August 12, 1935-A Jerseyman’s View Of The New Deal: Such Stuff As That!
The Washington Daily News—Monday—August 12,—1935
A Jerseyman’s View Of The New Deal: Such Stuff As That!
By Ernie Pyle
SPARTA, N.J.-- Here’s a chance to make some money.
“The man who fixes autos in a little town near here said if I could find five people in the town who would vote for president Roosevelt next year he’d give me $5 apiece for them.
“All right, I guess I’ll give five of them $2.50 apiece to do it, and I’ll still be ahead,” I said.
“They might tell you they’d vote for him, just to get the money, but they wouldn’t really do it,” he said.
Just what’s the matter, I wanted to know.
“Everywhere’s a big mess,” he said. “The Three-A has ruined all the farmers around here. We pay big processing taxes and the money all goes to the Mid West. Practically none of it comes back to the farmers around here.
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“And the way they spend money. See this road along here? From here down to the next telephone pole (about 100 yards) there used to be a row of nice big trees.
“Well, sir, they cut them all down, and then dug a shallow ditch along the side of the road, then they put the dirt back in the ditch, then they dug it out again and threw it on the other side, then they put it back in the ditch again, and you can see yourself they didn’t widen the road an inch, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t cost $2000. Such stuff as that!”
I suggested that President Roosevelt personally didn’t even know that road existed, so how could you blame him for doing that kind of work? Wasn’t it the fault of the local dispensers of work projects? And wasn’t even such wasteful work better than just paying it out in straight relief, which would have had to be done otherwise?
The man didn’t know about that. It was just all a big mess. And anyhow, the guys doing that relief work were out-of-towners. His town didn’t have anybody at all on Federal relief.
Only four people there were unable to scrape along somehow, he said, and the town (not Federal or municipal relief money, but individuals in the town) were taking care of them. The town isn’t very big– it isn’t in the list of towns with big populations, and it isn’t even on some maps. My guess would give it 400 or 500 people.
“And the banks,” the man said. “There’s another thing. The bank examiners are a lot of kids that don’t know what it’s all about.
“Right here in this county the receivers and examiners have accepted notes for the Government that not a banker in New Jersey would have taken, and they threw out notes that within six months would have paid every cent. Such stuff as that!
“No, sir, you won’t find anybody around here who’s gonna vote for Roosevelt next year.”
“Who are they going to vote for?” I asked.
He really grinned for the first time, “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “There don’t seem to be anybody. Maybe they just won’t vote at all.”
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