Volume 18 , Issue 25

1937 - Writer Tours American Dust Bowl

It was in the Montana Butte Standard, Butte, Montana, dated 26 March 1937, Sunday, page 28, that we found this article: "Writer Tours American Dust Bowl Where Storms Are Terrifying Menace," written by Frank Lee.

Found on Newspapers.com

Pictured in the news article were scenes from a western Oklahoma farm home as it appeared in 1936 caught in the midst of a a sand storm and the same home finally deserted because of unrelenting sand storms.

Oklahoma City, Okla. - America still had a dust bowl. Stretching for hundreds of miles across the great plains states, it menaced like a sleeping volcano, ready without warning to belch suffocating clouds of grit and dust.

Families retired at night in tightly closed homes, oiled curtains hung over doors and windows sealed with adhesive tape. Housewives sprayed floors and walls with furniture polish before sweeping and dusting. Cattle grind their teeth into useless stumps on grit-laden fodder. Farmers mounted tractors in a swirl of dust and sand, dragging deep chisel plows in an attempt to turn heavy earth on top of their blowing land. People groped their way along the streets or huddled in groups in stores and hotel lobbies to discuss the latest "blow."

They had two miserable years of it and they wanted something done, now!

First of all they want a czar, with final authority over the entire region. They want a practical man, conversant with the problems of the situation who would shield them from the menace of politicians who would make capital of their sorry plight. They wanted part of the country condemned and allowed to go back to grass. And above all, they wanted the "suitcase" farmer kicked clear out of the region.

All of these points were covered at conservation meetings held recently at Amarillo and Oklahoma City by farmers, merchants, county agents and resettlement administrators. Committees were appointed and instructed to frame suitable legislation to be presented to congressmen and senators. They wanted action before the present year expired because early in 1938, all conservation work was supposed to be thrown back on the individual states.

If that occurred, inhabitants believed that all was lost. Not only would it be difficult to co-ordinate effort among five states - Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico - but the political angle would enter the picture, they point out. Legislatures of these young states were prone to handle their relief in a manner best calculated to build political fences, inhabitants asserted.

Frank Lee, the writer of these piece, had just returned from an automobile tour through the dust bowl. For comparative purposes, a route was chosen which covered the identical territory visited on a similar trip in March, 1935, for Central Press. The same farms were visited, the same people interviewed. I found much conflicting opinion, a picture little changed from that of 1935, and left with the conviction that what the answer to the problem was, no one seemed to be certain at that writing.

Frank Lee, saw some fields in which farmers were busily plowing with their deep plows and they were told this land "is under control." Lee saw other fields as barren as the Sahara desert, piled high with sand in some spots and swept as barren as a floor another spots. This land belonged to "suitcase farmers," men who did not reside permanently in the community but visited it only for the purpose of scratching the dry surface deep enough with a disc plow to earn an AAA payment. The moment the wind began to blow, this light loam was swept into the air, the lighter portion being blown for miles and the heavier sand carried across the fence to fill the deep furrow of the "good" farmer.

And this is the first problem the dust bowl czar would have to meet. Conservation men wanted payments made to farmers who make an honest effort to control their land and not to men who aggravated the situation merely by stirring up the dust with a disc plow. All were agreed on this. Of course, working the land with a deep plow doesn't stop all blowing but it retards it somewhat. The only answer to the blowing problem was vegetation. Frank Lee saw none of that.

Everyone agreed that part of the country never should have been broken by the plow and that these sections should be allowed to grow back to grass. But how can grass grow in a land where they have a half-inch rain one day and a dust storm the next? Some natives claimed that with normal rainfall, the tough plains grass, the thistles and yucca, once more will cover the soil if it was not disturbed by the plow. Lee visited farms not touched by a plow in four years and saw nothing that resembled vegetation. And the region in question had 14 inches of rain in 1936. Not a cloudburst by any means but surely enough rain to spread grass.

Said one resettlement officer, "Most of the optimism around here was founded on the hope of a resumption of normal rainfall. As a matter of fact, this country has always been dry in normal years. The vast majority of it was broken and farmed during a period when abnormal rainfall prevailed. Now with immense areas plowed and clean of vegetation, with sub-soil moisture depleted and top soil as dry as tinder, it's going to be a problem to get grass where it is needed.

At Boise City, Oklahoma, Lee met S. H. Farrell, a young resettlement officer who had charge of Cimarron county, one of the hardest hit in the entire bowl. A typical plainsman, tall and spare, with steady gray eyes and a reserve of enthusiasm and energy that two years of flying sand had failed to dent, this young man dashes about his county visiting and helping his charges like a country doctor in an epidemic.

Bill Jones needed a tractor; Farrell hustles over to Fred Smith, who had an extra one, and purchases it for Bill. Ted Lewis needed feed for his stock; Farrell arranges it for him. Pete Jones had an ailing wife who couldn't stand the dust any longer. Pete wanted the government to remove him tumor futile acres where the climate was more kindly; Farrell made the necessary steps and arranged the transaction.

Farrell and the writer drove many miles and saw many farms. "If we can make these suitcase boys get down and farm," said Farrell, "we can at least hold our own until we get enough moisture for a crop. Many of them bought land in here when the going was good and hired someone else to do their farming. Now they get someone to come in once a year and run over their place with a tractor and plow and that qualifies them for a payment under existing legislation. If the whole country blows away, it isn't any asking off their backs because many of these farms were paid for during good years with the proceeds from one sheet crop."

"We don't want a man paid unless he makes an honest effort to farm. We will draw up specifications best suited to each area and pay off in proportion to the manner i which a man follows them. Of course, a lot of this country should never have had a plow stuck into it and there isn't anything we can do about it except to try and conserve it and get it back into grass some way."

"We have 425,000 acres in cultivation in Cimarron county and would estimate that at least a third of it should be retired."
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