From "The Dust Bowl": Men letting their kids starve because they were too proud to accept Relief

[NNN0LHI]

80% of the children in one city or county, can't remember which, were 10% underweight.

That amazed me until I remembered some of the Republicans around here who would let their own children die from lack of proper health care because its called "Obamacare."

Unbelievable that someone would do stuff like this.

Some folks can be their own worst enemy.

Don

[muntrv]

1. Pride is one of those 7 deadly sins.

[gollygee]

2. You don't make your kids suffer for your pride

You can suffer yourself if you need to, but you make sure your kids get what they need if it's available in any way.

[zbdent]

3. Next time one of my "friends" bitches about "socialism" ...

I'm going to point out to him that he really should be more worried about his kidneys and how he's going to recover from the inevitable heart attack that "Obamacare" probably will prevent him from dying from ...

(I was embarrassed to find out I was "obese" at 5' 4" 200 lbs, and he's about double my width, a couple inches shorter)

[Mika]

4. Prior to Social Security, the #1 cause of death for 50+ year olds: SUICIDE.

USA USA USA USA!!!

[Pirate Smile]

5. In Ken Burns' World War II, they said that so many men/boys that volunteered/drafted after Pearl

Harbor were malnourished from the Great Depression that it was a national security problem. That was why they started -I'll have to google it - it was either the school lunch program or food stamps. You can't have so much of your population permanently damaged from such easily prevented maladies. I had never heard that before. It isn't really surprising considering how horrible the GD was for so many.

Edit to add - found this:

"President Harry S. Truman began the national school lunch program in 1946 as a measure of national security. He did so after reading a study that revealed many young men had been rejected from the World War II draft due to medical conditions caused by childhood malnutrition. Since that time more than 180 million lunches have been served to American children who attend either a public school or a non-profit private school.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson extended the program by offering breakfast to school children. It began as a two years pilot program for children in rural areas and those living in poorer neighborhoods. It was believed that these children would have to skip breakfast in order to catch the bus for the long ride to school. There were also concerns that the poorer families could not always afford to feed their children breakfast. Johnson believed, like many of us today, that children would do better in school if they had a good breakfast to start their day. The pilot was such a success that it was decided the program should continue. By 1975, breakfast was being offered to all children in public or non-profit private school. This change was made because educators felt that more children were skipping breakfast due to both parent being in the workforce."

[dflprincess]

26. Way back when I was in college we were told in one of my Social Work classes

that all food supplement programs could be considered a direct result of the number of young men who were unfit to serve during WWII because of nutritional deficiencies.

Whenever I hear some jerk lamenting the money spent on food stamps or WIC that they can take comfort in knowing that the programs are really altruistic, but there to keep the cannon fodder healthy.

[greatauntoftriplets]

6. Sad, isn't it?

Cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Yet, in the instance you cite, it was the children who suffered.

[Warpy]

7. Remember who settled the Dust Bowl

Many of them who came out to homestead and farm (instead of just chase cattle) were survivors of the Civil War. They had absolutely no use for any government, North or South, after they'd been to hell and back in that war. They were ready to live or die on their own merits and labor. They wanted nothing more than to be left strictly alone by armies and bureaucrats.

This sort of anti government, leave us alone to feast or starve, we'll manage without you feeling is still quite strong in much of the west, which explains why they keep voting Republican. They know the Republicans never help anyone but the rich men in the big cities.

This was even stronger back in the 30s, when men who took WPA jobs or families who accepted relief were shamed as failures.

It looks crazy to me, too, but that's the culture out here in many of the states. NM seems to have missed it, so that's why I'm here.

[joshcryer]

8. Spoiler alert!! :P Watching this now. Fantastic. You can see it online:

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/

[Grammy23]

10. My husband and I watched and learned so much.

This subject was really barely covered when I studied American history. I had heard all my life how my father's family tried to homestead in Colorado but eventually gave up and moved back to Memphis. It seems pretty obvious to me after seeing this program that they probably were defeated by the drought and just couldn't make a go of it.

This program will make you cry as you hear the survivors of this terrible disaster (who were children when this occurred) tell their memories. Many have never forgotten the horror of seeing a sibling die of dust pneumonia and their family fall into poverty with barely enough to eat. There were suicides as fathers grew depressed and unable to live with what happened to them and their families, as well as their land. It has important lessons for us today.

I urge anyone with an interest in history and yes, even in our future as a nation, to watch this amazing video. It is about 4 hours long, divided into two segments. Well worth the time it will take to watch.

[burrowowl]

14. My Grandmother and Parents talked to me

about the Dust Bowl and the Depression and I learned about ruining the earth and with no gov protection (my grandmother lost her farm from hoof and mouth disease, etc.). Show your children this series and tell all your friends to watch it. So many things are being repeated and I don't know how people who don't even know how to cook a meal or grow something if things really get worse. Tweeting is not a survival skill.

[Purveyor]

9. I watched part 1&2...is this a part 3? BTW...if you, I can't say liked this, but find it

enlightening...seek out "The Grapes of Wrath" through your favorite source. I watch it every couple of years.

