depression economists sociologists statisticians agronomists idealists world savers each bullet pet panacea a surefire system to save the country somebody writes a poem about it [ __ ] [ __ ] the grand old parties breaking camp blare of bugles din din the New Deal is moving in along with master politicians like James Farley and Louie how the president surrounds himself with bright young college professors such as Raymond moly Rexford guide Tugwell and Adolph burly men who generate new ideas and new policies they are the brain trust of the Roosevelt Revolution bill after bill pours into Congress from the White House whatever Roosevelt wants he gets the house is burning down says the Republican floor leader so give the president anything he needs to put out the fire through 100 historic days of a special session every new deal measured passes without question the country demands bold persistent experimentation the president says and the country gets Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace launches the AAA a program for managing and controlling America's farm resources the new Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes administers the PWA a program of public works designed to create jobs for the unemployed the Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins first woman cabinet member expert in employment problems an advocate of economic planning [Music] something like a war psychology grips Washington as the shake-up in government goes on night and day by headlong trial and error everything from federal theater projects to legalizing light wines and 3.2 beer and an alphabetical avalanche of new offices and agencies fer a CCC TVA but the most urgent measure in 1933 is NRA a system of codes administered by General Hugh Johnson to regulate wages hours and employment even Will Rogers gets behind [Music] [Music] working with comedians cold-cold the comedian and we've had quite an RV he wants to improve the Senators and the and I'm fighting against that because us amateurs do not want to be clad with professional and I'm arguing with this guy Dawson and he's tough boy he's tough this fella the thing is not to work [Music] so all America rallies round the Blue Eagle the symbol of NRA the National Recovery Act will have work will it spread employment and raise wages well Hugh Johnson has no doubt actually the agreement under what he got the Blue Eagle if every consumer will buy under the blue eagle and buy generously now to the very qualities prudently American business and employment would show the biggest work that it has known for years and we shall be on our way out of this depression before snow flies government by ballyhoo Sun : and denounce NRA as national regimentation alien to the American Way but most are caught up in the color and excitement of the times hasn't Roosevelt said we are on our way and heading in the right direction [Music] prohibition passes out at 35 and a half minutes past three on December 5th 1933 Utah becomes the 36th state to ratify the twenty-first amendment repealing the eighteenth beer is back not just 3.2 but real beer eight states remain dry but in the other 40 what's yours anything goes [Music] a new day in New Times and who can say what will happen before another morning rolls around things going on all the time nowadays that would have seemed impossible a few years ago some people worried what effect all these changes and reforms will have in the long run but the new dealers say people don't eat in the long run they eat every day so the changes keep coming what's going to happen next we don't know we can't say we're wondering one thing that's happening men are going to work for the government by the millions on new buildings roads schools bridges anything to get be forgotten man as Roosevelt calls him off the bread lines and on the job any job WPA it stands for Works Progress Administration but critics say it really means we poke along the Moondog link the shovel leaning becomes the target for anti administration widths and against the most spectacular of New Deal projects TVA the Tennessee Valley Authority opponents charge unfair government competition with private business but TVA generates cheap power for millions of homes and factories in a blighted area it works and it grows few object to the Civilian Conservation Corps the CCC it takes thousands of young men out of the towns and cities where there is nothing for them to do and puts them in government camps where there is plenty to do work that conserves the soil and replenishes the forests on the farm land paradox the New Deal promises the more abundant life but in the farm belt abundance is a burden now government agents go about preaching the gospel of profit control the economics of scarcity farmers are paid not to plant the Triple A the Agriculture Adjustment Act seeks to bolster farm income by ordering props plowed under and millions of acres of wheat cotton corn are left on planted and yet men are hungry that such measures are needed says secretary Wallace is a shocking comment on our civilization but farm prices do go up farm income Rises [Music] to the Troubles man makes for himself in the thirties nature adds disasters of her own hurricanes floods droughts across the Great Plains from the Texas Panhandle to the Canadian border the exhausted earth broken by the plow parched and eroded begins to blow away in great black blizzards the dust storms bring darkness at norm [Music] a lifetime turned to dust a way of life and by the thousands they abandon their homes flee the dust fall be uprooted of Oklahoma give a name to the new breed of dispossessed Americans Okies [Music] John Steinbeck tells the tale that is told of the Okies and he calls it The Grapes of Wrath they took the migrant way to the West in the daylight they scuttled like bugs to the West wood and as the dark caught them they clustered like bugs near to shelter into water and because they were lonely and perplexed because they had all come from a place of sadness and worry and defeat and because they were all going to a new mysterious place they huddled together they talked together they shared their lives they were not farm men anymore but migrant men [Music] the voice of the demagogue is heard in the land senator Huey Long of Louisiana with his rabble rousing shout of share the wealth he makes his bid to become dictator of America the Reverend Gerald L K Smith for the Charles E Coughlin dr. Francis II Townsend together and on their own they woo the frustrated and bewildered with slogans and panaceas dr. Townsend calls his patented cure-all the old age revolving pension plan and he claims five million followers the radio priest father Coughlin wins a growing following by scoffing at democracy and playing on racial prejudice thousands of Americans fearful of the expanding threat of communism from a radical left turn in their anxiety to the extreme right the Reverend Gerald Smith falls heir to the share the wealth movement when a political enemy murders Huey Long I always talk loud says the Reverend Gerald Smith and too many come to listen and believe but can't happen here the saying goes but it seems to be [Music] from Hyde Park on the Hudson a different voice Franklin Roosevelt relaxes with his wife and grandchildren at his ancestral home out of this patrician background has come his sweeping program of Social Security and reform a lifetime in public service despite inherited wealth and privileged position he is somehow acquired the common touch that endears him to the common man a personal magnetism an inner buoyancy have smooth his path in politics once he said to Orson Welles you and I have the two best actors in America his second home is Warm Springs Georgia where he finds relief in the mineral waters infantile paralysis deprived him of the use of his legs at the age of 39 the President of the United States is the first man in history to achieve world's stature without the ability to work his affliction says his wife Eleanor gave him strength and courage he had not had before but though a [ __ ] he is no envelope at Warm Springs he becomes dr. Roosevelt and frolics with his fellow victims whom he calls my gang [Music] we are going to make it a crusade says Roosevelt of his campaign for re-election in 1936 though major New Deal measures like NRA and triple-a have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court millions of men have been put to work and the National Business Index has almost doubled all across the land the president is hailed as a gay crusader who has led his nation out of the economic wilderness without dictatorship or revolution to the many who feel that happy days are here again is FDR the champ a counter crusade rolls across the country led by the Republican candidate Alf M lambda Abel governor of Kansas successful oilman middle-of-the-road conservative for him and for many the basic campaign issue is that of governmental power and it's abuse he says the question raised for this issue what powers the government shall have and what powers I shall not have can be the difference between representative government and an organized Authority wielded by one man against that one man that man in the White House the Republicans charged that he is destroying the American Way of life but he is leading the country down the road to socialism but he is Franklin deficit Roosevelt who's spending has increased the public debt by billions let's make it a Landon fly election night 1936 Roosevelt takes every state in the Union but Maine and Vermont and wins huge majorities in both houses of Congress it is the greatest political sweep in history during his campaign the president said this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny the United States moving toward that destiny enters the second term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt [Music]