Stormy Weather

[music playing]

John F. Kennedy: Ask not what your country can do for you.

Neil Armstrong: That's one small step for a man.

Martin Luther King : Hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal.

Ronald Reagan: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

[music playing]

Male narrator: It was May of 1932.

Male reporter: It's a spectacle unparalleled in the history of the country.

Narrator: And something was very wrong in the land of plenty.

Reporter: A day of bloodshed, and riots.

Collins: There were those of who felt that America was teetering

on the brink of revolution.

Narrator: For three years the Great Depression had tormented Americans.

Now, 20 thousand army veterans and their families came pouring into Washington

to find out what the government was going to do about it.

Collins: They were bearded. They were ragged.

They were desperate. You could see it in their eyes.

Narrator: They'd been promised a bonus for their service in World War I,

but it was not due to be paid until 1945.

The desperate veterans wanted their money now.

They were called The Bonus Army.

On July 28th, the Bonus Army came to blows with Washington police.

Shots were fired.

President Herbert Hoover barricaded himself in the White House and called out the troops.

Reporters: Soldiers have orders to burn down the unsanitary, and the illegal shants.

And the roaring flames, sounds the death nell, to the fantastic Bonus Army.

Narrator: When the smoked cleared, two veterans and an infant were dead.

Darcy: Absolutely shameful.

The sacrifice of the young American boys

left such an impression on me, I have never forgotten it.

They were just trying to feed their families.

Narrator: Millions of Americans could no longer provide for their families.

With no where to turn for help,

they were angry and they were approaching their breaking point.

Three years into the Depression, the American system was in grave danger.

Unless it could change, and change quickly, it might not survive.

Bad times had arrived without warning.

After a decade of expanding prosperity, almost overnight,

the Wall Street crash of 1929 shattered America's confidence in its economy.

Hancox: I was 11 years old, but how well I remember it.

It was like the skies had grown dark.

Thunder!

And, all of a sudden, faces were tragic, and people were walking around

in the hallways of our building, and in the streets, with inquiring eyes,

and saying, "Has it happened to you? Has it happened to us?

What is happening?"

Bailey: With delivering telegrams at that time,

and pretty soon you could feel the horror

behind the door you were knocking.

When you knock on the door, when the voice comes out--

"Yeah? Who is it? Who is it?"

I say, "I have a telegram."

"Well, slide it under the door,"

or "Go away! Get away from me. Get away from me."

Narrator: The collapse of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929

was only the most visible sign of a massive economic crisis.

The crisis that spread quickly from Wall Street to Main Street.

Miriam Johnson was living in California

when the Great Depression arrived at her house.

Johnson: I was 11 when The Crash came.

My father at that time, along with a few friends, owned a small grocery store.

One day he came home,

and he laid two dollars on the table in the kitchen,

and he said "No more store. Everything is gone."

And that was the end. For us it was the end.

Narrator: Every day produced more bankruptcies, more layoffs,

more people with less money in their pockets.

Even U.S. Steel, a symbol of American industrial might

since the turn of the century, was brought to its knees.

In three years the entire full-time payroll was laid off--

225,000 workers.

: The Depression hit this country all over.

It hit the farm areas, it hit the cities.

You were just there, out of work, and out of food.

And everyone was baffled. Nobody had ever had that experience before.

: I had been saving for maybe 5-6 years, money in a piggy bank.

Nickles, pennies, dimes the most.

It turns out that I was the only one in the family that had any money,

because one day I came home

and I grabbed hold of my piggy bank, just to give it it a shake,

and there was nothing in it.

My mother was looking at me, and she said,

"Your father borrowed the money.

"He has to go out to look for work, and he needed money to go downtown."

He came home, and I didn't say anything, but my eyes and face were swollen with tears.

My eyes were blinking with tears.

And my father took me in his arms and said,

"I'm sorry. I had to have money.

"But it's a loan.

"I'll pay it back to you."

He never did.

He never did.

My family had exhausted all its credits with the local merchants.

And, on one occasion, my father came home

and asked what was for dinner that night,

and my mother said "There's nothing."

How could that be? How could there be nothing?

