Rich Poor Books

“Politicians continued their mantra, saying that Americans were much too smart to be fooled! As a nation we believed this nonsense. However, as a people, we had no idea what was happening and, even worse, we didn’t know to what extent the depression would affect us. The major problem was that the wealth of the nation was spread unevenly, with the rich getting richer and the poor being abused. A vast difference developed between the country’s productive capacity and the ability of the people to purchase manufactured products. In other words, the consumer base had been eroded to the point where Americans could no longer afford to buy the necessities of life, thus ending the need to manufacture things. As factories closed and people were laid off, the downhill spiral became complete. Everybody was left wondering what had happened to the country that had promised them an opportunity to have a better life than their parents had had. The 1930’s became the most difficult years that the United States had ever had to face economically, and the people we had entrusted with political power and our welfare, caved in to special interest groups.
Rudy Vallée typified the era as he sang songs such as Brother, Can You Spare a Dime and Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries, through his handheld megaphone. The dances of the day were the Charleston and the Peabody and, if you believed the film industry, everyone was doing them. Hollywood provided a fleeting escape from reality. That is, if you could afford the price of admission to the theaters that had just opened in almost every hamlet in the country.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater One"