American History: Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor Pulls US Into War

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The USS California after being struck by a torpedo and a bomb during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941

STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.

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History is usually a process of slow change. However, certain events also can change the course of history. Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo was such an event. So was the first airplane flight by the Wright brothers. Or the meeting between the Spanish explorer Cortez and the Aztec king Montezuma.

All these events were moments that changed history. And so it was, too, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December seventh, nineteen forty-one.

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NEWS BULLETIN: "We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by air, President Roosevelt has just announced. The attack also was made on all naval and military facilities on the principal island of Oahu.

"We take you now to Washington. The details are not available. They will be in a few minutes. The White house is now giving out a statement. The attack was apparently made on all naval and military activities on the principal island of Oahu.

"The president’s brief statement was read to reporters by Stephen Early, the president’s secretary. A Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor naturally would mean war. Such an attack would naturally bring a counterattack. And hostilities of this kind would naturally mean that the president would ask Congress for a declaration of war."

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STEVE EMBER:The surprise attack on America's large naval base in Hawaii was a great military success for Japan. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor had more than a military meaning.

The attack would force Americans to enter World War Two. More importantly, it would also make them better recognize their position as one of the most powerful nations in the world.

In future weeks, we will discuss the military and political events of World War Two. But today, we look back at the years before the United States entered that war.

The period between the end of World War One and the attack on Pearl Harbor lasted only twenty-three years, from nineteen eighteen to nineteen forty-one. But those years were filled with important changes in American politics, culture and traditions.

We start our review of these years with politics.

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In nineteen twenty, Americans elected Republican Warren Harding to the presidency. The voters were tired of the progressive policies of Democratic president Woodrow Wilson. They were especially tired of Wilson's desire for the United States to play an active role in the new League of Nations.

Harding was a conservative Republican. And so were the two presidents who followed him, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

All three of these presidents generally followed conservative economic policies. And they did not take an active part in world affairs.

Americans turned away from Republican rule in the election of nineteen thirty-two. They elected the Democratic presidential candidate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And they continued to re-elect him. In this way, the conservative Republican policies of the nineteen twenties changed to the more progressive policies of Roosevelt in the nineteen thirties.

This change happened mainly because of economic troubles.

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The nineteen twenties were a time of growth and business strength.

President Calvin Coolidge said during his term that the "chief business of the American people is business." This generally was the same belief of the other Republican presidents during the period, Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover.

There was a good reason for this. The economy expanded greatly during the nineteen twenties. Many Americans made a great deal of money on the stock market. And wages for workers increased as well.

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However, economic growth ended suddenly with the stock market crash of October nineteen twenty-nine.

In that month, the stocks for many leading companies fell sharply. And they continued to fall in the months that followed. Many Americans lost great amounts of money. And the public at large lost faith in the economy. Soon, the economy was in ruins, and businesses were closing their doors.

President Hoover tried to solve the crisis. But he was not willing to take the strong actions that were needed to end it. As time passed, many Americans began to blame Hoover for the terrible economic depression.

Democrat Franklin Roosevelt was elected mainly because he promised to try new solutions to end the Great Depression.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: "This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

STEVE EMBER:Soon after he was elected, Roosevelt launched a number of imaginative economic policies to solve the crisis.

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: "Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our great natural resources.

"Hand in hand with that, we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers. And by engaging, on a national scale, in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. Yes, the task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products, and with this, the power to purchase the output of our cities.

"It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the federal, the state, and the local governments act forthwith on the demands that their costs be drastically reduced."

STEVE EMBER: Roosevelt's policies helped to reduce the amount of human suffering. But the Great Depression finally ended only with America's entry into World War Two.

Roosevelt's victory in nineteen thirty-two also helped change the balance of power in American politics. Roosevelt brought new kinds of Americans to positions of power: Labor union leaders. Roman Catholics. Jews. Blacks. Americans from families that had come from places such as Italy, Ireland and Russia.

These Americans repaid Roosevelt by giving the Democratic Party their votes.

The nineteen twenties and thirties also brought basic changes in how Americans dealt with many of their social and economic problems.

The nineteen twenties generally were a period of economic growth with little government intervention in the day-to-day lives of the people. But the terrible conditions of the Great Depression during the nineteen thirties forced Roosevelt and the federal government to experiment with new policies.

