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♪ On the 14th day of April ♪
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♪ of 1935 ♪
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♪ there struck the worst of dust storms ♪
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♪ that ever filled the sky ♪
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♪ you could see
that dust storm coming ♪
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♪ the cloud looked death-like black ♪
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♪ and through our mighty nation ♪
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♪ it left a dreadful track ♪
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We have many words for
what's under our feet.
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"The good earth", we like
to talk about the good earth
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and pick it up and smell it and taste it.
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This is the soil of our
productivity, our prosperity.
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But when it's loose and blowing
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and it's getting into your attic
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and it's covering your laundry
on the clothes line, it's dirt,
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or when you're breathing it, it's dust.
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I think we all realize
that where dirt belongs
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is under our feet, not up in the air.
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We made so much money
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at raising wheat in the late twenties
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that we broke everything out
to raise more wheat.
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Then the climate changed
and the depression came along,
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and the wheat wasn't worth much.
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But we still had the land broken out.
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We were just too selfish, and we
were trying to make money
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and get rich quick off of the wheat,
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and it didn't work out.
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Sustained environmental
disasters in American history.
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It's not something that
happens in just one year.
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It's not something that
just lasts for 3 or 4 years.
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It's a decade.
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Because of the combination
of extreme drought
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and extreme high temperatures,
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this is the worst 10-year period
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in recorded history on the plains.
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♪ We saw
outside our window ♪
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♪ where wheat fields
they had grown ♪
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♪ was now a rippling ocean ♪
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♪ of dust
the wind had blown ♪
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In the summer of 1935,
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at her homestead in
the Oklahoma Panhandle,
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Caroline Henderson,
a farm wife and writer,
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sat down and composed a letter
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to the secretary of
agriculture, Henry Wallace,
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to let him know what she, her husband,
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and so many of her neighbors
were going through.
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We are now facing
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a fourth year of failure.
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Since 1931, the record has been
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one of practically unbroken drought.
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There can be no wheat for us in 1935.
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In one respect, we realize that
some farmers have themselves
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00:04:08,882 --> 00:04:13,960
contributed to this
reaping of the whirlwind.
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A revival preacher-
a true job's comforter...
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Proclaimed that the drought is a
direct punishment for our sins.
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The future promises only
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hopeless and permanent desert conditions.
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Special prayers for rain were offered
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at our County seat last Sunday morning.
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The afternoon brought one
of the most sudden, dense,
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and suffocating dust storms
of the season.
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By 1935, Caroline
Henderson and her neighbors
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needed all the help they could find.
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Like everyone else in the United States,
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they were suffering as the
greatest economic cataclysm
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in the nation's history...
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The great depression...
Lingered on.
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But they were also caught in the midst
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of the nation's greatest
ecological catastrophe...
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Where "black blizzards"
blotted out the sun,
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created drifts against their
homes, ruined their crops,
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00:05:18,951 --> 00:05:21,389
and just when it seemed things
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could not get any worse,
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on Sunday, April 14, 1935,
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the biggest storm of all
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had struck with a surprising vengeance.
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I think it really scared a lot of people.
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It's also scary enough
that it gets the attention
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of the rest of the country.
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If people weren't paying
attention prior to Black Sunday,
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this is an event that is so monumental
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that people can't ignore it.
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In the dust bowl,
the survivors of Black Sunday
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worried that they had
become a forgotten people
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in a forgotten land.
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They weren't forgotten.
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00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:18,823
While president Franklin
Roosevelt struggled
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to get the whole country
back on its feet,
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he was also profoundly
concerned about the fate
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00:06:24,869 --> 00:06:27,809
of the southern plains.
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But over the next few years,
the drought would only deepen,
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00:06:32,719 --> 00:06:35,156
and the "black blizzards"
that added immeasurably
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to people's miseries
would only intensify.
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00:06:39,934 --> 00:06:41,937
Many would fight desperately
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00:06:42,004 --> 00:06:44,846
to hold on to their land and their lives.
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Others would be forced to join an exodus
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toward a promised land that
offered both water and work.
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In the crucible of dust
and drought and depression,
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some families would be torn apart,
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00:06:59,342 --> 00:07:01,811
others uprooted from their homes,
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00:07:01,879 --> 00:07:07,221
and some brought closer
together than ever before.
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00:07:07,288 --> 00:07:09,496
I think to be a dry land farmer,
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you have to be a certain
kind of a person,
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00:07:12,568 --> 00:07:14,937
and deep down inside of themselves,
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they must have had the feeling,
"if we just stick it out
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and stay here, times are
bound to get better,"
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00:07:22,087 --> 00:07:25,027
which did give them a little hope,
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00:07:25,092 --> 00:07:27,399
but in the middle of a dust storm,
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it's very difficult to hope,
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00:07:30,705 --> 00:07:35,280
and it takes a lot of willpower
and everything else
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00:07:35,347 --> 00:07:40,224
to bring yourself back out
time after time after time.
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00:07:40,290 --> 00:07:45,068
So you had to admire those
people who did stick it out.
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They had come there,
maybe they'd been born there,
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and they intended to stay.
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This was their home.
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We lived in a brown world.
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The land was barren and brown.
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It seemed like most of the
houses were weather-beaten.
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In my life it was a brown world.
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The ground was brown.
Everything was brown.
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And I didn't know any difference.
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It was all I knew.
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00:08:31,966 --> 00:08:36,036
During the 1930s, 46 of the 48 states
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had experienced some form of drought,
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00:08:38,936 --> 00:08:43,303
and farmers everywhere
were hurting, but none more
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00:08:43,372 --> 00:08:45,873
than those in the area
surrounding the town
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of Boise City, Oklahoma,
which the federal government
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had declared as the geographic center
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of the dust bowl, where
conditions were the worst...
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00:08:55,308 --> 00:08:59,678
A place once known as no man's land.
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In 1935, Boise City received
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00:09:02,545 --> 00:09:05,647
fewer than 10 inches of precipitation,
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00:09:05,712 --> 00:09:10,015
the official definition of a desert.
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00:09:10,082 --> 00:09:13,118
Farmers in nearby Baca County, Colorado,
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00:09:13,183 --> 00:09:17,984
who had once harvested
wheat on 237,000 acres,
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00:09:18,051 --> 00:09:23,221
now had successful crops on only 516.
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00:09:23,288 --> 00:09:26,221
In the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles,
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00:09:26,289 --> 00:09:28,656
the absentee "suitcase farmers"
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00:09:28,721 --> 00:09:31,723
who had hoped to strike it rich in wheat
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00:09:31,790 --> 00:09:36,292
simply abandoned nearly 4
million acres of exposed fields,
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leaving them to blow with each new wind.
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00:09:40,427 --> 00:09:42,329
In southwestern Kansas,
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00:09:42,396 --> 00:09:46,162
vegetable gardens were
producing 90% less than normal,
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00:09:46,229 --> 00:09:48,262
and more than a quarter of the children
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00:09:48,330 --> 00:09:53,366
were reported to be
at least 10% underweight.
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People here "have given up
trying to be civilized,"
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a local minister said.
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00:09:58,568 --> 00:10:01,602
"We are merely
trying to exist."
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00:10:01,669 --> 00:10:05,737
We had a little
heifer that had a new calf.
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00:10:05,804 --> 00:10:08,904
I went down to see the calf,
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00:10:08,971 --> 00:10:11,871
and it was laying there kicking,
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00:10:11,939 --> 00:10:14,241
and my dad was walking
away with a hammer.
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00:10:14,308 --> 00:10:15,908
He had killed it.
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00:10:15,975 --> 00:10:19,944
And I ran to my mother
just bawling about it,
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because my dad was so tender-hearted,
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and she said, "he had to."
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00:10:24,743 --> 00:10:27,244
She said, "we've just
got the one milk cow.
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00:10:27,310 --> 00:10:31,747
There's not enough milk for
you kids and the calf, too."
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00:10:31,814 --> 00:10:34,582
She said, "you kids have
got to have milk."
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So he killed the calf.
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00:10:47,790 --> 00:10:51,192
Well, it was pretty bad.
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My mother saved sugar sacks
and flour sacks for material
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to make my panties,
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and I had a dress made
out of flour sacks.
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It wasn't good percale.
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00:11:05,009 --> 00:11:08,512
It was just cotton that had been printed,
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00:11:08,580 --> 00:11:12,418
like little flowers on the sugar sacks.
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00:11:12,483 --> 00:11:16,121
That's why they were used for my panties.
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00:11:16,188 --> 00:11:21,929
The flour sacks might be plaid
or have big flowers,
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00:11:21,996 --> 00:11:26,367
and that's why they made
dresses out of them.
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00:11:26,433 --> 00:11:30,604
Mother could get us a dress
out of 3 feed sacks.
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They made them real pretty...
Pretty prints
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use they found out the farmers' wives
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were using them for that.
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00:11:36,979 --> 00:11:39,249
We found out some of the neighbors wore
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the same dresses we did,
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00:11:40,984 --> 00:11:43,553
but we always laughed at
each other and went on
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because we had a new dress.
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It was fine.
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00:11:47,557 --> 00:11:51,696
My family, in terms of eating,
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00:11:51,763 --> 00:11:54,634
could have eggs, our own eggs,
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and then start borrowing from the grocer.
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00:11:58,337 --> 00:12:00,874
When he would quit lending you money,
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00:12:00,941 --> 00:12:06,514
you were down to eating
lard and bread or an egg.
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00:12:06,580 --> 00:12:10,853
We ate so poorly that the hobos
wouldn't come to our house.
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00:12:10,918 --> 00:12:13,956
I was down to eating lard and bread.
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00:12:14,022 --> 00:12:16,893
We lived in 4 different places
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when I was in elementary
school to survive.
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00:12:21,431 --> 00:12:24,269
Every year my first, second,
and third grade,
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00:12:24,334 --> 00:12:26,738
we moved to a different farm every time,
191
00:12:26,805 --> 00:12:29,442
and every time, we lost it.
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00:12:29,509 --> 00:12:31,257
One summer, we needed a loaf of bread,
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00:12:31,277 --> 00:12:32,725
and there was this little country store
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00:12:32,745 --> 00:12:35,181
a half-mile away from where we lived.
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00:12:35,248 --> 00:12:37,517
And we looked for a dime in the house.
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00:12:37,584 --> 00:12:39,719
We couldn't find a dime.
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00:12:39,787 --> 00:12:44,024
We couldn't find a dime in the
house to buy a loaf of bread.
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00:12:44,091 --> 00:12:46,961
I think it was probably harder
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00:12:47,028 --> 00:12:49,397
on my mother than it was my dad
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00:12:49,463 --> 00:12:51,133
because she worried about
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00:12:51,199 --> 00:12:55,338
what she was gonna be able
to fix for us to eat.
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00:12:55,404 --> 00:12:59,678
It was rare for anyone to have money,
203
00:12:59,744 --> 00:13:03,214
but my granddad was pretty resourceful,
204
00:13:03,281 --> 00:13:08,253
and he had given me
3 dimes... and I was rich!
205
00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:13,092
And I hid them, and my mother
wanted to know where.
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00:13:13,158 --> 00:13:16,161
I said, "I buried them in the sand
207
00:13:16,228 --> 00:13:18,933
out around the south window."
208
00:13:18,999 --> 00:13:21,669
And she said, "well,
you come show me."
209
00:13:21,736 --> 00:13:26,007
And she looked until
she found those 3 dimes.
210
00:13:26,073 --> 00:13:29,678
One time my brother swallowed 2 dimes,
211
00:13:29,744 --> 00:13:34,885
and my mother made him
use a can or a slop jar
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00:13:34,952 --> 00:13:40,557
to go to the bathroom until
she dug those dimes out.
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00:13:40,624 --> 00:13:45,129
South of Boise City,
Don Wells and his family
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00:13:45,197 --> 00:13:50,704
were struggling to survive
on their 160-acre farm.
215
00:13:50,770 --> 00:13:53,172
There was 10 of us kids,
216
00:13:53,239 --> 00:13:55,976
and we lived in a two-room house.
217
00:13:56,042 --> 00:13:59,045
At night, we had wall-to-wall mattresses.
218
00:13:59,113 --> 00:14:02,015
At daytime, we scooted
them under the bed.
219
00:14:02,083 --> 00:14:03,684
Had two rooms...
The kitchen,
220
00:14:03,750 --> 00:14:06,289
and then there was a bed in there,
221
00:14:06,355 --> 00:14:09,358
and then the rest of us all
slept in the other room.
222
00:14:09,424 --> 00:14:11,628
One Sunday, Wells learned
223
00:14:11,695 --> 00:14:15,131
that his father had died
in a distant hospital,
224
00:14:15,198 --> 00:14:17,401
from what had started as strep throat
225
00:14:17,467 --> 00:14:20,704
and ended with him choking to death.
226
00:14:20,771 --> 00:14:24,008
Don's mother, age 35, was now a widow
227
00:14:24,075 --> 00:14:29,382
with a grade-school education
and 10 mouths to feed.
228
00:14:29,448 --> 00:14:31,450
We couldn't stay out on the farm
229
00:14:31,517 --> 00:14:35,721
because the bank came and got
what little machinery we had,
230
00:14:35,788 --> 00:14:37,889
and we didn't have any cows left.
231
00:14:37,957 --> 00:14:40,762
We didn't have any pigs to eat.
232
00:14:40,829 --> 00:14:45,000
So my uncles loaded us up in a truck,
233
00:14:45,066 --> 00:14:48,336
put all of our clothes
and furniture in the back of it,
234
00:14:48,403 --> 00:14:51,541
and they took us to Boise City.
235
00:14:51,607 --> 00:14:54,710
The family lived
in one house after another,
236
00:14:54,779 --> 00:14:57,948
forced to move whenever
they couldn't pay the rent,
237
00:14:58,014 --> 00:15:02,055
until they finally found
something they could afford...
238
00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:04,288
A chicken coop.
239
00:15:06,991 --> 00:15:10,529
Down in Amarillo,
the dust bowl's biggest city,
240
00:15:10,596 --> 00:15:14,501
Walter Lucius Durrett had
lost his insurance business
241
00:15:14,568 --> 00:15:16,637
and then his health.
242
00:15:16,704 --> 00:15:20,375
The strain of it all proved
too much for his wife.
243
00:15:20,441 --> 00:15:24,579
My mother began to despair
244
00:15:24,645 --> 00:15:27,716
that things were never
going to get better;
245
00:15:27,781 --> 00:15:30,920
in fact, they were getting worse.
246
00:15:30,987 --> 00:15:37,760
It affected her...
It affected her outlook on life,
247
00:15:37,828 --> 00:15:40,865
and she began to...
248
00:15:40,932 --> 00:15:44,068
Well, she had a nervous
breakdown, actually.
249
00:15:44,134 --> 00:15:49,309
So we 3 girls were pretty motherless
250
00:15:49,375 --> 00:15:51,878
during the depression.
251
00:15:51,945 --> 00:15:56,182
At one time, when we didn't
have anything to eat,
252
00:15:56,250 --> 00:16:04,250
we had to apply for relief,
and that was hard for us to do.
253
00:16:05,627 --> 00:16:09,765
The brown truck with the
marking on the side came
254
00:16:09,831 --> 00:16:15,271
to the front of our house
and brought some food.
255
00:16:15,338 --> 00:16:19,410
It was really hard for us to see that.
256
00:16:19,476 --> 00:16:22,480
I guess we were sorry
for the neighbors to see
257
00:16:22,547 --> 00:16:25,884
that we needed that brown truck.
258
00:16:25,952 --> 00:16:29,487
We could go to the courthouse in beaver
259
00:16:29,554 --> 00:16:33,559
and get commodities if we wanted to.
260
00:16:33,628 --> 00:16:36,329
The problem was that people
like my father
261
00:16:36,396 --> 00:16:40,268
and some of our neighbors
were too proud to go do that.
262
00:16:40,334 --> 00:16:42,451
And I remember my mother
raising such a ruckus
263
00:16:42,471 --> 00:16:44,539
because she wasn't too proud,
264
00:16:44,606 --> 00:16:46,575
and we did get some grapefruit
265
00:16:46,642 --> 00:16:48,310
and some other kinds commodities
266
00:16:48,377 --> 00:16:50,779
that helped out with food.
267
00:16:50,846 --> 00:16:55,086
In many towns,
the names of families on relief
268
00:16:55,152 --> 00:16:58,790
were published each month
in the local newspaper.
269
00:16:58,857 --> 00:17:02,861
In one County, 80% of
the population now relied
270
00:17:02,928 --> 00:17:07,200
on some form of government assistance.
271
00:17:07,266 --> 00:17:11,539
These people
were... were so needy,
272
00:17:11,606 --> 00:17:15,476
and you felt so sorry for them.
273
00:17:15,541 --> 00:17:18,780
You might feel like giving them
a dollar out of your own pocket,
274
00:17:18,846 --> 00:17:21,716
but, you know, you just
didn't do things like that.
275
00:17:21,783 --> 00:17:23,384
It's not professional.
276
00:17:23,451 --> 00:17:26,890
Fresh out of college, at age 21,
277
00:17:26,957 --> 00:17:30,159
Dorothy Williamson was
hired as a social worker,
278
00:17:30,228 --> 00:17:32,797
trained by the federal
government, and dispatched
279
00:17:32,864 --> 00:17:36,734
to prowers County
in southeastern Colorado.
280
00:17:36,779 --> 00:17:39,478
She
281
00:17:40,170 --> 00:17:44,510
and went from one a
dust-ravaged farm to another.
282
00:17:46,311 --> 00:17:50,980
So we sat across the
table and talked to each other.
283
00:17:51,047 --> 00:17:53,982
It was almost as if they were
in the middle of something
284
00:17:54,048 --> 00:17:56,817
that they could see no way out.
285
00:17:56,884 --> 00:17:58,850
That's why they looked so hopeless,
286
00:17:58,917 --> 00:18:01,187
and also they looked stunned,
287
00:18:01,254 --> 00:18:05,255
as if, "can this
really be happening?"
288
00:18:05,321 --> 00:18:07,955
It kind of left me
with a bad feeling, too,
289
00:18:08,022 --> 00:18:10,690
to have to go out there
and see these people
290
00:18:10,757 --> 00:18:14,325
because you felt you were
helping them what you could,
291
00:18:14,393 --> 00:18:17,562
but you really couldn't help them.
292
00:18:17,628 --> 00:18:21,664
What they really needed
was an inner thing
293
00:18:21,730 --> 00:18:23,832
that nobody could give them.
294
00:18:23,899 --> 00:18:26,367
They needed a...
295
00:18:26,432 --> 00:18:30,701
A trust again in something
which they had lost.
296
00:18:34,838 --> 00:18:38,238
What help there was
came from Washington now
297
00:18:38,306 --> 00:18:40,573
and the flood of new deal programs
298
00:18:40,640 --> 00:18:43,609
president Roosevelt had created.
299
00:18:43,676 --> 00:18:47,311
The civilian conservation corps
put young men to work
300
00:18:47,377 --> 00:18:52,180
in national parks, state parks,
and national forests,
301
00:18:52,248 --> 00:18:54,715
and paid them $30 a month,
302
00:18:54,781 --> 00:18:59,684
25 which they were required
to send home to their families.
303
00:18:59,750 --> 00:19:03,386
Thousands of ccc workers
were also dispatched
304
00:19:03,451 --> 00:19:07,755
to plant rows of trees up
and down the great plains
305
00:19:07,821 --> 00:19:12,357
as potential windbreaks against
the fierce dust storms.
306
00:19:12,424 --> 00:19:18,594
By the end of the decade,
18,600 miles of shelterbelts,
307
00:19:18,661 --> 00:19:24,031
with 217 million trees, had been planted.
308
00:19:24,097 --> 00:19:26,631
The national youth administration,
309
00:19:26,698 --> 00:19:31,068
open to both boys and girls,
let students remain at home
310
00:19:31,134 --> 00:19:33,135
and earn a little money
311
00:19:33,203 --> 00:19:35,237
through work-study projects.
