Chapter 3 worst year - 1

In August 1932, a writer for the "Saturday Evening Post" asked the great British economist John Maynard Keynes whether there had been anything like the Great Depression in history. He replied: " Yes, it is called the Dark Ages, and it lasted for 400 years." It is exaggerated to exclaim that the catastrophe is imminent, but at least one thing in these two historical periods seems to be the same, that is, although the people suffered from it, they did not suffer from it. Don't know what's going on. Some people generally attribute the blame to "the situation of the times", which is Hoover's way of concealing the truth.Again, people confuse the Great Depression with the stock market crash of 1929, often saying, "I haven't been in town since the Great Depression"; or, "I used to be in town a lot, but that was before the Great Depression." John E. Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said that the situation of the Great Depression was caused by some people slacking off at work.He said: "Many people who are now clamoring to work either want to strike when they have a job, or they don't want to do it at all. They just want to take the opportunity to advocate for the Communist Party." There are quite a few unemployed in the ranks of the unemployed for this kind of innuendo. People actually suffer in silence.The reason they adopt this attitude is that the morality of Protestantism in the United States was still very powerful 40 years ago.Millions of people are desperate, of course, not because of their own fault, but social workers say again and again: the unemployed feel ashamed. In February 1932, a man was evicted by his landlord. He told the reporter of "New York Daily News": "I have not had a regular job for more than two years, and sometimes I really feel like a murderer. How can I Yes, I can't even take care of my own children."

Because of their upbringing, such people have believed since childhood that whoever works hard will be successful.Now, no matter how hard-working or lazy, everyone is unlucky, so everyone feels depressed.As Walter Lippmann said at the time: "The spirit of the whole nation is depressed, everyone feels that he is alone, trusts no one, nothing, and even himself." The book "The Crowd" analyzes how an introverted person suffers when he falls into this predicament: "If he has tried and failed repeatedly, and his future is hopeless, a person may no longer have the inner strength to resist external pressure. So I was full of guilt and only hated myself for being incompetent." There were many reports of a certain person who would rather commit suicide than live on relief.Emile Durkheim, French sociologist (1858-1917). ——The translator coined the term "altruistic suicide" a long time ago, saying that such a person would rather sacrifice himself than become a burden to society.

What is the real reason? The prosperity of the so-called "new century" from President Coolidge to President Hoover did not have a solid foundation.In retrospect, the Great Depression appears to have been the last major upheaval of the Industrial Revolution, resulting in a lull before the arrival of a new technological revolution.After the First World War, thanks to various mass production technologies, the labor productivity of workers per hour has increased by more than 40%.Now that there is such a large production of goods, it is obvious that the purchasing power of consumers needs to be increased accordingly, that is to say, wages must be increased.But in the 1920s, workers' incomes did not rise commensurately with productivity gains.Even in 1929, the year of the Golden Age, economists at the Brookings Institution had calculated that if a family wanted to obtain the minimum necessities of life, it needed an income of 2,000 yuan a year. More than 60% of the income of the family cannot reach this figure.In a word, purchasing power cannot keep up with the output of goods.There were all sorts of stupid ideas back then, one of which was thinking that a production spike was not a problem, saying "you can sell anything if you have a good salesman".In fact, rich people speculate in stocks (and some people who are not rich also speculate), while brokers promote a kind of mass speculation, so to speak, encouraging customers who do not have a lot of money to buy things indiscriminately. Buy and sell on extended credit.

The stock market was on a shaky footing as brokers let their money go around, and finally collapsed.As a result, the millions of petty transactions made by the traveling brokers were lost, because they gave credit to people who couldn't pay for any commodity. The prosperous period of the "new century" ended, and a great panic ensued, and the whole country was panic-stricken.The last long-term economic crisis occurred in 1893. Since then, the United States has been highly industrialized, and it is impossible for the urban population to return to their hometowns in large numbers.Herbert Hoover, who happened to be president on the eve of the catastrophe this time, did what he deserved, for as secretary of commerce he was preoccupied only with productivity gains and neglected the dangers of a lack of purchasing power.He only woke up to the events of the year long after he left office and left the White House.He wrote: "There are no more than a few thousand people here...but they occupy most of the production results;...there are about 20% of the population on the other side, but they only get a little stuff."

From the stock market crash to 1932 (the worst year of the Great Depression), the economy had been in a downward spiral, and the downward spiral was accelerated by certain measures.Traditionally, these measures were supposed to revive the economy, but the opposite happened.In order to protect the interests of investors, prices cannot be lowered, so the sales volume has dropped.Once the sales volume decreased, we had to lay off workers to reduce the cost of goods.The workers in this industrial sector are unemployed, so how can they have the money to buy products from other industrial sectors? In this way, the more the sales fall, the more workers will be laid off, which will cause the overall shrinkage of purchasing power, and the result is: the industrial workers will become poor. , Even the peasants are poor; and the poverty of the peasants, in turn, deepens the poverty of the industrial workers. "No one can afford to buy from the other," said an Oklahoma native who testified before a congressional subcommittee, and it made the phenomenon of the vicious cycle crystal clear. "So, at the same time, in the same country, there is both overproduction and underconsumption."

In June 1932, fresh graduates from prestigious universities in the Northeast of the United States followed in the footsteps of 21,974 old seniors, desperately looking for jobs.Even driving an elevator in a New York department store in those days required a bachelor's degree, and for many of them it was the best job possible.But this year's Hunter College graduate, Sylvia Field Porter, who is just 20 years old, is an exception."Because of curiosity at the time" (this is what she said later), "I wanted to figure out why everything around me was collapsing and why everyone was unemployed", so she changed her major from English to economics; With his eloquence, he found a position in an investment consulting company.As she worked, she began to systematically study the state of the financial world, hoping to write a column on the subject one day.Sylvia Porter began writing for The New York Post in 1935.She found that the United States at that time had fallen into an unprecedented economic crisis.