The government began to take an active role in offering relief to the poor. It started programs to give food and money to poor people. And it created jobs for workers.

The government grew in other ways. It created major programs for farmers. It set regulations for the stock market. It built dams, roads and airports.

American government looked much different at the end of this period between the world wars than it did at the beginning. Government had become larger and more important. It dealt with many more issues in people's lives than it ever had before.

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Social protest increased during the nineteen twenties and thirties. Some black Americans began to speak out more actively about unfair laws and customs. Blacks in great numbers moved from the southern part of the country to northern and central cities.

The nineteen twenties and thirties also were a time of change for women. Women began to wear less conservative kinds of clothes. Washing machines and other inventions allowed them to spend less time doing housework. Women could smoke or drink in public, at least in large cities. And many women held jobs.

Of course, the women's movement was not new. Long years of work by such women's leaders as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had helped women win the constitutional right to vote in nineteen twenty.

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The nineteen twenties and thirties also were important periods in the arts.

George Gershwin wrote his “Rhapsody in Blue” originally for piano and jazz band. It later went on to become a symphony concert favorite.

loc.gov

George Gershwin

Writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill and others made this what many called the "Golden Age" of American writing. Frank Lloyd Wright and other architects designed great buildings. Film actors like Clark Gable, and radio entertainers like Jack Benny did more than make Americans laugh or cry. They also helped unite the country. Millions of Americans could watch or listen to the same show at the same time.

Politics. The economy. Social traditions. Art. All these changed for Americans during the nineteen twenties and thirties. And many of these changes also had effects in countries beyond America's borders.

However, the change that had the most meaning for the rest of the world was the change produced by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

America's modern history as a great superpower begins with its reaction to that attack. It was a sudden event in the flow of history. It was a day on which a young land suddenly became fully grown.

Our story continues next week.

Our program was written by David Jarmul. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember inviting you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

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This was program #18

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President Franklin Roosevelt at his desk in the White House

American History: Roosevelt Aims for Economic Security With 'Second New Deal'

 06 April 2011

Photo: AP

President Franklin Roosevelt at his desk in the White House

All credits for VOA Special English. Source: www.voanews.com

DOUG JOHNSON:  Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

Franklin Roosevelt's first three months as president was one of the most exciting periods in American politics. Roosevelt entered the White House in March nineteen thirty-three. The nation was in crisis. Banks across the country had closed their doors. The Great Economic Depression was at its lowest point.

Roosevelt and the Congress moved quickly to help people with little food or money. They launched a series of major economic programs.

I’m Doug Johnson with Mario Ritter. This week in our series, we talk about the laws and policies of President Franklin Roosevelt including those known as the “Second New Deal.”

MARIO RITTER:  Conditions improved within a year after Roosevelt took office. There was no question about that. Banks were open. More people had jobs. Farmers were doing better. And poor people were not so close to disaster as before. However, conditions were far from perfect. Ten million workers still did not have jobs. Young people leaving school were lucky to find any job at all. And most business owners were only earning small profits, if any at all.

After the worst crisis was past, some groups of Americans began to attack Roosevelt and his programs. Conservatives were the first to break with the president. They accused Roosevelt of socialist economic policies.

DOUG JOHNSON:  Much more serious to Roosevelt was criticism from reformers within his own party. A number of popular leaders with strong ideas began to attract support from large numbers of Americans. Roosevelt saw his national unity falling apart. Conservatives were accusing him of socialism. Leftist opponents said he was doing too little to end the depression. He saw that he had to change his path.

Roosevelt knew he had little chance to re-gain the support of conservative Americans. His policies were too progressive. So, halfway through his first term as president, he began to support new reforms in an effort to win more support from the left.

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The Norris Dam in Tennessee in 1937

MARIO RITTER:  The Supreme Court made the president's effort easier. Early in nineteen thirty-five, the court ruled that several of Roosevelt's earlier programs violated the constitution and ordered an end to them. Among them were major programs for farmers and industrial planning.

The court's decisions forced Roosevelt to create new programs and try new ideas. One of his first new actions was to support a plan for government controls on companies that supplied water and produced electricity.

