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GORDON GREB |
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 On Halloween Night in 1929, little Gordon dreamed of his favorite comic characters--not Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt or Adolph Hitler. |
Kids on Halloween in 1929
couldn't see coming horrors
of TheColumnists.com
As a boy in the thirties I knew little or nothing of the world. On Halloween in l929 we carried our jack-o-lanterns from door to door, announcing “trick or treat,” little realizing the leaders of great nations were involved in the same game. Little did we know then that our future was being played out elsewhere.
When the great Wall Street Crash came on October 24 (known thereafter as “Black Thursday), throwing our nation and the entire world into a deep economic depression, no one knew which way to turn to solve this ever deepening problem.
In Germany Adolf Hitler was moving step by step with his Nazi party to seize control in Germany and use war as a means of returning prosperity to his homeland. In the United States of America we were destined to come under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who despite being paralyzed by polio, was using democratic government to rescue the poor and unemployed with a state relief agency as the new governor of New York.
As young boys and girls, we knew nothing of this. We only paid attention to what was happening around our own homes, neighborhoods, or schools. There was no time for newspaper articles or headlines. We had our own games to play and the adults had theirs. When the afternoon newspaper was thrown on my front porch, I ran to get “the funnies,” tossing the news sections aside for the latest adventures of “Mickey Mouse,” “Barney Google,” and “Little Orphan Annie.”
During this time our teachers at Whittier Grammar School watched over us carefully. They must have wondered what would become of us. Often they shook their heads and let us know of their displeasure over our seeming indifference to education. Yet they somehow kept our restless young bodies firmly fixed to our seats in school and devised innovative ways to cram enough skills and information into our heads to get us promoted to the next grade. We were constantly told, “Children, you must work hard to get good grades as it’s important for your future.” Good advice. Well intended. But we rarely took it.
What did influence us was the subliminal guidance we got from our parents and teachers. This unintended behavior was actually what counted the most. I now realize it was how these adults behaved every day, something we experienced with them, first hand– honest, decent, and loving–that somehow was picked up by our subconscious and slowly seeped into our own characters.
As children we naturally wanted to have fun. Halloween in America seemed to have been designed especially for the young. How could grownups possibly have the fun we had? Kids can disguise themselves and pretend they’re soldiers, kings, monsters, princesses, movie stars, goblins, and spirits. We’d lose our identity in masks, dress up in colorful costumes, and carry goofy-faced pumpkins. On Halloween night we’d light up our pumpkin candles and go “trick or treating” down the street, looking for opportunities to jump out and scare people.
None of us knew it but 1929 was to be our last make-believe Halloween. It would be a long time before “Happy Halloween” had any real meaning. Unbeknownst to us, the whole world was changing and life-threatening forces were about to challenge our families, our nation, and us. Due to stupid miscalculations by major decision-makers–rulers of big governments, along with their bankers, investors, industrialists, economists, editorial writers, military leaders, and theorists– we began to experience one awful thing after another. It was adding up to a worldwide catastrophe.
Thanks to the passage of time, I can now see those people and events of the past with keener appreciation and finer perspective. If my generation learned any lessons from those days, I think it’s that we must be very careful in choosing charismatic leaders and causes. The wrong leader can mean disaster.
When America’s stock market collapsed in l929 it was bad enough at home but it also sent shock waves around the world. One of the foreign countries most severely affected was Germany. Its industry was coming to a halt, plants were closing, exports falling, small businesses failing and millions of workers out of jobs.
For Adolf Hitler, this was exactly what he wanted. His Nazi party had lost momentum, was unable to attract a majority of voters and seemed destined to remain in the dustbin of history. The market collapse of l929 gave him a chance to whip up renewed enthusiasm for his fascist movement, to recover from a failed Munich coup d’etat attempt in l924, which kept him in jail for nine months.
However, with this sudden economic disaster sending the country into turmoil, it put Hitler into a position to blame Germany’s Weimar Republic and offer the Nazi party as the fatherland’s only logical alternative. Huge audiences roared with enthusiasm as he toured the cities. Their desperate needs gave Hitler exactly what he wanted–a total dictatorship. With single-minded purpose he transformed Germany into a Frankenstein monster, a regimented society with a military regime, which set out to conquer the world.