Since the collapse of the British South Sea Company in 1720, the term "South Sea Bubble" has been used to describe a business with no future. "South Sea Bubble" is the nickname of the South Sea Company.This company is a stockbroking business. It was established in London, England in 1711 and obtained the patent right for South Sea trade.Because of the profit, the stock price soared, and it was 100 pounds a share, but it rose to 1,000 pounds a share.Then the stock plummeted and hopes were shattered, so people called it "the bubble in the South China Sea". — translator.This "bubble" was indeed shattered, and its stock price fell to only 13.5% of its peak value.However, it later turned around and continued to do business for 80 years.By comparison, U.S. Steel and General Motors fared worse.By the time Miss Porter graduated, the shares of both companies had fallen to 8% of their pre-1929 prices.On the whole, the stock price on the New York Stock Exchange is only 11% of that in 1929; investors' losses amounted to 74 billion yuan, which is equivalent to three times the total cost of the world war.More than 5,000 banks across the country failed (five failed in Iowa City, adjacent to Hoover's hometown of West Branch), and 86,000 businesses closed.The U.S. GNP fell from $104 billion to $41 billion (estimated at $2,177 billion in 1973). In 1932, 273,000 households were evicted by landlords.Even if a worker gets a job, the average weekly wage is only 16.21 yuan.

Some industries, however, are booming.The business of selling contraceptives made a profit of 250 million yuan a year (the young people at that time became parents and forgot about it long ago).Among the national residents, more than half watch a movie once a week (adult tickets cost 25 cents and children 10 cents).The number of people smoking cigarettes increased year by year, and no one knew at the time that this habit was harmful. Open Ear Winnett refrigerators and Atwater Kent radios were bestsellers.Miniature golf courses and traveling libraries are also thriving.Alfred C. Fuller organized a group of people to sell brushes door-to-door, and the results were very good. In the austere month of August 1932, the sales increased from 15,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan. An increase of as much as 1 million yuan.A genius named J. Paul Getty quietly bought a lot of cheap oil wells; Pacific Oil Company had a total of 1 million shares, and he actually controlled 520,000 shares of it in February 1932.Here and there, there are a few lucky deals: an odd-looking restaurant in Quincy, Mass., with a bright orange roof and a mock-colonial exterior, is on the brink of bankruptcy.Coincidentally, a theater troupe came over across the street (the first play was Eugene O'Neill's nine-act play "Strange Interlude"). Every night at 8:30 during the intermission, the audience flocked to this restaurant for dinner, so the owner Howard Johnson pulled through.

But all of the above are exceptions.U.S. Steel, the key to heavy industry, was only operating at 19.1% of its capacity.The American Locomotive Company didn't need a lot of steel anymore. In the 1920s, it sold an average of 600 locomotives a year, but in 1932 it sold only one locomotive.The automobile manufacturing industry did not buy steel in large quantities as usual, and some famous automobile companies gradually disappeared, such as Stutz Motor Company, Auburn Company, Cord Company, Edward Peale Company, Pierce Arrow Company , Dusenbeck, Franklin, Durant, RockoMobil, and so on.A person who was overwhelmed produced a cheap "Rockney" brand car to compete with Ford, but lost 21 million yuan and committed suicide. In January 1932, the creative bacteriologist Arthur G. Sherman roughed the first wooden trailer by hand. It was exhibited at the Detroit Auto Show. It was a sensation, but it was only sold throughout the year. Ordered 80 vehicles.The air transportation industry also plummeted. There were 12 seats on the plane at that time, but according to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, there were seven empty seats per flight on average.With the exception of the newly invented talking movies, all other entertainment establishments were on the verge of bankruptcy.Jazz musician Eddie Condon recorded only four films in four years, because the turnover of the record industry dropped from 50 million yuan to 250,000 yuan a year.Sally Rand managed to eke out a living thanks to her famous fan dances.The reporter asked her why she did such a thing, and she replied: "If I don't take off my pants, I can't make money."

Because people feel that it is shameful to be poor, they always hide it from their neighbors, and they can often hide it.No one can know the details of the opposite family.The well-dressed young lawyer who leaves the house on time every morning has probably picked out some out-of-the-way place to go door-to-door selling magazines, cheap ties, vacuum cleaners, pressure cookers, 2-in-1 shoe polish, and the like.He might even change into a set of rags and beg from passers-by in another urban area.Or he may be like thousands of people, year after year, day after day, unable to find a job, watching their children grow thinner, and fighting despair all night.Of course, people can find some tricks after wandering the streets for a long time.For example, if you ask for a cup of coffee for five cents, but ask for a cup of boiling water for nothing, pour some ketchup on the counter and mix it with boiling water to make tomato soup.In winter, newspapers can be tucked inside the shirt to keep out the cold; if you expect to queue for hours outside the employment agency, you can wrap your legs with burlap in advance.Shoes are a special problem.The cardboard can line the soles of the shoes, and some people also like to put cotton on the heels of the shoes, so that the feet will be less painful when walking on the concrete floor.But if a shoe is really screwed, nothing can be done about it.The first thing to wear was the cardboard, and then the sock patch, so the snow seeped into the shoes, covering the feet, and the studs pierced the heels, so I had to walk in a special posture.