Another was a measure to give jobs to workers. A third new law forced companies doing business with the federal government to pay workers a minimum wage. And the government also began enforcing a new law to control the actions of stock market traders and investment companies.

At the same time, Roosevelt began to attack large companies. He spoke about the importance of small businesses in a democracy. He warned the nation that large companies had too much power. And he called for new actions to increase business competition and control large companies.

DOUG JOHNSON:  Roosevelt supported, and Congress passed, two laws during this period that would change the lives of working Americans for years to come. The first law gave more power to labor unions. The second created a federal system to provide money for workers after they retired.

Roosevelt's administration had already supported labor unions in an earlier law. But that law was over-ruled by the Supreme Court. So in nineteen thirty-five, the Congress passed a new law called the National Labor Relations Act.

The act created a national labor relations group to help negotiate agreements between workers and business owners. It gave all workers the right to join or form a labor union. And it ordered business owners to negotiate with a union if it represented most of the workers.

The new law, for the first time, gave unions real power and negotiating rights.

MARIO RITTER:  The other very important law passed during this period created the national social security system. The law forced every worker and business owner to pay a small amount of money each month to the federal government. In exchange, the government paid money to workers who had retired or lost their jobs.

The new law did not serve everyone. Farmers, government workers, and a number of other groups were not included in the system. The plan also did nothing to help people who were already unemployed. A person had to have a job after the new system began and then lose it to get money.

However, the national social security law established a system that would grow and become a central part of American life.

DOUG JOHNSON:  Roosevelt also supported other new laws during this period that changed the American economy. A banking act gave the nation's central bank -- the Federal Reserve Board -- new power to control the total amount of money in use.

Another law increased taxes for rich people. A third law limited the power of major companies to gain control of local electric utility companies.

The new laws openly challenged the power of big companies, big banks, and big money. Roosevelt rejected the idea that government should cooperate with major companies. Instead, he accused many of the companies of ruining the economy and hurting the working man. He called on Congress to help small companies and the average American.

MARIO RITTER:  Perhaps the most important change during this period was that Roosevelt became willing to accept a federal budget that was not balanced. He began to agree with the ideas of Marriner Eccles, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Eccles believed that government had a duty to spend extra money during times of economic crisis. The extra money, he said, would create jobs for more people. They could buy more goods. And this would increase economic growth.

Eccles believed that it was good policy for a government to spend more money than it earned through taxes during such periods. He argued that a growing economy would increase wages and bring in more tax money.

DOUG JOHNSON:  Roosevelt's administration had spent more money than it earned ever since it took office. But the president and his advisers did so only to end the economic crisis. They believed that it was a necessary evil. But Eccles and others told Roosevelt that it was not bad for the nation if the government spent more than it earned.

The British economist John Maynard Keynes published an influential book that supported the same policy. And Roosevelt and his top advisers began to accept the new idea.

MARIO RITTER:  Roosevelt's economic policies were known as the "New Deal." But the many changes he made during this period became known as the "Second New Deal."

They included some of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of the country, such as the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security law. And Roosevelt's willingness to accept an unbalanced budget would be the first step toward federal budget deficits that would grow steadily in the years to come.

Budget deficits would jump under President Lyndon Johnson during the war in Vietnam. They would be an important cause of economic inflation in the United States and the world in the nineteen-seventies. And Americans would elect Ronald Reagan president in nineteen-eighty partly to try to bring federal spending under control.

In nineteen-thirty-five, however, most Americans agreed with Franklin Roosevelt that budget deficits were necessary to fight the serious economic depression.

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DOUG JOHNSON:  Our program was written by David Jarmul. I’m Doug Johnson with Mario Ritter. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #18
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American History: A Long Conservative Period Ends With Election of 1932

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Members of a poor family of nine on a New Mexico highway during the early 1930s.

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

I'm Bob Doughty with Steve Ember. This week in our series, we continue the story of the administration of Herbert Hoover. And we talk about the election of nineteen thirty-two.

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STEVE EMBER: President Herbert Hoover worked hard to rescue the American economy following the crash of the stock market. It happened in October of nineteen twenty-nine. Within a month, Hoover called the nation's business leaders to the White House. "Don't lower wages," the president told them.

