Document A: Henderson Letter (Original)
July 26, 1935
"DUST TO EAST," TO HENRY A. WALLANCE, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
Who has given me to this sweet
And given my brother dust to eat?
And when will his wage come in?
[. . .]
For twenty-seven years this little spot on the vast expanses of the great plains has been the center of all our thought and hope and effort. And marvelous are the changes that we have seen in which we have participated.
The almost unbroken buffalo grass sod has given way to cultivated fields. The small rude huts or dugouts of the early days have been replaced by reasonably comfortable homes. The old trails have become wide graded highways. Railways have been built, reducing our journey to market from thirty miles to fifteen and later to two and a half. Little towns have sprung up with attractive homes, trees, flowers, schools, churches, and hospitals. Automobiles and trucks, tractors and combines have revolutionized methods of farm work and manner of living. The wonderful crop of 1926 when our country alone produced 10,000,000 bushels of wheat--more, it was said, than any other equal area in the world--revealed the possibilities of our productive soil and under modern methods of farming. I can shut my eyes and feel yet the rush of an almost painful thankfulness when we looked out over our fields that summer and watched our ripening grain bending, rising, bending again in golden waves swept on interminably by the restless wind. It seemed as if at last our dreams were coming true. . . .
Yet now our daily physical torture, confusion of mind, gradual wearing down of courage, seem to make that long continued hope look like a vanishing dream. For we are in the worst of the dust storm area where William Vaughn Moody's expression, "dust to eat" is not merely a figure of speech as he intended, but the phrasing of a bitter reality, increasing in seriousness with each passing day. Any attempt to suggest the violent discomfort of these storms is likely to be vain except to those who have already experienced them. . . .
To many old-timers like ourselves who have for twenty-five years or more wrought the persistent effort of bodies and minds into the soil of this now barren land, the greatest cause of anxiety is the fear that our county may yet be designated as "submarginal" land and included in the areas now being purchased for public domain. A fourth year of failure such as now seems probable would give added weight to the arguments for such a procedure. Repossession of our land by the federal government and a general migration to more favored localities may be the best way to meet the present disheartening situation. Yet the problem is not one that admits of a simple, off-hand solution. . . . It involves the interests not only of farm people but of the many small towns which have sprung up as trading centers throughout the plans region. . . .
Yet common sense suggests that the regions which are no longer entirely self-supporting cannot rely indefinitely upon government aid. So the problem remands and the one satisfactory solution is beyond all human control. Some of our neighbors with small children, fearing the effects upon their health, have left temporarily "until it rains." Others have left permanently, thinking doubtless that nothing could be worse. Thus far we and most of our friends seem held--for better or for worse--by memory and hope. I can look backward and see our covered wagon drawn up by the door of the cabin in the early light of that May morning long ago, can feel again the sweet fresh breath of the untrodden prairie, and recall for a moment the proud confidence of our youth. But when I try to see the wagon--or the Model T truck--headed in the opposite direction, away from our home and all our cherished hopes, I can not see it at all. Perhaps it is only because the dust is too dense and blinding.
Meanwhile the longing for rain has become almost an obsession. We remember the gentle all-night rains that used to make a grateful music on the shingles close above our heads, or the showers that came just in time to save a dying crop. We recall the torrents that occasionally burst upon us in sudden storms, making our level farm a temporary lake where only the ducks felt at home. We dream of the faint gurgling sound of dry soil sucking in the grateful moisture of the early or the later rains; of the fresh green of sprouting wheat or barley, the reddish bronze of springing rye. But we waken to another day of wind and dust and hopes deferred, of attempts to use to the utmost every small resource, to care for the stock and poultry as well as we can with our scanty supplies, to keep our balance and to trust that upon some happier day our wage may even yet come in.
Source: Caroline Henderson’s letter to Henry A. Wallace, sent July 26, 1935.
Document B: Svobida Account (Original)
Excerpt 1:
In January a foot of snow fell, but that was all the moisture we had, and it was not enough to make a crop. Some of my wheat came up, but it was thin, sickly-looking stuff, with only two or three leaves to a plant. I drove to the irrigated district fifteen miles northwest of Garden City and by paying almost double the price quoted on the open market, I obtained some seed barley, which I proceeded to drill into the land where I had no hope of a wheat crop. This meant extra labor and expense, but I was bound to get from my land what it could be made to yield. New varieties of disaster awaited my every effort.