It's really amazing to talk about all the wonderful ways that poor people come up with to save money.The men's razor blades are sharpened and reused; they roll their own cigarettes, or smoke "wings" (a dime a pack); in order to save electricity, they switch to 25-watt light bulbs.The children picked up soda bottles and went to the shop to get their money back, two cents apiece; they went to the bakery and lined up to buy the next night's bread.The women cut the old sheets and sewed them together, so that the frayed places in the middle were moved to the two sides; changed their clothes for their daughters, so that they would not look shabby in front of the neighbor's wife— —Actually, the neighbors are just as tight, so I'm afraid they will adopt the same method.Many families keep the Christmas cards they receive, so that they can be sent to other friends next year.Sometimes a person doesn't show up for weeks at a time, and the only word in the neighborhood is that he's "out on business."If this man cared about his wife, he would not have revealed the truth about his trip to her, because she would never have imagined the bitterness involved. Such "going out" people are of course looking for work.Regarding job hunting, there were many legends around 1932, some of which sound bizarre, but they are not true at all.There were indeed people standing by the door of the Detroit employment agency all night, so as to get a head start the next day.One Arkansas man literally walked 900 miles to find a job.There are indeed people who pay to buy jobs to do.An employment agency on Sixth Street in Manhattan recruited 300 people, and indeed 5,000 people applied.Someone in Washington State did set fires in the woods in order to be hired as a firefighter (the 72nd Congress' labor subcommittee on this matter has testimonies on record). "Business Weekly" conducted an investigation and confirmed that many people no longer like the United States, some have left the United States, and some are trying to leave. In the early 1930s, the number of people who moved abroad exceeded those who moved in every year.Russia has a trade organization in New York called the Soviet-American Trading Company, which receives an average of 350 applications every day, asking to emigrate to Russia.One is the most memorable: They advertised to recruit 6,000 skilled workers, and as many as 100,000 people applied for the job, including plumbers, painters, mechanics, cooks, train engineers, carpenters, and electricians. , a salesperson, a printer, a chemist, a shoemaker, a librarian, a teacher, a dentist, in addition to a dyer, a pilot, and an undertaker. Although a million people in New York City are already unemployed, countless people from neighboring states come to New York to find work. A few of these foreigners join the 7,000 "shoe boys" who pay a nickel for a shoe shine on the streets of Manhattan. There are a few teams involved in smuggling coal (10% of the coal in New York City is smuggled in by unemployed miners from Pennsylvania); but most of them just hang out in the 82 long queues in the city to get bread.If you still have a dime with you, you can sleep him overnight in a small inn that smells of sweat and disinfectant; if you have no money, you can pick up some newspapers on the street as a bedding, and go to Central Park or the entrance of the subway station. Or the incinerator went overnight.On bitter cold winter nights, the residual heat of the incineration site attracts hundreds of thousands of people to sleep there on piles of rubbish. After a husband goes out like this, he gets into an empty truck or lies under it, and when he returns home, he and his wife will inevitably discuss how long the family can last.So they sold their wedding rings, mortgaged their furniture, borrowed money on their life insurance policies, or simply turned to relatives for help.The next step is often to open a mom-and-pop store.Pretend to be rich, but now it is revealed in the eyes of the neighbors: the yard may be converted into a miniature golf course; One yuan.Unemployed weavers in Massachusetts installed looms in their rooms; families in Connecticut threaded pins on wire, and the whole family worked in the dark, earning only five dollars a week. These are measures of last resort, and very few succeed, because there are so few people with money to buy things that they have to admit failure in the end.When the father went to the city hall to say that he had nothing and asked to be included in the pauper register.Due to the many errors and omissions in the statistics, it is not known how many poor people there were on that day. In short, about 15 to 17 million people were unemployed, and most of them had one person supporting the whole family. The September 1932 issue of