Posted on 02/16/2009 5:12:51 AM PST by bogeybob
The Senior Senator from Maine.
There are other sites...google is your friend....you want to believe the depression especially the period of 29 thru March 33 when Hoover was in office and nothing was done to help millions of average Americans without homes and jobs was a Walton rerun...have at it. It was a miserable time made more miserable by Hoover who completely mishandled the crisis...including fed policy. Roosevelt was elected four times.
From my research on Google, there are no credible sites that indicate there were 7-15 million deaths from starvation in America during the Great Depression. The CDC has the most comprehensive facts on record concerning ALL deaths from 1929-1939 --- GRAND TOTAL 15 million!
All you have is some BS from a crazy Russian posting his anti-American propaganda. Since you haven't posted any evidence to support your boneheaded contention, I'd say Google is not your friend. If proof had existed, you would posted it by now. Instead you spread bold face lies.
Whatever...the depression was a time of prosperity. All was well, the food riots (documented), bonus march...why none of it ever happened. No site would be credible enough for you because in my opinion you have a closed mind on the subject. I said several times, we will never know how many died...but there is no doubt in my mind that many did die of starvation, illness as a result of malnourishment and exposure as well.
One of these days, I’m going to look at first hand accounts and try to piece this stuff together...it’s a very interesting subject. Maybe there is a book in it.
Obviously, Google had no facts to support your boneheaded posts that 7-15 million Americans died of starvation during the Great Depression.
That makes you a bold face liar. Carry on.
Of course...no one died...I mean how bad could it be-no money and no food...why it was a Walton kind of depression really. Again, no one will ever know how many died. I think the range I gave you-obtained from google is reasonable...but since good records were not kept, people didn’t always have birth certificates or even death certificates, and to further confuse the facts you had transient populations who moved from place to place attempting to survive- I would be a liar if I attempted to provide a definite number...a range is all that one can attempt which I did. As for being a liar...I’m sure that’s a category which includes all who disagree with you...so think what you like.
“The Great Depression differed in both length and harshness from previous depressions in the United States. In earlier depressions, business activity had started to pick up after one or two years. But from October 1929 until Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in March 1933 the economy slumped almost every month. Business failures increased rapidly among banks, factories, and stores, and unemployment soared. Millions of people lost their job, savings, and home.
Economic breakdown. From 1930 to 1933, prices of industrial stocks fell about 80 percent. Banks and individuals with investments in the stock market lost large sums. Banks had also loaned money to many people who could not repay it. The deepening depression forced large numbers of people to withdraw their savings. Banks had great difficulty meeting the withdrawals, which came at a time when the banks were unable to collect on many loans. Between January 1930 and March 1933, about 9,000 banks failed. The bank failures wiped out the savings of millions of people.
Ben Isaacs, who lived in Chicago during the depression, described what happened to him: “I was in business for myself, selling clothes on credit. ... But ... banks closed down overnight. We lost everything. ... I couldn’t pay the rent. ... I sold it [the car] for $15 in order to buy some food for the family. ... I would bend my head low [in the relief line] so nobody would recognize me. ...” (The quotations in this article are from Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (c) 1970 by Studs Terkel, published by Pantheon Books, a Division of Random House, Inc.)
Bank failures made less money available for loans to industry. The decline in available money caused a drop in production and a further rise in unemployment. From 1929 to 1933, the total value of goods and services produced annually in the United States fell from about $104 billion to about $56 billion. In 1932, the number of business closings was almost a third higher than the 1929 level.
In 1925, about 3 percent of the nation’s workers were unemployed. The unemployment rate reached about 9 percent in 1930 and about 25 percent — or about 13 million persons — in 1933. Many people who kept or found jobs had to take salary cuts. In 1932, wage cuts averaged about 18 percent. Many people, including college graduates, felt lucky to find any job. In 1932, the New York City Police Department estimated that 7,000 persons over the age of 17 shined shoes for a living. A popular song of the 1930’s called “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” expressed the nationwide despair.
Foreign trade also fell greatly during the Great Depression. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 contributed to the drop. This law greatly increased a number of tariffs. President Hoover signed the law because he thought it would reduce competition from foreign products. But tariffs rose so high that other nations reacted by raising tariffs on U.S. goods.