It was one of the few times in my life that I was fearful for myself.

Narrator: Fearful of losing what little they had left, people rushed to the banks

to withdraw their savings.

But the banks, too, were short of cash.

One year after the crash, 800 of them had failed.

Nine million savings accounts were wiped out.

: There was a janitor called George Gillies who had a thousand dollars

in the bank of the United States.

It had taken Gillies 40 years to save a thousand dollars.

After spending two nights and two days in the pouring rain outside this shuttered,

locked bank,

beating--literally--beating on the walls with his hands in frustration,

he realized he was never going to see 10 cents of his money.

He went back to the basement where he lived,

and he hanged himself in despair.

That's what bank failures did.

They crushed tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands,

of ordinary people, like George Gillies.

Narrator: With their savings gone, and layoffs increasing, people were

forced to sell their cars, their furniture, their wedding rings.

Before long half the country's home mortgages were in default.

Families across America found themselves facing eviction.

Collins: I remember my brother and I, and my mother,

just couldn't stand to see it happen.

So, we left my father there to face the auctioneers.

Then we came home that evening and we met my father who told us,

"Yes, the house was sold."

It was gone.

And everything that we had had was no longer ours.

The land was gone, the house was gone.

And we had 30 days in which time to move out.

And my mother sat on the side of the bed and cried.

It was the first time I'd ever seen her cry.

I'll never forget that moment.

That the way our family was affected, and we were not unique.

: You know what hurt me most about it was the look of pain on my mother's and father's face.

I couldn't bear to look at them.

To look at their misery.

To look at their disgrace.

They felt they had only themselves to blame.

This was a different generation.

This was a generation that had grown up with the old faith.

The faith of self-reliance.

The people had to stand on their own two feet.

They didn't say the government's failed me.

They said "I'm to blame. I failed in this American system of ours. It's my fault."

Narrator: One year after the crash four million American families were

without any means of support.

Worse, they didn't know how to ask for help.

And their government didn't know how to provide it.

In 1930, the American people had almost no sense of the national government.

There was the post office.

Occasionally you'd see a soldier on the street.

The national government had very little direct impact on the lives of ordinary Americans.

There were no parachutes in those days, there was no social security,

no unemployment insurance, no nothing.

Just, you were on your own.

[upbeat music]

Narrator: By 1931, hard times seemed to be everywhere.

But if you could still spare a dime, you could slip into a glamorous world

where the roaring 20's had never ended.

: If you go to the Grand Lake Theater,

I hear Horace Heidt and his orchestra play for half an hour.

Then you'd have the Movietone News, and then they'd have the feature story,

and then they would have Bugs Bunny, or the equivalent comic,

and then they'd have the second feature, and by that time the orchestra was getting ready to play again.

So you could stand about 6 to 7 hours for 15 cents.

: There was no television; there was only radio.

So this visual escape to a dark theater, you could literally forget your troubles and get happy.

Narrator: Many people tried to dance their troubles away, often to the carefree irresistible rhythms

of a new generation of Jazz music that was sweeping the country, Swing.

Reporter: Swing and Honey child, Suzie Q's going to town and how!

[Swing music playing in background]

[Radical Organ Music] Radio Host: Now I'll meet Richard Calmer as Boston Blackie.

Enemy to those who make him an enemy.

Friend to those who have no friend.

Narrator: Many more were transfixed by the gripping dramas of radio.

During the depression, the radio was the one appliance people could not live without.

Wilkinson: We used to watch the radio.

It was like watching television.

There was a shadow.

Radio: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows [maniacal laughter].

Wilkinson: [Laughing to himself] Turn off the lights!

Radio Actor: We're going to clean them out, today.

Simon: You didn't know that they were standing on a stage reading from scripts.

You just thought they were doing it.

Radio Actor: All right boys, let's head out!

Simon: What I like most was to go into my room and turn off all the lights.

I didn't want any interference, and just listen to it.

My father thought I was a little weird and he'd always come in and turn the lights on

and say, "what's wrong with you?"

And I said, "nothing's wrong with me. This is really wonderf--a great way to listen to it."

