Volume 7 , Issue 19

1933 - Farmers and the New Deal...

"The farmers of America did not prosper in the so-called Roaring Twenties. They were simply too successful in that they produced far too much for the American market. With western Europe as a market effectively closed to them as a result of a tariff war, the farmers could only sell in America. Too much product for too few people caused prices to plummet. Bankruptcy followed bankruptcy in the mid-West. In January 1933, Ed O'Neal, the farmers union leader had said: Unless something is done for the American farmer we will have a revolution in the countryside within less than 12 months. The Hoover administration had done little to help the farmers. Hoover's prosperity is just around the corner. The attack and attempted lynching of a judge by Iowan farmers in April 1933 (he was signing eviction orders to be served on farmers) lead to the Governor of Iowa putting the state under martial law. Roosevelt had to be seen to be doing something as for nearly 13 years the federal government had done little to assist the farmers. In May 1933 the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was passed. This act encouraged those who were still left in farming to grow fewer crops. Therefore, there would be less produce on the market and crop prices would rise thus benefiting the farmers - though not the consumers..... In 1936, the Supreme Court declared that the AAA was unconstitutional in that it had allowed the federal government to interfere in the running of state issues. This effectively killed off the AAA.

The AAA did not help the sharecroppers though. These people, and there were three million sharecroppers, did not own their land. Many sharecroppers were African American and they lived lives of poverty. In the immediate aftermath of the AAA, they got employment from farmers to destroy the farmers' crops. Once this had been done, they had nothing to do and many left the land and moved to the ghettos in the cities where they faced similar poverty." -- www.omhros.gr/Kat/History/Txt/Ec/FarmersND.htm   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

---