Fortune estimated that 34 million men, women, and children in the United States had no income, nearly 28 percent of the population.And this research report, like other reports, does not include the 11 million rural households who are suffering in another kind of hell. During President Nixon's tenure, the rural population of the United States only accounted for 5.2% of the total population of the country. Therefore, 40 years ago, 25.1% of the population in the United States lived or wanted to live on agriculture, which is hard for people to imagine now.These rural populations had no share in the prosperity of the "new century"; their situation had long been recognized nationally as intolerable, and the stock market crash of 1929 only made it worse. In 1932 a reporter said that when he saw American farmers he thought of the Mongolian farmers in the newspaper's weekly pictorials; famine was at hand, and its shadow lay over the wild American plains.From 1558 to 1603 in the era of Queen Elizabeth. ——Since the translator, the price of agricultural products has never been as low as it is now.A bushel equals about 36 liters. —Translator Wheat sells for less than a quarter, a bushel of corn for seven cents, a bushel of oats for a dime, and a pound of cotton or wool for five cents.Sugar is only worth three cents per pound, pigs and beef are worth two and a half cents per pound, and a box of 200 apples only sells for four cents if they are all intact. Converting the fruits of farmers' hard work at the market price, a cart of oats can't buy a pair of "Tom McCann" leather shoes for four yuan.A cart of wheat is enough to buy these shoes, but each acre of land has to pay a mortgage interest of three yuan and six cents, and a tax of one yuan and nine cents. For every acre of wheat harvested, the farmer will lose one yuan and fifty cents.Taking cotton field work as an example, the male worker with the strongest body and the fastest hands and feet worked from morning to night for a full 14 hours, picking 300 pounds of cotton, but only received 60 cents.Using corn cobs as fuel is more cost-effective than selling corn to buy coal for burning.The price of meat fell sharply: a sheep was sent to the market, and the shipping cost was one yuan and one dime, and the selling price was less than one yuan.There was a rancher in Montana who got some bullets on credit and spent two hours killing a herd of animals and throwing them in a ravine to rot because the money they sold for the animals couldn't pay for the feed.Before leaving, he muttered to a reporter and said, "Well, this is also a way to deal with the depression!" As agricultural prices plummeted, tens of thousands of notices appeared on doorposts and on county courthouses announcing that one farm or another was insolvent and barred from redemption.It is estimated that 1/4 of the farms in Mississippi have been auctioned off.Republican rural newspaper editor William Allen White told President Hoover that he should check out the Midwest.White wrote: "Farmer, whether his land is mortgaged or not, everyone knows that if the agricultural products have fallen to today's prices, he will be ruined sooner or later." The tools and seeds of the crops can no longer be paid for. At this time, the lending bank has acquired the property rights of the farm and has become a remote landlord, while the people who have cultivated the land for generations have become tenants.Country ranchers feed mutton to vultures and burn corn to their fires; urban millions cannot afford produce so cheap that bankrupt farmers (butter is 39 cents a pound, prime steak is 20 cents a pound) , eggs are one point for every two dozen).The reason why they can’t afford it is that there are too many unemployed people. As for those who are fortunate enough to still have jobs, their wages are extremely low, which is called the wages of “people who can’t starve to death”. No one came out to protect them.The president disapproved of wage cuts and had spoken, but he also opposed the use of laws to regulate hourly wages. Therefore, when the U.S. Steel Corporation wanted to cut wages again in the spring of 1932, the workers had no choice.The entire labor movement almost disappeared: AFL membership fell from 4.1 million in 1920 to 2.2 million, only 6 percent of the labor force. In 1932, there were many desperate strikes, but they all ended in failure.Many miners earn only ten yuan and eighty-eight cents a month; usually they have to be oppressed by the weighers, and they have to buy daily necessities at high prices in stores run by coal mining companies.As soon as they resisted, the armed henchmen of the management teamed up with the National Guard to carry out bloody suppression.The United Mine Workers Union has little power and can do nothing but