Most of my remaining wheat fell an easy prey to the first gales of February, and none of the wheat that was up in the region could long withstand the succeeding gales, which first chopped off the plants even with the ground, then proceeded to take the roots out. They did not stop there. They blew away the rich topsoil, leaving the subsoil exposed; and then kept sweeping away at the "hard-pan," which is almost as hard as concrete.
This was something new and different from anything I had ever experienced before--a destroying force beyond my wildest imaginings. When some of my own fields started blowing, I was utterly bewildered.
I took counsel with some of my neighbors who had had greater experience, but received little in the way of encouragement. According to their information, there was little hope of saving a crop once the land had started blowing; and the only known method of checking the movement of the soil was the practice of strip listing. This meant running deep parallel furrows twenty or thirty feet apart, in an east and west direction, across the path of the prevailing winds. This tends to check the force of the wind along the ground, and allows the fine silt like dust to fall into the open furrows.
Everyone in the region grasped at this slim chance to save a crop.
Excerpt 2:
Railroads with land grants to dispose of, states with land scrip to sell, the Federal Government with its homestead policy, speculators, and barbed wire, all combined to restrict and eventually to abolish most of the free range, but cattle and horse raising continued to be the most important industry over a large part of the Great Plains until the 1920's.
Here had been overgrazing before the coming of the settlers and the invasion of barbed wire, but the death knell of the Plains was sounded and the birth of the Great American Desert was inaugurated with the introduction and rapid improvement of power farming. Tractors and combines made of the Great Plains region a new wheat empire, but in doing so they disturbed nature's balance, and nature is taking revenge.
From newspaper stories, garbled from Government reports, it is easy to get an impression of the Dust Bowl farmers as an impoverished lot of submarginal people eking out a miserable existence on a submarginal land. On the contrary, most of these people are of the finest American stock, the descendants of pioneers from New England, descendants of cattlemen, and newcomers from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, eastern Kansas, and Nebraska. When the sod was broken to the plow on a large scale, the job called for capital, and capital was oared in without stint. So also were ambition, intelligence, energy, and enthusiasm.
Source: Lawrence Svobida, Farming the Dust Bowl: A First-Hand Account from Kansas, first published in 1940.
Document C: Government Report (Original)
Personal and Confidential From Morris Cooke
August 27, 1936 The President
The White House Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. President:
We have the honor to submit herewith our report on the essentials of a long time program looking towards betterment of economic conditions in the Great Plains Drought Area.
The Nature of the Problem
In accordance with the responsibility entrusted to it on July 22nd the Committee has made a preliminary study of drought conditions in the Great Plains area with the hope of outlining a long term program which would render future droughts less disastrous. We have consulted the accessible records, have enlisted the aid of authorities and agencies already working in this field, and have just completed a trip of inspection and conferences through the areas most seriously affected.
The time at our disposal has been brief, but we have fortunately been able to draw on the experience of the Resettlement Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, the Agriculture Adjustment Administration, the Soil Conservation Service, the Rural Electrification Administration, the Weather Bureau, the Geological Survey, and other government agencies, old and new, Federal and State, which over a considerable period have been dealing with the problems of our semi arid lands. The degree of attention which this subject has already received is indicated by the fact that the Federal agencies alone have spent in the Great Plains region, as defined later, since January 1, 1933, on works related to conservation of physical assets, about $140,000,000, not including grants, loans and relief disbursements amounting to approximately $335,000,000.
We put forward our recommendations with the more confidence, therefore, because of the mass of material generously placed at our disposal by those who have pioneered this field. We are summarizing conclusions which are the growth of years of experiment and investigation. We offer a basic program at this time because we believe that there is general agreement as to the main facts among those most familiar with the situation, and because we are convinced that activities for permanent rehabilitation and reconstruction already undertaken must be speeded up and expanded if the Great Plains area is to avoid a worse disaster than has yet befallen it.
We have been mindful of your request, made in appointing this Committee, that we look toward "the most efficient utilization of the natural resources of the Great Plains area, and especially toward practicable measures for remedying the conditions which have brought widespread losses and distress to many inhabitants of the Missouri, Platte and Arkansas Valleys, the Panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, and contiguous areas."
