IV

Throughout this period the distress of the people, which the Communists had sought to exploit, continued without abatement. The great industries had displaced thousands of men, and business conditions showed no signs of improving. Many of the unemployed who had had small reserves to fall back upon in the beginning had now exhausted their resources. One began to see destitute women walking the streets begging for food, and often small children trudged after them. In 1 week the chief of police reported to me that four women with nursing infants in their arms had sought shelter at police stations. By the early summer of 1931, demands for relief had become so heavy that the charity organizations were overwhelmed. Federal and State officials now admitted that they had sadly underestimated the gravity of the situation. By this time the city had come into possession of money from the first bonds that had been sold under the special bill passed by the legislature. We had planned a relief program of our own to supplement that of the charities, with disbursements apportioned throughout the year. The head of the Community Chest pleaded with us, however, to take over immediately a number of his most urgent cases, and we could not refuse. Consequently we had to spend our money as rapidly as it came in, and the last half of the year was left to take care of itself, with the hope that other funds could be raised at that time.

How does a city administer relief measures? The money which we had available for this purpose was turned over to the park department. Every man who applied for help had to submit to an investigation by the department of health. If the inspectors reported that his case was desperate, he was given an order on the superintendent of parks for 2 days' work a week. It was obviously impossible to extend aid to any but the most hopeless cases. If a man owned a small home, if a young couple possessed furniture, if a woman had a good coat or her husband a presentable suit, these things had to be sacrificed first. Not until they had drained every other resource was official charity able to do anything for them.

Under these circumstances it is needless to point out that countless numbers of the most worthy citizens received no help at all. Indeed, Youngstown's experience in unemployment relief proves beyond question that the benefits of such measures are confined almost wholly to colored people and those of foreign birth. Men of education, unfortunates in the class of white-collar workers, mechanics, and mill employees who have held positions of consequence, are left out in the cold. They need help as badly as the others, but nothing has been done for them. Hosts of these newly poor, after exhausting every resource of credit and friendship, have sunk down to the lower levels, from which they may never rise again.

In the autumn of 1931 a final blow laid the city of Youngstown prostrate. The atmosphere was poisoned with a new fever of apprehension, with rumors that began no one knew where and ended in panic. "Have you heard?" everybody whispered excitedly. "The banks *** buzz, buzz, buzz *** the banks." People who were fortunate enough to have money deposited hurried to withdraw it.

Day after day the drain continued, and the bankers had to stand by helplessly while their reserves melted away. Then three of the banks closed their doors, and fear ran riot.

At once concerted efforts were made to protect the other banks. Depositors were besought not to withdraw their savings and were urged to bring back what they had carried away to hide. Statements calling upon the people to have confidence were issued to everyone of supposed influence. The ministers joined the campaign with sermons on civic faith and hope. But confidence was shattered. Had not everybody in authority, from the President down, been making optimistic statements for 2 years, and had not subsequent events disproved all predictions? Could anybody be trusted to tell the truth? Did anybody really know? People stood on the street corners asking each other anxious questions. Never before had all the old landmarks of security been so shattered. Never had Youngstown suffered such a shock to the spirit which had made it one of the great industrial centers of the world. Nobody could now deny that America was in the throes of a panic.

Another winter was approaching. The numbers of the unemployed had increased, and suffering had grown acute. Many heads of families had not earned a penny in 2 years. Landlords clamored for their rents and sought evictions. Communists protested loudly and threatened to use force to put back anyone who was dispossessed. Thousands of the city's water bills were unpaid, and officials were torn between their desire to be charitable, their fear of disease if the water were cut off, and the city's urgent need of money. Property owners could not pay their taxes, and delinquencies became appalling.

Such a large proportion of the taxes were uncollectable that the city and county governments had to face the certainty that unless something was done they would soon lack funds to operate. A wild clamor went up to reduce public expenditures. (A year before, the cry had been to keep men at work.) The budget for 1932 would have to be cut 40 percent. This meant that innumerable men who had been saved from starvation by doing part-time work would have to be turned away to join the ranks of the wholly unemployed. In consideration of this dilemma a special 1-mill tax levy for relief was finally voted at the November election, but it was apparent that the returns from this source would have to be substantially discounted because of tax delinquencies. As in Cleveland, we adopted the slogan, "Pay your taxes, so the hungry can be fed," and the words meant just what they said, for by this time the private charities were swamped, desperate, and bankrupt.

Such was the state of affairs in-Youngstown as we turned the corner of the new year, and it is common knowledge that many another once-thriving community now finds itself in the same predicament. What 1932 may do to alter these conditions no one can say, but perhaps we should take cold comfort in the thought that, no matter what turn events may take, they are bound to induce a change for the better, since it is hardly conceivable that the situation can grow much worse than it already is.

V

Often, as I have watched the line of jobseekers at the city hall, I have had occasion to marvel at the mysterious power that certain words and phrases exercise upon the human mind. A wise man once observed that words rule mankind, and so it is in America today. Prominent politicians and businessmen have repeatedly stated that, come what may, America must not have the dole. To be sure, we should all be much happier if we could get along without a dole, but the simple truth is that we have it already. Every city in the land has had a dole from the moment it began unemployment relief. The men who apply for help know that it is a dole. The officials who issue work orders can be in no doubt about it, for the work done in no way justifies the money spent, except on the basis of a dole.

