Assignment #11

Assignment Due 12/10 : Choose a passage from Wilson, or Roosevelt, write out the passage and interpret it and explain why you chose this passage.

Go to the link for the The Great Depression. Choose a passage from this website and write it out and interpret it and explain why you chose this passage. Also choose a picture or painting and explain the content of piece and how it relates to class.

“Similarly, it was no business of the law in the time of Jefferson to come into my house and see how I kept house. But when my house, when my property, when my so-called private property became a great mine, and men went along dark corridors amidst every kind of danger to dig out of the bowels of the earth things necessary  for the industries of a whole nation and when it was known that no individual owned those mines, that they were owned  by great stock companies, then all the old analogies absolutely collapsed and it became the right of the government to go  down into those mines and see whether human beings were being properly treated in them or not…”(Woodrow Wilson)

The Great Depression

"In October 1929 the stock market crashed, wiping out 40 percent of the paper values of common stock. Even after the stock market collapse, however, politicians and industry leaders continued to issue optimistic predictions for the nation's economy. But the Depression deepened, confidence evaporated and many lost their life savings. By 1933 the value of stock on the New York Stock Exchange was less than a fifth of what it had been at its peak in 1929. Business houses closed their doors, factories shut down and banks failed. Farm income fell some 50 percent. By 1932 approximately one out of every four Americans was unemployed.The core of the problem was the immense disparity between the country's productive capacity and the ability of people to consume. Great innovations in productive techniques during and after the war raised the output of industry beyond the purchasing capacity of U.S. farmers and wage earners. The savings of the wealthy and middle class, increasing far beyond the possibilities of sound investment, had been drawn into frantic speculation in stocks or real estate. The stock market collapse, therefore, had been merely the first of several detonations in which a flimsy structure of speculation had been leveled to the ground.

The presidential campaign of 1932 was chiefly a debate over the causes and possible remedies of the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover, unlucky in entering The White House only eight months before the stock market crash, had struggled tirelessly, but ineffectively, to set the wheels of industry in motion again. His Democratic opponent, Franklin D. Roosevelt, already popular as the governor of New York during the developing crisis, argued that the Depression stemmed from the U.S. economy's underlying flaws, which had been aggravated by Republican policies during the 1920s. President Hoover replied that the economy was fundamentally sound, but had been shaken by the repercussions of a worldwide depression -- whose causes could be traced back to the war. Behind this argument lay a clear implication: Hoover had to depend largely on natural processes of recovery, while Roosevelt was prepared to use the federal government's authority for bold experimental remedies.The election resulted in a smashing victory for Roosevelt, who won 22,800,000 votes to Hoover's 15,700,000. The United States was about to enter a new era of economic and political change"

The passage above explains how the The Great Depression in the US started in 1929 with a collapse of the stock market. There were few rules and regulations that had to be obeyed by banks, lenders. As a result, many dangerous and shaky projects were going on, and the collapse of some led to the collapse of others. Businesses and industries folded. The result of this was massive unemployment. At a time when there was NO governmental safety net, like unemployment pay. But the Depression did not really lift until, in 1941, the US entered WW2. Immediately there was a rush to employ people to work in defense businesses and industries, and the Great Depression was over. 

This picture goes to show the segregation between power, money and race among st people. To the right you have the wealthy who is enjoying dinner and a show, while to the left you have colored people who working hard to make them food. Most likely not able to afford one minute of their lifestyle.