Great Depression Quotes

The big question about the American depression is not whether war with Germany and Japan ended it. It is why the Depression lasted until that war. From 1929 to 1940, from Hoover to Roosevelt, government intervention helped to make the Depression Great.

When I was young I wanted to be just like him.One of the charm, of a bright orange smileand muscular laughter.Bold brown eyes flashing fearlesswhen he sat not alone on cold blue nights in empty boxcars.Riding a freight train'ssolitary wailaway from NebraskaDepression, accompanying dreamswithered farms.Nothing left but the leaves of possibilities.

When water fountains start charging to drink, then you know we have a problem.

In spring, 1937, of course, families still rode the rails because of the Depression, which everyone said was already in the history books as the worst ever. The jobs still couldn’t be found, at least for most people. Everett itself—the smaller, poorer, little brother lying north of Seattle—ached with the unemployed and the hopeless. The labor union tensions in the woods still festered and got bloody at times. But Skybillings—and the railroad logging shows of the Cascade Mountains—felt like they were, inch-by-inch, rebuilding America.

To cut 1930s jobless, FDR taxed corps and rich. Govt used money to hire many millions. Worked then; would now again. Why no debate on that?

To fit the individual to live and to function in the institutional life of his day.

The sepia tone of November has become blood-soaked with paper poppies festooning the lapels of our politicians, newsreaders and business leaders … I will no longer allow my obligation as a veteran to remember those who died in the great wars to be co-opted by current or former politicians to justify our folly in Iraq, our morally dubious war on terror and our elimination of one’s right to privacy.

Only if we understand our past, can we move forward to a brighter future.