Particular attention has been given to the suggestion in your letter of July 22nd, as follows:
"We have supposed that the modes of settlement and of development which have been prevalent represented the ordinary course of civilization.
But perhaps in this area of relatively little rain, practices brought from the more humid part of the country are not most suitable under the prevailing natural conditions."
A trip through the drought area, supplementing data already on record, makes it evident that we are not confronted merely with a short term problem of relief, already being dealt with by several agencies of the Federal Government, but with a long term problem of readjustment and reorganization.
The agricultural economy of the Great Plains will become increasingly unstable and unsafe, in view of the impossibility of permanent increase in the amount of rainfall, unless over cropping, over grazing and improper farm methods are prevented. There is no reason to believe that the primary factors of climate temperature, precipitation and winds in the Great Plains region have undergone any fundamental change. The future of the region must depend, therefore, on the degree to which farming practices conform to natural conditions. Because the situation has now passed out of the individual farmer's control, the reorganization of farming practices demands the cooperation of many agencies, including the local, State and Federal governments.
We wish to make it plain that nothing we here propose is expected or intended to impair the independence of the individual farmer in the Great Plains area. Our proposals will look toward the greatest possible degree of stabilization of the region's economy, a higher and more secure income for each family, the spreading of the shock of inevitable droughts so that they will not be crushing in their effects, the conservation of land and water, a steadily diminishing dependence on public grants and subsidies, the restoration of the credit of individuals and of local and State governments, and a thorough going consideration of how great a population, and in what areas, the Great Plains can support.
These objectives are not now attainable by individual action, but we believe they will restore an individual independence which has been lost. Mistaken public policies have been largely responsible for the situation now existing. That responsibility must be liquidated by new policies. The Federal Government must do its full share in remedying the damage caused by a mistaken homesteading policy, by the stimulation of war time demands which led to over cropping and over grazing, and by encouragement of a system of agriculture which could not be both permanent and prosperous.
In many measures the Federal Government must take the initiative, particularly in furnishing leadership and guidance, and in participating to a substantial extent in the construction or financing of the needed public works. Through existing agencies it will be able to employ many of the residents of the region. In other measures the State and local governments must take the initiative. The emphasis of the program should be on coordination and cooperation, with each agency and each group undertaking the functions it is best able to perform. There need not be, and should not be, conflict of interest or jurisdiction between State and local agencies on the one hand and Federal agencies on the other, There need not be, and should not be, impairment of local and individual initiative.
There must be, on the other hand, continuous and sustained joint efforts on the part of all agencies concerned. The problem of the Great Plains is not the product of a single act of nature, of a single year or even of a series of exceptionally bad years. It has come into being over a considerable period of time, and time will be required to deal with it. The steps taken must be continuous, non intermittent and patiently followed. A reasonably stable agricultural economy must be established, maintained and handed on to the children of this generation.
Source:Excerpt from the Report of the Great Plains Drought Area Committee, sent to President Roosevelt on August 27, 1936.
Document D: Historian, Professor Donald Worster
The Dust Bowl was the darkest moment in the twentieth-century life of the southern plains. The name suggests a place --a region whose borders are as inexact and shifting as a sand dune. But it was also an event of national, even planetary, significance. A widely respected authority on world food problems, George Borgstrom, has ranked the creation of the Dust Bowl as one of the three worst ecological blunders in history. The other two are the deforestation of China's uplands about 3000 B.C., which produced centuries of silting and flooding, and the destruction of the Mediterranean vegetation by livestock, which left once fertile lands eroded and impoverished. Unlike either of those events, however, the Dust Bowl took only 50 years to accomplish. It cannot be blamed on illiteracy or overpopulation or social disorder. It came about because the culture was operating in precisely the way it was supposed to. Americans blazed their way across a richly endowed continent with a ruthless, devastating efficiency unmatched by any people anywhere. When the white men came to the plains, they talked expansively of "busting" and "breaking" the land. And that is exactly what they did. Some environmental catastrophes are nature's work, others are the slowly accumulating effects of ignorance or poverty. The Dust Bowl, in contrast, was the inevitable outcome of a culture that deliberately, self-consciously, set itself that task of dominating and exploiting the land for all it was worth.