sympathize with the victims. In New England industrial towns such as Lynn and Lovell, only one-third of the workers still had jobs, and they endured serf-like treatment.A worker who left Manchester, New Hampshire, to seek work in New Haven was arrested there, charged with vagrancy, sent to court, and finally ordered to return to the factory.Employers repeatedly cut wages because too many people were looking for work.The salary of a salesperson in a department store is as low as five yuan a week.Someone in Chicago conducted a survey, and it is said that the wages of most female workers are less than 25 cents per hour, and a quarter of them are less than 10 cents. In 1932, the hourly wages were reduced to 10 cents in the logging industry, 7.5 cents in the general contracting industry, 6 cents in the brick and tile manufacturing industry, and 5 cents in the sawmill.Before the Great Depression, the textile mills in Massachusetts rarely required skilled workers to take care of 20 looms in eight hours a day, but after adopting the "speed up system" and "increased labor intensity system", the writer Louis Ada Mick had seen with his own eyes that some teenage girl laborers had to watch over 30 wide looms from dawn to dusk. In the "sweatshops" in Brooklyn, child workers around the age of 15 earn only 2.78 cents a week.Female workers work 50 hours a week and are paid two yuan triangle nine cents. In the summer of 1932, the Connecticut Secretary of Labor reported that workers in more than a hundred factories in the state were working 55 hours a week for as little as sixty cents.New York City is the most exploited place in New York State, and the city's garment industry, which employs 50,000 women workers, is the most exploited place in the city. Time magazine wrote that "lawless employers" had "depressed the wages of the American worker to the level of the Chinese coolie." The milliner was paid only four cents to crochet a dozen hats, two dozen a week.Girls who make aprons earn two and a half cents for one piece, but only two cents a day.The lady who lined the slippers only got 20 cents for making 72 pairs of slippers; if she could process one slipper every 45 seconds and worked nine hours a day, she would only get 1 yuan and 5 cents home.In a trouser factory, a female worker was only paid half a cent for removing thread ends from a pair of trousers and wiping them with a sponge.It takes five minutes to process such a pair of trousers, so the hourly wage is six cents.No honest employer can compete with this kind of sweatshop.More and more people were receiving relief, but President Hoover still refused to allocate funds from the treasury, so when the Great Depression was approaching the fourth winter, the entire relief agency was already on the verge of collapse. A senator expressed his opinion that now the workers only have one or two wages a week, which is really unable to meet their living needs.However, Egerton, the chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers, said: "What? Paying wages depends on the needs of workers. I never consider this. I pay wages according to efficiency. As for social welfare and the like, I handle them as religious affairs. ’” No doubt he thought he had done his duty.As "Fortune" magazine said, the theory at that time was the same as in the past. It was believed that with private charities and public-private joint welfare institutions, the old, weak, sick and poor would be taken care of. But it doesn't work.While the Great Depression multiplied the number of people claiming relief, it also dried up sources of relief money. In 1932, private donations dropped sharply, accounting for only 6% of the total relief expenditure, so about 30 million people had to rely on public welfare services to take care of them.Unfortunately, the local government cannot bear this heavy burden.Since the 1930s, states and municipalities have run budget deficits.Municipalities get about 90 percent of their revenue from real estate taxes, but real estate valuations are ludicrously high in Depression-era dollars.Since the landlord is the owner of the house, he has to pay taxes; the law does not care whether the property has income or not, and the tax amount cannot be reduced.Even if the tenant is living on city relief, which doesn't include rent, property taxes still have to be paid.So the landlord tried everything possible to ask for the rent, and they were angry from the bottom of their hearts. At first, they wanted to drive out all the tenants who had no money to pay the rent.Tenants are being evicted almost every day on every street in New York City; so is Philadelphia, where so many people wander the streets that the little girls have invented a new game called "Evicting Tenants." However, driving out the