75 Years Ago
Late Spring/Early Summer 1932
by Maurice Telleen
published in
The Draft Horse Journal, Summer 2007
(from the April, May & June Breeder's
Gazettes and general news sources of the period.)
The worldwide depression that our parents and grandparents
were experiencing showed no sign of letting up. It was an
equal opportunity destroyer of hopes, dreams, homesteads
and fortunes–large and small. It was also an election
year and if you were in office you would likely lose–this
terrible mess had to be "somebody's fault!" So,
not surprisingly, Hoover lost in a landslide to the Governor
of New York, Franklin Roosevelt. FDR, as he quickly became
known, promised a "New Deal." I doubt that when
the phrase was coined he even had many specifics in mind,
but he was game to listen to every scheme that came down
the pike and some of them must have worked. It was, indeed,
a New Deal.
We were, and still are, sort of kinfolk to western Europe.
Their recent experience in dealing with this worldwide depression
was not encouraging either. The blame game was at work abroad
too–and many of those nations weren't lucky enough
to wind up with an FDR. In Germany, Paul Von Hindenberg,
their president and supreme commander in WW I, barely managed
to stay in office–but only for a little while. He had
both Adolf Hitler and his loonies and the communists to deal
with. In France, the president of the republic was slain
by a Russian immigrant who claimed to be fighting communism.
The "Old World" was being turned upside down.
We also had a Socialist candidate for president, but he
was a far cry from the firebrands loose in Europe. His name
was Norman Thomas, making his second of several runs for
president. He was a preacher/professor type–not a bomb
thrower. Western Civilization was not in very good health
75 years ago.
On May 29, 1932, 11,000 veterans of World War I marched
on Washington, D.C., calling themselves the "Bonus Expeditionary
Force," demanding a bonus for their service in WW I.
They camped out in nearby marshes and occupied abandoned
buildings. It was not a pretty sight.
On July 28, acting on orders from President Hoover, U.S.
Army regulars were commanded by a fellow named Douglas MacArthur
to run them out of town. Hoover was sure their ranks had
been infiltrated by communists. It would be very surprising
if that weren't true, but it obviously wasn't just a commie
plot. There was a lot of despair and anger. MacArthur and
his troops did their job, setting fire to the makeshift shanties,
tents and old dilapidated buildings. By midnight only a few
veterans remained in the city.
So much for the headline news–it was nearly all bad.
So how was Breeder's Gazette doing in this sorry time? On
the advertising end, if it weren't for Buick cars with their
two page middle spread, Dodge and Chrysler with their full
pages, along with Case and Farmall tractors and Firestone
tires with their full pages, things would have been kind
of slim. I'd say that total advertising space taken up by
all livestock took up less than three full pages–and
they were all very small ads, sold by the inch, not by the
page. Classifieds, is what they were.
There was one ad in that April '32 issue that
caught my attention. It was from American Steel & Wire,
the folks who made woven wire fences and I think it bears
repeating
here.
This brings us up to the June 1932 Breeder's Gazette. As
you will recall from the last issue, Breeder's Gazette had
recently bought a rundown sort of farm. Sam Guard asked his
readers to help name the farm. Then he thanked them all and
simply named it "Breeder's Gazette Farm" and awarded
a hundred of them with a 3-year subscription. They were called
the honorable mentions.
I'll close off this 75 Years Ago section with a photograph
and a column. First to a column by Wayne Dinsmore, probably
the greatest evangelist for live horse and mule power on
American farms that ever lived. As the depression continued
and the price of all farm products languished, horses and
mules–the power that ran on home-grown fuel and provided
their own replacements–looked better and better. Traveling
a stud horse also looked better. So there was sort of a boom
in the mid-'30s. It didn't last but it was there–and
for the reasons cited in Dinsmore's June '32 column, which
is reproduced here.
