The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-01-25
What the Crisis
Did to a TOQvn
In Oklahoma

SALLISAW, Okla.-What q perfect
picture Of the collapse Of capitalism
is Sequoyah County, oklahoma From
one end OF the county to the OF
ruin and destruction, desolation stand
out conSpicuously. Twenty-Five yacc1
ago this was a prosperous agricul-
tural community. There were we'll
kept farms, neat farm houses. and
good barns and fences. Today many
Of the houses are entirely gone, TIE
fence posts are fallen down or en-
tirely gone, and the barns are in a
rotten condition. Tens Of thousands
Of acres Of farm land have been de-
serted. The few houses that remain
are miserable, woebegone m k e =
shifts, with very poor roofs and
caVed-in-floors. In one section Of the
county where once stood 40 or more
farm houses there are now some five
or six, the buildings that remain en-
tirely unfit for habitation.
Sallisaw, the county seat of Sc
quoyah Sounty, was once a thriving
little city. On Saturdays and other
special days many hundreds Of pros
porous farmers, together with their
families thronged the streets. Three
banks did a prosperous business in
Sallisaw twenty years ago; there were
some Is large general stores sharing
in the prosperous business of the
county at the county seat. In adj
dition, there were eight other towns
that did a prosperous business in the
county. It was a difficult undertake
ing to push ones way along the
streets on busy days. People had
money and were buying what they
needed. -Four barber shops were kept
busy, and there were any number of
restaurants and hotels. In the bar
Der shops one had to wait his turn,
for there were hundreds able to get
work done at the shops. Tens Of
thousands of bales of cotton were
shipped out of this county every year.
RUIN AND DESOLATTON
Today the county seat is mis-
cradle scene of ruin and desolation.
A few dozen decayed buildings with
rotten roofs and floors mark the res
idential section. Two business houses
do most Of the business Of the town,
and the business of these houses de-
ponds mostly upon the relief money
put into the county by the govern
ment.
Even on Saturdays, the great trad
ing day in the South, there are few
people on the streets of the county
seat; the barber shops are all but
deserted. The store buildings are in
a leaky condition. Strolling along
the sidewalks are a few dozen men,
women and children, dressed in rags
and tatters, often, and shoes that
long since should have been replaced
with new ones. With a little relief
money that the government has al
lowed these people, they buy a little
sugar, coffee, flour, and such things
as they are compelled to have. Lux
urleS are undreamed Of by the ma
jority. 1t is no trouble to get ones
turn at the barber shop now, for
shave or hair cut at a barber shop
is beyond the financial limits of the
majority. The county seat now does
almost the entire business of the
county, the other eight towns having
almost completely been deserted.
For ten years the history of
SalIisaw has been a record of dis
appointment. Banks have failed
and merchants have failed; farmers
have failed. When the great day
Of reckoning comes for capitalism,
Sallisaw and Sequoyah County will
have a serious charge of crime to
hurl at the institution that has
ruined them.
Well do I remember the cynical
smile that used to play over the faces
of those prosperous merchants and
bankers when they were told of what
was coming. "You are a calamity
bowler" they would say. I'VE are
conservative business men. It is the
wild Spectator that is caught in the
throes Of business failure. We do
things up in a busineSs-like way.
and business way means security
against failure" But most of those
conservative business men have
failed, and some of them have died
with broken hearts, perhaps. At any
rate, the town and county is a pic
ture of ruin and desolation. Yet.
there are some who try to make the
miserable survivors believe that
Roosevelt can put new life in the pic
ture Of ruin and desolat,on. 1t will
take something entirely different to
do this