residents and vacating the house still cannot solve the problem.This only makes the rich more unpopular, but it does not make them money to pay taxes.As a result, as Professor Sam Na H. Slichter of Harvard Business School told the Senate Manufacturing Committee: "Across the country, almost everyone who was unemployed had their rent suspended." and the suburbs, 20% to 30% of real estate taxes are owed.Without this revenue, cities cut utilities.As a result, the roads fell into disrepair, the sidewalks were dilapidated, and the road was icy and snowy in winter, and no one cleaned it.Because the taxpayers united and refused to pay taxes, the city of Chicago had no income for two years and had to borrow money from the bank.The 600,000 unemployed people in the city made it even worse. The local government is financially bankrupt, and the society believes that poverty is more or less self-inflicted. Therefore, the conditions for obtaining public relief are extremely strict.In order to win the chance of the application for relief being considered, people have to sell their property in advance, cancel their insurance until they can't borrow money, and prove that all their relatives are bankrupt.Even if all these conditions are met, if you are unmarried, or married without children, you still cannot receive relief in many cities.Accepting a handout is contemptible. In September 1932, the city of Lewiston, Maine passed a bill barring dole recipients from voting.This trick is not needed in ten states from Massachusetts to Oregon, because the constitutions of these states have already stipulated the necessary property conditions for voters.Hospitals in West Virginia require patients to guarantee payment of medical expenses; a child needs surgery, and referral doctors have private outpatient clinics but no operating room or inpatient department, and transfer patients who need surgery to other hospitals for treatment . ——The translator actually persuaded the surgeon to wait until the parents of the child agreed to pay 1,000 yuan.Two doctors in Royce City, Texas placed this ad in the local paper: If Mrs. Zun is happy, if you want to give birth in Royce City, please prepare enough money to pay the fee before you can deliver the baby.announce. In some places, taxpayers' associations are trying not to allow children on welfare to go to school; some families on public subsidy are not allowed to go to church. Even if all obstacles were overcome, only a very small number of people were finally allowed to receive benefits.And, according to Fortune, in certain industrial towns, mines, and sharecropper farms, "the so-called relief enterprise was in name only."Only 25 percent of deserving households in cities receive some form of assistance.The mayor of Toledo said in 1932: "I have seen thousands of destitute, hopeless men and women come to ask for relief. They humbled and begged. It is really a disgrace to the United States. "Besides, even if it is included in the relief list, it doesn't mean that everything will be fine, there is hope, and there is hope.Some people objected to doing relief work, saying that people would eat and drink after receiving relief money.But as far as Philadelphia is concerned, a family of four only receives five yuan and fifty cents a week in relief funds. pentagon), the city of Detroit (hexagon), already generous.At most, the relief money is only enough to buy food and fuel.People on handouts were often poorly dressed before the stock market crashed, and now that three winters have passed, their shabby clothes are even more unsightly.It is often seen that, as the head of the family, he is dressed like a tramp in a vaudeville show: the jacket is missing buttons, and the sleeves have holes; the knees are exposed, and the back crotch is hollow; It has been hanging in the boiler room of my family for several years. The pair of broken sneakers under the feet are covered with rubber patches, and the left and right sides of the pair of canvas gloves on the hands are different; And dirty. Public officials are often indistinguishable from dole recipients because they have the same financial resources.Generally speaking, the local gentry can still make the local police wear decent uniforms, because everyone is worried about law and order at that time.But the teachers in the public schools are not so concerned. Due to the lack of tax resources of the local government, the lives of teachers are harder than others. In the early days of the Great Depression, money was deducted from their salaries to fund soup stations.With an increase of more than 200,000 students every year, the school has to further save expenses.There were not enough classrooms, so the desks were placed in the corridors, in prefabricated houses with stoves, and even in