312
00:19:35,303 --> 00:19:37,971
In Amarillo, Pauline Durrett Robertson
313
00:19:38,037 --> 00:19:42,075
was paid 25 cents an hour
to grade papers.
314
00:19:42,142 --> 00:19:45,741
In Boise City, Don Wells
and his older brother
315
00:19:45,809 --> 00:19:50,245
stayed after school to help
the janitor clean classrooms.
316
00:19:50,312 --> 00:19:54,113
As a bonus, he let them take
showers in the locker room...
317
00:19:54,180 --> 00:19:58,482
A luxury for boys who
lived in a chicken coop.
318
00:19:58,549 --> 00:20:00,584
In southwestern Kansas,
319
00:20:00,649 --> 00:20:03,252
lorene white's mother
received a pressure okco
320
00:20:03,319 --> 00:20:06,820
from the federal emergency
reliefdmistration,
321
00:20:06,887 --> 00:20:09,388
and her father reluctantly enrolled
322
00:20:09,454 --> 00:20:12,256
with the works progress administration,
323
00:20:12,324 --> 00:20:17,093
the new deal's biggest
and most controversial program.
324
00:20:17,159 --> 00:20:21,061
My dad was a proud man.
325
00:20:21,128 --> 00:20:24,229
He didn't want anything to
do with government programs.
326
00:20:24,296 --> 00:20:27,631
He thought he could handle it on his own.
327
00:20:27,698 --> 00:20:31,935
He found out later that he
needed to take part in them.
328
00:20:32,002 --> 00:20:34,935
Dad worked on wpa, I think, about a year,
329
00:20:35,003 --> 00:20:40,672
and they were building a bridge
not too far from home.
330
00:20:40,739 --> 00:20:45,107
It's a beautiful bridge.
It's still there.
331
00:20:45,174 --> 00:20:47,776
During the depths of the depression,
332
00:20:47,843 --> 00:20:51,644
the wpa became the largest
employer in the nation,
333
00:20:51,711 --> 00:20:53,878
creating 8 million jobs
334
00:20:53,945 --> 00:20:57,313
in virtually every corner of the country.
335
00:20:57,380 --> 00:21:00,982
"The prairie, once the home
of the deer, buffalo,
336
00:21:01,048 --> 00:21:03,484
and antelope," one newspaper wrote,
337
00:21:03,551 --> 00:21:08,353
"is now the home of
the dust bowl and the wpa."
338
00:21:08,420 --> 00:21:13,222
Many people considered it
make-work and a waste of money.
339
00:21:13,289 --> 00:21:15,323
It made a lot of difference
340
00:21:15,390 --> 00:21:17,224
which side you were on.
341
00:21:17,291 --> 00:21:21,127
If you didn't have a job,
they were boondoggles...
342
00:21:21,194 --> 00:21:25,829
Do-nothings, leaned on their
shovels and got money for it,
343
00:21:25,895 --> 00:21:29,731
and so they resented it very much.
344
00:21:29,798 --> 00:21:33,300
But if you were the ones
that had the shovel,
345
00:21:33,367 --> 00:21:35,601
it was the difference between starving
346
00:21:35,667 --> 00:21:37,968
and having food to eat.
347
00:21:38,036 --> 00:21:44,006
We got paid enough,
it saved... it kept us alive.
348
00:21:44,072 --> 00:21:46,806
The wpa built a dam
349
00:21:46,874 --> 00:21:49,742
on Rita Blanca Creek near Dalhart, Texas,
350
00:21:49,808 --> 00:21:53,844
to create a reservoir
and recreation area.
351
00:21:53,911 --> 00:21:58,447
In union County, New Mexico,
using only local materials,
352
00:21:58,513 --> 00:22:02,249
6,000 of the 10,000 area residents
353
00:22:02,316 --> 00:22:06,083
found temporary employment
working on a new high school
354
00:22:06,150 --> 00:22:08,183
that would still be in use
355
00:22:08,250 --> 00:22:11,021
3/4 of a century later.
356
00:22:11,087 --> 00:22:13,888
With my family, we would
have starved to death
357
00:22:13,955 --> 00:22:16,957
because we had no other
way to make any money.
358
00:22:17,023 --> 00:22:21,593
The new deal for us,
the wpa in particular,
359
00:22:21,659 --> 00:22:24,426
was just a lifesaver for us.
360
00:22:24,493 --> 00:22:27,428
Most of our neighbors felt that way.
361
00:22:27,496 --> 00:22:30,365
Pauline Hodges' father helped build
362
00:22:30,432 --> 00:22:33,799
way 64 through the Oklahoma Panhandle.
363
00:22:33,866 --> 00:22:39,734
It passed within a few miles of
Caroline Henderson's homestead.
364
00:22:39,802 --> 00:22:43,371
If mere dollars were to be considered,
365
00:22:43,437 --> 00:22:46,140
the actually destitute in our section
366
00:22:46,206 --> 00:22:50,075
uld undoubtedly have been
fed and clothed more cheaply
367
00:22:50,142 --> 00:22:53,677
than the works projects
that have been carried out.
368
00:22:53,743 --> 00:22:56,044
But in our national economy,
369
00:22:56,109 --> 00:22:59,913
manhood must be considered
as well as money.
370
00:22:59,980 --> 00:23:03,248
People employed to do some useful work
371
00:23:03,315 --> 00:23:05,783
may retain their self-respect
372
00:23:05,850 --> 00:23:10,886
to a degree impossible under cash relief.
373
00:23:10,951 --> 00:23:14,154
If we must worry so
over the ruinous effects
374
00:23:14,220 --> 00:23:17,656
of "made work" on people of this type,
375
00:23:17,723 --> 00:23:20,425
why haven't we been
worrying for generations
376
00:23:20,490 --> 00:23:22,659
over the character of the idlers
377
00:23:22,726 --> 00:23:26,360
to whom some accident
of birth or inheritance
378
00:23:26,427 --> 00:23:32,230
has given wealth unmeasured,
unearned, and unappreciated?
379
00:23:41,102 --> 00:23:44,904
"If you would like
to have your heart broken,
380
00:23:44,970 --> 00:23:47,805
"just come out here.
381
00:23:47,871 --> 00:23:51,274
"This is the dust storm country.
382
00:23:51,341 --> 00:23:56,142
"It is the saddest land I have ever seen.
383
00:23:56,210 --> 00:23:58,745
"They say that in 20 years,
384
00:23:58,812 --> 00:24:01,445
"our farmland is going
to be pretty well shot
385
00:24:01,512 --> 00:24:04,047
"unless something is done,
386
00:24:04,114 --> 00:24:06,383
"and that in 75 years,
387
00:24:06,450 --> 00:24:12,151
even a self-respecting cactus
wouldn't be seen on most of it."
388
00:24:12,218 --> 00:24:14,318
Ernie pyle.
389
00:24:18,422 --> 00:24:24,659
In 1935, an estimated
850 million tons of topsoil
390
00:24:24,726 --> 00:24:28,594
were being swept off the naked
fields of the great plains,
391
00:24:28,660 --> 00:24:33,463
where 4 million acres
in 100 counties were blowing.
392
00:24:33,529 --> 00:24:35,498
Predictions called for
393
00:24:35,564 --> 00:24:39,767
a million more acres
to do the same in 1936.
394
00:24:39,835 --> 00:24:43,001
"Unless something is done,"
one government report concluded,
395
00:24:43,068 --> 00:24:44,670
"the western plains will be
396
00:24:44,737 --> 00:24:47,737
as arid as the arabian desert."
397
00:24:47,804 --> 00:24:50,238
There were many people in that era
398
00:24:50,306 --> 00:24:53,073
who thought this is not going to stop
399
00:24:53,140 --> 00:24:56,275
with western Kansas, the Texas Panhandle.
400
00:24:56,342 --> 00:24:59,311
It's going to start creeping eastward.
401
00:24:59,378 --> 00:25:01,178
How do you stop this?
402
00:25:01,245 --> 00:25:03,126
What's going to be the barrier you put up
403
00:25:03,146 --> 00:25:07,481
to keep it from undermining
agriculture in Illinois?
404
00:25:07,547 --> 00:25:13,719
It had a huge
effect on American policy, too,
405
00:25:13,786 --> 00:25:16,052
because 4 or 5 days later,
406
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:20,488
the remnants of Black Sunday
blew into Washington, DC.
407
00:25:20,555 --> 00:25:22,690
You could go like this on your desk,
408
00:25:22,757 --> 00:25:24,324
as Franklin Roosevelt did,
409
00:25:24,391 --> 00:25:27,425
and get a little bit of
Oklahoma in the oval office.
410
00:25:27,493 --> 00:25:31,629
Within president Roosevelt's
inner circle of advisers,
411
00:25:31,695 --> 00:25:36,230
there was no consensus on
what to do about the crisis.
412
00:25:36,296 --> 00:25:38,898
Henry Wallace, the secretary
of agriculture,
413
00:25:38,965 --> 00:25:42,867
thought new policies could
keep farmers on their land,
414
00:25:42,933 --> 00:25:45,803
but interior secretary
Harold Ickes questioned
415
00:25:45,869 --> 00:25:50,705
whether any attempt should be
made to save the dust bowl.
416
00:25:50,772 --> 00:25:52,058
It was a character struggle
417
00:25:52,105 --> 00:25:53,687
within the administration
the same way it was
418
00:25:53,707 --> 00:25:56,307
a character struggle out
on the prairie itself.
419
00:25:56,374 --> 00:25:59,308
Ickes says in his diary,
"let's just get out.
420
00:25:59,375 --> 00:26:01,677
"Let's pull out.
421
00:26:01,743 --> 00:26:04,545
"Mr. President, it's not
worth the effort.
422
00:26:04,612 --> 00:26:07,514
Why should we try to save
the people or the land?"
423
00:26:07,580 --> 00:26:11,115
I mean, let it re-wild.
Let's not fool these people
424
00:26:11,182 --> 00:26:13,650
into thinking they can stay there.
425
00:26:13,717 --> 00:26:18,318
Perhaps settlement was a mistake.
426
00:26:18,385 --> 00:26:20,622
Another new deal program,
427
00:26:20,688 --> 00:26:22,855
the resettlement administration,
428
00:26:22,923 --> 00:26:26,857
was already providing farmers
on the most marginal lands
429
00:26:26,924 --> 00:26:30,692
with loans to encourage them
to move somewhere else,
430
00:26:30,759 --> 00:26:34,628
taking their land out of production.
431
00:26:34,694 --> 00:26:38,597
It was homesteading in reverse.
432
00:26:38,663 --> 00:26:41,332
It was very controversial
because first of all,
433
00:26:41,399 --> 00:26:44,333
it was an acknowledgement
that we'd failed.
434
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,169
Perhaps they were right
when Stephen Long said in 1820
435
00:26:48,235 --> 00:26:51,970
that this is a land "wholly
uninhabitable by a people
436
00:26:52,037 --> 00:26:54,640
who are dependent
on agriculture."
437
00:26:54,706 --> 00:26:59,708
But the president refused to go that far.
438
00:26:59,775 --> 00:27:02,642
Remember, Roosevelt, by his nature,
439
00:27:02,710 --> 00:27:04,911
in his character, was an optimist.
440
00:27:04,977 --> 00:27:07,216
He didn't want to be known
as the only president
441
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,080
who gave up a big section
of land on his watch.
442
00:27:10,147 --> 00:27:13,550
He thought he could save
both the land and the people.
443
00:27:13,616 --> 00:27:16,684
And they felt a similar
attachment to him.
444
00:27:16,751 --> 00:27:21,220
Roosevelt turned to Hugh Hammond Bennett,
445
00:27:21,287 --> 00:27:23,654
a straight-talking north carolinian,
446
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:27,324
to create a new soil
conservation service,
447
00:27:27,391 --> 00:27:29,424
an agency whose job it was
448
00:27:29,491 --> 00:27:32,159
to study better agricultural practices
449
00:27:32,225 --> 00:27:35,694
and teach them to the nation's farmers.
450
00:27:35,761 --> 00:27:37,762
We Americans have been
451
00:27:37,829 --> 00:27:39,996
the greatest destroyers of land
452
00:27:40,063 --> 00:27:43,899
of any race or people,
barbaric or civilized.
453
00:27:43,966 --> 00:27:46,335
Unless immediate steps are taken
454
00:27:46,402 --> 00:27:50,035
to restore these sun-scorched,
wind-eroded lands,
455
00:27:50,101 --> 00:27:54,204
we shall have on our hands
a new, manmade Sahara
456
00:27:54,270 --> 00:27:57,906
where formerly was rich grazing land.
457
00:27:57,973 --> 00:28:01,442
Hugh Bennett was this tall, big-armed,
458
00:28:01,509 --> 00:28:06,411
flap-eared, funny, jovial doctor of dirt.
459
00:28:06,479 --> 00:28:08,078
Nobody knew more about soil
460
00:28:08,145 --> 00:28:10,480
in the United States than Hugh Bennett.
461
00:28:10,546 --> 00:28:14,448
So when Roosevelt gave him the
job of trying to save the land,
462
00:28:14,515 --> 00:28:18,284
he was arguably the perfect man for it.
463
00:28:18,351 --> 00:28:22,286
For the agency's
largest and hardest-hit region...
464
00:28:22,353 --> 00:28:25,688
The nearly 100 million acres
of the southern plains...
465
00:28:25,754 --> 00:28:29,723
Bennett knew just the man for the job.
466
00:28:29,790 --> 00:28:32,292
Howard Finnell was a soil scientist
467
00:28:32,360 --> 00:28:35,394
who had been running the
agricultural experiment station
468
00:28:35,460 --> 00:28:37,228
in Goodwell, Oklahoma...
469
00:28:37,295 --> 00:28:41,629
About 25 miles south of
Caroline Henderson's homestead.
470
00:28:41,697 --> 00:28:44,030
Finnell had pioneered new techniques
471
00:28:44,097 --> 00:28:46,333
to double the odds of a good crop
472
00:28:46,399 --> 00:28:49,702
by capturing as much
moisture as possible...
473
00:28:49,768 --> 00:28:53,504
Using terraces and plowing
along the land's contour
474
00:28:53,570 --> 00:28:55,770
to minimize runoff,
475
00:28:55,837 --> 00:28:58,306
planting different types of crops,
476
00:28:58,372 --> 00:29:01,807
and using the old-fashioned
plow, called a lister,
477
00:29:01,875 --> 00:29:04,674
to make deeper rows,
rather than employing
478
00:29:04,741 --> 00:29:09,678
the more popular one-way plow
that pulverized the soil.
479
00:29:11,380 --> 00:29:14,281
Hugh Bennett sent Finnell
to Dalhart, Texas,
480
00:29:14,347 --> 00:29:16,749
where he set up "operation dust bowl"
481
00:29:16,815 --> 00:29:18,917
to prove to skeptical farmers
482
00:29:18,983 --> 00:29:22,219
that his new techniques
were worth following.
483
00:29:22,285 --> 00:29:25,621
"We do not want a changed
climate," Finnell said.
484
00:29:25,687 --> 00:29:28,456
"Much of the land could
still produce crops,
485
00:29:28,523 --> 00:29:32,391
if the farmers would only
change their attitudes."
486
00:29:34,157 --> 00:29:37,159
The president and his
administration may have decided
487
00:29:37,226 --> 00:29:39,495
not to abandon the dust bowl,
488
00:29:39,562 --> 00:29:42,463
but any solutions would take time,
489
00:29:42,530 --> 00:29:46,832
and for the people living there,
time was running out.
490
00:29:51,478 --> 00:29:53,819
You go broke gradually, you know.
491
00:29:53,884 --> 00:29:57,094
It doesn't happen like
jumping off of a cliff.
492
00:29:57,161 --> 00:30:01,873
You exhaust your savings,
you exhaust your borrowings,
493
00:30:01,940 --> 00:30:04,581
you exhaust your equipment,
494
00:30:04,647 --> 00:30:08,757
you exhaust yourself, and you give up.
495
00:30:08,824 --> 00:30:12,502
That takes about 5 years.
496
00:30:12,568 --> 00:30:16,478
Then you're starting
to look at the wolves.
497
00:30:16,546 --> 00:30:20,422
Clarence Beck's
father had moved his family
498
00:30:20,489 --> 00:30:25,769
to a farm west of Boise City
just as the 1920s were ending.
499
00:30:25,836 --> 00:30:28,978
His timing couldn't have been worse.
500
00:30:29,045 --> 00:30:33,056
By 1935, he had suffered
repeated crop failures,
501
00:30:33,124 --> 00:30:35,998
and the depression meant
there were no jobs,
502
00:30:36,064 --> 00:30:39,341
though he found temporary
work with the wpa
503
00:30:39,408 --> 00:30:42,749
to keep his wife and
children from starvation.
504
00:30:42,816 --> 00:30:44,622
Like many other families,
505
00:30:44,688 --> 00:30:49,367
they started talking about
moving somewhere else.
506
00:30:49,436 --> 00:30:51,841
People didn't leave early
507
00:30:51,908 --> 00:30:54,648
because there was no place to go.
508
00:30:54,715 --> 00:30:58,758
You have no money, and you
don't have anyplace to go.
509
00:30:58,826 --> 00:31:02,234
Where can you go when you're penniless?
510
00:31:02,301 --> 00:31:07,483
At least where you are,
you have the feel-at-home-ness.
511
00:31:07,549 --> 00:31:10,692
Meanwhile, the hard times placed a strain
512
00:31:10,758 --> 00:31:13,500
on the becks' marriage.
513
00:31:13,566 --> 00:31:18,513
My mother would have
been a playgirl, really,
514
00:31:18,578 --> 00:31:21,989
and my father's a drudge.
515
00:31:22,055 --> 00:31:27,169
He would be perfectly happy
to work from dawn till dusk.
516
00:31:28,673 --> 00:31:30,711
One morning,
517
00:31:30,778 --> 00:31:34,388
before Clarence's younger sister
Irene headed for school,
518
00:31:34,455 --> 00:31:37,897
her mother took her aside
to deliver some news.
519
00:31:37,965 --> 00:31:40,906
She just said, "I won't be home
520
00:31:40,973 --> 00:31:44,483
when you come home tonight"...
From school, or whatever.
521
00:31:44,549 --> 00:31:47,224
"I won't be home.
I'm leaving."
522
00:31:47,289 --> 00:31:50,832
And my mother just left.
523
00:31:50,899 --> 00:31:52,938
So, that was it.
Didn't care.
524
00:31:53,005 --> 00:31:58,988
She didn't care about me
that much or anything.
525
00:31:59,054 --> 00:32:02,832
Not long afterwards,
their father's tractor...
526
00:32:02,898 --> 00:32:06,341
The only possible means for
him to stay on the land...
527
00:32:06,407 --> 00:32:09,216
Was repossessed.
528
00:32:09,284 --> 00:32:12,692
Sam Beck decided he had to move.
529
00:32:12,759 --> 00:32:16,703
Clarence would stay with uncles
back in central Kansas.
530
00:32:16,769 --> 00:32:21,716
Irene wasn't sure what her
father had in mind for her.
531
00:32:21,783 --> 00:32:23,834
At first I asked him,
"are you leaving, too?"
532
00:32:23,854 --> 00:32:27,264
I was kind of crying, like,
because naturally I was sad.
533
00:32:27,332 --> 00:32:30,473
So he said, "no. We're
going to California."
534
00:32:32,678 --> 00:32:34,851
Not far from the becks,
535
00:32:34,919 --> 00:32:37,424
Harry Forester had also lost his farm
536
00:32:37,492 --> 00:32:40,834
and was living on someone else's land.
537
00:32:40,901 --> 00:32:43,441
He had once dreamed of prospering enough
538
00:32:43,508 --> 00:32:48,322
to give each of his 5 sons 640 acres.
539
00:32:48,422 --> 00:32:53,067
Now he could barely feed his 9 children.