[Explosion]

[Wind storm]

Narrator: But sooner or later people had to turn the radio off. They had to leave the movie theater,

and when they did, the Depression was still there, awaiting.

It advanced upon the farmers in the South and Midwest in terrifying storms of dry dust.

It was one of the worst droughts in American History.

The land itself was blowing away.

Lackey: It looked like a tornado coming. Big black clouds of dust coming across the desert there.

It was terrible, you couldn't breathe. You'd put something over your face, a handkerchief,

and try to breathe through it and you'd spit out mud balls.

Narrator: 25,000 square miles of farm land became known as the Dust Bowl.

For farmers who'd been suffering through their own economic crisis since the 1920's,

it was the final blow.

Leaving their farmhouses and barns to rot, they fled westward for the promiseland, California.

[Car engine]

[Car horn]

[Train clacking on tracks]

Dust weary farmers joined millions other penniless people who were wondering the country

looking for a second chance.

The transportation of choice was the freight train. Riding the rails was dangerous,

the trains were patrolled by vicious guards. But the price was right.

: When it's gon' leave they give you the high volume, and that's two shorts and a long.

Man, you better get ready then 'cuz he's pulling out.

[Train horn]

[music playing]

Mitchum: Trouble lies in sightless cools along the way I've taken.

Sightless windows stare the empty streets.

No love beckoned me save that which I have forsaken,

the anguish of my solitude is sweet.

Narrator: The actor Robert Mitchum wrote his poem in 1932 when he was just another teenager

in search of salvation.

Mitchum: At the time there was so many people on the train that the train crew couldn't walk the tops.

I met former bankers, college professors, all sorts of people riding the freight trains.

A lot of them didn't really have a destination. They were just trying to get away from where they were.

Narrator: But everywhere they got to seemed just as hopeless as the place they'd left behind.

: Numbers of towns would arrest those people who came there.

There was particular concern about what were called, "The Wild Boys of the Road."

Narrator: President Hoover sent undercover agents to ride the rails and assess the danger.

One of them was a young law student named Melvin Belli.

Belli: You saw a part of America, at that time, that gave fear to everyone in Washington.

There's something wrong with the country, and it's so wrong that

these people are going to want a revolution.

Narrator: Strikes and protests were spreading, becoming angrier and more violent.

Bill Wheeler was a 19 year old truck driver when he witnessed a demonstration in New York.

Wheeler: I swear it was just filled with mobs of people. They were demonstrating, it turned out,

for unemployment relief, unemployment benefits, and the police and the firemen

were mowing them down with fire hoses, cops were beating them on the head.

It was unbelievable!

Narrator: Radical movements, like the Communist Party, were gaining influence and converts.

President Hoover misread the danger signals and still did nothing to ease the suffering.

Hoover: We are convinced that we have overcome major financial crisis. A crisis in--

Narrator: For some, the loss of faith was so profound that they simply fled the country.

Three years after Joseph Stalin had predicted the death of capitalism,

100,000 Americans moved to the Soviet Union to help build Communism.

Wheeler: There was work for anybody that wanted to work.

There was none of this going around with your hat in your hand and tears in your eyes

begging for a job. It seemed to be a land of great promise at that time.

Narrator: This was the only time in history that more people were leaving America than coming to it.

[bell ringing]

In time, the Great Depression spread like a virus far beyond American borders.

Reporter: Hunger marches, signs of the political time.

Narrator: In Germany the situation was becoming dangerous.

The depression only made worse the already harsh conditions brought on by Germany's loss in WWI.

Metelmann: There was real problems. There was mass unemployment, and because of this

there were protests, marches, demonstrations, street fightings.

The unemployed people, they walked through the town and they shouted slogans,

"Give us bread. Give us work."

Fischer: There is so much unrest, so much disorder.

We needed a powerful leader, a powerful man to lead us out of it.

: The first time I saw the Nazis, they marched around in town with their brown shirts on.

They had proper uniforms and they had music and they had flags.

And I remember how it impressed me, something military, and we children, we'd run along them and

try to sing their songs.

Narrator: The leader of the Nazi movement knew instinctively that Germany's suffering

was his opportunity.

