The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-08-16
HOOVeryiHe

In his acceptance speech, President Hoover said:
I'VE have provided methods and assurances that
there shall none suffer from hunger and cold among
our people" This is too serious and solemn sub
ect to make the use of the customary, "Oh, yeah?"
fitting or adequate. Rather, we may turn to the
facts for rebutta
At the close of October 1928 the Republican party
ran its now famous campaign advertisement "A
chicken in every pot: Wages dividends progress and
prosperity say, Vote for Hoover"
The present hideous irony of this slogan is illus
trated admirably by Charles Walker in his article
on Relief and Revolution" in the Forum He thus
describes the living conditions among the homeless
and unemployed in the typical "Hoovervile" of an
American industrial town:
"A few weeks ago visited the incinerator and
public dump at Youngstown, O. Back of the garbage
house there at least three acres of waste land,
humpy with ash heaps and junk The area is not
on the outskirts, but in the middle of the steel mill
district with furnaces nearby, and the tube mills
and factory stacks of Youngstown.
"As you approach from the garbage house. certain
eXcrescences compete in vision with the ash humps
and junk They appear more organized than the
rest of the place. but is not sure. When, how
ever you come close there no doubt that the dump
is inhabited.
THE place is indeed a shanty town, or rather
collection of shanty hamlets, for the separate
botches are not all in one place, but break out at
intervals from the dump Some of them are caves
with tin roofs but all OF them blend with the place
for they are constructed out of it, From $50 to 200
men live in these shanties The place is called by
its inhabitants Hoovervile.
Il went forward and talked to these men; they
showed their houses. These vary greatly from
mere caves covered with piece of tin, to weather.
proof shanties built of packing boxes and equipped
with a stolen window frame or an improvised door
Some have beds and one or two kitchen stove
rescued from the junk heap, though most of the men
cook in communal fashion fire shielded by
bricks in the open.
1.-THE inhabitants we're not, might expect,
outcasts untouchables or hoboes the Amer
lean sense they were without jobs Life is SlIS-
tanned by begging eating at city soup kitchens, or
earning quarter by polishing automobile =
enough to bring home bacon and bread. Eating at
home is preferred
1.-The location of the town also has it's commssary
advantage men take part of their food from the
garbage house. This I entered; the stencil of decay
ing food is appalling. Here found that there were
more women than men-gathering food for their
families. In Hoovervle there
This pitiable village would be of little significance
if it existed only in youngstown, but nearly every
town in the United States has its shanty town for
the unemployed, and the instinct has named
them all 'Hooverville'."
No sane and fair person would Saddle Hoover with
full responsibility for the horrible conditions which
one finds in the Hoovervles of our country. But
certainly he can be criticised sharply for delay and
evasion in recommending measures which would have
made it possible for iobless men to live high
a plane as domestic animals