Evening star., 1936-09-07
Text of President Roosevelt's Speech
Describes Drought Devastation Nine States and Announces ALLEGATION
$250O,00O 10 U. S. Employment Service.
N thA Associated Press.

States; to see how effectively Federal
and local authorities are taking care
OF pressing problems Of relief and also
how they are to work together to
defend the people Of this country
against the effects Of future droughts.
I saw drought devastation in nine
States.
I talked with families who had lost
their wheat crop, lost their corn crop,
lost their live stock, lost the water
In their well, lost their garden and
come through to the end of the
Summer without ST Of cash resources,
facing Winter without feed or food
facing planting season without seed
to put in the ground.
That was the extreme case, but there
are thousands and thousands of
families on Western farms who share
the same difficulties.
saw cattle men who because of
lack of grass or lack of Winter feed
have been compelled to sell all but
their breeding stock and will need
help to carry even these through the
coming Winter. saw live stock kept
alive only because water had been
brought to them long distances in
tank cars. I saw other farm families
who have not lost their everything
but who because they have made only
partial crops must have some form of
help If they are to continue farming
next Spring.
Corn Stunted, Earless,
Stripped Of Leaves.
I shall never forget the fields of
wheat so blasted by heat that they
cannot be harvested. I shall never
forget field after field of corn stunted,
earleSs and stripped Of leaves, for
what the sun left the grasshoppers
took. I saw brown pastures which
would not keep a COW on so acres.
Yet would not have you think for
q single minute that there is perma-
nent disaster in these drought regions,
or that the picture I saw meant de-
populating these areas. No cracked
earth, no blistering sun, no burning
wind no grasshoppers are perma-
hent match for the indomitable Amer
lean farmers and stockmen and their
wives and children, who have carried
on through desperate days, and in
spire us with their self-reliance, their
tenacity and their courage. 1t was
their fathers task to make homes; it
Is their task to keep those homes; it
is our task to help them with their
fight.
( First, let me talk for minute about
this Autumn and the coming Winter.
We have the option, in the case of
families who need actual subsistence
Of putting them on the dole or putting
them to work. They do not want to
60 on the dole and they are 1000 per
cent right. We agree, therefore, that
we must put them to work for a
decent wage, and when we reach that
decision we kill two birds with one
stone, because these families will earn
enough by working, not only to sub
sist themselves, but to buy food for
their stock, and seed for next years
planting. Into this scheme of things
there fit, of course, the Government
lending agencies, which next year, as
in the past, will help with production
loans.
Governors in Full
Accord With Program.
!. Every Governor with whom have
talked is in full accord with this pro-
gram of providing work for these farm
families, just as every Governor agrees
that the individual States will take
care of their unemployables, but that
the cost of employing those who are
entirely able and willing to work must
be borne by the Federal Government.
If then We know, as we do today,
the approximate number of farm
families who will require some form
of work-relief from now on through
the Winter, we face the question of
what kind of work they should do.
Let me make it clear that this is
not new question, because it has
already been answered to a greater
or less extent in every one of the
drought communities. Beginning in
1894, when we also had serious drought
conditions, the State and Federal gov
large number of projects-many of
them directly aimed at the alienation
Of future drought conditions. In
accordance with that program, lit
orally thousands of ponds or small
reservoirs have been built in order
to supply water for stock and to lift
the level of the underground water
to protect wells from going dry. Thou
sands of wells have been drilled or
AnaYnnnd it,, 1oI Z,
created and irrigation projects are
being pushed.
q Water conservation by means such
as these is being expended as a re-
suit OF this new drought all through
the great plains area, the Western
corn belt and in the States that lie
further south. In the Middle West
water conservation is not so pressing
q problem. Here the work projects
run more to soil erosion control and
the building of farm to market roads.
Spending like this is not waste. It
would spell future waste if we did not
spend for such things now. These
emergency work projects provide
money to buy food and clothing for
the Winter; they keep the live stock
on the farm; they provide seed for
new crop, and, best Of all, they will
conserve soil and water in the future
in those areas most frequently hit by
drought.
If, for example, in some local area
the water table continues to drop and
the top soil to blow away, the land
values will disappear with the water
and the soil. People on the farms
will drift into the nearby cities; the
cities will have no farm trade and
the workers In the city factories and
stores will have no jobs. Property
values in the cities will decline. II,
on the other hand, the farms within
that area remain as farms with bet
ter water supply and no erosion, the
farm population will stay on the land
and prosper and the nearby cities will
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