Adolf Hitler told the demoralized Germans that he could cure what ailed them.

Adolf Hitler: [Speaking in German]

[Crowd shouting]

His speeches, they were arousing. He started always off quietly.

And he talked about ordinary things and then he worked himself up.

Saying something like, "Our enemies, they think we are the footmap of the world, and I promise you,

I will erase all that. We demand our place in the sun which is rightly ours, and I will lead you there.

I will lead you there, I promise it."

We had tears in our eyes.

Narrator: In 1932, Hitler's rapidly growing Nazi party took 37% of the vote in parliamentary elections.

Though not a majority, he had uphold all the other parties.

Hitler used his new strength to seize the Chancellorship of Germany

and destroy opposition to his rule.

On January 30th, 1933, his followers celebrated his ascension to power with a torchlight

victory parade through Berlin.

Propelled by hard times, the Nazi era had begun.

VonElbe: The procession moved on through Wilhelmstrasse. Marching music could be heard.

The torchlights were--were gleaming and there was a strange light in the street.

And there was this atmosphere of irreality, almost.

Almost black magic.

Hitler was able to arouse the masses in such a way that they forgot reason.

Pechel: Well he had charisma, no doubt about that, and he promised

the people that they would get work. People were desperate, you see.

People being desperate, they will run after a man like Hitler.

Adolf Hitler: [speaking in German]

[crowd cheering]

Narrator: 1932 was also a year of decision for Americans.

Republican president, Herbert Hoover, campaigned for reelection only to find that everywhere he went

his name had become synonymous with failure.

Shanty towns of unemployed men were now called, "Hoovervilles."

Newspapers were, "Hoover blankets." Empty pockets, "Hoover flags."

Hoover: The very first task of this country is to see that no man, woman, or child shall go hungry...

Leuchtenberg: It was said of Hoover that even dogs took an instinctive dislike to him,

and in that 1932 campaign, one man wired him, "Vote for Roosevelt, and make it unanimous."

Roosevelt: California! Cast 44 votes for Franklin D. Roosevelt. [Crowd cheering]

Narrator: New York governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was the democratic party candidate.

He had been struck by polio in 1921.

He was known more for his charm than his accomplishments.

Most people were not sure what he meant when he promised a new deal to the American people.

Neither was he. But Roosevelt appeared optimistic, confident, and he wasn't Herbert Hoover.

Roosevelt: What's our campaign slogan Sissy?

Sissy: Happy days are here again.

Roosevelt: Good, that's right.

Narrator: Roosevelt won in the greatest electoral landslide America had ever seen.

And he faced, perhaps the greatest challenge ever presented to an American leader.

[Bell ringing]

The 4 million unemployed of 1930 had turned to 16 million by 1933.

25% of the American workforce.

Gordon: The American economy was in freefall. Economists disagree to some extent on this,

but we could have lost everything in 1933.

It was that bad.

Narrator: On inauguration day nearly 100,000 people braved a cold March morning to hear

what the new president would do.

Roosevelt: This great nation will endure as it has endured. Let me assert--

Belli: That magnificent resonance coming out.

Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Belli: We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and everyone would look at each other.

They'd nod their head, and when he'd say, "my friends," everybody could feel he was talking to him.

That was one of his friends, that was one of his people.

And me, a little black boy,

down in Georgia,

hearing that voice over the radio, you know,

I felt it wasn't that he told it to dad and daddy told it to me,

or told it to mama.

No--he was talking to me, sitting there listening to him.

He could, through the magic of his voice and radio,

reach out and involve you in the great adventure of building, making America work again.

Narrator: Roosevelt moved decisively to restore confidence in the country's financial system.

In one daring move, he closed the nation's banks

and ordered the Treasury to rush them 2 billion dollars in new currency.

President Roosevelt: Let me make it clear that the banks will take care of all needs.

: The reaction was, to his closing the bank,

"Thank God, somebody had come in and done something."

Narrator: When the banks reopened, deposits easily exceeded withdrawals.

Rescuing the banks was only the beginning.

In his first 100 days in the White House

Roosevelt moved at a breath-taking pace,

from regulating business, helping farmers,

pumping new money into the economy.