540
00:32:53,134 --> 00:32:56,175
One time, he came in
541
00:32:56,242 --> 00:32:58,247
from the wind blowing and dust,
542
00:32:58,315 --> 00:33:01,056
and he was pacing the floor and saying,
543
00:33:01,122 --> 00:33:04,264
"I don't know whatever
will become of us."
544
00:33:04,331 --> 00:33:06,470
And that just
frightened me. That just...
545
00:33:06,538 --> 00:33:09,244
My heart just clutched from that.
546
00:33:09,311 --> 00:33:11,616
With his fields ruined by dust
547
00:33:11,684 --> 00:33:13,421
and what was left of his livestock
548
00:33:13,489 --> 00:33:15,561
reduced to skin and bones,
549
00:33:15,627 --> 00:33:19,772
Forester had no choice
but to give up farming.
550
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,916
His plan was to move his large
family to Goodwell, Oklahoma,
551
00:33:23,983 --> 00:33:26,691
where they could stay
with his wife's mother.
552
00:33:26,758 --> 00:33:29,699
He had read about a place
where jobs were plentiful,
553
00:33:29,765 --> 00:33:31,503
where he could make good money
554
00:33:31,570 --> 00:33:34,678
and save enough to send for his family.
555
00:33:34,746 --> 00:33:38,924
He, too, would head to California.
556
00:33:38,991 --> 00:33:42,902
In southeastern Colorado,
Calvin Crabill's father, John,
557
00:33:42,968 --> 00:33:46,143
was coming to the same conclusion.
558
00:33:46,210 --> 00:33:47,848
We lost all our stock.
559
00:33:47,915 --> 00:33:50,389
We lost everything in 6 months.
560
00:33:50,456 --> 00:33:52,460
So when we had nothing left, we left.
561
00:33:52,527 --> 00:33:55,870
We had nothing left.
There was no reason to stay.
562
00:33:55,937 --> 00:33:57,074
But first,
563
00:33:57,140 --> 00:34:00,614
John Crabill would have
to sell his horses.
564
00:34:00,683 --> 00:34:02,888
My mother and others who knew him said
565
00:34:02,955 --> 00:34:04,894
once he sold his horses,
566
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,638
he was never the same again
the rest of his life.
567
00:34:08,705 --> 00:34:10,877
He never was the same again.
568
00:34:10,944 --> 00:34:13,985
He would be staring off into space,
569
00:34:14,050 --> 00:34:17,694
and we knew he was
thinking about his stock.
570
00:34:17,761 --> 00:34:20,702
In Texas County, Oklahoma,
571
00:34:20,769 --> 00:34:22,440
Dorothy Kleffman's father thought
572
00:34:22,508 --> 00:34:24,748
he could hang on to his farm,
573
00:34:24,814 --> 00:34:28,558
but his wife had come down
with the dust pneumonia.
574
00:34:28,624 --> 00:34:31,031
I think she wod ve died.
575
00:34:31,097 --> 00:34:34,607
He could see that she s wailing,
576
00:34:34,674 --> 00:34:38,483
so he knew he had to
do something, you know,
577
00:34:38,550 --> 00:34:41,727
because there were
people here who did die.
578
00:34:41,794 --> 00:34:46,639
I really didn't want to go.
This was my home,
579
00:34:46,706 --> 00:34:49,982
and even though we had the dust storms
580
00:34:50,048 --> 00:34:54,126
and we were in a depression,
a great depression,
581
00:34:54,193 --> 00:34:57,168
I would loved to have
just stayed right here.
582
00:34:57,235 --> 00:35:02,216
But because we had to save
her life, we had to move.
583
00:35:02,281 --> 00:35:04,988
Her father and an older brother
584
00:35:05,056 --> 00:35:07,094
would try to stay on the farm,
585
00:35:07,161 --> 00:35:09,266
but he moved his wife
and younger children,
586
00:35:09,333 --> 00:35:12,911
including Dorothy, not to
California, but east,
587
00:35:12,978 --> 00:35:19,127
to Arkansas, well out of the
brown world of the dust bowl.
588
00:35:19,194 --> 00:35:21,133
And when we got down there,
589
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,538
we had a green grass lawn.
590
00:35:23,605 --> 00:35:25,110
We kids liked the chickens
591
00:35:25,177 --> 00:35:27,515
because they would raise
their legs up so high...
592
00:35:27,582 --> 00:35:30,324
They were not used to that grass.
593
00:35:30,391 --> 00:35:33,199
Mother raised a huge garden down there.
594
00:35:33,265 --> 00:35:36,107
There was enough rain that
we didn't have to water it
595
00:35:36,172 --> 00:35:38,445
like we did out here.
596
00:35:38,512 --> 00:35:43,793
And she would can about
600 quarts of food a year.
597
00:35:43,861 --> 00:35:46,199
But we wanted to come back.
598
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:48,739
This was our home out here
599
00:35:48,807 --> 00:35:51,181
.we wanted to come back.Ack.
600
00:35:55,526 --> 00:35:58,166
Some of our
neighbors with small children,
601
00:35:58,232 --> 00:36:00,739
fearing the effects upon their health,
602
00:36:00,807 --> 00:36:04,918
have left temporarily
"until it rains."
603
00:36:04,984 --> 00:36:07,089
Others have left permanently,
604
00:36:07,156 --> 00:36:10,933
thinking doubtless that
nothing could be worse.
605
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:14,743
Thus far, we and most of
our friends seem held...
606
00:36:14,810 --> 00:36:20,159
For better or for worse...
By memory and hope.
607
00:36:24,670 --> 00:36:27,177
Texas County, Oklahoma,
608
00:36:27,245 --> 00:36:31,589
where Caroline Henderson had
been homesteading since 1907,
609
00:36:31,656 --> 00:36:35,733
lost 30% of its population in the 1930s.
610
00:36:35,799 --> 00:36:39,277
Nearby cimarron County lost 32%,
611
00:36:39,343 --> 00:36:42,451
and Baca County, just across
the line in Colorado,
612
00:36:42,518 --> 00:36:47,431
saw 41% of its residents
move somewhere else.
613
00:36:47,498 --> 00:36:50,104
Hardest hit was Morton County, Kansas,
614
00:36:50,172 --> 00:36:53,683
where Edgar and rena Coen
were raising their large family,
615
00:36:53,749 --> 00:36:56,089
now diminished by two with the death
616
00:36:56,156 --> 00:37:00,467
of a daughter and grandson
from dust pneumonia.
617
00:37:00,534 --> 00:37:03,408
The coens were determined
to stick it out,
618
00:37:03,475 --> 00:37:07,017
but their County would lose
nearly half of its population
619
00:37:07,084 --> 00:37:11,396
and would close 11 of
its 17 rural schools
620
00:37:11,464 --> 00:37:16,377
because the dust storms
refused to relent.
621
00:37:16,443 --> 00:37:18,248
You never got used to them.
622
00:37:18,315 --> 00:37:21,190
You just hated every one of them
623
00:37:21,256 --> 00:37:26,169
because you knew it was
going to do damage outside,
624
00:37:26,236 --> 00:37:29,945
and you knew you was probably
gonna lose some more neighbors.
625
00:37:30,013 --> 00:37:33,923
We was in school then,
and you'd go to school one day,
626
00:37:33,990 --> 00:37:35,862
your neighbors was there at school,
627
00:37:35,930 --> 00:37:38,668
and next day, they'd moved away.
628
00:37:38,735 --> 00:37:41,210
Kind of a sad time that way.
629
00:37:41,276 --> 00:37:43,082
My aunt and uncle decided
630
00:37:43,149 --> 00:37:48,362
they had to go to California
to get away from the dust.
631
00:37:48,430 --> 00:37:51,472
We all went over to see them off,
632
00:37:51,538 --> 00:37:56,117
and they teverything tng
that they could in their car.
633
00:37:56,183 --> 00:37:59,191
The last thing daddy said
to my uncle Jack was,
634
00:37:59,258 --> 00:38:03,269
"do you have enough money
for gas to get there?"
635
00:38:03,337 --> 00:38:03,637
And Jack told him however mue had.
636
00:38:03,638 --> 00:38:07,447
Ch
637
00:38:07,514 --> 00:38:12,462
And daddy said, "well, I've just got $17
on me, and Jack told him however mue had.
638
00:38:12,528 --> 00:38:14,798
"But I want you to take this
639
00:38:14,867 --> 00:38:18,576
so you'll have
enough money for gas."
640
00:38:18,644 --> 00:38:23,591
Every day, all day long,
those cars passed our house.
641
00:38:23,658 --> 00:38:26,265
They often stopped and asked for food.
642
00:38:26,332 --> 00:38:28,838
We didn't have very much,
but my mother thought
643
00:38:28,905 --> 00:38:31,010
we were better off than other people,
644
00:38:31,077 --> 00:38:34,521
and we were because of the wpa,
645
00:38:34,589 --> 00:38:37,361
and she always fed them something.
646
00:38:37,429 --> 00:38:40,202
I still remember it was often
bread and butter sandwiches,
647
00:38:40,269 --> 00:38:41,840
but it was something.
648
00:38:41,907 --> 00:38:44,748
She never, ever turned anybody down.
649
00:38:44,815 --> 00:38:47,688
When I was in the eighth grade,
650
00:38:47,755 --> 00:38:53,372
we had a practical lesson in geography.
651
00:38:53,438 --> 00:38:56,012
How many people live in the district?
652
00:38:56,078 --> 00:38:59,054
And it was 100 people.
653
00:38:59,121 --> 00:39:04,233
How many people
are in school? 25.
654
00:39:04,300 --> 00:39:09,648
And then my brother get to
the same place 10 years later.
655
00:39:09,715 --> 00:39:13,859
How many people
in the district? 25.
656
00:39:13,926 --> 00:39:18,405
How many kids in the
school? Maybe 10.
657
00:39:18,472 --> 00:39:21,180
The rest of them had left.
658
00:39:22,515 --> 00:39:24,557
But in the end,
659
00:39:24,622 --> 00:39:27,597
for every family that left the dust bowl,
660
00:39:27,663 --> 00:39:33,111
3 families... 75% of the
population... would hang on.
661
00:39:33,179 --> 00:39:35,685
Why didn't everybody leave?
662
00:39:35,753 --> 00:39:39,461
For a lot of these people, well,
there was no other place to go.
663
00:39:39,529 --> 00:39:43,673
In their minds, they had
invested their lives there.
664
00:39:43,740 --> 00:39:46,548
They had family buried in cemeteries.
665
00:39:46,616 --> 00:39:48,519
Why did they stay?
666
00:39:48,586 --> 00:39:52,463
The plains can lay a hold
on your affections
667
00:39:52,530 --> 00:39:56,942
if you're there for a generation or two,
668
00:39:57,009 --> 00:39:59,683
and they're a glorious place
to live at times.
669
00:39:59,751 --> 00:40:03,226
The great skies and the openness
and the sense of freedom there
670
00:40:03,292 --> 00:40:06,534
were powerful draws for these people.
671
00:40:06,601 --> 00:40:10,479
I cannot act or feel or think
672
00:40:10,545 --> 00:40:14,723
as if the experiences of our
27 years of life together
673
00:40:14,790 --> 00:40:19,570
had never been, and they are all bound up
674
00:40:19,637 --> 00:40:22,177
with the little corner
to which we have given
675
00:40:22,244 --> 00:40:26,421
our continued and united efforts.
676
00:40:26,488 --> 00:40:29,932
I can look backward
and see our covered wagon
677
00:40:29,999 --> 00:40:32,272
drawn up by the door of the cabin
678
00:40:32,338 --> 00:40:37,017
in the early light of
that may morning long ago,
679
00:40:37,084 --> 00:40:42,866
can feel again the sweet fresh
breath of the untrodden prairie
680
00:40:42,933 --> 00:40:49,585
and recall for a moment the
proud confidence of our youth.
681
00:40:49,652 --> 00:40:54,764
But when I try to see the wagon
or the old model-t truck
682
00:40:54,831 --> 00:40:57,605
headed in the opposite direction,
683
00:40:57,671 --> 00:41:01,415
away from our home
and all our cherished hopes,
684
00:41:01,481 --> 00:41:04,625
I cannot see it at all.
685
00:41:04,691 --> 00:41:06,631
Perhaps it is only because
686
00:41:06,697 --> 00:41:10,407
the dust is too dense and blinding.
687
00:41:13,683 --> 00:41:15,854
My parents left.
688
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:20,299
They couldn't find a living
anymore in rural countryside.
689
00:41:20,367 --> 00:41:22,840
Their farms were devastated.
690
00:41:22,907 --> 00:41:25,815
They could see no future in this.
691
00:41:25,882 --> 00:41:30,896
They decided in the late 1930s
to follow the trek to California
692
00:41:30,962 --> 00:41:34,203
to see what they could find
there to support themselves.
693
00:42:03,683 --> 00:42:07,560
The biggest percentage of people
who moved into another state
694
00:42:07,627 --> 00:42:09,466
were going to California.
695
00:42:09,533 --> 00:42:12,475
There were hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of people
696
00:42:12,542 --> 00:42:14,546
pouring into California.
697
00:42:14,613 --> 00:42:15,883
They weren't all poor,
698
00:42:15,950 --> 00:42:17,802
and they weren't all
from the great plains.
699
00:42:17,822 --> 00:42:19,527
So there was a river of people
700
00:42:19,594 --> 00:42:22,265
flowing into California in the 1930s.
701
00:42:22,333 --> 00:42:24,372
You could just see all of these cars
702
00:42:24,439 --> 00:42:28,284
pulling out from little
side roads along the way
703
00:42:28,350 --> 00:42:33,731
joining this brigade going out route 66,
704
00:42:33,798 --> 00:42:37,541
stopping at motels,
sleeping under billboards.
705
00:42:37,608 --> 00:42:39,981
That's the way my parents
essentially went
706
00:42:40,047 --> 00:42:43,023
from New Mexico across to Arizona.
707
00:42:43,089 --> 00:42:44,962
They stopped in needles, California,
708
00:42:45,029 --> 00:42:46,500
and didn't get any farther.
709
00:42:46,566 --> 00:42:49,574
That was the end of the road for them.
710
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,117
Those who did leave
the dust bowl for California
711
00:42:53,183 --> 00:42:56,358
were joining an even
larger exodus of Americans
712
00:42:56,426 --> 00:43:00,604
displaced by the depression
and the agricultural crisis
713
00:43:00,671 --> 00:43:05,249
that extended far beyond
the southern plains.
714
00:43:05,316 --> 00:43:08,591
Now the folks who left, the diaspora,
715
00:43:08,659 --> 00:43:11,968
the exodusters, they were called...
716
00:43:12,034 --> 00:43:14,474
These refugees were largely from
717
00:43:14,541 --> 00:43:16,915
the eastern fringe of the dust bowl.
718
00:43:16,981 --> 00:43:19,300
They were from arguably not
even the dust bowl itself.
719
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,226
They were arkies from Arkansas.
720
00:43:21,294 --> 00:43:24,401
They were from Missouri.
They were tenant farmers.
721
00:43:24,468 --> 00:43:26,272
When the farm economy collapsed,
722
00:43:26,340 --> 00:43:28,692
when the prices collapsed
and you couldn't make a living,
723
00:43:28,712 --> 00:43:30,732
if you were a tenant farmer,
you had nothing,
724
00:43:30,752 --> 00:43:32,790
because you didn't even own the dirt.
725
00:43:32,857 --> 00:43:35,230
So they left.
726
00:43:35,296 --> 00:43:38,974
These people didn't
have but one thing to do,
727
00:43:39,041 --> 00:43:41,847
and that was to just get out
in the middle of the road.
728
00:43:41,914 --> 00:43:44,922
These people just got up,
and they bundled up
729
00:43:44,990 --> 00:43:47,931
their little belongings, they throwed in
730
00:43:47,998 --> 00:43:50,672
one or two little things
they thought they'd need,
731
00:43:50,740 --> 00:43:55,718
had heard about the land of California,
732
00:43:55,785 --> 00:43:58,693
and according to the
handbills they passed out
733
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:00,813
down in that country,
you're supposed to have
734
00:44:00,833 --> 00:44:03,707
a wonderful chance to
succeed in California.
735
00:44:03,774 --> 00:44:07,785
♪ I'm blowing down
this old dusty road ♪
736
00:44:07,851 --> 00:44:11,695
♪ I'm blowing
down this old dusty road ♪
737
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,203
♪ I'm blowing down this old
dusty road, lord, lord ♪
738
00:44:15,271 --> 00:44:19,650
♪ and I ain't gonna be
treated this way ♪
739
00:44:19,717 --> 00:44:21,687
Back in Colorado,
740
00:44:21,754 --> 00:44:24,998
with the money from selling
his horses in his pockets,
741
00:44:25,065 --> 00:44:27,404
Calvin Crabill's father
loaded what he could
742
00:44:28,541 --> 00:44:33,119
into their a cars rattling down highway 66,
743
00:44:33,186 --> 00:44:37,631
with his 11-year-old son
and asthmatic wife.
744
00:44:37,699 --> 00:44:41,510
When you came down that
grade in San Bernardino,
745
00:44:41,577 --> 00:44:43,748
my mother, she was so happy,
746
00:44:43,815 --> 00:44:46,556
and you saw the green valley there...
747
00:44:46,623 --> 00:44:49,764
That was a beautiful, beautiful sight.
748
00:44:49,832 --> 00:44:53,574
You see the trees.
You see the trees.
749
00:44:53,641 --> 00:44:56,783
My mother that day picked
an orange, a ripe orange,
750
00:44:56,850 --> 00:45:00,026
and ate it, and that
was something for her.
751
00:45:02,297 --> 00:45:06,744
The migration out of
the great plains in the 1930s
752
00:45:06,811 --> 00:45:11,590
was one of the biggest folk
migrations in American history.
753
00:45:11,656 --> 00:45:15,935
It dwarfs the movement
along the Oregon trail
754
00:45:16,001 --> 00:45:20,247
in the 19th century,
the covered wagon era,
755
00:45:20,314 --> 00:45:24,323
which we've so idealized
and romanticized.
756
00:45:24,389 --> 00:45:28,269
But we've forgotten this
migration of the 1930s.
757
00:45:28,336 --> 00:45:30,240
Nobody celebrates it.
758
00:45:30,308 --> 00:45:35,053
There are no California
trail associations.
759
00:45:35,119 --> 00:45:37,961
We're ashamed of it, basically,
760
00:45:38,028 --> 00:45:41,269
because it was a
migration of the defeated.
761
00:45:45,347 --> 00:45:47,221
Out in Oakland, California,
762
00:45:47,286 --> 00:45:51,097
Harry Forester, who had left his
family in Goodwell, Oklahoma,
763
00:45:51,163 --> 00:45:53,738
was now working a variety of jobs,
764
00:45:53,804 --> 00:45:56,376
sometimes making a dollar a day
765
00:45:56,443 --> 00:45:58,482
and sending as much of it as possible
766
00:45:58,549 --> 00:46:02,159
back to his ailing wife and children.
767
00:46:02,225 --> 00:46:06,438
Everything he held dear
was half a continent away.
768
00:46:06,504 --> 00:46:09,647
The separation from his family
made him miserable,
769
00:46:09,713 --> 00:46:13,958
and then came news from home
that added to his woes...
770
00:46:14,025 --> 00:46:16,398
One of his 5 sons, slats,
771
00:46:16,465 --> 00:46:19,372
had come down with dust pneumonia.
772
00:46:19,439 --> 00:46:23,150
My oldest brother t dust pneia,
773
00:46:23,218 --> 00:46:25,790
was at death's door,
and my dad didn't know
774
00:46:25,857 --> 00:46:27,929
whether to come home or not
775
00:46:27,996 --> 00:46:30,702
because he thought he was gonna die.
776
00:46:30,769 --> 00:46:36,818
I imagine he was absolutely
the loneliest man on the planet.
777
00:46:36,885 --> 00:46:40,729
Forester decided
his family should join him
778
00:46:40,795 --> 00:46:44,439
in Oakland as soon as they could.