Hoover called on the bankers at the Federal Reserve to make it easier for businesses to borrow money. He tried to provide funds to help farmers get fair prices for their crops. He pushed Congress to lower personal taxes. And above all, the president urged Americans not to lose hope in their economy or in themselves.

BOB DOUGHTY: But the economy was in ruins, falling faster with each passing day of the crisis that grew into the Great Depression. The value of stocks had collapsed. Millions of workers lost their jobs. The level of industrial production in the country was less than half of what it had been before the stock market crash.

Hoover's efforts were not enough to stop the growing crisis. In ever greater numbers, people called on the president to increase federal spending and provide jobs for people out of work.

But the president was a conservative Republican. He did not think it was the responsibility of the federal government to provide relief for poor Americans. And he thought it was wrong to increase spending above the amount of money that the government received in taxes.

STEVE EMBER: The situation seemed out of control. The nation's government and business leaders appeared to have no idea how to save the dollar and put people back to work.

Hoover was willing to take steps like spending government money to help farmers buy seeds and fertilizer. But he was not willing to give wheat to unemployed workers who were hungry.

He created an emergency committee to study the unemployment problem. But he would not launch government programs to create jobs. Hoover called on Americans to help their friends in need. But he resisted calls to spend federal funds for major relief programs to help the millions of Americans facing disaster.

BOB DOUGHTY: Leaders of the Democratic Party made the most of the situation. They accused the president of not caring about the common man. They said Hoover was willing to spend money to feed starving cattle for businessmen, but not willing to feed poor children.

Hoover tried to show the nation that he was dealing with the crisis. He worked with Congress to try to save the banks and to keep the dollar tied to the value of gold. He tried hard to balance the federal budget. And he told Americans that it was not the responsibility of the national government to solve all their problems.

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STEVE EMBER: Late in nineteen thirty-one, President Hoover appointed a new committee on unemployment. He named Walter Gifford to head this committee. Gifford was chief of a big company, American Telephone and Telegraph.

But Gifford did Hoover more harm than good.

When he appeared before Congress, Gifford was unable to defend Hoover's position that relief was the responsibility of local governments and private giving. He admitted that he did not know how many people were out of work. He did not know how many of them needed help. Or how much help they needed. Or how much money local governments could raise.

loc.gov

Walter Gifford

BOB DOUGHTY: The situation grew worse. Some Americans began to completely lose faith in their government. They looked to groups with extreme political ideas to provide answers.

Some Americans joined the Communist Party. Others helped elect state leaders with extreme political ideas. And in growing numbers, people began to turn to hatred and violence.

However, most Americans remained loyal to traditional values even as conditions grew steadily worse. They looked ahead to nineteen thirty-two, when they would have a chance to vote for a new president.

STEVE EMBER: Leaders of the Democratic Party felt they had an excellent chance to capture the White House in the election. And their hopes increased when the Republicans re-nominated President Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis in the summer of nineteen thirty-two.

For this reason, competition was fierce for the Democratic presidential nomination. The top candidate was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the governor of New York state.

Roosevelt had been re-elected to that office by a large majority just two years earlier. He came from a rich and famous family, but he was seen as a friend of the common man. Roosevelt was conservative in his economic thinking. But he was a progressive in his opinion that government should be active in helping people.

Roosevelt had suffered from polio and could not walk. He used a wheelchair, although it was rarely shown in news pictures.

fdrlibrary.marist.edu

Franklin Roosevelt in 1932

BOB DOUGHTY: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's two main opponents were Al Smith and John Garner. Smith had been the governor of New York before Roosevelt. Garner, a Texan, was the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Together, they hoped to block Roosevelt's nomination. And they succeeded the first three times that delegates voted at the Democratic nominating convention in Chicago.

Roosevelt's chief political adviser, James Farley, worked hard to find Roosevelt the votes he needed at the convention. Finally, Farley found a solution.

He made a deal with supporters of John Garner. Roosevelt would make Garner the vice presidential nominee if Garner's forces voted to make Roosevelt the presidential nominee. Garner agreed. And on the next vote, the Democratic delegates nominated Franklin Roosevelt to be their presidential candidate. Al Smith was so angry about the deal that he left Chicago without congratulating Roosevelt.

