Evening star., 1939-12-31

Decade Begins with world
Paying Price Of War.
The decade started with an economic
depression all over the earth. The world
was beginning to pay the price Of the
unprecedented destructiveness of the
World War, a decade in the past. His
tory was repeating itself. Nearly every
great war has been followed by period
of prosperity, then by great economic
reverses. Wise economists all along had
predicted just what was to happen.
1t also was paying the price of read
justment. Somehow the cannon of the
World War had shaken up the brains
Of men into a feverish activity. Ma
chimes of all sorts had replaced human
hands. Brass brains had replaced proto-
plasm brains in many of the routine &C
tivities of life. The productive capacity
Of the land had been vastly increased.
Communication and transportation had
been improved to an extent hardly
dreamed of decade before. The whole
world had become literate.
But all this time the political and
social structures had remained essen
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most parts of the earth. the same sharply
defined social and economic classes. All
business was operating according to a
philosophy of every man to himself,
with sort of mystical faith that in the
end everything would be for the best
and that everybody would be rewarded
according to deserts.
An Incredible Paradox:
Want Amid Plenty.
The decade came at the outset of an
incredible paradox. Men were hungry
not because there was scarcity of food
but because there was too much food.
Mortgages on farms were being fore
closed because the crops had been too
good. People were Shivering in rags be-
cause there was too much clothing in
the world. Perhaps the gods were laugh
ing at this confusion-but to its helpless
victims it was no laughing matter. The
common man everywhere found himself
essentially helpless to help himself. The
rich man went into bankruptcy because
the poor man was hungry. 1t was no
time for sophistry. That is not the Ian
guage of stomach contractions.
1t was bad enough in the United
States, an enormously rich and emo
tional and generous country, made up
of diverse mass of the salt Of the
earth and the scum of the earth.
It was much worse in countries like
France and Great Britain, which had
gotten no profits, not even paper profits,
from the war. 1t was much worse in
Germany, where 5O,OOO,0Oo people saw
no ray of light in the blackness of the
future.
AS the decade went on the situation
grew more and more desperate. There
were bread lines blocks long in Ameri-
can cities. On the farms of the Midwest
mortgage foreclosures were prevented by
force. A hungry army invaded Wash
ington. A few months later came an
other army, equally ragged and destitute,
of World War veterans demanding
bonus allegedly promised them. The
invasion ended with cavalry and tear
gas turned against the motley horde.
Political Revolution Sweeps
Republicans From Power.
Four months later came a political
revolution. The Republican party was
swept out of Office in an almost unprece-
dented debacle and, almost on the day
the victors took CONTROL the depression
reached it's depths with all banks closed,
business everywhere in collapse. The
magnitude of his own personal victory
and that of his party made it possible
for President Roosevelt to exercise al
most autocratic power, and he resorted
to a group of innovations in government,
many already tested in Europe, which
came to be known as the New Deal.
The hungry were fed or given work.
The Government took over mortgages.