Farm Security Administration.
Relief work
One of the activities performed by the RA and FSA was the buying out of small farms that were not economically viable, and the setting up of 34 subsistence homestead communities, in which groups of farmers would live together under the guidance of government experts and work a common area. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would fall back into inefficient practices not guided by RA and FSA experts.[1]
The Dust Bowl in the Great Plains displaced thousands of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and laborers, many of whom (known as "Okies" or "Arkies") moved on to California. The FSA operated camps for them, such as Weedpatch Camp as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath.
The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936-1943. In June, 1936, Roosevelt wrote: "You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault... I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining. During the past year his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record!"[2]
The FSA's primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices. Roosevelt's agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production to increase prices. However, when production was discouraged, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents. Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the Agriculture Department realized there already were too many farmers, and did not have a program for farm purchases. Instead they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress however demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, which were eventually repaid. A much larger program was $778 million in loans (at effective rates of about 1% interest) to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the farmer more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals, or to repay old debts. At all times the borrower was closely advised by a government agent. Family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a health insurance program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children. Upward of a third of the amount was never repaid, as the tenants moved to much better opportunities in the cities.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration
Francis townsend.
Features of the Townsend Plan
The Townsend Plan called for a guaranteed monthly pension of $200 (a quite-considerable sum in 1930s, which would have enabled its recipients to have lived a relatively middle class lifestyle) to every retired citizen age 60 or older, to be paid for by a form of a national sales tax of 2% on all business transactions (this gross receipts taxation is not a value added tax because it makes no provision to remove business purchases from the base and thus can create significant problems for capital investment), with the stipulation that each pensioner would be required to spend the money within 30 days. The idea was to end the Depression through consumer spending by way of ending poverty among the aged. Economists generally disdained this form of taxation as being unfairly advantageous to large, vertically integrated enterprises which produced goods from the raw material all the way to the finished, saleable product over intermediary operations which were involved in only one or two steps of this process. The main argument against the plan, however, was that the taxes would not be enough to pay for the high pensions, which would account for almost half the national income. Townsend and Clements, the co-founder of the organization and its motive force, quickly amended the proposal to pay out only as much as the tax would bring in. The Townsend Plan contested old-age policy in a serious way for more than a decade. This led up to the Social Security Act (SSA) presented by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the New Deal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Townsend
Francis Townsend, the son of a farmer, was born in Fairbury, Illinois, on 13th January, 1867. When he was a child the family moved to Nebraska. After leaving school Townsend worked as a farm labourer in Kansas and Colorado.
Townsend eventually attended Omaho Medical College and graduated in 1907. He set up as a doctor in the Black Hills of South Dakota but joined the Army Medical Corps when the United States entered the First World War in 1917.
After leaving the army Townsend worked in Long Beach, California. His medical practice was not a success and he obtained employment as assistant city health director. Townsend lost his job during the Great Depression and was forced into retirement.
In 1933 Townsend witnessed three old women rummaging through the garbage cans in his alley for food. He was horrified by what he saw and decided to get involved in politics. Later that year he proposed a scheme whereby the Federal government would provide every person over 60 with a monthly pension of $150 (later increased to $200). Townsend argued that the pensioners would immediately spend the money and would therefore create new jobs and bring an end to the Great Depression.
Townsend suggesed that his Old Age Revolving Pension Plan could be financed by a Federal tax on all sales (wholesale and retail).The plan obtained a great deal of public support and by 1935 his Townsend Club had over 5 million members.
In 1935 Townsend handed in to President Franklin D. Roosevelt a petition supporting the Old Age Revolving Pension Plan that had been signed by over 20 million people. In response to the petition, Congress passed the Social Security Act.
Townsend claimed that Roosevelt's social security legislation was completely inadequate and in 1936 joined with Father Charles Coughlin, Gerald L. K. Smith and followers of the late Huey Long, to form the National Union of Social Justice. William Lepke was selected as the party's candidate in the 1936 presidential election but won only 882,479 votes compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt (27,751,597) and Alfred Landon (16,679,583).
In 1936 Townsend was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice for contempt of Congress. However, President Franklin D. Roosevelt commuted Townsend's 30 day prison sentence. Francis Townsend died in Los Angles on 1st September, 1960.
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