From 1929 to 1933, prices of farm goods fell about 50 percent. This drop occurred partly because high tariffs made exports unprofitable. In addition, farmers produced a surplus of crops. The surplus pushed prices down because there was more food than people could buy.
Human suffering became a reality for millions of Americans as the depression continued. Many died of disease resulting from malnutrition. Thousands lost their home because they could not pay the mortgage. In 1932, at least 25,000 families and more than 200,000 young people wandered through the country seeking food, clothing, shelter, and a job. Many youths traveled in freight trains and lived near train yards in camps called hobo jungles.
The homeless, jobless travelers obtained food from welfare agencies or religious missions in towns along the way. Most of their meals consisted of soup, beans, or stew and had little nourishment. The travelers begged for food or stole it if they could not get something to eat in any other way. Sometimes they ate scraps of food from garbage cans.
The ragged travelers found clothing harder to obtain than food. Missions gave most of the clothing they had to needy local people. Some of the travelers became ill because they did not have proper food and clothing. Even the sick wanderers had trouble getting help because hospitals aided local residents first.
Many people who lost their home remained in the community. Some crowded into the home of a relative. Others moved to a shabby section of town and built shacks from flattened tin cans and old crates. Groups of these shacks were called Hoovervilles, a name that reflected the people’s anger and disappointment at President Hoover’s failure to end the depression.
Peggy Terry, who grew up in Oklahoma during the depression, recalled a visit to a Hooverville in Oklahoma City: “Here were all these people living in old rusted-out car bodies. ... One family ... [was] living in a piano box. This wasn’t just a little section, this was maybe 10 miles wide and 10 miles long. People living in whatever they could junk together. ...”
In 1932, many farmers refused to ship their products to market. They hoped a reduced supply of farm products would help raise the price of these goods. Such farmers’ strikes occurred throughout the country, but they centered in Iowa and the surrounding states.
Harry Terrell, who lived in Iowa during the depression, described the conditions among farmers: “Corn was going for 8 cents a bushel. One county insisted on using corn to heat the courthouse, ‘cause it was cheaper than coal.... The people were desperate....[Farmers] stopped milk wagons, dumped milk....”
Severe droughts and dust storms hit parts of the Midwest and Southwest during the 1930’s. The afflicted region became known as the Dust Bowl, and thousands of farm families there were wiped out. Many farmers went to the fertile agricultural areas of California to look for work. Most who found jobs had to work as fruit or vegetable pickers for extremely low wages. The migrant families crowded into shacks near the fields or camped outdoors. John Steinbeck’s famous novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) describes the hardships some migrant families faced during the depression.
Hoover’s policies. President Hoover believed that business, if left alone to operate without government supervision, would correct the economic conditions. He vetoed several bills aimed at relieving the depression because he felt they gave the federal government too much power.
Hoover declared that state and local governments should provide relief to the needy. But those governments did not have enough money to do so. In 1932, Congress approved Hoover’s most successful antidepression measure, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). This government agency provided some relief by lending money to banks, railroads, and other large institutions whose failure would have made the depression even worse. However, most Americans felt that Hoover did not do enough to fight the depression. They elected Franklin D. Roosevelt President in 1932.”
>>>>>>I think the range I gave you-obtained from google is reasonable...but since good records were not kept...
Its unreasonable. 15 million died in total from 1929-1939, according to comprehensive historic records of the CDC. 7-15 million Americans did not die from starvation during the Great Depression. You can find further data at the Statistical Abstract of the United States, Live Births, Deaths, Infant Deaths, and Maternal Deaths
Your replies are nothing but falsehoods based on pure propaganda being spewed by an anti-American Russian. Frankly, you sound like a liberal troll. Carry on.
“I don’t know how well it would’ve gone over if the claim Ike considered him for a running mate in 1952 “
Conservatives at the time would probably not have been thrilled.
By today’s standard he’d probably be a Republican though.
“Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius’s moonbat Socialist father “
Oh yes Mr. Lose in 1974. He must have been some piece of crap. Wikisuckia said he lost because he didn’t appoint John Glenn to the Senate. (rolleyes)
Holy crap, is this farce of a debate STILL going on ? Way too many DU mental patients have escaped the nervous hospital and are defecating on our website.