779
00:46:44,506 --> 00:46:49,386
Back in Goodwell, the Forester
children mobil for the m
780
00:46:49,452 --> 00:46:52,762
they added hoops and tarps
and a hand-built box
781
00:46:52,829 --> 00:46:57,409
for storing and serving food
to a 1928 Chevy truck,
782
00:46:57,475 --> 00:47:01,486
converting it into a
modern-day covered wagon.
783
00:47:01,552 --> 00:47:05,597
But Mrs. Forester's aged and
blind mother refused to leave,
784
00:47:05,663 --> 00:47:10,577
so slats, who had recovered,
was left behind to care for her.
785
00:47:10,645 --> 00:47:14,120
They made their good-bye
s, d another clois took the wheel
786
00:47:14,187 --> 00:47:17,463
with his frail mother in
the front seat next to him.
787
00:47:17,529 --> 00:47:21,206
Then the other 7 Forester
children scrambled aboard,
788
00:47:21,272 --> 00:47:23,946
and they set off for California.
789
00:47:28,526 --> 00:47:30,531
It was pretty exciting for me
790
00:47:30,598 --> 00:47:33,639
because it was hope...
791
00:47:33,706 --> 00:47:36,581
In a hopeless little heart.
792
00:47:36,648 --> 00:47:38,451
We were going to California
793
00:47:38,519 --> 00:47:40,624
and have oranges and stuff, you know?
794
00:47:40,691 --> 00:47:44,635
And we would have fruit,
and we would live happily.
795
00:47:44,703 --> 00:47:47,544
And it was just an exciting time.
796
00:47:47,610 --> 00:47:49,716
I couldn't wait to get there.
797
00:47:56,366 --> 00:47:58,306
We sat in different places.
798
00:47:58,372 --> 00:48:00,545
We'd move around.
799
00:48:00,612 --> 00:48:03,587
The mattresses were rolled up,
and stuffed in the truck bed,
800
00:48:03,652 --> 00:48:06,996
so we had those soft
mattresses to sleep on.
801
00:48:10,839 --> 00:48:12,778
My favorite spot seemed to be
802
00:48:12,844 --> 00:48:14,816
over the wheel of the truck.
803
00:48:14,883 --> 00:48:18,895
We had the side tarps rolled up
so you could see out.
804
00:48:18,961 --> 00:48:21,435
One thing I remember, I was so glad...
805
00:48:21,501 --> 00:48:24,610
We saw a weeping willow tree,
and I'd never seen one.
806
00:48:30,057 --> 00:48:33,098
My brother was obsessed
807
00:48:33,165 --> 00:48:37,645
with the potential that
we might run out of gas,
808
00:48:37,712 --> 00:48:41,255
so he stopped at damn
near every gas station
809
00:48:41,322 --> 00:48:44,363
to top off the tank.
810
00:48:44,430 --> 00:48:46,769
It was a little 4-banger Chevy,
811
00:48:46,836 --> 00:48:52,185
and he drove it at about
maximum of 35 miles an hour,
812
00:48:52,252 --> 00:48:55,694
and it took a long time.
813
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:57,298
He had a goal in mind
814
00:48:57,366 --> 00:49:01,141
that was to get this crew safely through.
815
00:49:01,209 --> 00:49:08,093
He was a nervous Nelly anyway, and he had
816
00:49:08,161 --> 00:49:11,804
lots of tribulations when
he had to take this job...
817
00:49:11,870 --> 00:49:13,776
Well, because it was a big job.
818
00:49:13,843 --> 00:49:16,517
He's a 21-year-old guy,
and he's taking his sick mother
819
00:49:16,583 --> 00:49:19,525
and a bunch of kids all
the way to California,
820
00:49:19,591 --> 00:49:21,330
across that big ol' desert.
821
00:49:21,396 --> 00:49:26,276
It was a...
A real worry for him, I know.
822
00:49:26,343 --> 00:49:28,782
They were all anxious
823
00:49:28,849 --> 00:49:31,155
about their mother's fragile health,
824
00:49:31,222 --> 00:49:33,795
which prompted them to
stop a number of times
825
00:49:33,863 --> 00:49:36,470
so she could recoup her strength,
826
00:49:36,537 --> 00:49:41,217
especially when a dust storm
overtook them in New Mexico.
827
00:49:41,283 --> 00:49:43,288
She was worn down
828
00:49:43,355 --> 00:49:46,932
by the travails of the previous years,
829
00:49:46,999 --> 00:49:50,274
and she was just in bad shape,
830
00:49:50,341 --> 00:49:53,750
and she was very feeble
all along the way.
831
00:49:53,817 --> 00:49:56,457
Instead of camping
one night in New Mexico,
832
00:49:56,524 --> 00:50:01,906
we used a little of our
scarce money to rent a motel
833
00:50:01,972 --> 00:50:06,552
so that she could be
sleeping out of the dust.
834
00:50:06,617 --> 00:50:10,227
But in eastern
Arizona, despite her condition,
835
00:50:10,294 --> 00:50:12,768
she insisted that clois detour
836
00:50:12,835 --> 00:50:16,412
through the painted desert
and petrified forest,
837
00:50:16,479 --> 00:50:21,257
which she had always yearned to see.
838
00:50:21,323 --> 00:50:24,633
My mother's health got worse after that.
839
00:50:24,700 --> 00:50:28,275
We felt that it was necessary
jtot stop and not travel
840
00:50:28,343 --> 00:50:31,686
so that she could have time being still
841
00:50:31,752 --> 00:50:35,463
and resting in cool, shaded place.
842
00:50:35,530 --> 00:50:39,373
Farther on, they had
to descend to the Colorado river
843
00:50:39,439 --> 00:50:44,988
on a winding road unlike
anything on the southern plains.
844
00:50:45,055 --> 00:50:46,992
But I had a great disappointment
845
00:50:47,059 --> 00:50:52,107
when we hit the California
border down at needles.
846
00:50:52,174 --> 00:50:54,747
Ha ha ha!
847
00:50:54,813 --> 00:50:57,821
You're in the desert, and I felt, oh...
848
00:50:57,889 --> 00:51:01,097
I just went, "oh, my god, no,"
849
00:51:01,164 --> 00:51:03,271
because I was just broken-hearted
850
00:51:03,338 --> 00:51:06,747
because I thought there'd be orange
groves right there, you know.
851
00:51:06,814 --> 00:51:10,021
They crossed the mojave desert at night,
852
00:51:10,089 --> 00:51:14,234
then turned north, up the central valley,
853
00:51:14,301 --> 00:51:19,013
and finally made it to Oakland,
on the moist San Francisco bay,
854
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,089
where Harry Forester had rented a house
855
00:51:22,155 --> 00:51:25,598
and was waiting anxiously
for them to arrive.
856
00:51:27,936 --> 00:51:32,115
We got into Oakland,
and we went to lake merritt
857
00:51:32,182 --> 00:51:35,892
and went up grand Avenue
858
00:51:35,959 --> 00:51:41,708
and turned right on Moraga
and went up Moraga Avenue.
859
00:51:41,774 --> 00:51:44,215
We're in the hills now,
in the Oakland hills,
860
00:51:44,281 --> 00:51:47,823
which are pretty steep
for someone like us.
861
00:51:47,890 --> 00:51:49,795
When we stopped in the canyon,
862
00:51:49,863 --> 00:51:52,635
telephoned that we were
coming up the road,
863
00:51:52,703 --> 00:51:55,478
we were a mile and a half from the house,
864
00:51:55,545 --> 00:51:59,555
we started driving,
and dad started hustling,
865
00:51:59,622 --> 00:52:03,366
and he raced down to
the bottom of the canyon
866
00:52:03,432 --> 00:52:05,338
so that he was standing beside the road
867
00:52:05,405 --> 00:52:09,248
as we came driving by 10 minutes later.
868
00:52:09,314 --> 00:52:10,852
And my dad met us
869
00:52:10,919 --> 00:52:14,362
at the corner of Pine Haven road
and Heather Ridge way,
870
00:52:14,429 --> 00:52:16,501
and he had a house rented on the corner
871
00:52:16,568 --> 00:52:19,342
just up the corner a ways.
872
00:52:19,409 --> 00:52:22,016
I remember sitting
in the back of the truck
873
00:52:22,082 --> 00:52:24,890
waiting for my dad to come and greet us
874
00:52:24,957 --> 00:52:27,397
while he was greeting mom and my brother
875
00:52:27,465 --> 00:52:31,208
and whoever had been riding with them.
876
00:52:31,274 --> 00:52:32,523
He went around to the back,
877
00:52:32,543 --> 00:52:36,287
and he took each of the kids in turn,
878
00:52:36,354 --> 00:52:38,794
and he gave us a hug, and we laughed,
879
00:52:38,862 --> 00:52:42,637
and it was...
880
00:52:42,705 --> 00:52:44,676
It was great.
881
00:52:44,744 --> 00:52:46,849
And then he came around back
882
00:52:46,916 --> 00:52:48,956
and started lifting us out one at a time
883
00:52:49,022 --> 00:52:51,362
and giving us a hug and putting us down.
884
00:52:51,428 --> 00:52:53,301
I looked around, and I thought,
885
00:52:53,367 --> 00:52:56,309
"oh, yes, we have come
to canaan land."
886
00:52:56,376 --> 00:52:58,613
Then Harry Forester,
887
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:01,622
who had once dreamed of
amassing so much land
888
00:53:01,689 --> 00:53:03,829
he could bestow each of his sons
889
00:53:03,896 --> 00:53:07,773
with one square mile of
rolling Oklahoma prairie,
890
00:53:07,839 --> 00:53:12,752
showed them all their new home...
A rented house of 3 rooms,
891
00:53:12,819 --> 00:53:18,201
on a hill so steep the buildings
needed stilts to be level.
892
00:53:18,268 --> 00:53:21,041
And there were big pine trees...
893
00:53:21,110 --> 00:53:25,186
Oh, 60-, 70-foot,
80-foot tall, big trees,
894
00:53:25,253 --> 00:53:27,960
and that was spectacular.
895
00:53:28,027 --> 00:53:30,132
It wasn't Oklahoma, you know?
896
00:53:30,199 --> 00:53:32,806
Ha ha ha!
897
00:53:32,873 --> 00:53:35,815
Toto, we aren't in Oklahoma anymore.
898
00:53:35,882 --> 00:53:37,620
Ha ha ha!
899
00:53:37,686 --> 00:53:41,129
Especially to a fair-skinned,
900
00:53:41,195 --> 00:53:44,471
freckle-faced, red-headed
youngster that I was,
901
00:53:44,538 --> 00:53:49,651
where that hot wind
always just burned me.
902
00:53:49,718 --> 00:53:51,724
The mist and the rain was so light often
903
00:53:51,792 --> 00:53:54,632
that we kids would go off
to school that first year
904
00:53:54,699 --> 00:53:59,078
without a hat or a coat or anything
905
00:53:59,144 --> 00:54:03,689
because we just loved the
feeling of that moisture on us.
906
00:54:04,476 --> 00:54:06,426
We were parched, too.
907
00:54:11,403 --> 00:54:12,788
Weren't any crops.
908
00:54:13,749 --> 00:54:18,149
It was dry, and so we
didn't get any crops.
909
00:54:18,662 --> 00:54:20,112
One of those years,
910
00:54:21,104 --> 00:54:26,504
we put our entire wheat crop
in one wagon,
911
00:54:28,139 --> 00:54:31,622
which was maybe 50 bushels.
912
00:54:38,767 --> 00:54:41,002
They were good people.
913
00:54:41,069 --> 00:54:44,741
There was nothing about the
population that was bad.
914
00:54:44,807 --> 00:54:49,144
Everybody was hard-working,
trying to make an honest living,
915
00:54:49,211 --> 00:54:54,849
and nature just wouldn't let them do it.
916
00:54:54,915 --> 00:54:59,153
So there were failures,
and there were also people
917
00:54:59,220 --> 00:55:04,825
that were awful hard
to knock off of the bush.
918
00:55:04,892 --> 00:55:06,426
Ended up, a depression,
919
00:55:06,493 --> 00:55:09,661
the dust bowl didn't get them all.
920
00:55:09,728 --> 00:55:13,766
It left quite a few.
But it left the Hardy ones.
921
00:55:13,832 --> 00:55:17,637
Oh, there were many jokes
about the dust, of course,
922
00:55:17,704 --> 00:55:21,373
so that we laughed so we
wouldn't cry, I guess.
923
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,909
One of them was, a rancher,
after a big dust storm,
924
00:55:24,977 --> 00:55:27,712
walked out to see about his land,
925
00:55:27,779 --> 00:55:31,282
and he was trying to find
the barbed-wire fence
926
00:55:31,349 --> 00:55:33,951
that had been covered with dirt.
927
00:55:34,018 --> 00:55:35,887
He saw the tops of it,
928
00:55:35,953 --> 00:55:38,322
and there was the
cowboy's hat over there.
929
00:55:38,389 --> 00:55:41,291
So he walked over and
picked up the cowboy's hat,
930
00:55:41,358 --> 00:55:44,694
and underneath was a cowboy,
931
00:55:44,761 --> 00:55:48,397
and he said, "oh, my goodness.
Aren't you in trouble there?"
932
00:55:48,464 --> 00:55:50,266
He's covered with dust.
933
00:55:50,332 --> 00:55:53,002
And he said, "well, I think
I'm gonna be ok,
934
00:55:53,068 --> 00:55:57,239
but this horse I'm riding
is in a little trouble."
935
00:55:59,641 --> 00:56:02,776
By now, those who
remained in the dust bowl
936
00:56:02,844 --> 00:56:06,213
had found that one way to deal
with what was happening to them
937
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:08,917
was to poke fun at it.
938
00:56:08,983 --> 00:56:10,851
Well, there's an old saying there
939
00:56:10,918 --> 00:56:14,388
that one of the old-timers
was telling the people that
940
00:56:14,454 --> 00:56:18,625
they'd had a chain wrapped
around a corner post
941
00:56:18,692 --> 00:56:21,427
and said when that chain
got sticking out straight,
942
00:56:21,494 --> 00:56:23,162
that was a pretty good wind,
943
00:56:23,229 --> 00:56:27,800
but when it went to snapping the
links off, it was damn windy.
944
00:56:27,867 --> 00:56:29,702
Of course, that wasn't true.
945
00:56:29,769 --> 00:56:33,538
That was just
a saying. Ha ha ha!
946
00:56:35,674 --> 00:56:41,613
1936 would prove to be as dry as 1935,
947
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:44,649
with even more dust storms.
948
00:56:49,720 --> 00:56:54,190
In April, an outsider
showed up in Boise City.
949
00:56:54,257 --> 00:56:57,127
Arthur Rothstein was 21 years old,
950
00:56:57,194 --> 00:56:59,163
the son of Jewish immigrants,
951
00:56:59,230 --> 00:57:02,065
born and raised in New York City.
952
00:57:02,132 --> 00:57:04,634
He was in no man's land
to take photographs
953
00:57:04,701 --> 00:57:09,338
for the federal government's
resettlement administration.
954
00:57:09,404 --> 00:57:11,807
Rothstein's boss, Roy stryker,
955
00:57:11,874 --> 00:57:14,543
believed that pictures
could be a powerful tool
956
00:57:14,610 --> 00:57:17,112
to show not only the
multitude of problems
957
00:57:17,178 --> 00:57:18,881
the nation was facing,
958
00:57:18,946 --> 00:57:22,116
but what the government
was doing about them.
959
00:57:22,183 --> 00:57:25,352
Over the course of 7 years,
as the agency became
960
00:57:25,418 --> 00:57:28,488
part of the farm security administration,
961
00:57:28,555 --> 00:57:30,156
stryker would launch
962
00:57:30,223 --> 00:57:32,826
an unprecedented documentary effort,
963
00:57:32,893 --> 00:57:37,030
eventually amassing more
than 200,000 images
964
00:57:37,097 --> 00:57:40,066
of america in the 1930s,
965
00:57:40,133 --> 00:57:43,269
taken by a talented dre of photographers,
966
00:57:43,335 --> 00:57:47,439
including Walker Evans, Russell Lee,
967
00:57:47,507 --> 00:57:52,611
Marion Post Walcott, John Vachon,
968
00:57:52,678 --> 00:57:55,046
and Dorothea Lange.
969
00:57:55,114 --> 00:57:56,781
He sent them out there
970
00:57:56,848 --> 00:57:59,684
with a very simple set of instructions...
971
00:57:59,751 --> 00:58:03,253
I want to see their eyes.
I want to see their faces.
972
00:58:03,321 --> 00:58:05,689
I want to see emotion.
973
00:58:05,756 --> 00:58:08,125
I want people to look at these pictures
974
00:58:08,191 --> 00:58:10,827
and not see abstraction.
975
00:58:10,894 --> 00:58:15,064
I want them to see folks
struggling in the land.
976
00:58:15,131 --> 00:58:18,134
Prior to arriving in Oklahoma,
977
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:20,803
Arthur Rothstein'
assignment had taken him
978
00:58:20,870 --> 00:58:23,673
on a nationwide tour of the depression.
979
00:58:23,739 --> 00:58:26,976
He had documented rural
people being dispossessed
980
00:58:27,042 --> 00:58:30,078
to create shenandoah national park,
981
00:58:30,145 --> 00:58:32,981
desperate tenant farmers in Arkansas,
982
00:58:33,048 --> 00:58:36,450
hard-luck ranchers in Montana,
983
00:58:36,517 --> 00:58:40,155
and slum dwellers
in St. Louis.
984
00:58:40,221 --> 00:58:44,124
But the most distressing
situation he ever coentered,
985
00:58:44,191 --> 00:58:46,293
he remembered later, was what he saw
986
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:48,962
driving through the dust bowl.
987
00:58:49,028 --> 00:58:51,965
"It was like a landscape
of the moon," he said,
988
00:58:52,031 --> 00:58:55,102
populated by "hard-working people who,
989
00:58:55,169 --> 00:58:58,171
"through no fault of their
own, needed assistance,
990
00:58:58,237 --> 00:59:01,239
"and the only place they
could get that assistance
991
00:59:01,307 --> 00:59:04,609
was from the government."
992
00:59:04,676 --> 00:59:08,112
About 14 miles south of Boise City,
993
00:59:08,179 --> 00:59:10,281
chee across art coble,
994
00:59:10,348 --> 00:59:13,618
digging out a fence post
from a sand drift.
995
00:59:13,685 --> 00:59:16,754
Rothstein chatted with him
and his two young sons,
996
00:59:16,821 --> 00:59:20,491
snapped a few pictures, and was
getting back into his car
997
00:59:20,558 --> 00:59:23,827
when the wind suddenly picked up.
998
00:59:23,893 --> 00:59:27,932
Looking back, he saw them
bending into the storm,
999
00:59:27,999 --> 00:59:33,203
pointed his camera at them,
d anicked the shutter.
1000
00:59:33,269 --> 00:59:35,270
The image that Rothstein captured
1001
00:59:35,337 --> 00:59:38,640
touched emotional chords
with everyone who saw it,
1002
00:59:38,707 --> 00:59:41,977
becoming the iconic picture
of the dust bowl
1003
00:59:42,043 --> 00:59:44,980
and one of the most widely
reproduced photographs
1004
00:59:45,047 --> 00:59:47,815
of the 20th century.
1005
00:59:49,885 --> 00:59:52,253
In addition to hiring photographers,
1006
00:59:52,320 --> 00:59:56,257
the federal government also
underwrote a documentary film,
1007
00:59:56,324 --> 00:59:57,991
and that summer it premiered
1008
00:59:58,059 --> 01:00:01,629
at the mission theatre in Dalhart, Texas.
1009
01:00:01,695 --> 01:00:04,698
"The plow that broke the plains,"
1010
01:00:04,765 --> 01:00:06,967
directed by pare lorentz,
1011
01:00:07,034 --> 01:00:10,203
was meant to describe
the causes of the dust bowl
1012
01:00:10,270 --> 01:00:14,406
and what Roosevelt's new deal
was trying to do about it.