Roosevelt wanted to show the nation that he was the kind of man to take action -- that he had more imagination than Hoover. So he broke tradition and flew to Chicago. It was the first time a candidate had ever appeared at a convention to accept a nomination. And Roosevelt told the cheering crowd that together they would defeat Hoover.

STEVE EMBER: The main issue in the campaign of nineteen thirty-two was the economy. President Hoover defended his policies. Roosevelt and the Democrats attacked the administration for not taking enough action.

Roosevelt knew that most Americans were unhappy with the Hoover administration. So his plan during the campaign was to let Hoover defeat himself. He avoided saying anything that might make groups of voters think he was too extreme.

But Roosevelt did make clear that he would move the federal government into action to help people suffering from the economic crisis.

He said he was for a balanced federal budget. But he also said the government must be willing to spend extra money to prevent people from starving.

BOB DOUGHTY: Americans liked what they heard from Franklin Roosevelt. He seemed strong. He enjoyed life. And Roosevelt seemed willing to try new ideas, to experiment with government.

Hoover attacked Roosevelt bitterly during the campaign. He warned that Roosevelt and the Democrats would destroy the American system.

But Americans were tired of Hoover. They thought he was too serious, too afraid of change, too friendly with business leaders instead of the working man. Most of all, they blamed Hoover for the hard times of the Depression.

On election day, Americans voted in huge numbers for Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats. Roosevelt won forty-two of the forty-eight states at that time. The Democrats also gained a large majority in both houses of Congress.

STEVE EMBER: The election ended twelve years of Republican rule in the White House. It also marked the passing of a long conservative period in American political life.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt would become one of the strongest and most progressive presidents in the nation's history. He would serve longer than any other president, changing the face of America's political and economic systems.

In our next program, we take a look at the beginning of his administration.

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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by David Jarmul. I’m Bob Doughty with Steve Ember.

You can find our series online with pictures, transcripts, MP3s and podcasts at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow our series on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #17
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American History: Fear Takes Hold During the Great Depression

Source: www.voanews.com 

Photo: loc.gov

The son of a Depression-era refugee from Oklahoma who moved to California

BARBARA KLEIN: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English. I’m Barbara Klein.

STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember.

The stock market crash of nineteen twenty-nine marked the beginning of the worst economic crisis in American history. Millions of people lost their jobs. Thousands lost their homes.

During the next several years, a large part of the richest nation on earth learned what it meant to be poor.

Workers lost their jobs as factories closed. Business owners lost their stores and sometimes their homes. Farmers lost their land as they struggled with falling prices and natural disasters.

And Americans were not the only ones who suffered. This week in our series, we talk about the economic crisis that became the Great Depression.

(MUSIC “Creole Love Call”/Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra)

BARBARA KLEIN: One of America's greatest writers, John Steinbeck, described the depression this way:

"It was a terrible, troubled time. I can't think of any ten years in history when so much happened in so many directions. Violent change took place. Our country was shaped, our lives changed, our government rebuilt."

Steinbeck, winner of the nineteen sixty-two Nobel Prize in literature, said: "When the market fell, the factories, mines, and steelworks closed and then no one could buy anything, not even food."

STEVE EMBER: An unemployed auto worker in Detroit, Michigan, described the situation this way:

"Before daylight, we were on the way to the Chevrolet factory to look for work. The police were already there, waving us away from the office. They were saying, 'Nothing doing! No jobs! No jobs!' So now we were walking slowly through the falling snow to the employment office for the Dodge auto company. A big, well-fed man in a heavy overcoat stood at the door. 'No! No!' he said. There was no work."

One Texas farmer lost his farm and moved his family to California to look for work. "We can't send the children to school," he said, "because they have no clothes."

(MUSIC “Gloomy Sunday”/Billie Holiday)

BARBARA KLEIN: The economic crisis began with the stock market crash in October nineteen twenty-nine. For the first year, the economy fell very slowly. But it dropped sharply in nineteen thirty-one and nineteen thirty-two. And by the end of nineteen thirty-two, the economy collapsed almost completely.

During the three years following the stock market crash, the value of goods and services produced in America fell by almost half. The wealth of the average American dropped to a level lower than it had been twenty-five years earlier.