Gilligan was a fluke win in the first place. He lost because the people of OH recognized he was a fiasco and returned his GOP predecessor to his job. I still can’t believe Metzenbaum managed to beat Taft in a rematch in ‘76 (especially after Metzenbaum was tagged as a kook). Ford only barely lost the state (a swing of 6,000 votes would’ve seen him carry it, and had he won it and just another state (say, TN), he’d have won that year. It’s amazing to look at the ‘76 map and see the polar opposite reversal that has occurred since then with who carries what states. CA & NJ GOP, and the entire Deep South except for Virginia going rodent.
Suckia speaks of a GOP scandal in 1970.
“and had he won it and just another state (say, TN),”
TN was a big win for Jimbo.
It is quite a turn change. Ford won 15 states lost by McStain and lost 11 won by McStain. 26 states different if I counted right.
The Kent State mess didn’t help matters for the GOP candidate (Rhodes wasn’t running in ‘70, State Auditor Roger Cloud was the nominee, and he lost by a 54-43% margin, an embarrassment). The left tried to exploit it and blow it well out of proportion far beyond OH boundaries. The ultraleft thugs were trying to take control of the campus and those in power wanted to restore some order. The left was always looking to provoke violence so they could be martyred for their cause. It makes you sick, because THEY were on the wrong side. Well, you can read the big long Wiki entry on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Cloud’s article also mentions a fiancial scandal with the GOP state treasurer.
I’m glad there wasn’t violence at my mom’s college Knox. John Podesta was very successful in bending the administration to his will.
Right, I’ve been hiding out hear almost ten years because I’m a troll...I’ve had enough of your insults, you don’t think I’m right; I don’t expect people to agree with me...you keep insisting I have some number in my head, I don’t...I posted info from google-a range...however this would not allow your faux outrage, I don’t care what you think. You want to believe the depression was not that bad...kind of a Walton rerun...fine. However, history does not support your view.
Absolutely no one believes there weren't some deaths of Americans attributed to starvation during the Great Depression. Just nowhere near the 7-15 million figure you keep tossing around.
Several FReepers have asked you to post some factual evidence to back up your outrageous assertions. You can't do that and for good reason. That evidence doesn't exist. What you have posted are conclusions reached in 2008, by an anti-American Russian researcher that have no basis in fact or truth. Conclusions that are nothing but pure propaganda and have been roundly rejected by this conservative forum.
If you want to keep up this charade, have at it. You're only perpetuating behavior consistent with a liberal troll. If you don't like being held accountable, I suggest you post some evidence or apologize and back off.
After all, there are enough folks engaging in farcical debate on the Romney threads. Right?
I did not post falsehood, not did I ‘obfuscate’ the truth...as I stated before, you have your opinion, I have mine...I don’t care to continue with the name calling so I won’t bother answering your post. I consider you ideas ridiculous, but I have not called you one name...so why continue? You aren’t going to convince me...I have no idea what the true figure is as stated before...I posted a range found on the internet...you don’t like the source-no problem. It is illogical to believe with the unemployment of 32 and 33 that people did not die of starvation...there was no unemployment, welfare and not even soup kitchens until Roosevelt. Think as you please...it’s a free country.
At post#365 you replied:
>>>>>One can only get estimates of course 7 million to 15 million...how can you doubt starvation occurred ...
You posted at #376:
>>>>> ... it’s estimated a combined total of between 12 and 15 million Americans died from starvation.
Two bold face lies.
You can have an opinion, as long as it doesn't ignore the facts and the truth. You believe your opinion based on anti-American propaganda trumps historic facts. That is ridiculous. Troll on, troll!
On top of all that, you praise the socialist FDR and the failed policies of his new deal. Troll on, liberal troll.
“have posted sources several times in these sort of discussions...you can google it. One can only get estimates of course 7 million to 15 million.” You left out a part...so who is the liar? As your own post shows...I clearly stated you can only get estimates and suggested you google it?
As for your second ‘lie’, again the estimated word...so how exactly is this a lie? It is in fact posted on google just as I said...one of us may be a liar, but it’s not me. Your post is as nonsensical as your previous posts were.
Another inane reply. LOL
Troll on ...
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