September 23,—1935-Hey, Everybody! Our Roving Reporter Has Found Prosperity!
The Washington Daily News—Monday—September 23,—1935
Hey, Everybody! Our Roving Reporter Has Found Prosperity!
By ERNIE PYLE
MANKATO, Minn.—Here is the end of the rainbow; here is the famous spot just around the corner. For here, ladies and gentlemen, is prosperity.
This city of 20,000, center and heart of the fertile Minnesota River valley farming country, is on the verge of a mild boom.
The farmers have money in their pockets. The merchants are remodeling their stores and sprucing up. People are spending. People look happy.
A friend of mine runs a daily newspaper here. I asked him if the people hereabouts were for or against the New Deal. He said: “What can they be but for it? Even the Republicans admit that things are better than they were a year ago. Better than two years ago. And the New Deal has caused it. They’d be fools if they weren’t for it.”
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The night I was there, the merchants were opening a three-day contest. About 40 of the stores had set up window displays, each one representing some popular song, and the people were to guess what. For instance, one window had a model of a church, with little hills all around it. See? “Little Brown Church in the Vale.” Since I haven’t been out at night for 40 years and don’t know any new music, that’s the only one of the songs I could guess.
But anyway, this contest opened on a Wednesday night, and ran thru till Saturday. They were giving away about $150 in prizes to people who could name the most songs. I was told there would be a lot of people downtown that night. So we went down to look.
The main street was closed to auto traffic for about 10 blocks. And that street was so jammed with people it looked like a county fair. My friend who runs the newspaper estimated 10,000 people were on the street.
You might argue, of course, that the people were so poor and desperate that they all came down in the frantic hope of getting a part of the $150 prize. But that wasn’t it.
I pushed along thru the mob, looking at people’s faces, and their clothes, and listening to their talk. They didn’t look or act like the depression people I have been seeing everywhere for the past few years.
A good percentage of them were farmers. They were dressed nicely; not “jakey” looking, as we say on the farm. There was none of the beaten look you see on depression faces. They were downtown just to be with the people, and have a good time, and look at the things they were going to buy.
Two things account for this return to better times in southern Minnesota. One is the dual fact that the Minnesota River valley is exceptionally fertile, and that the farmers of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa are and always have been unusually progressive; the other reason is that the New Deal has definitely raised farm prices, and given the farmers something for their work.
The farmers have started buying again. The stores are doing almost as much business as before the depression, and it can’t be denied that the store business reflects the general financial status of the community.
The farm implement factories and distributors are running at full steam. After years of getting along with old tools, the farmer’s machinery is worn out, and he starts replenishing the minute he has money.
In the fields you see much new machinery, and on the roads you meet, a dozen times an hour, new tractors or binders or mowing machines, their new paint glistening in the sun, being taken home to the farm. The tractor factory in Waterloo, Ia., has been running double shifts for almost a year.
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There are only a few people on relief in and around Mankato this summer. They say there is no excuse for anybody able and willing to work, to be without a job here this summer. There will be people on relief this winter, of course. But they don’t expect as many as last year.
And prospects are good for the future. The corn crop, while no record-breaker, is good. If the frost will just hold off a little longer, everything will be all right. They’ve had a spell of cold weather that scared the farmers stiff, but it has warmed up again now. Another week without frost, and the corn will be in to maturity.
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