Why, then, so much concern about the word? Perhaps because, if we were honest enought to recognize unemployment relief for the dole it really is, we should also have to be honest enough to admit that the depression is a catastrophe of historic proportions, and courageous enough to deal with it accordingly. One alternative to the dole would be to let all the unfortunates starve to death, but so far no one has advanced this proposal, although some have come pretty close to it in saying that the way out of the depression is to let nature take its course. Those who have not been willing to go so far as that have maintained, however, that each community must look after its own unemployed, and that under no circumstances must the Federal Government assume any responsibility for them. For 2 years local communities have carried the burden unassisted, and many of them, like Youngstown, have prostrated themselves in doing it. We of the cities have done our best, laboring against conditions which were beyond our control. But, even if we are given full credit for trying, we must now admit that we have failed miserably. Whether this was caused by a lack of simple charity in the hearts of our people or by our incapacity to manage our financial problems is beside the point. The fact of our failure is patent. We of the cities have not advanced a single new idea on unemployment or its relief. We have not dared to consider the fundamental questions raised by our social and economic collapse. We are still as stupidly devoted as ever to the philosophy of laissez faire, and we face the future bewildered and purposeless. Our one great achievement in response to this national catastrophe has been to open soup kitchens and flophouses.

And nobody has taken the trouble to weigh the consequences of our well meant but ineffective charity upon the moral fiber of the American people. Seventy years ago we fought a civil war to free black slaves; today we remain indifferent while millions of our fellow citizens are reduced to the status of paupers. There is a world of difference between mere poverty and pauperism. The honest poor will struggle for years to keep themselves above the pauper class. With quiet desperation they will bear hunger and mental anguish until every resource is exhausted. Then comes the ultimate struggle when, with heartache and an overwhelming sense of disgrace, they have to make the shamefaced journey to the door of public charity. This is the last straw. Their self-respect is destroyed; they undergo an insidious metamorphosis, and sink down to spiritless despondency.

This descent from respectability, frequent enough in the best of times, has been hastened immeasurably by 2 years of business paralysis, and the people who have been affected in this manner must be numbered in millions. This is what we have accomplished with our breadlines and soup kitchens. I know, because I have seen thousands of these defeated, discouraged, hopeless men and women, cringing and fawning as they come to ask for public aid. It is a spectacle of national degeneration. That is the fundamental tragedy for America. If every mill and factory in the land should begin to hum with prosperity tomorrow morning, the destructive effect of our haphazard relief measures would not work itself out of the Nation's blood until the sons of our sons had expiated the sins of our neglect.

Even now there are signs of rebellion against a system so out of joint that it can only offer charity to honest men who want to work. Sometimes it takes the form of social agitation, but again it may show itself in a revolt that is absolute and final. Such an instance was reported in a Youngstown newspaper on the day I wrote these lines:

FATHER OF 10 DROWNS SELF

JUMPS FROM BRIDGE, STARTS TO SWIM, GIVES UP, OUT OF WORK 2 YEARS

Out of work 2 years, Charles Wayne, aged 57, father of 10 children, stood on the Spring Common Bridge this morning, watching hundreds of other persons moving by on their way to work. Then he took off his coat, folded it carefully, and jumped into the swirling Mahoning River. Wayne was born in Youngstown and was employed by the Republic Iron & Steel Co. for 27 years as hot millworker.

"We were about to lose our home," sobbed Mrs. Wayne. "And the gas and electric companies had threatened to shut off the service."

[From "The Great Crash," Houghton Mifflin Co., Publishers]

"WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?"

Isaiah 21: 11

(BY JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH)

The military historian when he has finished his chronicle is excused. He is not required to consider the chance for a renewal of war with the Indians, the Mexicans, or the Confederacy. Nor will anyone press him to say how such acrimony can be prevented. But economics is taken more seriously. The economic historian, as a result, is invariably asked whether the misfortunes he describes will afflict us again and how much they may be prevented.

The task of this book, as suggested on an early page, is only to tell what happened in 1929. It is not to tell whether or when the misfortunes of 1929 will recur. One of the pregnant lessons of that year will by now be plain: it is that very specific and personal misfortune awaits those who presume to believe that the future is revealed to them. Yet, without undue risk, it may be possible to gain from our view of this useful year some insights into the present and the future. We can distinguish, in particular, between misfortunes that could happen again and others which events, many of them in the aftermath of 1929, have at least made improbable. And we can perhaps see a little of the form and magnitude of the remaining peril.

II

At first glance the least probable of the misadventures of the late twenties would seem to be another wild boom in the stock market with its inevitable collapse. The memory of that autumn, although now much dimmed, is not yet gone. As those days of disenchantment drew to a close, tens of thousands of Americans shook their heads and muttered, "Never again." In every considerable community there are yet a few survivors, aged but still chastened, who are still muttering and still shaking their heads. The new era had no such guardians of sound pessimism.

Also, there are the new Government measures and controls. The powers of the Federal Reserve Board-now styled the Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve System-have been strengthened both in relation to the individual Reserve banks and the member banks. Mitchell's defiance of March 1929 is now unthinkable. What was then an act of arrogant but not abnormal individualism would now be regarded as idiotic. The New York Federal Reserve Bank retains a measure of moral authority and autonomy, but not enough to resist a strong Washington policy. Now also there is power to set margin requirements. If necessary, the speculator can be made to post the full