Columnist George Sokolosky (1893 – 1962), writing from the road, reported that a general uneasiness had fallen across the land as a result of the economic stagnation:
“In some cities, the Government in Washington was blamed; in others, the banks; in still others, bad management of cooperatives. Nowhere did I listen to a demand for confiscation of property, for an overturn of the of processes of government, for a Fascist or a Communist regime, for the shooting of officials. Such conversations would be revolutionary. They do not occur. I have heard bankers and lawyers use the word ‘revolution’, but when I asked them what they mean by it, the conversation indicates change, orderly change, a return to prosperity – one chicken in the pot and a balance in the bank to pay taxes… Nevertheless, confidence in the erstwhile leadership of this country is gone. Mention the name of any of the great men of the Post-War era, and there is only derision.”
Yet, regardless of the degradation of the Great Depression, the United States was still an enormously wealthy nation…
Read about the the mood of the Great Depression and how it was reflected in the election of 1932 – click here…