1013
01:00:14,473 --> 01:00:16,008
The grasslands...
1014
01:00:16,074 --> 01:00:20,646
A treeless, windswept
continent of grass...
1015
01:00:20,712 --> 01:00:23,681
A country of high winds and sun,
1016
01:00:23,748 --> 01:00:26,084
high winds and sun.
1017
01:00:26,151 --> 01:00:29,020
The film placed much
of the blame of the dust bowl
1018
01:00:29,087 --> 01:00:32,589
on the arrival of the tractor
to the southern plains
1019
01:00:32,656 --> 01:00:34,859
and described how sturdy farmers
1020
01:00:34,926 --> 01:00:38,729
who had once slowly turned
the soil behind a team of mules
1021
01:00:38,796 --> 01:00:41,531
suddenly became a mechanized force
1022
01:00:41,598 --> 01:00:44,467
arrayed against nature itself.
1023
01:00:46,102 --> 01:00:48,938
The reaction inside the dust bowl itself
1024
01:00:49,004 --> 01:00:50,674
was largely not good.
1025
01:00:50,740 --> 01:00:55,545
They didn't like seeing
their land or themselves
1026
01:00:55,611 --> 01:01:00,182
as characters on the bad end of a drama.
1027
01:01:03,652 --> 01:01:05,352
Sometimes at the movies,
1028
01:01:05,419 --> 01:01:08,423
the newsreel showed the dust bowl,
1029
01:01:08,490 --> 01:01:12,527
and that infuriated the local boosters,
1030
01:01:12,594 --> 01:01:14,595
because they said, "that's bad publicity.
1031
01:01:14,662 --> 01:01:17,631
We don't need that
bad publicity."
1032
01:01:17,698 --> 01:01:21,234
The rest of us besides
the boosters thought,
1033
01:01:21,301 --> 01:01:23,168
well, they got that right,
1034
01:01:23,236 --> 01:01:27,373
and they're really telling it,
what's happening to us...
1035
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:29,542
They're really telling it right.
1036
01:01:35,746 --> 01:01:38,517
In the summer of 1936,
1037
01:01:38,584 --> 01:01:42,621
president Roosevelt took
a 4,000-mile whistle-stop tour
1038
01:01:42,687 --> 01:01:45,156
across the midwest and northern plains
1039
01:01:45,223 --> 01:01:47,258
to see for himself the extent
1040
01:01:47,325 --> 01:01:51,028
of the nation's agricultural crisis.
1041
01:01:51,095 --> 01:01:53,230
My friends,
1042
01:01:53,296 --> 01:01:56,900
I have been on a journey of husbandry.
1043
01:01:56,968 --> 01:02:00,637
I talked with families who
had lost their wheat crop,
1044
01:02:00,704 --> 01:02:04,773
lost their corn crop,
lost their livestock,
1045
01:02:04,841 --> 01:02:07,176
lost the water in their well,
1046
01:02:07,243 --> 01:02:09,645
and come through to the end of the summer
1047
01:02:09,712 --> 01:02:12,747
without one dollar of cash resources,
1048
01:02:12,814 --> 01:02:16,285
facing a winter without feed or food,
1049
01:02:16,352 --> 01:02:18,254
facing a planting season...
1050
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:19,955
At the same time,
1051
01:02:20,022 --> 01:02:23,124
Hugh Bennett, the head of
the soil conservation service,
1052
01:02:23,191 --> 01:02:27,127
was on his own fact-finding tour
with a committee of experts
1053
01:02:27,194 --> 01:02:30,197
expected to make a report to fdr
1054
01:02:30,265 --> 01:02:33,433
on the future of the great plains.
1055
01:02:33,500 --> 01:02:35,736
Bennett's first stop was Dalhart,
1056
01:02:35,802 --> 01:02:38,037
where Howard Finnell was making headway
1057
01:02:38,104 --> 01:02:41,374
with the farmers he was
trying to convert.
1058
01:02:41,441 --> 01:02:43,275
Earlier in the year,
1059
01:02:43,342 --> 01:02:46,946
Finnell had petitioned secretary
of agriculture Henry Wallace
1060
01:02:47,013 --> 01:02:49,749
for $2 million in emergency funds
1061
01:02:49,815 --> 01:02:52,752
to offer incentives of 20 cents an acre
1062
01:02:52,818 --> 01:02:54,853
for those who would try his method
1063
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:58,389
of contour plowing on their own land.
1064
01:02:58,456 --> 01:03:01,458
Nearly 40,000 farmers had signed up
1065
01:03:01,525 --> 01:03:06,264
and gone to work
on 5.5 million acres.
1066
01:03:06,330 --> 01:03:08,600
The only program that was out there
1067
01:03:08,666 --> 01:03:11,335
that was effective was this one,
1068
01:03:11,402 --> 01:03:15,672
and Finnell was the point man
to try to make it work
1069
01:03:15,738 --> 01:03:18,574
among these farmers who
had still not admitted
1070
01:03:18,641 --> 01:03:20,511
that it was their fault,
1071
01:03:20,578 --> 01:03:23,680
farmers who basically said,
"this is all nature's doing.
1072
01:03:23,746 --> 01:03:25,981
"Leave us alone.
The rains will come back,
1073
01:03:26,048 --> 01:03:28,517
and we will be
back in business."
1074
01:03:28,584 --> 01:03:30,719
Bennett and his committee moved on
1075
01:03:30,786 --> 01:03:32,920
with their tour, planning to meet up
1076
01:03:32,987 --> 01:03:35,090
with the president in north Dakota
1077
01:03:35,156 --> 01:03:37,793
and give him their findings.
1078
01:03:37,859 --> 01:03:39,728
The final report estimated
1079
01:03:39,794 --> 01:03:44,465
that 80% of the great plains
was in some stage of erosion
1080
01:03:44,532 --> 01:03:46,800
and pointed to what Bennett called
1081
01:03:46,866 --> 01:03:49,836
"the basic cause" of the problem...
1082
01:03:49,903 --> 01:03:54,274
"An attempt to impose upon the
region a system of agriculture
1083
01:03:54,341 --> 01:03:57,844
to which the plains
are not adapted."
1084
01:04:00,480 --> 01:04:02,249
But, it concluded,
1085
01:04:02,314 --> 01:04:06,552
the nation "cannot afford
to let the farmer fail."
1086
01:04:06,619 --> 01:04:10,323
His boss was not about
to let that happen.
1087
01:04:10,389 --> 01:04:12,258
Back east, there have been
1088
01:04:12,324 --> 01:04:16,695
all kinds of reports that
out in the drought area
1089
01:04:16,761 --> 01:04:22,599
there was despondency,
a lack of hope for the future,
1090
01:04:22,666 --> 01:04:27,704
and a general atmosphere of gloom.
1091
01:04:27,771 --> 01:04:30,707
But I had a hunch...
And it was the right one...
1092
01:04:30,774 --> 01:04:32,509
When I got out here,
1093
01:04:32,576 --> 01:04:36,679
I'd find that you people
had your chins out...
1094
01:04:41,549 --> 01:04:45,821
That you are not
looking forward to the day
1095
01:04:45,888 --> 01:04:48,924
when this country would be depopulated,
1096
01:04:48,991 --> 01:04:52,694
but that you and your children
expect to remain here.
1097
01:05:01,769 --> 01:05:04,705
To us, he was a savior.
1098
01:05:04,772 --> 01:05:10,543
He just... he gave us hope
where we had none.
1099
01:05:10,610 --> 01:05:16,381
I can remember my dad saying
that he normally didn't
1100
01:05:16,448 --> 01:05:19,385
vote democrat, but he
thought he would that time,
1101
01:05:19,452 --> 01:05:22,721
and I think he became a
staunch democrat after that.
1102
01:05:22,788 --> 01:05:26,658
No cracked earth, no blistering sun,
1103
01:05:26,725 --> 01:05:30,861
no burning wind are a permanent match
1104
01:05:30,928 --> 01:05:34,699
for the indomitable American
farmers and stockmen,
1105
01:05:34,765 --> 01:05:36,902
and their wives and children,
1106
01:05:36,967 --> 01:05:40,071
who have carried on
through desperate days.
1107
01:05:40,137 --> 01:05:44,007
Here's a land that god himself
seems to have given up on...
1108
01:05:44,074 --> 01:05:46,943
I shall never forget
the fields of wheat...
1109
01:05:47,010 --> 01:05:48,945
And the fact that the president still
1110
01:05:49,012 --> 01:05:52,015
gave it his attention...
So that was a very big deal
1111
01:05:52,082 --> 01:05:55,018
at a time when they felt so abandoned,
1112
01:05:55,085 --> 01:05:57,219
and you can't understate the importance
1113
01:05:57,286 --> 01:05:59,521
of just giving it some attention.
1114
01:05:59,588 --> 01:06:02,957
It was their fathers' task to make homes,
1115
01:06:03,024 --> 01:06:06,427
it is their task to keep these homes,
1116
01:06:06,494 --> 01:06:10,565
and it is our task to
help them win their fight.
1117
01:06:15,669 --> 01:06:17,471
We're continuing with
1118
01:06:17,537 --> 01:06:19,607
Mr. Woody Guthrie's
dust bowl songs
1119
01:06:19,673 --> 01:06:22,809
from Texas, Oklahoma, and California.
1120
01:06:22,876 --> 01:06:25,346
As I rambled around over the country
1121
01:06:25,412 --> 01:06:27,447
and kept looking at all these people,
1122
01:06:27,514 --> 01:06:31,283
seeing how they lived
outside like coyotes
1123
01:06:31,350 --> 01:06:34,320
around in the trees and timber
and under the Bridges
1124
01:06:34,387 --> 01:06:35,834
and along all the railroad tracks
1125
01:06:35,854 --> 01:06:38,223
and in their little shack
houses thatht built
1126
01:06:38,289 --> 01:06:40,426
out of cardboard and toe sacks
1127
01:06:40,493 --> 01:06:46,664
and old corrugated iron that
they got out of the dumps...
1128
01:06:46,732 --> 01:06:51,202
That just struck me to write this song.
1129
01:06:51,269 --> 01:06:54,938
♪ I ain't got no home,
I'm just a-roamin' round ♪
1130
01:06:55,005 --> 01:06:57,741
During the 10 years
of the great depression,
1131
01:06:57,808 --> 01:07:02,246
California's population
would grow more than 20%.
1132
01:07:02,312 --> 01:07:06,749
Half of the newcomers came
from cities, not farms.
1133
01:07:06,816 --> 01:07:11,487
One in 6 were professionals
or white-collar workers.
1134
01:07:11,554 --> 01:07:16,291
Of the 315,000 who arrived
from Oklahoma, Texas,
1135
01:07:16,358 --> 01:07:18,327
and neighboring states,
1136
01:07:18,394 --> 01:07:23,097
only 16,000 were from
the dust bowl itself.
1137
01:07:23,164 --> 01:07:26,667
But regardless of where
they actually came from,
1138
01:07:26,734 --> 01:07:29,670
regardless of their skills
and their education
1139
01:07:29,737 --> 01:07:31,640
and their individual reasons
1140
01:07:31,706 --> 01:07:34,675
for seeking a new life in a new place,
1141
01:07:34,742 --> 01:07:38,378
to most californians...
And to the nation at large...
1142
01:07:38,446 --> 01:07:40,780
They were all the same,
1143
01:07:40,847 --> 01:07:44,117
and they all had the same name.
1144
01:07:44,184 --> 01:07:46,618
"Okies." and we were
made fun of,
1145
01:07:46,686 --> 01:07:50,255
and, "you talk funny,"
and, you know, all of that.
1146
01:07:50,322 --> 01:07:53,593
Or, "talk some more.
You talk funny."
1147
01:07:53,660 --> 01:07:56,328
And you hated that
because it set you apart.
1148
01:07:56,395 --> 01:07:58,996
There was a sign in a movie theater
1149
01:07:59,063 --> 01:08:01,032
in the central valley of California
1150
01:08:01,098 --> 01:08:05,103
which basically said
"niggers and okies upstairs."
1151
01:08:05,170 --> 01:08:09,873
That is, you can't sit
down here with real people.
1152
01:08:11,708 --> 01:08:13,577
They were horribly mistreated.
1153
01:08:13,643 --> 01:08:15,178
In some cases, they were treated
1154
01:08:15,245 --> 01:08:17,480
the way blacks were treated in the south.
1155
01:08:17,547 --> 01:08:19,583
There were signs similar to the signs
1156
01:08:19,649 --> 01:08:21,618
they had in Dalhart, Texas, that said,
1157
01:08:21,685 --> 01:08:25,087
"black man, don't let the
sun go down on you here."
1158
01:08:25,155 --> 01:08:27,503
Similarly, there were signs all
throughout the central valley
1159
01:08:27,523 --> 01:08:30,493
saying, "okie, go back.
We don't want you."
1160
01:08:32,961 --> 01:08:36,231
About a third of all the recent arrivals,
1161
01:08:36,297 --> 01:08:38,100
many of them former sharecroppers
1162
01:08:38,166 --> 01:08:39,768
from the cotton belt,
1163
01:08:39,835 --> 01:08:43,271
ended up in California's
agricultural valleys,
1164
01:08:43,337 --> 01:08:46,107
where farmers had always
relied on migrant labor
1165
01:08:46,174 --> 01:08:50,043
to pick their cotton,
vegetables, and fruits.
1166
01:08:50,110 --> 01:08:51,645
They settled in developments
1167
01:08:51,712 --> 01:08:54,849
called "little oklahomas"
and "okievilles"
1168
01:08:54,915 --> 01:08:56,683
or moved with the harvests,
1169
01:08:56,750 --> 01:09:01,621
sometimes traveling 700 to
1,000 miles in the season,
1170
01:09:01,687 --> 01:09:05,558
staying in squalid roadside
camps called "jungles"
1171
01:09:05,625 --> 01:09:07,692
or simply putting up a tent
1172
01:09:07,759 --> 01:09:11,163
along the road or in an unused field.
1173
01:09:11,230 --> 01:09:13,431
And they found themselves at the mercy
1174
01:09:13,498 --> 01:09:16,501
of the contractors,
who conspired with the growers
1175
01:09:16,568 --> 01:09:20,337
to drive down the field workers' wages.
1176
01:09:20,404 --> 01:09:24,141
"They have the simple and sturdy values
1177
01:09:24,208 --> 01:09:26,142
"often bemoaned as lost.
1178
01:09:26,209 --> 01:09:29,280
"They are proud, strong people,
1179
01:09:29,346 --> 01:09:34,250
"patient, uncomplaining, intelligent.
1180
01:09:34,317 --> 01:09:37,053
"They want first of all to work,
1181
01:09:37,120 --> 01:09:39,388
"to have a home for their families,
1182
01:09:39,454 --> 01:09:42,024
"to educate their children.
1183
01:09:42,091 --> 01:09:46,428
"These simple rights are part
of the heritage of Americans.
1184
01:09:46,496 --> 01:09:48,864
"It is difficult for them to understand
1185
01:09:48,931 --> 01:09:51,867
"that none of them remain.
1186
01:09:51,934 --> 01:09:55,002
"Their whole lives are concentrated now
1187
01:09:55,069 --> 01:09:58,338
"on one instinctive problem...
1188
01:09:58,405 --> 01:10:01,009
That of keeping alive."
1189
01:10:01,076 --> 01:10:02,944
Sanora babb.
1190
01:10:04,946 --> 01:10:07,281
Sanora babb, a former reporter
1191
01:10:07,348 --> 01:10:10,584
who had grown up in the area
around no man's land,
1192
01:10:10,650 --> 01:10:15,387
had found a new job with the
farm security administration.
1193
01:10:15,454 --> 01:10:17,490
With her boss, Tom Collins,
1194
01:10:17,557 --> 01:10:20,093
she went up and down the central valley,
1195
01:10:20,160 --> 01:10:23,429
informing the newly arrived
migran atsut programs
1196
01:10:23,495 --> 01:10:26,265
to provide them with food
and medical assistance
1197
01:10:26,332 --> 01:10:30,101
for their families,
education for their children,
1198
01:10:30,168 --> 01:10:32,337
and better living conditions.
1199
01:10:35,306 --> 01:10:37,275
Only a few days ago,
1200
01:10:37,342 --> 01:10:40,144
we met a young man walking
along the road to town
1201
01:10:40,211 --> 01:10:42,747
in search of immediate work and help.
1202
01:10:42,813 --> 01:10:45,681
His wife had had a baby 3 days before
1203
01:10:45,749 --> 01:10:49,052
in an abandoned milk house
separated from any camp,
1204
01:10:49,118 --> 01:10:52,823
where they had taken refuge
during the recent storms.
1205
01:10:52,889 --> 01:10:54,924
He was desperate.
1206
01:10:54,991 --> 01:10:58,260
Since the birth, his wife,
their other children,
1207
01:10:58,327 --> 01:11:01,197
and he himself had not eaten for 3 days.
1208
01:11:01,262 --> 01:11:04,566
If he did not get something
for them at once,
1209
01:11:04,633 --> 01:11:07,303
she and the baby would die.
1210
01:11:09,504 --> 01:11:11,606
When the refugees learned
1211
01:11:11,673 --> 01:11:14,209
sanora had grown up
on the southern plains,
1212
01:11:14,275 --> 01:11:20,413
it helped establish a trust and
respect that extended both ways.
1213
01:11:20,481 --> 01:11:22,849
The government had also asked
1214
01:11:22,915 --> 01:11:26,587
the photographer Dorothea Lange
to come back to California
1215
01:11:26,653 --> 01:11:30,757
to document the deplorable
conditions among the migrants.
1216
01:11:41,934 --> 01:11:45,270
Tom Collins and the fsa used her photos
1217
01:11:45,337 --> 01:11:49,306
to ph r creation of a
handful of government camps
1218
01:11:49,373 --> 01:11:51,977
with better shelter and sanitation for
1219
01:11:52,043 --> 01:11:57,749
the steady stream of refugees
who were arriving every day.
1220
01:11:57,815 --> 01:12:01,185
Collins insisted that
the camps be self-governed,
1221
01:12:01,251 --> 01:12:04,888
with elected committees
responsible for everything from
1222
01:12:04,954 --> 01:12:10,293
sewing clubs and libraries
to childcare and cleanliness.
1223
01:12:10,360 --> 01:12:15,665
But only a lucky few were
able to find space there.
1224
01:12:15,731 --> 01:12:19,601
And while the growers depended
on the migrants for cheap labor,
1225
01:12:19,668 --> 01:12:23,371
the locals, who were themselves
suffering from the depression,
1226
01:12:23,438 --> 01:12:25,373
didn't appreciate anything
1227
01:12:25,441 --> 01:12:28,643
that encouraged the newcomers to stay,
1228
01:12:28,710 --> 01:12:33,314
nor did the growers
once the harvest was over.
1229
01:12:35,750 --> 01:12:37,751
♪ It takes a worried man ♪
1230
01:12:37,818 --> 01:12:40,020
♪ to sing a worried song ♪
1231
01:12:40,087 --> 01:12:42,122
♪ takes a worried man ♪
1232
01:12:42,189 --> 01:12:43,724
♪ to sing a worried song ♪
1233
01:12:43,790 --> 01:12:45,191
♪ I'm worried now... ♪
1234
01:12:45,257 --> 01:12:46,927
Like many of the new arrivals,
1235
01:12:46,993 --> 01:12:50,396
Woody Guthrie had settled in
one of California's cities...
1236
01:12:50,463 --> 01:12:53,065
Los Angeles, where he
worked washing dishes
1237
01:12:53,132 --> 01:12:56,701
and singing in bars
before finally landing
1238
01:12:56,768 --> 01:13:01,839
his own show on radio station kfvd.
1239
01:13:01,905 --> 01:13:05,177
Each day, he performed
his own songs, as well as
1240
01:13:05,244 --> 01:13:09,614
older folk tunes he had learned
in Oklahoma and Texas,
1241
01:13:09,681 --> 01:13:12,883
which reminded many listeners
in his growing audience
1242
01:13:12,950 --> 01:13:15,052
of the homes they had left.