Newspapers of the day tell the story:
NEW YORK, Oct. 29 (Los Angeles Times) –An incredible stock market tumbled toward chaos today despite heroic measures adopted by the nation’s largest bankers…Selling of stocks broke all previous records, reaching 16,410,030 shares at the close. Losses of 10, 20, 30 points or more were piled on top of the staggering breaks of yesterday, threatening the credit structure of the country. There was no quarter. The wolves ranged through Wall Street.
***
PARIS, Oct 29 (Chicago Tribune) –Panic scenes resembling those of the first days of the World War in August, 1914, were being re-enacted here today with hundreds of suddenly impoverished Americans ruined by the series of Wall-street market crashes seeking financial aid and steamship accommodations home….Branches of American banks and travel agencies have been besieged by tourists seeking cash, checks, drafts, I.O.U’s or anything to raise money, and all have been instructed to be extremely cautious…that the checks are good before passing over the money.”
***
NEW YORK, Oct. 29 – Albert Schneider,
60-year old president of the Union Tobacco Company, died today
in a six-story plunge from the Hotel Beverly…Union Tobacco
stock, which sold up to $20 a share earlier in the year, was
down around $1 a share on the curb today.
***
KANSAS CITY, Oct. 29 – Believed to be a victim of the failing market, John Schwitzgebel, said to be a representative of Chicago Lloyds, shot himself here today in his room at the Kansas City Club. His condition is critical.
***
As the economy worsened, President Herbert Hoover’s administration had no practical solutions. Apparently he felt that by waiting long enough it would go away. But too many destitute Americans were facing starvation and could not wait. Unrest was building to a fever pitch. In the spring of l932 Congress got a secret message from Hoover urging that the salaries of U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines not be cut, saying troops might be needed to put down a revolution.
That summer, 15,000 unemployed World War I veterans came to Washington, D.C. and encamped on the capital’s vast open mall. They had come from all over the USA to petition the government for bonuses authorized by Congress for their honorable service, but those payments had been deferred to l945. Needing the money, they wanted it now. Hoover closed the White House, refused to see them and ordered his chief of staff, General Douglas Macarthur, to mobilize the Army to forcibly remove them. Skirmishes broke out between these seasoned vets and the regulars but the old soldiers did not revolt. They went home. They were merely patriotic Americans wanting help, not a revolution.
With the nation in crisis the Democrats needed someone who could win the presidency and restore prosperity to America. When the choice reached Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he electrified the Chicago convention by breaking precedent and flying there to personally accept his nomination. Standing before these wildly enthusiastic supporters, Roosevelt told them and a national radio audience–“I pledge to you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” Then the band struck up what was to be the theme song of his campaign, “Happy Days Are Here Again.” In November the results were in--Roosevelt had been elected the country’s 32nd U.S. President, swept into office with 472 electoral votes to Hoover’s 59, carrying all but six of the 48 states.
These are the details I had to learn later. In l929 my concern was what to do on Halloween with my family, school and neighborhood. Looking back I can still remember two small boys coming up the street that night, carrying jack-o-lanterns to light their way. They were my school chums in costume -- nine-year old Jack Corbett and his cousin Norman Corwin–come to enjoy my party. With my brother Wallace and myself, we were a party of four enjoying ice cream and cake served by my mother.
Although we didn’t know it, a hazardous future awaited us. Sooner than we wanted we would face two unimaginable threats to our very own survival–a people-eating hobgoblin known as the Great Depression and after that, a fire-breathing monster wanting to devour us in World War II.
As things turned out, Roosevelt became our most welcome “treat” and Hitler, the world’s most dangerous and life-threatening “trick.”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
©2006 by Gordon Greb. This is an excerpt from a forthcoming
book by Prof. Gordon Greb. All rights reserved. The cartoon is
by the author. The photo of FDR is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This
column first posted Oct. 23, 2006.
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