It was the most massive intervention in the lives of the American people the country had ever known.

Roosevelt put people on the government payroll

when private business didn't hire them fast enough.

The Wild Boys of the road became part of the Civilian Conservation Corps,

planting trees and building roads across America.

: They shipped us out to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

We'd build trails, you know, for people to come in and sight-seeing.

We got five dollars a month and they sent $25 home for your family to live on.

: Here was the federal government stepping in to help

people And it may not have been enough.

In some cases it didn't help, but somebody was trying.

One had that feeling that maybe it was going to work.

[music]

Narrator: Millions of Americans had been helped in the first year of the New Deal.

But for millions more, the year 1933 ended in frustration.

President Roosevelt had lifted their spirits, but not their circumstances.

After a time their a haunting thought could not be put down

that maybe this Great Depression was never going to end.

But with the sense of rising expectations,

people are stirred out of their lethargy and in 1934,

there is a most radical mood out of any year of the Great Depression.

Narrator: President Roosevelt had contributed to that radical mood

when he became the first American president to say that labor had the right to unionize.

But businessmen remained defiantly anti-union.

In the spring of 1934, emboldened dock workers closed ports all along the Pacific coast.

In San Francisco, their strike turned violent.

[shouting]

[gun shots]

We heard on the radio that all of this terrible stuff was

going on And my husband was down there.

I remember my mother and I were frightened and very upset--would Harold make it?

It got so bad that two men were killed.

They were killed by bullets, ostensibly from the police.

Nobody really ever figured that one out totally.

Harold was right on the corner where one was killed.

Shocked the city.

Killings, then, used to shock people.

Narrator: The funeral for the two murdered strikers drew 50 thousand people.

The funeral saw--

[draws heavy breaths]

It so shocked the city.

It was so impressive.

That was enough to infuriate the people of San Francisco.

So much so they said, "We've had it."

Every day we'd watch people getting beaten and clubbed.

We'd had it up to our eye brows.

By God, whatever it takes to win this fight we're gonna win it.

And they stopped all work.

Even the barbers said, "We refuse to give a haircut to anybody," until the strike is over.

"We sympathize with the union."

"We sympathize with the men."

And they shut the port down, shut the city down.

Little stores: " Closed until our boys win."

The city was quiet as hell.

Nothing moved for four solid days.

[men shouting together]

Narrator: The longshoremen won virtually all their demands,

encouraging workers across the country to move against management.

In 1934, there were more than 1,800 strikes for union recognition.

Coal miners.

Steel workers. Warehouse

and different people, packing houses

They said "if a bunch of starving seamen and longshoremen can weather the storm.

We could do it back in Pittsburgh" or "we could do it here.

We could do it there."

[gun shots]

[shouting]

Narrator: Labor unrest was only one of Roosevelt's problems in 1934.

Economic recovery had stalled and critics had complained that he'd gone too far.

The constitutionality of some New Deal programs were being challenged in the courts.

And business leaders were warning that FDR had steered the country

recklessly to the left.

But Roosevelt knew that his programs still hadn't reached millions of desperate Americans

and he didn't know how long they would wait.

Discontent and frustration gave rise to any number of demigods

including the charismatic radio priest, Father Charles Coughlin.

Charles Coughlin: Shout it as children and shout it as men and women.

Narrator: Dr. Francis Townsend, self-proclaimed advocate for the elderly.

Radical, spell-binders who claimed the New Deal was dying.

During 1934, one of these would-be saviors developed a national following

and presidential ambitions.

Huey Long: Because Hoover wanted to plow up every--

Narrator: He was called the "Kingfish."

Senator and former Louisiana Governor Huey Long.

Huey Long: After we told you people that Hoover was a numbskull--

Carter: The best entertainment you had was when Huey came to town to speak.

Huey Long: Put it in to plow a better--

Everybody went to hear him,

whether they were for or against him.

He was marvelous.

Huey Long: The Lord has answered the prayer.

He has called the upon of you.

He'd use such expressive language. You just had to listen.

Narrator: And when people listened, many discovered they liked what they heard.