1243
01:13:15,118 --> 01:13:17,121
♪ I asked that judge... ♪
1244
01:13:17,187 --> 01:13:18,888
But though he was becoming
1245
01:13:18,955 --> 01:13:21,058
a well-known radio personality,
1246
01:13:21,125 --> 01:13:23,494
he, too, felt the sting of bigotry
1247
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:27,897
aimed at anyone
considered an "okie."
1248
01:13:27,964 --> 01:13:30,566
He began spending time traveling
1249
01:13:30,633 --> 01:13:33,536
and performing for free
in the central valley,
1250
01:13:33,602 --> 01:13:37,105
whthe treatment of the
faerenfarm workers politicized,
1251
01:13:37,172 --> 01:13:42,043
and his music, for the rest of his life.
1252
01:13:42,110 --> 01:13:44,678
He sang at picket lines of workers
1253
01:13:44,745 --> 01:13:46,747
holding out for higher wages
1254
01:13:46,815 --> 01:13:49,717
and starnewspaperter column, "Woody sez,"
1255
01:13:49,783 --> 01:13:53,019
in the left-leaning
"people's world."
1256
01:13:53,087 --> 01:13:55,723
"I ain't a communist
necessarily," he said,
1257
01:13:55,790 --> 01:13:58,959
"but I've been in the red
all my life."
1258
01:13:59,025 --> 01:14:01,561
♪ Lots of folks
back east, they say ♪
1259
01:14:01,628 --> 01:14:03,563
♪ is leavin' home every day ♪
1260
01:14:03,629 --> 01:14:05,265
♪ beatin' a hot old dusty way ♪
1261
01:14:05,330 --> 01:14:07,033
♪ to the California line ♪
1262
01:14:07,099 --> 01:14:09,935
Guthrie was offended
that the state legislature
1263
01:14:10,002 --> 01:14:12,471
nearly passed a law closing
the state's borders
1264
01:14:12,538 --> 01:14:14,507
to people it called
1265
01:14:14,573 --> 01:14:17,176
"paupers and persons likely
to become public charges."
1266
01:14:17,242 --> 01:14:20,879
♪ Now, the police
at the port of entry say ♪
1267
01:14:20,945 --> 01:14:25,549
♪ you're number 14,000
for today... ♪
1268
01:14:25,615 --> 01:14:28,920
Then, without any legal authority,
1269
01:14:28,985 --> 01:14:34,591
the Los Angeles police chief
dispatched 125 of his officers
1270
01:14:34,658 --> 01:14:39,461
to the main entry points from
Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.
1271
01:14:39,528 --> 01:14:41,697
For 6 weeks, they intimidated
1272
01:14:41,764 --> 01:14:44,633
anyone they considered "vagrants,"
1273
01:14:44,700 --> 01:14:48,337
including Clarence and
Irene Beck's father Sam,
1274
01:14:48,404 --> 01:14:51,307
from wheeless, Oklahoma.
1275
01:14:51,373 --> 01:14:54,175
My father was a dust bowl okie.
1276
01:14:54,243 --> 01:14:58,179
He got put in jail when he
crossed into California
1277
01:14:58,246 --> 01:15:01,149
because he didn't have 50 bucks.
1278
01:15:01,217 --> 01:15:06,687
When he was arrested,
he was arrested as a vagrant
1279
01:15:06,753 --> 01:15:10,390
and would have gone to jail except that
1280
01:15:10,457 --> 01:15:14,760
one of his ex-neighbors in
Oklahoma knew he was coming
1281
01:15:14,827 --> 01:15:16,864
and was prepared for this
1282
01:15:16,929 --> 01:15:22,268
met him, arranged that
he could stay with them
1283
01:15:22,335 --> 01:15:24,537
so he no longer was a vagrant.
1284
01:15:26,539 --> 01:15:28,341
For a while,
1285
01:15:28,407 --> 01:15:30,741
Beck was allowed to stay
at a chicken farm,
1286
01:15:30,808 --> 01:15:34,180
where he worked in exchange
for eggs to eat.
1287
01:15:34,246 --> 01:15:36,081
But he finally landed a job
1288
01:15:36,147 --> 01:15:38,116
with the Los Angeles highway department
1289
01:15:38,183 --> 01:15:42,353
and started a new life for
himself and his daughter.
1290
01:15:42,419 --> 01:15:43,721
It's a fresh start.
1291
01:15:43,787 --> 01:15:46,757
I guess that's the words
to use... a fresh start,
1292
01:15:46,824 --> 01:15:48,458
which it was.
1293
01:15:48,525 --> 01:15:51,561
It really was.
1294
01:15:51,629 --> 01:15:54,231
So thank god of that.
1295
01:15:54,298 --> 01:15:57,866
I was blessed that way.
1296
01:15:57,934 --> 01:16:04,039
Sam Beck died of a
heart attack in 1947, at age 54,
1297
01:16:04,106 --> 01:16:08,144
spreading blacktop
on a California highway.
1298
01:16:08,211 --> 01:16:10,812
He had a tough life.
1299
01:16:10,879 --> 01:16:13,382
Very tough life.
1300
01:16:13,447 --> 01:16:16,417
He and his life was
the reason that I said,
1301
01:16:16,484 --> 01:16:23,225
"god, what do I have to do to have money
1302
01:16:23,291 --> 01:16:26,027
"and not be a farmer, and I'll do it.
1303
01:16:26,093 --> 01:16:28,296
"I don't care whether it's being a pimp.
1304
01:16:28,362 --> 01:16:31,298
"I don't care whether it's stealing.
1305
01:16:31,364 --> 01:16:34,934
"Whatever it takes, I'm not gonna farm,
1306
01:16:35,000 --> 01:16:39,338
and I'm not going
to be broke."
1307
01:16:39,404 --> 01:16:43,809
And that's been my driving force.
1308
01:16:43,876 --> 01:16:46,411
It has been.
1309
01:16:46,477 --> 01:16:51,549
And I'm not a farmer, and I'm not broke.
1310
01:16:51,616 --> 01:16:54,484
I'm not a pimp, either, thank god.
1311
01:16:57,121 --> 01:17:01,925
♪ I'm a dust bowl refugee ♪
1312
01:17:01,992 --> 01:17:04,695
Calvin Crabill's father, John,
1313
01:17:04,761 --> 01:17:06,964
had rescued his wife and family
1314
01:17:07,030 --> 01:17:09,333
from the dust of eastern Colorado,
1315
01:17:09,399 --> 01:17:13,236
but the hard times followed
him to southern California.
1316
01:17:13,303 --> 01:17:16,873
He moved from one temporary
job to another...
1317
01:17:16,939 --> 01:17:21,444
A Colorado cowboy, far from
the plains he loved.
1318
01:17:21,510 --> 01:17:24,446
My father was called an okie.
1319
01:17:24,512 --> 01:17:26,881
He was a gentle, quiet man,
1320
01:17:26,948 --> 01:17:29,951
so I think he could take it pretty well.
1321
01:17:30,019 --> 01:17:33,488
It made me with a chip on my shoulder
1322
01:17:33,555 --> 01:17:35,757
that I probably carry to this day,
1323
01:17:35,824 --> 01:17:38,158
that I was very aware
that I thought I was
1324
01:17:38,226 --> 01:17:40,593
the poorest kid in high school.
1325
01:17:40,660 --> 01:17:43,397
We rented a little house
on the alley in Burbank,
1326
01:17:43,463 --> 01:17:46,867
and the house in front,
the people had more money,
1327
01:17:46,933 --> 01:17:49,335
and they were very aware that we were
1328
01:17:49,402 --> 01:17:52,605
the poor people on the block.
1329
01:17:52,672 --> 01:17:54,354
In those days, you could get something
1330
01:17:54,374 --> 01:17:55,774
to put on your license plate
1331
01:17:55,841 --> 01:17:57,676
that would be some kind of a slogan.
1332
01:17:57,743 --> 01:17:59,643
It said "peaceful valley,"
1333
01:17:59,711 --> 01:18:01,379
and so my father liked that place,
1334
01:18:01,445 --> 01:18:03,281
so he put it on his license plate.
1335
01:18:03,348 --> 01:18:06,885
The people at his job crossed out the "v"
1336
01:18:06,952 --> 01:18:09,321
and wrote "peaceful alley"
1337
01:18:09,388 --> 01:18:13,791
because they knew he lived on an alley.
1338
01:18:13,858 --> 01:18:16,426
So if you're down,
they push you down, fella,
1339
01:18:16,493 --> 01:18:18,029
they push you down,
1340
01:18:18,094 --> 01:18:19,618
and that's what happened to him,
1341
01:18:19,662 --> 01:18:23,433
over and over and over, over and over.
1342
01:18:23,500 --> 01:18:27,771
How brave they all are.
1343
01:18:27,837 --> 01:18:30,372
I have not heard one complaint.
1344
01:18:30,439 --> 01:18:34,777
They all want work and hate to have help.
1345
01:18:34,842 --> 01:18:37,547
As she moved from camp to camp,
1346
01:18:37,614 --> 01:18:40,115
sanora babb kept a nightly journal,
1347
01:18:40,182 --> 01:18:42,551
which she planned to turn into a novel,
1348
01:18:42,618 --> 01:18:47,055
about the people she had met
and what they had gone through.
1349
01:18:47,121 --> 01:18:51,526
She also wrote detailed reports
for her boss Tom Collins,
1350
01:18:51,591 --> 01:18:53,728
who was regularly sharing her notes
1351
01:18:53,795 --> 01:18:56,564
with a writer working
on a muck-raking article
1352
01:18:56,631 --> 01:19:01,434
for the "San Francisco news"
named John steinbeck.
1353
01:19:01,501 --> 01:19:03,537
When steinbeck first came,
1354
01:19:03,603 --> 01:19:07,006
he had to stop seeing them
before the day was out.
1355
01:19:07,073 --> 01:19:09,075
Tom Collins said he said,
1356
01:19:09,141 --> 01:19:11,711
"by god, I can't stand anymore.
1357
01:19:11,777 --> 01:19:15,748
I'm going away and blow
the lid off this place."
1358
01:19:15,814 --> 01:19:18,183
Sanora babb would eventually send
1359
01:19:18,249 --> 01:19:20,919
some chapters of her novel
to Bennett cerf,
1360
01:19:20,984 --> 01:19:24,422
a prominent editor of
random house in New York City,
1361
01:19:24,488 --> 01:19:26,524
who was so impressed he asked her
1362
01:19:26,591 --> 01:19:29,427
to come east to talk about it.
1363
01:19:29,494 --> 01:19:33,697
But by the time she arrived,
in the winter of 1939,
1364
01:19:33,764 --> 01:19:35,498
steinbeck had come out with
1365
01:19:35,566 --> 01:19:37,867
his own pulitzer prize-winning novel,
1366
01:19:37,934 --> 01:19:39,702
"the grapes of wrath,"
1367
01:19:39,769 --> 01:19:42,738
which chronicled the
tribulations of the joad family,
1368
01:19:42,805 --> 01:19:45,609
tenant farmers who had
migrated to California
1369
01:19:45,676 --> 01:19:48,978
from the cotton fields
of eastern Oklahoma...
1370
01:19:49,045 --> 01:19:51,780
Not the dust bowl.
1371
01:19:51,847 --> 01:19:55,217
The book was such a hit that
the market couldn't support
1372
01:19:55,283 --> 01:19:57,619
a second novel on the same subject,
1373
01:19:57,686 --> 01:20:03,124
and her editor advised sanora
to put her manuscript aside.
1374
01:20:03,190 --> 01:20:07,895
It was finally published in 2004,
1375
01:20:07,962 --> 01:20:11,132
a year before her death.
1376
01:20:11,197 --> 01:20:14,034
You, who live in any kind of comfort
1377
01:20:14,100 --> 01:20:17,137
or convenience, do not
know how these people
1378
01:20:17,204 --> 01:20:20,507
can survive these things, do you?
1379
01:20:20,573 --> 01:20:22,741
They will endure because
1380
01:20:22,808 --> 01:20:26,578
there is no immediate
escape from endurance.
1381
01:20:26,646 --> 01:20:28,881
Some will die.
1382
01:20:28,947 --> 01:20:30,948
The rest must live.
1383
01:20:40,191 --> 01:20:43,794
The worst storm thus far in 1937
1384
01:20:43,861 --> 01:20:47,030
occurred immediately
after a slight snowfall,
1385
01:20:47,097 --> 01:20:50,801
which again roused delusive hopes.
1386
01:20:50,868 --> 01:20:54,838
That snow melted on a Tuesday.
1387
01:20:54,905 --> 01:20:58,341
Wednesday morning, with a rising wind,
1388
01:20:58,408 --> 01:21:01,577
the dust began to move again,
1389
01:21:01,644 --> 01:21:06,849
and until late Friday night,
there was little respite.
1390
01:21:06,916 --> 01:21:11,086
We are now reluctant
feeding our livestock
1391
01:21:11,153 --> 01:21:18,059
the last small remainder
of the crop of 1931.
1392
01:21:18,125 --> 01:21:22,229
In most of the nation,
the drought had ended,
1393
01:21:22,296 --> 01:21:24,799
but for Caroline Henderson
and her neighbors
1394
01:21:24,866 --> 01:21:27,534
who had stayed in the
heart of the dust bowl,
1395
01:21:27,601 --> 01:21:31,971
1937 would prove to be
the worst year yet.
1396
01:21:32,038 --> 01:21:36,776
Guymon, Oklahoma, just 30 miles
southeast of her homestead,
1397
01:21:36,842 --> 01:21:41,314
was engulfed by 6 bad
dust storms that January,
1398
01:21:41,380 --> 01:21:45,951
14 in February,
and then 13 more in march,
1399
01:21:46,017 --> 01:21:50,589
including one that closed
the schools in nearby Boise City
1400
01:21:50,655 --> 01:21:52,790
and tore roofs off of buildings
1401
01:21:52,856 --> 01:21:57,394
a hundred miles away
in Dodge City, Kansas.
1402
01:22:00,098 --> 01:22:02,399
On the afternoon of may 21,
1403
01:22:02,467 --> 01:22:05,435
a local photographer named Francis Craver
1404
01:22:05,501 --> 01:22:07,503
noticed a dust cloud appearing
1405
01:22:07,571 --> 01:22:12,008
over the doric theatre
in downtown Elkhart, Kansas.
1406
01:22:12,075 --> 01:22:16,112
He grabbed his camera and
chronicled the storm's descent,
1407
01:22:16,179 --> 01:22:18,681
which caused the high school to cancel
1408
01:22:18,747 --> 01:22:22,851
commencement ceremonies
planned for that evening.
1409
01:22:29,592 --> 01:22:32,961
Two weeks later, 50 miles
east of the Hendersons,
1410
01:22:33,028 --> 01:22:37,398
in Hooker, Oklahoma, a furniture
sman named George risen
1411
01:22:37,465 --> 01:22:40,601
saw another wall of dirt approaching.
1412
01:22:40,667 --> 01:22:43,770
He scrambled to the top of
the tallest building in town
1413
01:22:43,837 --> 01:22:47,641
and began taking pictures
with his brownie camera.
1414
01:23:01,153 --> 01:23:04,823
As it passed, the storm
dropped 3 feet of dust
1415
01:23:04,889 --> 01:23:08,426
on Hooker and the
surrounding countryside.
1416
01:23:12,130 --> 01:23:15,099
By the end of July, the number
of destructive storms
1417
01:23:15,166 --> 01:23:18,101
would rise to 79;
1418
01:23:18,168 --> 01:23:22,306
by the end of the year, to 110.
1419
01:23:22,372 --> 01:23:25,008
The only difference
between the southern plains
1420
01:23:25,074 --> 01:23:28,345
and the Sahara desert,
one resident suggested,
1421
01:23:28,412 --> 01:23:30,379
was that a lot of "damned fools"
1422
01:23:30,446 --> 01:23:33,716
weren't trying to farm the Sahara.
1423
01:23:33,782 --> 01:23:35,717
If you were a farmer,
1424
01:23:35,784 --> 01:23:37,087
you plowed the ground,
1425
01:23:37,154 --> 01:23:39,021
and you put seed in it, and it grew up.
1426
01:23:39,088 --> 01:23:40,389
That was farming.
1427
01:23:40,456 --> 01:23:45,560
You didn't expect this dirt
that was giving you this food
1428
01:23:45,627 --> 01:23:51,865
to turn on you like that
and destroy you like it did.
1429
01:23:54,336 --> 01:23:57,204
Those people that was real religious
1430
01:23:57,272 --> 01:24:03,409
said that god was trying to
drive us off of the land.
1431
01:24:03,476 --> 01:24:05,858
I never did believe that,
or dad never did believe it,
1432
01:24:05,878 --> 01:24:10,083
and we believed whatever dad
believed, you know, as kids.
1433
01:24:10,149 --> 01:24:13,086
Dad said they'll just be
times that they'll be bad
1434
01:24:13,152 --> 01:24:15,887
and times that they won't.
1435
01:24:15,954 --> 01:24:19,891
Both of my parents
were very, very good Christian.
1436
01:24:19,958 --> 01:24:24,795
No matter what came along,
they seemed to accept it.
1437
01:24:24,862 --> 01:24:28,500
They both just seemed like
they were just going on
1438
01:24:28,566 --> 01:24:30,202
doing the best they could,
1439
01:24:30,268 --> 01:24:32,803
and they didn't do a whole
lot of griping about it.
1440
01:24:32,870 --> 01:24:36,607
Around the house,
Virginia frantz's mother
1441
01:24:36,673 --> 01:24:39,776
often sang hymns to
take her children's minds
1442
01:24:39,843 --> 01:24:44,247
off the troubles
staring them in the face.
1443
01:24:44,314 --> 01:24:47,584
♪ I'm pressing on
the upward way ♪
1444
01:24:47,649 --> 01:24:51,253
♪ new heights I'm gaining
every day ♪
1445
01:24:51,320 --> 01:24:54,990
♪ still praying as
I onward bound ♪
1446
01:24:55,057 --> 01:24:59,061
♪ my prayer, my aim,
is higher ground ♪
1447
01:24:59,128 --> 01:25:00,928
And then it was...
1448
01:25:00,996 --> 01:25:03,865
♪ Oh, lift me up
and let me stand ♪
1449
01:25:03,931 --> 01:25:06,534
♪ by faith,
on heaven's table land ♪
1450
01:25:06,601 --> 01:25:09,904
♪ a higher faith
than I have found ♪
1451
01:25:09,971 --> 01:25:13,306
♪ oh, lift me up
on higher ground ♪
1452
01:25:13,373 --> 01:25:16,676
Ha ha! It's been
probably 60 years
1453
01:25:16,744 --> 01:25:18,812
since I've heard that song.
1454
01:25:20,580 --> 01:25:24,484
I remember we had the radio,
and he's listeninin it
1455
01:25:24,550 --> 01:25:28,019
talking about a flood on the Ohio river
1456
01:25:28,087 --> 01:25:31,991
and houses floating down
and people on them houses.
1457
01:25:32,056 --> 01:25:33,793
My dad turned to us and said,
1458
01:25:33,859 --> 01:25:36,529
"we've got it better here
than they have up there."
1459
01:25:36,595 --> 01:25:38,396
And that was in '37.
1460
01:25:38,463 --> 01:25:41,533
So he thought that the dirt
was better than that water.
1461
01:25:43,600 --> 01:25:46,170
In April of 1937,
1462
01:25:46,236 --> 01:25:50,842
farmers from 5 states met
in guymon, Oklahoma.
1463
01:25:50,909 --> 01:25:54,544
"The problem in the dust bowl
is entirely too large
1464
01:25:54,611 --> 01:25:58,014
"for the remaining good farmers
to even make a start
1465
01:25:58,080 --> 01:26:00,850
to cope with," they wrote the government.
1466
01:26:00,917 --> 01:26:06,355
"We must have help, and it's
imperative we have help now."