One scene that relates to your OP is when one man talks of the "little babies, with their belly's sticking out, not because they had their belly's full, but because they were starving and bloated".

Controversial film/book at the time. "Those damned 'Reds' propaganda"...it was proclaimed by some.

Google "Grapes of Wrath"...wiki does a better job than I.

[sheshe2]

18. As I was watching Ken Burns interview

Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath came to mind for me too! Moving story!

Saved The Dust Bowl to watch later.

Burns had some great insight about our future, unless we decide to make changes.

The pictures of New York and New Jersey's devastation is utterly mind boggling.

[NNN0LHI]

20. posted wrong place

[NNN0LHI]

21. Just two parts

[Purveyor]

22. Thanks...guess I had a 'call of nature' or something and missed a part. eom

[sammytko]

23. The book is so much better than the movie.

He alternates chapters between the Joad family saga and the general state of the country.

And Tom Joad was described more like Steve McQueen or Paul Newman type not Henry Fonda. Now Henry Fonda could have played Casey, the preacher.

[Warpy]

27. What the Ken Burns series did that Steinbeck did a disservice to

was humanize all the farming people who had been dusted or tractored off their land. Most could read and write and weren't caricatures like the Joads mostly were. Burns showed them as they were, people like you and me, who just ran into a run of the worst luck anyone could possibly imagine and too many years of a government that didn't care.

That brought home even more the cruelty they faced when they got to California or wherever they'd tried to run away from the dust to find work.

[pipoman]

11. Of coarse there is the issue of the

asshole newspaper publisher publishing their names in the paper..it was a different time when there were almost no public assistance programs, it was strongly discouraged to ask for help..carry your own weight.

I'll repost this link I posted in another thread. It is a friend's account of his dust bowl experience.

http://tools.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/2001june/friesen_article.php

[8 track mind]

12. honest to gawd true story.....

There is a faction of my family ( by marrige only) that refused to let their kids have the polio vaccine because "It's got monkey blood in it". I am not making this up. Not surprisingly, these people vote republican......

[Cleita]

13. I knew people like this.

I had to drag a neighbor of mine, who was dying of something, kicking and screaming to the welfare office and then the doctor when he was given Medi-Cal. It turned out he had heart problems and lung cancer. He couldn't go to work anymore and was about to be evicted from his apartment for not being able to pay the rent. His utilities like electricity had been cut off months before. When he finally realized he had to accept help, we were able to save him being on the street and starving. He was too far gone for a cure, but he did get medical care and was able to die in a hospital bed.

It amazes me how proud people can be because they were taught it was beneath them somehow.

[ailsagirl]

17. Was it pride or ignorance? Or a combination?

Mind-boggling, whatever it was.

[sammytko]

24. Or fear? Not wanting to know what was wrong or deal with the issues?

[FailureToCommunicate]

15. Growing up in Missouri and Kansas, this was still fresh in my parents memories. And Woody

Guthrie was often singing on the record player.

This is a great program. Not surprising, being Ken Burns.

A must see if only for the shocking similarities to the inequities of today between the rich and the rest of us

[SheilaT]

16. I likewise have never understood that attitude.

It's shockingly common.

You also see it in women who don't go after the support money they are entitled to in a divorce.

We were quite poor when I was young, and the only reason I got any dental work was through a charity clinic. I never felt the least bit ashamed to go there.

Now that I am relatively rich in comparison, I try to give back what I can. I help out with feeding the homeless, and earlier today I made 10 dozen meatballs for the spaghetti and meatballs I'll be serving on Sunday. I love it that my place smells of meatballs right now, and I'm looking forward to serving them.

I've been poor, and I've gone hungry some, but I've never been homeless, and never been malnourished.

[SpartanDem]

19. I think there is a racial factor in some people who do this

we're familiar with the stereotypes about those on assistance. But I think the converse of that, is people who need assistance refuse it, because they feel though they'd be acting like "those people". Or if they do accept it, they justify themselves as deserving, while seeking to deny help to others.

[coalition_unwilling]

25. The past is prologue. Check out this episode of Frontline that

aired in Los Angeles last night:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poor-kids/

I actually stopped reading DU long enough today to reach out to Maxine Waters' office about it.

Don, sorry, don't mean to hijack your thread. Please let me know if you want me to self-delete this.

[hollysmom]

28. I don't think it is as simple as that

I talked to my mother a lot about the depression, she was just a child, but She talked to her mother about it. One of my grandmothers died at 60 from lingering effects of malnutrition.

The order was - first you fed the men because if they did not go out and get a job, temporary or otherwise, you would all die. Them you fed the children because they needed food to grow. Lastly you fed the mother and aunts because women could be replaced if they had to. I don't even look at this as sexist, but as what they had to do to survive. Since birth control was illegal, there were always a lot of children.

I know my grandparents loved their children, they had so many, but they were clean and educated and most of them grew to adulthood. My mother had to drop out of day school at 10 to work in a laundry, but then she was taken to night school run by the catholic church to keep up. Granted Bayonne NJ ws no dust bowl, but times were tough there in the depression.