Military Personnel Quotes
Plantng tobacco was a much more lucrative endeavour than fixing guns so many gunsmiths abandned that trade for tobacco farming.
At the time veterans would have to wait for up to a year till they could get their records and their benefits from the Veterans Administration which had insufficient budget while the Defense Department had as much money as the Military-Industrial complex could lobby for.
The Great Depression was afflicting the nation. Farmers and homeowners who lost jobs (over 35%) or could not sell produce at a decent price could not pay their mortgage debts and homes and farms were being foreclosed in record numbers. Veterans who had saved the nation in WWI and farmers who had fed the population were impoverished and homeless. Rankin appealed to President Herbert Hoover to place a moratorium in bank foreclosures, which not only ruined the individuals but drove down the value of real estate by throwing so much on the market at a time when few had money to buy. Hoover, an otherwise decent man and an excellent administrator, had a blind spot and would not consider having the government solve or alleviate any of these problems as he felt that this would be bad for the national character. By 1932, the voters threw Hoover out and elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt who used the power of government in new and imaginative ways, improved the economy. Profided relief, and prevented a popular revolution and many believed saved capitalism from its own excesses.