All the gains of the nineteen twenties were washed away.

Unemployment rose sharply. The number of workers looking for a job jumped from three percent to more than twenty-five percent in just four years. One of every three or four workers was looking for a job in nineteen thirty-two.

STEVE EMBER: Those employment numbers did not include farmers. The men and women who grew the nation's food suffered terribly during the Great Depression.

This was especially true in two states, Oklahoma and Texas. Farmers there were losing money because of falling prices for their crops. Then natural disaster struck. Year after year, little or no rain fell. The ground dried up. And then the wind blew away the earth in huge clouds of dust.

"All that dust made some of the farmers leave," one Oklahoma farmer remembered later. "But my family stayed. We fought to live. Despite all the dust and the wind, we were planting seeds. But we got no crops. We had five crop failures in five years."

(MUSIC “Mean Low Blues”/Blues Birdhead)

BARBARA KLEIN: Falling production. Rising unemployment. Men begging in the streets. But there was more to the Great Depression. At that time, the federal government did not guarantee the money that people put in banks. When people could not repay loans, banks began to close.

In nineteen twenty-nine, six hundred fifty-nine banks with total holdings of two-hundred-million dollars went out of business. The next year, two times that number failed. And the year after that, almost twice that number of banks went out of business. Millions of persons lost all their savings. They had no money left.

STEVE EMBER: The depression caused serious public health problems. Hospitals across the country were filled with sick people whose main illness was a lack of food. The health department in New York City found that one of every five of the city's children did not get enough food.

Ninety-nine percent of the children attending a school in a coal-mining area of the country reportedly were underweight. In some places, people died of hunger.

(MUSIC “Dark Was the Night (Cold Was the Ground)”/Blind Willie Johnson)

STEVE EMBER: The quality of housing also fell. Families were forced to crowd into small houses or apartments to share costs. Many people had no homes at all. They slept on public streets, buses or trains.

One official in Chicago reported in nineteen thirty-one that several hundred women without homes were sleeping in city parks.

In a number of cities, people without homes built their houses from whatever materials they could find. They used empty boxes or pieces of metal to build shelters in open areas.

BARBARA KLEIN: People called these areas of little temporary houses "Hoovervilles." They blamed President Hoover for their situation. So, too, did the men forced to sleep in public parks at night. They covered themselves with pieces of paper. And they called the paper "Hoover blankets." People without money in their pants called their empty pockets "Hoover flags."

People blamed President Hoover because they thought he was not doing enough to help them. Hoover did take several actions to try to improve the economy. But he resisted proposals for the federal government to provide aid in a major way. And he refused to let the government spend more money than it earned.

Hoover told the nation: "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive decision."

Many conservative Americans agreed with him. But not the millions of Americans who were hungry and tired of looking for a job. They accused Hoover of not caring about common citizens.

One congressman from Alabama said: "In the White House, we have a man more interested in the money of the rich than in the stomachs of the poor."

(MUSIC “I Surrender, Dear”/Red Norvo and His Swing Septet)

STEVE EMBER: On and on the Great Depression continued. Of course, some Americans were lucky. They kept their jobs. And they had enough money to enjoy the lower prices of most goods. Many people shared their earnings with friends in need.

Years later, John Steinbeck wrote: "It seems odd now to say that we rarely had a job. There just weren't any jobs." But, he continued, "Given the sea and the gardens, we did pretty well with a minimum of theft. We didn't have to steal much." Farmers could not sell their crops, he explained, so they gave away all the fruit and vegetables that people could carry home.

BARBARA KLEIN: Other Americans reacted to the crisis by leading protests against the economic policies of the Hoover administration. In nineteen thirty-two, a large group of former soldiers gathered in Washington to demand help.

More than eight thousand of them built the nation's largest Hooverville near the White House. Federal troops finally removed them by force and burned their shelters.

(MUSIC “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”/Rudy Vallee)

Next week, we will look at how the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties affected other countries.

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STEVE EMBER: This program was written by David Jarmul. I’m Steve Ember.

BARBARA KLEIN: And I’m Barbara Klein. You can find our series online with pictures, transcripts, MP3s, and podcasts at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.

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This is program #17

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