tin sheds.Music class and art class were cancelled, and the textbook was used this semester for another class next semester, and the curled corners were stained, and the handwriting was blurred and incomplete.The classrooms became more and more crowded, and in the end, even the salaries of the teachers could not be paid. By 1932, 300,000 children across the country had been out of school due to insufficient education funds.Teachers in Mississippi, northern Minnesota, Idaho, South Dakota, and Alabama had to take turns going to each student's home to "eat pies."Schools in Dayton, Ohio, are in class only three days a week, and more than 300 schools in Arkansas have been closed for more than ten months.In Kansas, because a bushel of wheat sells for only a quarter, teachers in the countryside earn only 35 yuan a month, and only eight months a year, totaling 280 yuan.Teachers in Iowa earn $40 a month, half of what the government in Washington says is the minimum living allowance for industrial workers.Akron owed as much as $300,000 to faculty salaries, Youngston owed $500,000, Detroit $800,000, and Chicago exceeded $20 million. When it comes to Chicago schools, it's a great Depression story.Because the local teachers couldn't bear to see 500,000 children drop out of school, they hitchhiked to the school without money to ride a car, and insisted on working without salary (until 1932, only 5 out of 13 months had been paid), The IOUs issued by the city government stipulated that they could only be cashed after the Great Depression. The banks refused to accept them, and the teachers also accepted them.Somehow, the city government still has the means to prepare for next year's Chicago Fair (during the fair, pornographic dancer Sally Rand's weekly income was 6,000 yuan), but the city government turned a deaf ear to the Education Bureau's request for funds.1,000 teachers were simply laid off, and those who were not fired had to endure great sacrifices and continue to work.Among the 1,400 retained teachers in the city, 759 were evicted by their landlords.They borrowed 1.128 million yuan with the insurance policy, and borrowed 232,000 yuan from loan sharks with an annual interest rate of 42%.Although they were starving themselves, these teachers fed 11,000 elementary school students out of their thin pockets. For teachers, relief workers and police officers, poverty is up close and visible. In the early 1930s, no one called the police "pigs".Even when the police were sent to break strikes, there was a widespread perception that they, like the workers, were exploited. On March 7, officials brutally suppressed the "March Against Hunger" at the Ford Motor Plant.The next day, the Detroit police chief fired 162 officers.New York City's street cops have been distributing relief food to the poorest in the poorest boroughs in which they have been on duty since 1930, donated by city officials (including the police) at 1 percent of their income.In doing so, as Caroline Byrd points out, they were "the first public acknowledgment that there is an official duty to those who are well-behaved but mired in abject poverty. But this is not acknowledged by those at the top, but by those in the The lowest rank of public servants working in the ghetto". But it was the faculty who saw the worst of it, because the people who suffered the most during the Great Depression were in the classroom. 1932年这年最可怕了，当年10月，即大选前一个月，纽约市卫生局报告说：公立学校的小学生有20%营养不良。美国友谊服务委员会的秘书对国会一个委员会说，在俄亥俄、西弗吉尼亚、伊利诺伊、肯塔基和宾夕法尼亚各州的矿区，营养不良的儿童有时达总数90%以上，他们的症状是“思睡、发懒、困倦、智力发展受阻”。有一位教员劝一个小女孩回家去吃点东西，她回答说：“不行啊，我家是轮流吃饭的，今天该我妹妹吃。”又有一个小男孩让人看他心爱的小兔子，他姐姐悄悄地对来客说：“弟弟以为我们不会把小兔子吃掉的，可是我们就要这样做啦。”一个名叫莉莲·沃尔德的社会工作者感到十分不忍，她问道：“为了让孩子们吃饱，有些人自己一连饿几个星期，饿得直打哆嗦，你看见了没有·”有一个有儿女的人满腔怨气地说：“咱们工人再也没有养孩子的权利了。”马萨诸塞州有一个牧师说：“我认得一家人，他们今年只吃小扁豆过活，买不起面包啊。我们的孩子怎么办呢·” 可是胡佛总统对记者们说：“并没有谁真正挨饿。拿那些流浪汉来说，他们吃的就比过去什么时候都好。纽约有一个流浪汉，一天吃了十顿饭。”1932年9月号的《财富》杂志干脆骂总统撒谎，它说：“应该说有2500万人衣食不周，这才是美国经济状况比较准确的描写。”活活饿死的事例，《财富》杂志、《旧金山纪事报》、《大西洋》月刊、《纽约时报》和国会听证会都记载了不少。纽约市福利委员会报告说：有29人饿死，另有110人死于营养不良，多数是儿童。胡佛总统根本没有看到人民的痛苦，不过他卸任以后就免不了见识一下了：有一次他在落基山区钓鱼，有个本地人把他领到一间茅屋里，看到一个孩子已经饿死，另外七个也奄奄一息了。 千百万人只因像畜生那样生活，才免于死亡。宾夕法尼亚州的乡下人吃野草根、蒲公英；肯塔基州的人吃紫萝兰叶、野葱、勿忘我草、野莴苣以及一向专给牲口吃的野草。城里的孩子妈妈在码头上徘徊等待，一有腐烂的水果蔬菜扔出来，就上去同野狗争夺。蔬菜从码头装上卡车，她们就跟在后边跑，有什么掉下来就捡。中西部地区一所旅馆的厨师把一桶残菜剩羹放在厨房外的小巷里，立即有十来个人从黑暗中冲出来抢。加利福尼亚州长滩市有一个名叫弗朗西斯·埃弗雷特·汤森的66岁的内科医生，他临窗刮脸，往外一看，竟有“三个干瘦憔悴、老态龙钟的妇女”(这是他后来的描述)“趴在几个垃圾桶上从里边掏东西”。人们还看到，有人全家走进垃圾堆捡骨头和西瓜皮来啃。因为蛆虫多，芝加哥市有一个寡妇在捡东西吃时总是先把眼镜摘掉，眼不见为净。小说家托马斯·沃尔夫晚上在纽约街头留神细看一群“无家可归的人在饭馆附近来回踯躅，把泔水桶的盖子掀开找腐烂的东西吃”。这样的人他“早已到处看见，可是后来到了悲惨绝望的1932年，人数更是与日俱增了”。 那年头，富裕的美国人认为把吃剩的施舍给没饭吃的同胞，就算是大发善心了。纽约吉斯科山的麋鹿会一个美国慈善机关，1876年成立。——译者和普林斯顿大学聚餐会吩咐仆人，要把残羹剩饭送到穷人手里。《布鲁克林之鹰》报建议设立一个总站，请慈善的市民把吃剩的残汤剩菜送到那里，让穷人分享。俄克拉何马市有一个名叫约翰·B·尼科乐斯的煤气公司经理草拟了一份计划，呼吁饭馆、市民俱乐部和旅馆的厨师把残羹剩菜装进“容量五加仑的干净铁桶，标明里面有'肉、豆、马铃薯、面包等等'”。这些铁桶由救世军收集，分饷失业者。