President-elect Herbert Hoover glowingly declared the United States was “nearer the final triumph over poverty than in the history of any land.” In office in 1931, he gave Congress what he called a “Corporation” to aid business. Things got brutally worse. And Hoover was soundly defeated by Franklin Roosevelt.
In the hard hit Nebraskan Great Plains, Jose Flores, a young Mexican friend, and I found a promising wallow. After eyeing the dry weather, I decided to do some risky planting. We had saved several sacks of durable corn seed, and took a chance and did some well-guessed planting. Very few people were responding to problems this way in the 1930s. They changed cultivation practices. Such “crazies” risked erosion to make better use of soil moisture, implementing improved crop varieties. They were enhancing nutrients through fertilization and by the use of irrigation where groundwater was available. Groundwater was hunted as if it were gold.
Our wallow had some groundwater. We carefully mentioned this to no one. For us, it was as valuable as gold. How long would it last? Would it miraculously get larger? Weren’t we throwing our corn seed – and hopes – away?
Other crop-growing friends, despite wrestling with what was being called “the most difficult occupation in the world,” gritted their teeth and swore lavishly in their efforts to “keep hanging on.” Hanging on was a main-stay Great Plains exclamation. Meaning “fighting to stay on the land, determined to fight for a farm living.”
We shielded our treasure from easy discovery with a dry-brush cover easily penetrated by rain. Then prayed for moisture of any kind: momentary drizzles, a few night-time sprinkles, and got very infrequent tastes of early morning dampness. We were trying to practice a method of farming that pays but does not cost. Manure was a key to this practice. We found another wallow, a bit dryer, but useful. One of us spent a night protecting our simple treasures, including our four horses – two-a-piece – that provided basic dividends. These eventually, miraculously, allowed us to buy a calf and a cow from a seared farmer. These let us sell small amounts of milk. And to do field work for farmers some distance away who wondered where we came from, how we could afford do such stuff in a frying climate. The result: We were soon selling a few products of our simple system.
Often we were just hitting even. But it was an “event” that allowed us to sell slim amounts of our “product.” We were always trying to figure how small bits of moisture and every bit of compost could be saved, used, sold: Enlarging shade for the manure, protecting bits of moisture gathered in our wallows. Then the weather began to change just a bit. And swiftly returned to frying everything
Economic distress led to the election of the Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the presidency in late 1932. Roosevelt introduced a number of major changes in the structure of the American economy, using increased government regulations and massive public works projects to promote a recovery. But despite this active intervention, mass unemployment and economic stagnation continued, though on a somewhat reduced scale. About 15 percent of the work force was still unemployed at the beginning of 1939. After that, unemployment dropped rapidly as American factories began receiving orders from overseas for armaments and munitions.
By 1940, normal rainfall started feeding programs that helped boost farm prices and improve the soil. But no one believed it would continue. Jose Flores and I continued manipulating manure.