1467
01:26:06,422 --> 01:26:09,358
I think it has to be pretty extreme
1468
01:26:09,425 --> 01:26:11,627
for a group of farmers,
1469
01:26:11,694 --> 01:26:15,063
very independent-minded, very stubborn,
1470
01:26:15,130 --> 01:26:18,600
a group that on the whole
doesn't like to be meddled with
1471
01:26:18,667 --> 01:26:21,735
to say, "please come
and meddle with us."
1472
01:26:21,802 --> 01:26:23,305
But at this point,
1473
01:26:23,371 --> 01:26:26,607
they're into their
sixth year of no income,
1474
01:26:26,674 --> 01:26:29,677
their fifth year of no crops,
1475
01:26:29,742 --> 01:26:33,880
and they're seeing neighbors'
fields blowing into their own,
1476
01:26:33,947 --> 01:26:37,316
they're seeing enormous
clouds of dirt in the air,
1477
01:26:37,382 --> 01:26:40,020
and they don't know what else to do.
1478
01:26:40,087 --> 01:26:43,122
And when you don't know what else to do
1479
01:26:43,189 --> 01:26:45,891
and you're afraid of losing your farm,
1480
01:26:45,958 --> 01:26:50,528
then you begin to ask for
rather more extreme measures
1481
01:26:50,595 --> 01:26:53,998
than you would have asked for otherwise.
1482
01:26:54,065 --> 01:26:57,069
If one man mishandled his land,
1483
01:26:57,135 --> 01:27:00,338
everybody suffered
under these conditions.
1484
01:27:00,404 --> 01:27:02,874
All it took was one thousand-acre farm
1485
01:27:02,940 --> 01:27:05,243
blowing dirt badly
1486
01:27:05,309 --> 01:27:08,778
to disrupt the lives
of everybody around him.
1487
01:27:08,845 --> 01:27:11,313
And if that farm operator
actually happened
1488
01:27:11,380 --> 01:27:14,719
to be living in Amarillo or Denver
1489
01:27:14,784 --> 01:27:18,220
and only came out on weekends
anyway, who did you talk to?
1490
01:27:18,287 --> 01:27:23,058
There was no authority to
stop this sort of process.
1491
01:27:23,125 --> 01:27:26,928
The farmers wanted
every landowner to be required
1492
01:27:26,995 --> 01:27:29,932
to leave stubble on ested fields,
1493
01:27:29,999 --> 01:27:31,700
and they wanted some way
1494
01:27:31,767 --> 01:27:35,203
to have abandoned re
planted with cover crops.
1495
01:27:35,270 --> 01:27:40,307
To do it, they even suggested
that martial law be declared.
1496
01:27:40,374 --> 01:27:43,056
They wanted the ability to
condemn other people's property
1497
01:27:43,076 --> 01:27:44,978
if they weren't keeping it up.
1498
01:27:45,045 --> 01:27:46,747
This was hugely antithetical
1499
01:27:46,814 --> 01:27:48,882
to how most of these people thought.
1500
01:27:48,949 --> 01:27:50,964
In some counties,
they were granted authority
1501
01:27:50,984 --> 01:27:52,365
to go out and condemn someone,
1502
01:27:52,385 --> 01:27:54,521
to slap them in jail if need be,
1503
01:27:54,587 --> 01:27:56,202
if he was letting his land blow again.
1504
01:27:56,222 --> 01:28:00,492
Very authoritarian measure for folks who
1505
01:28:00,559 --> 01:28:04,063
considered themselves
highly individualistic.
1506
01:28:04,130 --> 01:28:05,745
When your back is against the wall,
1507
01:28:05,765 --> 01:28:08,301
all ideology goes out the window.
1508
01:28:08,367 --> 01:28:09,968
So here is a group of people
1509
01:28:10,035 --> 01:28:12,404
who are very anti-state, anti-government,
1510
01:28:12,469 --> 01:28:14,418
who never wanted the
government interfering
1511
01:28:14,438 --> 01:28:17,241
with anything they did
or telling them what to do,
1512
01:28:17,308 --> 01:28:19,276
but who, when the chips are down,
1513
01:28:19,343 --> 01:28:22,147
are going to ask for
the only help they c gan,
1514
01:28:22,213 --> 01:28:24,815
and that's from the federal government.
1515
01:28:24,882 --> 01:28:26,650
Evtuenly,
1516
01:28:26,717 --> 01:28:29,919
soil conservation districts
were established,
1517
01:28:29,986 --> 01:28:34,824
meant to enforce better farming
practices through consensus.
1518
01:28:37,327 --> 01:28:40,295
At the same time,
the government was buying back
1519
01:28:40,362 --> 01:28:44,299
as much land as it could
from dusted-out homesteaders
1520
01:28:44,366 --> 01:28:48,402
and slowly returning it
to permanent grassland.
1521
01:28:48,469 --> 01:28:52,406
Farmers now got help to buy
gasoline for their tractors
1522
01:28:52,473 --> 01:28:55,577
if they were doing soil-erosion work.
1523
01:28:55,644 --> 01:28:57,678
And in some cases,
1524
01:28:57,745 --> 01:29:02,617
they even received payments
not to grow cash crops at all.
1525
01:29:02,682 --> 01:29:07,020
"We have got to begin
to induce people to plant less."
1526
01:29:07,087 --> 01:29:08,754
How do you do that?
1527
01:29:08,822 --> 01:29:10,705
You can't just take
their land away from them.
1528
01:29:10,725 --> 01:29:13,994
So the idea was to pay
them not to produce.
1529
01:29:14,060 --> 01:29:16,729
For the people in the great
plains, this was a salvation.
1530
01:29:16,795 --> 01:29:18,297
They could keep their land,
1531
01:29:18,364 --> 01:29:22,400
they didn't have to go out every
fall and plant wheat again,
1532
01:29:22,467 --> 01:29:24,435
the government would send them a check,
1533
01:29:24,502 --> 01:29:26,971
and year after year, this could go on,
1534
01:29:27,038 --> 01:29:29,540
and until better times emerged.
1535
01:29:29,607 --> 01:29:31,510
Nobody knew whether
1536
01:29:31,576 --> 01:29:35,112
any of this would really work
or how long it would take.
1537
01:29:35,178 --> 01:29:39,282
Might be 50 years,
might be 70 years; Nobody knew.
1538
01:29:39,349 --> 01:29:41,497
It's a time period in which
the federal government
1539
01:29:41,517 --> 01:29:45,689
entered agriculture as never
before, and it's never left.
1540
01:29:45,756 --> 01:29:49,192
Meanwhile, near Dalhart,
1541
01:29:49,259 --> 01:29:52,293
dunes that had once towered 36 feet
1542
01:29:52,361 --> 01:29:55,430
above one of Howard
Finnell's employee's cars
1543
01:29:55,498 --> 01:30:01,036
had been tamed in 18 months of
painstaking restoration work.
1544
01:30:01,102 --> 01:30:05,674
The contrast between contoured
fields that captured the rain
1545
01:30:05,740 --> 01:30:09,544
and those farmed the
old way was striking.
1546
01:30:09,610 --> 01:30:11,779
With such tangible results,
1547
01:30:11,845 --> 01:30:15,948
more and more farmers decided
to take Finnell's advice.
1548
01:30:16,016 --> 01:30:20,254
By the end of 1937, despite
the persistent dust storms,
1549
01:30:20,320 --> 01:30:22,989
the amount of dangerously eroded land
1550
01:30:23,056 --> 01:30:26,259
had been reduced by more than half.
1551
01:30:30,830 --> 01:30:34,600
In 1938, the rainfall edged upward...
1552
01:30:34,667 --> 01:30:37,402
More than 18 inches in Boise City...
1553
01:30:37,469 --> 01:30:41,139
And although the number of dust
storms receded only slightly,
1554
01:30:41,206 --> 01:30:43,307
some farmers in no man's land
1555
01:30:43,374 --> 01:30:47,143
brought in a wheat crop
of 10 bushels per acre...
1556
01:30:47,211 --> 01:30:49,647
Nothing close to a bumper crop,
1557
01:30:49,715 --> 01:30:53,984
but almost bountiful
compared to previous years.
1558
01:30:54,050 --> 01:30:59,389
The drought seemed to be losing its grip.
1559
01:30:59,456 --> 01:31:02,725
When the worst was arguably over,
1560
01:31:02,791 --> 01:31:05,661
when they had seen the
backhand of nature,
1561
01:31:05,728 --> 01:31:10,966
when they'd seen more venom
and anger and outright evil,
1562
01:31:11,033 --> 01:31:13,469
as they called it,
that the sky thrown at them,
1563
01:31:13,535 --> 01:31:15,436
that any human beings could ever take,
1564
01:31:15,503 --> 01:31:17,138
and they thought it was over,
1565
01:31:17,205 --> 01:31:19,307
came one more almost biblical plague.
1566
01:31:21,075 --> 01:31:23,378
Grasshoppers mostly were awlicr,
1567
01:31:23,445 --> 01:31:27,315
but, you know, you scare them,
they'd jump and fly.
1568
01:31:27,381 --> 01:31:29,784
But most of them were just crawling,
1569
01:31:29,850 --> 01:31:32,687
just like a whole sea of them.
1570
01:31:32,753 --> 01:31:36,255
They ate everything in sight.
1571
01:31:37,923 --> 01:31:41,360
It it almost looked like
the ground was moving,
1572
01:31:41,428 --> 01:31:43,330
and they would get that big,
1573
01:31:43,396 --> 01:31:46,565
and they would eat on
the bark of the trees,
1574
01:31:46,632 --> 01:31:48,299
and they ate everything
1575
01:31:48,367 --> 01:31:51,436
that they could come in contact with.
1576
01:31:51,503 --> 01:31:53,238
And they kept on going.
1577
01:31:53,304 --> 01:31:57,276
From here, they left on,
and what I understand,
1578
01:31:57,343 --> 01:32:01,212
somewheres in Oklahoma, they grew wings,
1579
01:32:01,279 --> 01:32:03,515
and they all took flight,
1580
01:32:03,581 --> 01:32:05,749
and they said they shaded the sun
1581
01:32:05,816 --> 01:32:09,419
because they were all together.
1582
01:32:09,486 --> 01:32:12,689
Farmers hooked up sleds to their tractors
1583
01:32:12,756 --> 01:32:15,025
and dragged them across the fields,
1584
01:32:15,092 --> 01:32:18,162
trapping grasshoppers
in vats of kerosene.
1585
01:32:18,228 --> 01:32:21,230
Some tried crushing them under rollers.
1586
01:32:21,297 --> 01:32:24,166
Several states called out
their national guards
1587
01:32:24,232 --> 01:32:26,836
to spread poison, mixed with sawdust
1588
01:32:26,903 --> 01:32:31,307
and molasses and banana oil,
along the roadsides.
1589
01:32:31,374 --> 01:32:35,710
How much more out of sync could nature be
1590
01:32:35,777 --> 01:32:37,511
when they're now pouring strychnine
1591
01:32:37,579 --> 01:32:39,548
on what had been the greatest grassland
1592
01:32:39,614 --> 01:32:42,783
to kill grasshoppers who
are chewing on fence posts
1593
01:32:42,850 --> 01:32:45,451
because there's nothing
else left to live?
1594
01:32:45,518 --> 01:32:48,290
That itself, by the time
they were pouring poison
1595
01:32:48,355 --> 01:32:50,690
on the land that had been killed by them,
1596
01:32:50,757 --> 01:32:52,710
I think they had gone
so far down the road
1597
01:32:52,760 --> 01:32:55,061
in altering this great grassland
1598
01:32:55,128 --> 01:32:57,764
that it was almost beyond repair.
1599
01:33:02,602 --> 01:33:05,637
All the democrats were excited.
1600
01:33:05,704 --> 01:33:09,241
There were people in Amarillo
who did not like Roosevelt,
1601
01:33:09,308 --> 01:33:13,878
and they were usually the wealthy people.
1602
01:33:13,945 --> 01:33:17,915
I know one of them was...
One of the rich men I heard say,
1603
01:33:17,982 --> 01:33:24,187
"this socialistic regime is not American.
1604
01:33:24,255 --> 01:33:26,757
It's anti-American."
1605
01:33:26,824 --> 01:33:29,559
Those of us who were, you know, poor
1606
01:33:29,593 --> 01:33:33,929
appreciated e thograms
th rsevelt started.
1607
01:33:33,996 --> 01:33:36,733
On July 11, 1938,
1608
01:33:36,799 --> 01:33:40,336
a train bearing the president
of the United States
1609
01:33:40,402 --> 01:33:43,272
pulled into the station
at Amarillo, Texas,
1610
01:33:43,339 --> 01:33:46,774
the largest city in the dust bowl.
1611
01:33:46,841 --> 01:33:48,710
In honor of the president's visit,
1612
01:33:48,776 --> 01:33:52,180
organizers had assembled
what they claimed to be
1613
01:33:52,247 --> 01:33:56,718
the world's largest marching
band: 3,000 people...
1614
01:33:56,784 --> 01:34:00,787
Anyone, they said,
between the ages of 9 and 90
1615
01:34:00,855 --> 01:34:05,157
who could play "the eyes of
Texas" on any instrument.
1616
01:34:05,225 --> 01:34:08,861
An estimated crowd of 200,000...
1617
01:34:08,928 --> 01:34:11,998
4 times the population
of the city itself...
1618
01:34:12,064 --> 01:34:15,234
Turned out, lining the 3-mile route
1619
01:34:15,301 --> 01:34:18,970
of Roosevelt's motorcade to Ellwood park.
1620
01:34:21,306 --> 01:34:23,909
"People who are ignorant
and people who think
1621
01:34:23,975 --> 01:34:27,612
only in terms of the moment,"
the president said,
1622
01:34:27,679 --> 01:34:29,815
"scoff at our efforts and say,
1623
01:34:29,881 --> 01:34:33,051
"oh, let the next generation
take care of itself.
1624
01:34:33,118 --> 01:34:35,620
"If people out in the dry
parts of the country
1625
01:34:35,686 --> 01:34:39,188
cannot live there,
let them move out."
1626
01:34:39,255 --> 01:34:41,959
And then the most amazing thing happens.
1627
01:34:42,025 --> 01:34:44,561
Remember, the drought has
been going on for 8 years.
1628
01:34:44,628 --> 01:34:46,397
It starts to rain.
1629
01:34:46,463 --> 01:34:47,744
These clouds come out of nowhere.
1630
01:34:47,764 --> 01:34:50,566
It's a July day.
It's peak hot season.
1631
01:34:50,633 --> 01:34:52,201
Clouds bunch, and it rains.
1632
01:34:52,268 --> 01:34:55,404
And it's an old-fashioned gully-washer.
1633
01:34:55,470 --> 01:34:58,573
And the rain comes off of
Roosevelt, and he continues.
1634
01:34:58,640 --> 01:35:00,676
He's got his clamped knees up there,
1635
01:35:00,743 --> 01:35:02,477
and he continues to give his speech.
1636
01:35:02,544 --> 01:35:05,079
"I'm never gonna desert you."
1637
01:35:05,147 --> 01:35:08,683
"I think this little shower we have had,"
1638
01:35:08,749 --> 01:35:12,720
the president beamed,
"is a mighty good omen."
1639
01:35:12,787 --> 01:35:15,055
And we had been wishing for rain,
1640
01:35:15,121 --> 01:35:18,992
praying for rain, and it
rained the day he came.
1641
01:35:19,060 --> 01:35:23,464
It rained. So he took
credit for that.
1642
01:35:29,335 --> 01:35:33,973
A snowstorm in
early 1939 brought more hope,
1643
01:35:34,039 --> 01:35:36,642
which grew when the
soil conservation service
1644
01:35:36,710 --> 01:35:39,711
announced that, thanks to
better farming practices,
1645
01:35:39,777 --> 01:35:43,915
the soil was in its best
condition in 7 years.
1646
01:35:43,982 --> 01:35:45,750
By the end of the year,
1647
01:35:45,817 --> 01:35:51,456
the dust bowl had shrunk
to 1/5 its previous size.
1648
01:35:51,522 --> 01:35:53,524
I don't know how many weeks
1649
01:35:53,590 --> 01:35:56,159
we'd get a little rain and a little rain.
1650
01:35:56,227 --> 01:36:01,697
The thing I remember,
that when it first started,
1651
01:36:01,764 --> 01:36:04,400
the sunflowers started growing.
1652
01:36:04,468 --> 01:36:09,772
They were in our pasture
that was close to the house.
1653
01:36:09,839 --> 01:36:12,441
When we went to get our milk cows in,
1654
01:36:12,508 --> 01:36:14,309
which we did on horseback...
1655
01:36:14,376 --> 01:36:17,479
You had to hunt them
because you couldn't see them...
1656
01:36:17,545 --> 01:36:22,684
And the sunflowers would
be up above our head.
1657
01:36:22,752 --> 01:36:24,687
In Follett, Texas,
1658
01:36:24,753 --> 01:36:28,155
Trixie Travis Brown's father
had been trying for years
1659
01:36:28,222 --> 01:36:33,727
to persuade his wife to pull up
stakes and move to Idaho.
1660
01:36:33,794 --> 01:36:36,896
My mother was very reluctant
1661
01:36:36,963 --> 01:36:40,267
because all of her family...
You know, we had,
1662
01:36:40,333 --> 01:36:46,472
probably 50 people of the 437 in Follett
1663
01:36:46,539 --> 01:36:48,473
were all relatives.
1664
01:36:48,540 --> 01:36:53,478
She just was not willing to say yes.
1665
01:36:53,545 --> 01:36:59,151
My father, he even had the
land picked out in Idaho.
1666
01:36:59,217 --> 01:37:01,620
He had the map out.
1667
01:37:01,685 --> 01:37:04,688
And mother just kept holding out.
1668
01:37:06,657 --> 01:37:10,960
Then, slowly, things began improving.
1669
01:37:13,464 --> 01:37:17,768
We began to go out on a regular basis.
1670
01:37:17,834 --> 01:37:22,038
Mother and dad liked
to take drives anyway.
1671
01:37:22,105 --> 01:37:26,141
Mother got so worn out with
all the kids in the house
1672
01:37:26,208 --> 01:37:28,910
that she would say,
"George, let's take a drive
1673
01:37:28,977 --> 01:37:31,647
out to look at the wheat."
1674
01:37:31,713 --> 01:37:34,116
We would go out and stand
1675
01:37:34,183 --> 01:37:39,121
and see how high it was to us children.
1676
01:37:39,187 --> 01:37:41,455
We'd stand there,
1677
01:37:41,521 --> 01:37:45,292
and they'd sort of measure
the height of the wheat.
1678
01:37:45,359 --> 01:37:49,764
And then when it began to really develop,
1679
01:37:49,831 --> 01:37:54,968
it was obvious it was going to
be a really good wheat crop.
1680
01:37:55,035 --> 01:37:57,770
And it was.
1681
01:37:57,837 --> 01:38:00,272
The map went into a drawer,
1682
01:38:00,339 --> 01:38:07,780
and the trip to Idaho was cancelled.
1683
01:38:07,847 --> 01:38:11,483
No one will ever know
1684
01:38:11,549 --> 01:38:14,018
what it meant to you to have it rain.
1685
01:38:14,085 --> 01:38:17,655
Even to this day,
we had rain the other day,
1686
01:38:17,722 --> 01:38:21,726
and I thought when it was
raining how nice this was,
1687
01:38:21,793 --> 01:38:24,862
what a good rain.
1688
01:38:24,928 --> 01:38:28,831
And that's what we what we
prayed, what we yearned for
1689
01:38:28,899 --> 01:38:33,337
was the rain that came that
would soak into the ground
1690
01:38:33,402 --> 01:38:38,308
and let us raise a crop
and eventually stop the dust.
1691
01:38:53,054 --> 01:38:56,658
Well, when it did start raining,
1692
01:38:56,725 --> 01:38:59,294
it was just such a blessing.