与此同时，农民还送来了木柴，由失业者自己去劈(捐献柴火的偏偏又是农民!)。这位经理给陆军部长赫尔利写信说：“我们预料，有些不值得照顾的人有时会来找点麻烦，但是我们必须不怕麻烦，因为只有这样，那些值得照顾的人才能得到照顾。”赫尔利认为这个主意很好，力劝政府采纳。但是胡佛属下的紧急就业委员会主任认为这样做可能造成误解，便把方案否决了。 尼科乐斯、《布鲁克林之鹰》报、普林斯顿大学聚餐会会员和麋鹿会会员们似乎从没想到，更富于戏剧性的解决办法已经近在眼前。富人脑满肠肥，大众饥肠辘辘，这个鲜明对比已经有人在考虑，而且觉得未来事变的阴影已经隐约可见了。托马斯·沃尔夫时常站在纽约的公厕里同那些处境悲惨的人们交谈，谈到他再也不忍听下去，便踏着阶梯往上走20英尺，站在人行道上凝望，只见“曼哈顿的摩天大厦在冬夜寒光中闪闪发亮。伍尔沃思百货大楼就在不到50码开外，再过去不远是华尔街的几家大银行，一律是巨石和钢铁筑成的堡垒，屋顶塔尖放射着银色的光辉。人间不平事，莫过于此了：这边是悲惨万状的地狱，那边一条马路之隔就是一座座灯火辉煌的高楼矗立于凄然的月色之中。这些高楼是权力的顶峰，全世界的大部分财富就深锁在楼底坚固的地下库房里。” 逆境一来，美国人向来是要寻找替罪羊的。1932年初，沃尔夫等人就集中火力对下曼哈顿区的那些财阀攻击开了。这些替罪羊是又肥又好摆布。回想20年代，美国的金融家和工业家曾经是全国有口皆碑的英雄。不过哈佛大学教授威廉·Z·里普利早已向柯立芝总统提出过警告(虽然说也没用)，他说，有这么一些东西在威胁美国的经济：“耍手段，玩把戏，甜言蜜语，胡吹瞎说，欺蒙哄骗。”可是柯立芝是不相信这种高喊大难临头的预言家的。正如小阿瑟·施莱辛格后来所描写的那样，足足九年之久，政府对待工商业家的态度竟好比他们已经“发现了什么点金石，能把资本主义那种很不稳定的局面一变而为永恒繁荣的局面”。梅隆当年曾经名噪一时，大家说他是亚历山大·汉密尔顿1789～1795年任美国商业部长，提倡保护关税，与金融家拉拢，大得资产阶级的称赞。——译者以后最伟大的财政部长”。《美国商业》月刊说：美国企业家是“全国最有力量的人”。可是到了证券市场崩溃三年之后的今天，孩子们却唱起这样的歌来了： 梅隆拉响汽笛， 胡佛敲起钟， 华尔街发出信号， 美国往地狱冲。 不过，这首歌金融巨头们是听不进去的。他们依然鼠目寸光，盛气凌人，脱离实际。他们在《文摘》杂志里读到的文章，无非盛赞大萧条带来的好处，例如说：“现在人们做生意比以前客气了，在家里也往往比以前讲道理了，尤其是那些没头脑的女人家。她们过去不知好歹，不关心丈夫，不料理家务，现在都服服帖帖，小心谨慎了。”一位共和党的新泽西州州长候选人给选民们带来了好消息：“繁荣太过分，就会败坏人民的道德品质的。”据报道，有人建议杜邦家族的某成员出钱举办星期天下午的广播节目，他拒绝了，因为他认为“星期天下午三点钟人人都在打马球，没工夫听。”J·P·摩根说：“如果消灭了有闲阶级，那就是消灭文明。我所说的有闲阶级是指雇得起一个佣人的家庭，这种家庭全国有2500万或3000万个。”人们告诉他，据人口调查，全国家庭佣人总数还不到200万，他似乎感到吃惊。不过人们觉得，摩根不了解实情，本来不足为奇。正如沃尔特·李普曼所写的，美国工业界和金融界的许多领袖人物，“已经从我国历史上最有影响、最有权威的高峰一落千丈，落到了最不堪的境地了。” 1932年这一年，美国65%的工业掌握在600家公司的手里；仅占全国人口1%的人拥有全国财富59%。芝加哥有个人叫做塞缪尔·英萨尔，此人身兼85家公司的董事、65家公司的董事长和11家公司的总经理。由他掌管的各种公用事业构成了一个庞大的王国，其中包括150家公司，有5万雇员为325万顾客服务。1932年元旦那天，他所拥有的证券实值在30亿元以上。失业的人们在瓦卡大道低处烧火取暖，仰望着那高耸入云的英萨尔大楼，对一些记者感叹说：“为什么那个老头儿不能帮我们一点忙呢·” 这个老头儿实在无法帮忙，因为他有他自己的难题。他那个由控股公司构成的金字塔式的王国快倒坍了。不消几天，成千上万的芝加哥人(包括大批的教师)，就要听到一个惊人的消息：他们手里那些英萨尔公司的股票下跌到只有1931年原价的4%了。英萨尔由36名保镖护卫着，日夜奔走，力图挽回颓势，可是这年4月，他那两个投资信托公司就被宣布破产了。6月，他因欠下6000万元的债，逃往欧洲，库克县的大陪审团陪审员在12人以上的叫大陪审团。——译者便对他提起公诉。为了掩人耳目，他在巴黎安排了一个记者招待会，却从后门偷偷溜走，搭上夜半的快车南下罗马，接着又飞往雅典。他的律师告诉过他，雅典是安全的，因为希腊跟美国没有签过引渡罪犯的条约。当时这种条约确实没有，但是到了11月初，两国的外交官们就签了这样一个条约。英萨尔急忙男扮女装，租了一条船逃到土耳其。土耳其政府把他送交美国当局，终于押回本国受审，可是结果却被判无罪，因为当时还没有管制控股公司的法规。幽默作家威尔·罗杰斯这时说了一句俏皮话：“控股公司原来是这样的一种地方：警察搜你的身，你就把贼赃递给同伙，这就万事大吉了。” 罗杰斯还说：“这些家伙的所作所为，还没有越出法律范围，可是已经到了边缘，跟吃官司只相去毫厘了。”为了寻找犯罪证据，民主党占多数的国会在华尔街到处调查，果然查出了一些不寻常的人物。银行家艾伯特·H·威金把本银行(大通银行)的股票抛空卖出，事后又撒谎骗人。因为生意不好，纽约花旗银行的查尔斯·米切尔撕毁了跟谷物交易银行合并的协定；他还硬要本银行的记账员们和出纳员们按股票市场崩溃以前的价格(每股原价200元，当时已跌到40元)继续分期付款购买花旗银行的股票，同时既不要保证也不收利息，就把股东的240万元借给本银行的高级职员做投机买卖。此外，米切尔还把证券亏本卖给家人，事后又买回来，这样来逃避联邦所得税。J·P·摩根也用类似的办法钻空子，1929、1930、1931这三年，他一文所得税也没交过。《芝加哥论坛报》老板罗伯特·麦考密克上校一年只是象征性地上了1500元的所得税，却写了许许多多的长篇社论，敦促读者老实纳税，分文不少。 安德鲁·梅隆这时也以财政部长的资格追逼那些拖欠税款的人们，可是对自己却采用另一种标准。遵照梅隆的指示，国内收入署署长为他写了一份备忘录，列举12种逃避联邦税的办法。这条新闻使全国为之震惊。于是，指派了财政部一位税收专家去审查梅隆的个人所得税申报书。结果发现梅隆竟采用了这位署长的五条建议，其中包括虚报赠款若干宗，亏损若干项，借以偷税漏税。这些事情的揭露使得克萨斯州众议员赖特·帕特曼气愤极了，便在1932年1月25日要求众议院弹劾梅隆部长，罪状是“品质恶劣，行为越轨”。但是对梅隆心怀敬意的仍然大有人在。在他们看来，公开发表这些骇人听闻的消息，无异犯上作乱。有个仰慕梅隆的人(他的律师)尖锐地指责《纽约时报》的一个记者，说他是“向激进分子提供炮弹”。 英萨尔使的花招是合法的，逃税同样也是合法的。但是尽管当时的税法漏洞百出，有些人还是不免越轨，陷入法网。“瑞典火柴大王”伊瓦尔·克罗伊格曾得过法国荣誉军团大员勋章法国荣誉军团系于1802年由拿破仑创立，借以奖励军政界有功人员。现在勋章分五级，大员勋章是第二级。——译者，是胡佛总统研究欧洲大萧条情况的顾问，大家都认为他诚实可靠，所以1928年波士顿的李和希金森投资公司以这位大王所发的证券为担保，发行几百万元债券，那时经理们竟听从他本人的意见，不去查一查他的账。1932年3月12日，他买了一支大型手枪，在巴黎市内的豪华公寓里关起门来自杀了。人们在对他作了一番颂扬之后，才发现这位大王原来是一个不折不扣的盗窃犯，多次欺诈取财，并曾伪造意大利政府的公债券。除其他罪行外，他还从对他深信不疑的投资者那里盗窃了三亿多元。 新的惊人消息每周都有。艾夫里尔·哈里曼美国著名的外交家(1891～)。——译者有一个堂兄弟是银行家(或者像《纽约时报》那样，叫他做“银行匪”)，叫做约瑟夫·哈里曼。因为知道自己的银行快要破产，他便逃到曼哈顿区的一个疗养院里躲起来。警察追得紧，他便化名逃到长岛的一家小旅店里住下。可是纳索市的警察还是找到了他。哈里曼拿一把刀插进自己的肋部，但自杀未遂。他终于因伪造银行账簿和滥用银行款项坐了两年牢。“美国银行”(在美国历史上，在陷于破产的银行当中，这是最大的)的常务副董事长索尔·辛格也因犯有同样罪行而入狱。不久，煤气电力联合公司的总经理霍华德·霍普森(该公司有188576个股东)又在华盛顿乘出租汽车出逃，被警方狂追逮住，经过审讯，查明他犯了17桩欺诈敛财罪。乔治·索科尔斯基写道：“对于我们过去的上层人物，谁也信不过了。”菲奥雷洛·拉瓜迪亚众议员评论一件操纵股票案说：“这些人搞的勾当固然肮脏，但是我相信，凡是合伙搞的股票生意情况都是一样。”约瑟夫·肯尼迪本人就是个商界巨头，可是他也说：“人家本以为掌握美国各大公司的那些人品行端正，理想高尚，可是这种信念现在已经完全破灭了。” 从上面所说的事情来看，胡佛的复兴金融公司采用了那种经营方针，不能不认为是绝大的政治错误。1932年，国会领导人终于通过了一项法案，授权复兴金融公司贷给各州政府3亿元，以供失业救济之用。可是直到年底，只有3000万元真正交到各州政府手里，这仅仅等于道斯贷给自己的中央共和银行和芝加哥信托公司的总额的1/3。胡佛总统打电话给俄亥俄州前参议员艾特利·波默林，任命他接替道斯主持复兴金融公司。在接到电话时，波默林的口袋里只有九角八分钱，而且在他前往宣誓就职的路上，就有十个叫花子跟他要钱，这些都可能是很有象征意义的怪现象。作为政策措施，设立复兴金融公司是失败的。人们说复兴金融公司是“大企业救济所”，它确是专帮大企业的忙的。 批评复兴金融公司就像弹劾梅隆部长一样，使麦克阿瑟将军之流大为反感。他们以为，这样会威胁国家的安全。现在，有钱人真的害怕起饥民来了。有个民主党领袖在1932年春天突然遭到一位旧友的抨击，这是指下文所说的史密斯攻击罗斯福，他们都是民主党人。——译者也是由于这个原因。艾尔弗雷德·史密斯是在纽约市东区贫民窟出生的，15岁便在富尔顿鱼市场当收款员，后来在坦慕尼俱乐部纽约市的民主党组织。——译者活动，青云直上，当上了纽约州长。1928年，史密斯同胡佛竞选总统失败，富兰克林·罗斯福当选继任州长。史密斯后来说：“我离开奥尔巴尼市纽约州的首府。——译者以后，因为在州长官邸已经住了六年，一号大道我看不顺眼了，便搬到五号大道一号大道是穷人住的，五号大道是有钱人住的。——译者去住，房租每年1万元。”证券市场大崩溃后，史密斯仍然有自己雇用的司机，天天坐着一辆高级轿车在曼哈顿区跑来跑去。他是好几家银行和保险公司的董事、金融巨头们的密友、帝国大厦的董事长。他再也不是穷小子了，社会地位高了，因此得意扬扬。 谁也没想到1932年4月7日星期四，在全国联播节目里突然听到了一个新的声音——富兰克林·罗斯福的热情、洪亮、充满信心的声音。这位州长谴责胡佛政府，说政府专门救济大银行、大企业。他嘲笑那些“肤浅的思想家”，说他们不懂得怎样去帮助农民。他说：“在这个不幸的时代，我们要制定出一些计划来，把希望重新寄托在那些压在经济金字塔底层、被人遗忘了的人们的身上。” 于是，在杰弗逊纪念日4月13日。——译者的宴会上，史密斯暴跳如雷。他涨红着脸，气哑了嗓门，说：“有些竞选总统的演说老手总是说我们出了什么什么毛病，这样的话美国人已经听够了，听厌了。”他还说：“我们现在再也不能让政客们妖言惑众了。谁还要蛊惑人心，煽动美国的劳动群众，弄得这个阶级斗那个阶级，有钱人斗穷人，大家自取灭亡，我就要脱掉衣服跟他拼到底!”