This article reported on a phenomenon that is common in our own day as well as the era of the Great Depression. It exists in any locale that fosters a lousy environment for business - for when the entrepreneurial classes loose their daring for investing in commercial ventures and when bankers refuse to loan money for fear that they will never be paid back, it leads to the creation of what is called "dormant capital" - money that should be working, but isn't.
"There is now piled up in banks some $46,000,000,000. As opposed to $39,000,000,000 at the low point of 1933, and the idle capital is on the increase. World trade has virtually broken down."
As one editorial makes clear, FDR had a tough time freeing up private capital for investments, click here to read it.
An article about Governor Floyd B. Olson (1891 - 1936) of Minnesota who allowed his emotions to get the better of him one day in the early Spring of 1933 when he threatened to impose martial law throughout the state in order to confiscate private wealth should his proposed relief legislation fail to pass the Minnesota Senate:
Was former Democratic vice-President Henry Wallace a dirty Red?
"Unemployment permitted a great deal more companionship between young men and young women, which ordinarily would have led to marriage. The only thing lacking was money. The arrangements called, simply, 'living together' became common. Often the man or woman was married, and couldn't get , couldn't afford, or didn't want a divorce. Sometimes the man simply refused to marry, and the woman took him into her home or moved into his as the next best thing..."
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Published in May of 1933, the attached article concerned the much anticipated London Economic Conference which was scheduled to convene the following month in London. The world leaders who agreed to assemble were all of one mind in so much as their shared belief that collectively they would stand a better chance in defeating the economic depression that was bedeviling all their respective countries. It was their intention to meet and review all existing international trade and tariff agreements and to make an effort at stabilizing the currency exchange rates.
"In respect to their economic status, it has been estimated that one-half to two-thirds of the city children of America are in homes where annual income is too low to permit the family to buy items called for in an ordinary 'maintenance' budget - a budget of about $1,261 to meet the normal needs of living in a family of four."
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
Republican President Herbert Hoover had made numerous attempts to get a Federal relief bill through the Congress to the ailing citizenry, but the Democratic congress repeatedly disagreed as to how the funds were to be distributed. Finally an agreement was reached as Hoover's administration was reaching the end of his term and the Emergency Relief and Construction Act was passed into law.
"The obnoxious features which had been injected into the legislation from time to time by Members of the House of Representatives and had so long delayed action, have been eliminated." | 