1693
01:38:59,360 --> 01:39:02,897
We'd go out in the rain
and hold our hands up
1694
01:39:02,963 --> 01:39:05,566
and let that hit our hands and our face
1695
01:39:05,633 --> 01:39:08,201
and just almost worshipped that rain
1696
01:39:08,268 --> 01:39:11,405
because we knew then that
we was gonna have some crops.
1697
01:39:11,471 --> 01:39:15,074
It just seemed happier
everywhere you went...
1698
01:39:15,141 --> 01:39:18,311
Everybody, not just my folks.
1699
01:39:18,378 --> 01:39:21,214
When we'd go to the
neighbors either side,
1700
01:39:21,280 --> 01:39:23,882
the thrashers or the freemans,
1701
01:39:23,949 --> 01:39:30,122
we always felt like
things are getting better.
1702
01:39:30,189 --> 01:39:32,390
I remember the first year
1703
01:39:32,456 --> 01:39:37,828
that we probably had a good crop
after the dirty thirties,
1704
01:39:37,895 --> 01:39:40,330
we got stuck in the field
1705
01:39:40,397 --> 01:39:42,733
and daddy didn't even gripe about it,
1706
01:39:42,800 --> 01:39:45,903
he was so glad that we were having rain.
1707
01:39:45,970 --> 01:39:49,139
At his farm in the Oklahoma Panhandle,
1708
01:39:49,206 --> 01:39:52,608
Dorothy Kleffman's father
decided it was now safe
1709
01:39:52,675 --> 01:39:56,912
to bring his wife and
children back from Arkansas.
1710
01:39:56,979 --> 01:39:58,447
They have a saying here
1711
01:39:58,514 --> 01:40:01,350
that if you wear out a pair
of boots here in the Panhandle,
1712
01:40:01,417 --> 01:40:05,186
you'll come back,
and when we did come back,
1713
01:40:05,253 --> 01:40:07,755
the land had been recovered.
1714
01:40:07,822 --> 01:40:11,059
They had learned how to terrace the land.
1715
01:40:11,125 --> 01:40:15,529
And I remember my dad had a wheat crop,
1716
01:40:15,596 --> 01:40:19,633
I think in 1940, that was
a good wheat crop.
1717
01:40:19,700 --> 01:40:22,703
And we thought, we're back.
1718
01:40:22,769 --> 01:40:25,172
We survived.
1719
01:40:34,614 --> 01:40:39,018
December 13, 1944.
1720
01:40:39,085 --> 01:40:42,520
We had for once a super-abundance of rain
1721
01:40:42,588 --> 01:40:45,223
and already 3 snows.
1722
01:40:45,290 --> 01:40:47,726
Wheat was a fair crop.
1723
01:40:47,826 --> 01:40:51,328
We saved mosoft t between rains.
1724
01:40:51,396 --> 01:40:55,065
We have ample pasturage
with the increased rainfall,
1725
01:40:55,132 --> 01:40:58,502
and cattle have done reasonably well.
1726
01:40:58,569 --> 01:41:00,504
And we had a nice garden,
1727
01:41:00,570 --> 01:41:04,674
thwiost of our winter's
living stored away.
1728
01:41:04,741 --> 01:41:07,577
Just as it had 30 years earlier,
1729
01:41:07,644 --> 01:41:09,680
a war in Europe and the return
1730
01:41:09,747 --> 01:41:11,981
of a relatively wet weather cycle
1731
01:41:12,048 --> 01:41:15,817
brought prosperity
to the southern plains.
1732
01:41:15,884 --> 01:41:20,422
Wheat prices skyrocketed,
and harvests were bountiful.
1733
01:41:21,956 --> 01:41:24,826
May 1945.
1734
01:41:24,893 --> 01:41:27,094
We have at last assembled
1735
01:41:27,161 --> 01:41:30,598
most of the materials for
piping water into the house,
1736
01:41:30,665 --> 01:41:32,667
with a sink in the kitchen
1737
01:41:32,733 --> 01:41:36,036
and indoor toilet in the bathroom.
1738
01:41:36,102 --> 01:41:38,973
But we need a Superman to do the work.
1739
01:41:39,040 --> 01:41:41,876
We have both worn down fast
1740
01:41:41,942 --> 01:41:48,013
during the years of extreme
desolation since 1931.
1741
01:41:48,080 --> 01:41:52,017
Every small accomplishment
now seems to demand
1742
01:41:52,084 --> 01:41:55,087
a greater output of energy and resolution
1743
01:41:55,154 --> 01:41:59,291
than in the years that are gone.
1744
01:41:59,358 --> 01:42:01,759
Caroline Henderson was grateful
1745
01:42:01,826 --> 01:42:04,329
for better weather and higher prices,
1746
01:42:04,395 --> 01:42:08,333
but she and her husband will
were now nearing 70.
1747
01:42:08,399 --> 01:42:11,802
She suffered from asthma,
he had a heart condition,
1748
01:42:11,868 --> 01:42:13,870
and neither of them could forget
1749
01:42:13,937 --> 01:42:18,008
the stern teachings of the dust bowl.
1750
01:42:18,075 --> 01:42:20,610
It is good to remember
1751
01:42:20,677 --> 01:42:24,647
that the laws of the universe
recognize no favorites
1752
01:42:24,715 --> 01:42:30,920
and cherish no hostility
or small vindictiveness;
1753
01:42:30,986 --> 01:42:35,057
that before sun and rain, stormy winds,
1754
01:42:35,124 --> 01:42:37,826
or summer's kind beneficence,
1755
01:42:37,892 --> 01:42:41,628
we all stand upon one common level.
1756
01:42:44,899 --> 01:42:48,569
In the first 5 years of the 1940s,
1757
01:42:48,635 --> 01:42:53,774
land devoted to wheat expanded
by nearly 3 million acres.
1758
01:42:53,841 --> 01:42:57,544
The speculators and
suitcase farmers returned.
1759
01:42:57,611 --> 01:43:02,216
Parcels that had sold for $5.00
an acre during the dust bowl
1760
01:43:02,282 --> 01:43:08,754
now commanded prices of 50, 60,
sometimes 100 dollars an acre.
1761
01:43:08,820 --> 01:43:11,556
Even some of the most marginal lands
1762
01:43:11,623 --> 01:43:14,059
were put back into production.
1763
01:43:14,126 --> 01:43:16,661
"The same process,"
Howard Finnell warned,
1764
01:43:16,727 --> 01:43:20,599
"is starting again
in the very same place."
1765
01:43:20,665 --> 01:43:23,368
"I always said I was the only one
1766
01:43:23,435 --> 01:43:25,569
who could remember those dreadful days,"
1767
01:43:25,636 --> 01:43:28,773
Caroline confided to a friend, adding,
1768
01:43:28,838 --> 01:43:33,576
"people have simply assumed
it couldn't happen again."
1769
01:43:35,078 --> 01:43:38,148
Then, in the early 1950s,
1770
01:43:38,214 --> 01:43:42,619
when the wet cycle ended and
a two-year drought replaced it,
1771
01:43:42,685 --> 01:43:45,788
the dust storms picked up once more.
1772
01:43:47,922 --> 01:43:52,561
But the damage to the land was mitigated
1773
01:43:52,628 --> 01:43:55,496
by those farmers who had continued using
1774
01:43:55,564 --> 01:43:59,233
Howard Finnell's conservation practices,
1775
01:43:59,300 --> 01:44:03,237
and because nearly 4 million
acres had been purchased
1776
01:44:03,304 --> 01:44:05,539
by the government during the dust bowl
1777
01:44:05,605 --> 01:44:09,242
and permanently restored
as national grasslands,
1778
01:44:09,309 --> 01:44:11,979
the soil didn't blow as much.
1779
01:44:12,046 --> 01:44:16,282
At least a few lessons had been learned.
1780
01:44:16,349 --> 01:44:18,651
We want it now,
1781
01:44:18,717 --> 01:44:23,989
and if it if it makes money
now, it's a good idea.
1782
01:44:24,056 --> 01:44:27,393
But it isn't necessarily
it's a good idea.
1783
01:44:27,460 --> 01:44:32,931
If the things we're doing are
going to mess up the future,
1784
01:44:32,997 --> 01:44:35,467
it wasn't a good idea.
1785
01:44:35,533 --> 01:44:39,036
Don't deal on the moment.
1786
01:44:39,103 --> 01:44:42,373
Take the long-term look at things.
1787
01:44:45,242 --> 01:44:50,180
I think that the most
basic lesson was, be humble.
1788
01:44:50,246 --> 01:44:52,248
Respect the land itself.
1789
01:44:52,316 --> 01:44:54,218
Listen to what it's trying to tell you.
1790
01:44:54,283 --> 01:44:58,822
If the wind blows 60, 70 miles
an hour for 50% of the year,
1791
01:44:58,888 --> 01:45:01,858
there's a reason why only
one thing is growing there,
1792
01:45:01,924 --> 01:45:03,392
and it's native grass.
1793
01:45:03,459 --> 01:45:06,142
Don't try to put things in place
there that don't belong there.
1794
01:45:06,162 --> 01:45:07,729
Listen to the land itself.
1795
01:45:07,796 --> 01:45:12,501
But now, instead of
looking to the skies for rain,
1796
01:45:12,567 --> 01:45:15,871
many farmers began
looking beneath the soil,
1797
01:45:15,937 --> 01:45:19,574
where they believed a more
reliable... and irresistible...
1798
01:45:19,640 --> 01:45:22,810
Supply of water could be found...
1799
01:45:22,877 --> 01:45:27,014
The vast ogallala aquifer,
an underground reservoir
1800
01:45:27,081 --> 01:45:30,149
stretching from Nebraska to north Texas,
1801
01:45:30,216 --> 01:45:33,586
filled with water that had
seeped down for centuries
1802
01:45:33,653 --> 01:45:36,689
after the last ice age.
1803
01:45:36,756 --> 01:45:40,726
With new technology, farmers
could pump the ancient water up,
1804
01:45:40,792 --> 01:45:43,829
irrigate their land,
and grow other crops,
1805
01:45:43,895 --> 01:45:46,831
like feed corn for cattle and pigs,
1806
01:45:46,898 --> 01:45:51,603
which require even more
moisture than wheat.
1807
01:45:52,871 --> 01:45:54,705
The only thing
1808
01:45:54,773 --> 01:45:56,420
that's holding that ground together
1809
01:45:56,440 --> 01:45:59,377
is that irrigation water
that comes out of the ogallala.
1810
01:45:59,443 --> 01:46:04,581
The ogallala is about
100 feet deep on the average.
1811
01:46:04,647 --> 01:46:08,653
We've used over 50 feet of it now.
1812
01:46:08,718 --> 01:46:11,154
We've got about 20 years of water left
1813
01:46:11,221 --> 01:46:15,224
under these 8 states or the
portions of these 8 states,
1814
01:46:15,291 --> 01:46:16,725
and it's disappearing.
1815
01:46:16,791 --> 01:46:19,694
It's gonna be gone in 20 years.
1816
01:46:19,761 --> 01:46:24,099
If you lose the water,
you're gonna lose the land.
1817
01:46:24,166 --> 01:46:27,036
And that's it in a nutshell.
1818
01:46:27,102 --> 01:46:31,639
My folks put in one
of the first irrigation wells,
1819
01:46:31,706 --> 01:46:34,308
and we thought it was a great idea.
1820
01:46:34,374 --> 01:46:40,415
As I look back at it now, it was
the beginning of a bad idea.
1821
01:46:40,480 --> 01:46:45,651
Having irrigation water
permitted us to do some things
1822
01:46:45,718 --> 01:46:50,122
that weren't good for the long term.
1823
01:46:50,189 --> 01:46:54,727
And some of these days...
I'll be gone,
1824
01:46:54,794 --> 01:46:58,497
but somebody is gonna be out of water.
1825
01:46:58,564 --> 01:47:02,767
Folks are gonna have trouble
getting enough drinking water,
1826
01:47:02,834 --> 01:47:05,103
and they'll look back and say,
1827
01:47:05,170 --> 01:47:09,740
"and to think back there
in the fifties and sixties,
1828
01:47:09,808 --> 01:47:14,279
they used up our drinking
water to raise hog feed."
1829
01:47:14,346 --> 01:47:17,281
I think the dust bowl can happen again...
1830
01:47:17,349 --> 01:47:19,617
Most emphatically can happen again.
1831
01:47:19,682 --> 01:47:21,952
It can become a creeping Sahara.
1832
01:47:22,018 --> 01:47:24,654
The Sahara desert, a few
thousand years ago,
1833
01:47:24,721 --> 01:47:26,489
was a Savannah.
1834
01:47:26,556 --> 01:47:28,992
We know that it's possible
1835
01:47:29,058 --> 01:47:33,528
to turn from Savannah to a stark desert,
1836
01:47:33,595 --> 01:47:36,531
and there's no reason to
think that it can't happen
1837
01:47:36,598 --> 01:47:38,533
in the middle of North America.
1838
01:47:41,902 --> 01:47:45,774
August 1, 1965.
1839
01:47:45,841 --> 01:47:48,443
Another hot and desolate day.
1840
01:47:48,510 --> 01:47:52,612
We are both quite weakened
by our struggles,
1841
01:47:52,680 --> 01:47:57,084
either with asthma or a desperate cough,
1842
01:47:57,151 --> 01:48:01,755
I believe largely the result
of working with the dusty wheat.
1843
01:48:01,820 --> 01:48:06,393
We had reason to hope for
a good rain for the feed crop,
1844
01:48:06,458 --> 01:48:09,361
just now in need of encouragement,
1845
01:48:09,428 --> 01:48:14,133
but the moisture was cut off
with only a light shower.
1846
01:48:16,168 --> 01:48:19,371
On her homestead in no man's land,
1847
01:48:19,438 --> 01:48:22,573
Caroline Henderson
carried on without resorting
1848
01:48:22,640 --> 01:48:26,511
to irrigation water from
the ogallala aquifer.
1849
01:48:26,577 --> 01:48:30,313
It had been nearly 60 years
since she first arrived,
1850
01:48:30,380 --> 01:48:33,216
full of dreams of farming her own land
1851
01:48:33,283 --> 01:48:36,220
and prospering from its bounty.
1852
01:48:36,287 --> 01:48:38,021
In those 60 years,
1853
01:48:38,089 --> 01:48:41,724
she and will had seen
only 10 bumper crops...
1854
01:48:41,791 --> 01:48:43,559
And oftentimes, she expressed
1855
01:48:43,626 --> 01:48:47,129
feelings of failure
to those she knew best.
1856
01:48:47,196 --> 01:48:49,432
As they approached the age of 80,
1857
01:48:49,498 --> 01:48:51,499
they were still using the farm equipment
1858
01:48:51,566 --> 01:48:54,537
they had purchased in the 1920s because
1859
01:48:54,603 --> 01:49:00,107
Caroline refused to borrow money
for land or machinery.
1860
01:49:00,175 --> 01:49:02,243
But they were free of debt,
1861
01:49:02,310 --> 01:49:04,945
their daughter had become
a successful doctor
1862
01:49:05,012 --> 01:49:09,084
and had given them a grandson
with a bright future.
1863
01:49:09,150 --> 01:49:13,053
In her old age, Caroline
steadfastly refused
1864
01:49:13,120 --> 01:49:16,757
to turn her land over to
a farm management company...
1865
01:49:16,823 --> 01:49:20,526
"Strangers of some far-away
money-gathering corporation,"
1866
01:49:20,593 --> 01:49:23,361
she called them,
"with no possible interest
1867
01:49:23,428 --> 01:49:27,166
in this small bit
of the good earth."
1868
01:49:27,232 --> 01:49:31,269
In 1965, with both of them in bad health,
1869
01:49:31,336 --> 01:49:34,039
she finally agreed to come to Arizona
1870
01:49:34,106 --> 01:49:36,942
to live with their daughter.
1871
01:49:37,008 --> 01:49:39,376
They returned to no man's land
1872
01:49:39,443 --> 01:49:42,581
the next spring for a final visit.
1873
01:49:42,647 --> 01:49:46,250
Will died 3 days later.
1874
01:49:46,317 --> 01:49:48,819
Caroline joined him...
1875
01:49:48,886 --> 01:49:52,188
Passing through what she
called "the western gate"...
1876
01:49:52,255 --> 01:49:54,257
Within a few months.
1877
01:49:54,323 --> 01:49:56,792
In accordance with her wishes,
1878
01:49:56,859 --> 01:49:59,796
the homestead was placed in trust,
1879
01:49:59,863 --> 01:50:05,101
on the condition that it
never be plowed again.
1880
01:50:05,168 --> 01:50:09,805
To prepare the ground as well as we may,
1881
01:50:09,872 --> 01:50:13,941
to sow our seeds,
to cultivate and care for...
1882
01:50:14,008 --> 01:50:16,878
That is our part.
1883
01:50:16,944 --> 01:50:21,015
Yet how difficult it is
for some of us to learn
1884
01:50:21,082 --> 01:50:23,518
that the results we must leave
1885
01:50:23,584 --> 01:50:28,588
to the great silent
unseen forces of nature,
1886
01:50:28,655 --> 01:50:34,361
whether the crop be corn or character.
1887
01:50:34,427 --> 01:50:36,963
Caroline Henderson.
1888
01:50:48,463 --> 01:50:52,240
♪ That old dust storm's
killed my baby, ♪
1889
01:50:52,241 --> 01:50:56,618
♪ But it can't kill me, Lord
And it can't kill me. ♪
1890
01:50:56,619 --> 01:51:00,461
♪ That old dust storm
killed my family, ♪
1891
01:51:00,462 --> 01:51:04,806
♪ But it can't kill me, Lord
And it can't kill me. ♪
1892
01:51:04,807 --> 01:51:08,650
♪ That old landlord got my homestead, ♪
1893
01:51:08,651 --> 01:51:12,794
♪ But he can't get me, Lord,
And he can't get me. ♪
1894
01:51:12,795 --> 01:51:16,738
♪ That old dry spell
killed my crop, boys, ♪
1895
01:51:16,739 --> 01:51:20,348
♪ But it can't kill me, Lord
And it can't kill me. ♪
1896
01:51:53,917 --> 01:51:57,567
♪ That old tractor got my home, boys,
1897
01:51:57,699 --> 01:52:01,249
♪ But it can't get me, Lord
And it can't get me.
1898
01:52:01,846 --> 01:52:05,496
♪ That old tractor run my house down,
1899
01:52:05,698 --> 01:52:09,348
♪ But it can't get me down,
And it can't get me.
1900
01:52:09,997 --> 01:52:13,768
♪ That old pawn shop got my furniture,
1901
01:52:13,871 --> 01:52:17,571
♪ But it can't get me, Lord,
And it can't get me.
1902
01:52:18,077 --> 01:52:22,277
♪ That old highway's got my relatives,
1903
01:52:22,442 --> 01:52:26,042
♪ But it can't get me, Lord,
And it can't get me.
1904
01:52:26,754 --> 01:52:30,504
♪ That old dust might
kill my wheat, boys,
1905
01:52:30,549 --> 01:52:34,099
♪ But it can't kill me, Lord
And it can't kill me.
1906
01:52:35,081 --> 01:52:38,731
♪ I have weathered a-many a dust storm,
1907
01:52:39,051 --> 01:52:43,039
♪ But it can't get me, boys,
And it can't kill me.
1908
01:52:50,153 --> 01:52:53,896
♪ That old dust storm, well,
it blowed my barn down, ♪
1909
01:52:54,096 --> 01:52:58,340
♪ But it can't blow me down,
And it can't blow me down. ♪
1910
01:52:58,440 --> 01:53:02,085
♪ That old wind might
blow this world down, ♪
1911
01:53:02,185 --> 01:53:05,829
♪ But it can't blow me down,
It can't kill me. ♪
1912
01:53:06,529 --> 01:53:10,172
♪ That old dust storm's
killed my baby, ♪
1913
01:53:10,372 --> 01:53:15,722
♪ But it can't kill me, Lord
And it can't kill me. ♪
153955
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