Word: reliefs
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Regarding the 20,000,000, Eleanor Roosevelt, who had already built bonfires of her own under all home-going Congressmen who voted for Relief restrictions,* said that the sudden cut-off in Government spending was like pushing the country off a precipice. She was reminded of her uncle, Roosevelt I, who used to make herself and other young Roosevelts jump off sandcliffs at Oyster Bay, to teach them how far you slide going downhill and how hard it is to climb back up. Precisely, chimed in her husband; his latest lending program had been devised to create a gentle gradient...
...Relief crisis built up daily with scores of thousands being purged from WPA's rolls, Mrs. Roosevelt last week quoted in her "My Day" column a series of pathetic cases. Snapped she: "Mr. Legislators, what are your answers...
...crop island, St. Croix was hard hit when the bottom fell out of the raw sugar market and Crucians could no longer buy corn meal and salt fish to keep their fungee pots going. But relief cards, at first ignored as a white man's joke, soon brought an unprecedented prosperity. The Negroes, given canned goods, traded them for rations they liked better, for bright flimsy dresses, dime-store jewelry, tobacco...
...days when "dere was always something it was time to do ... to tie de canes, to hoist de bundle to yo' head an' feel de good weight press down on you till yo' feet bog in de wet places." Like the rest, however, Rhoda accepted relief, enjoyed its trimmings. Some of them: a local-talent band which played The Star-Spangled Banner and Tipperary just alike, an open-air performance of Pinafore in thick flannel costumes meant for Alaska, sent to St. Croix by mistake...
When the Government abandoned direct relief, bought the bankrupt sugar plantations and broke them up into homesteading units, matriarchal Rhoda was delighted. She picked out the best tract she could find, then let Adam come and live with her on it. "De only way to get de devil out of dese people," she said, "is to sweat it out. Noodeal's done tried restin' it out, an' it didn't work...