What Huey Long was saying was that he was going to soak the rich, and he

was going to give that money to the poor.

His plan was never really carefully worked out, and in his own

state of Louisiana, he fell notably short of redistributing the wealth.

But it had a kind of direct appeal that the more complex programs of the New Deal lacked, and

also provided a focus for the animus against the rich that had been

building during the years of the Great Depression.

Narrator: Long promised every American a house, a car, a radio.

In return, he wanted power.

Absolute power.

Percy: You couldn't do anything in Louisiana unless you got his okay.

He was vicious.

And if you told him no, he'd knock you down.

He had built up a private police force.

He had shown his contempt for the democratic processes and that created

a great deal of worry in Washington.

Narrator: Not just southerners, but midwestern farmers and New York factory workers

were joining Long's Share Our Wealth Clubs.

By 1935, Franklin Roosevelt was privately calling Huey Long the most dangerous man in America.

When you have food riots, you have the makings of a dictatorship.

Don't think you wouldn't do it too. You might vote the wrong way.

He rose on the votes of the people, and Huey Long was rising on the votes of the people too.

Narrator: Huey Long never got the chance to run for president.

He was cut down by an assassin in September, 1935.

By then, President Roosevelt was hard at work on a populist agenda of his own, pushing

Congress to create the Social Security programs, welfare for the poor, and jobs

for 8 million people on public projects of every description.

This was called The Second Hundred Days, and it reshaped American life.

The legislation of the Second Hundred Days gives an underpinning to the

economy that's not been there before.

There's now a system of unemployment compensation, of old age pensions.

The United States, for the first time, has a centralized banking system.

And by 1936, there are visible scenes of recovery.

Narrator: Six years after he lost his grocery store, Miriam Johnson's father found

a steady job with the Works Progress Administration.

He was so happy to get up in the morning.

My father was so happy, even though the work - by this time he wasn't a kid - and it was

pick and shovel work, you know?

But he was so happy to have something to do and to get paid for it.

To me, the Roosevelt era revolutionized the perception of what government owes

the people and what it's role is.

Roosevelt: We are fighting. Fighting to save a great and precious form of government.

The programs that he put in were imperative for that period.

And I think it was a godsend that we had him and we maintained

a democracy that we had all cherished.

Narrator: Campaigning for a second term in 1936, Roosevelt told a cheering crowd "You look

happier today than you did four years ago."

And they were.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected by the greatest margin in the

history of American politics.

In the four years since President Roosevelt had taken office, America

had experience a revolution, and it had been led by the President himself.

[explosions]

The New Deal programs of the Depression Era transformed the countries landscape.

One project alone, the Tennessee Valley Authority, built dams, brought electricity, ended

floods, and lifted families out of poverty in seven states.

But as he took office for his second term in January, 1937, Roosevelt's New Deal still

had not completely overcome the Depression in America.

By 1937 the depression in Germany was over.

Adolf Hitler had kept his promise to give the people work.

Peter: Unemployed people disappeared practically over night.

There were no young, healthy men standing at the corners of Berlin and begging around for pennies.

People had jobs. They were happy.

Narrator: The secret of Germany's prosperity was rearmament.

There were plenty of jobs making powerful, new weapons, and building a highway system

as much for tanks as for cars.

It was also a kind of New Deal, but he was preparing for war.

Narrator: The first step came in March of 1936 when German troops marched unopposed

into the Rhineland's to reoccupy territory lost to France after the first World War.

He was leading us to the place in the sun, and I sincerely, and honestly believed in all that.

When I came home and told my father, arguments started.

My mother always said no.

"Leave that boy alone. He can't help it that he's so brainwashed."

And it started again with my mother "What do you mean by brainwashed them?"

Now, of course, I realize my parents were right, but it's all too late.

Narrator: Now Adolf Hitler would try to keep another promise to the German people.

To build a new German empire.

One, he said, that would last 1000 years.

Depression and desperation had unleashed a force that would alter the course

of the 20th century.

We'll see that on the next episode of The Century: America's Time.

I'm Peter Jennings.

Thank you for joining us.

[music playing]