American Progress

by Veda Boyd Jones

  Suddenly Dot jumped up and started marching around Anna’s living room, singing, “There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding,” just as Eleanor Roosevelt had done.

  Anna jumped up and followed her, then Steven and Isabel and Frank. Even little Audrey tried to toddle behind them.

  Anna’s parents laughed as they watched the parade. Then Mother jumped up and followed along, singing at the top of her lungs and clapping her hands in time to the music. Finally they all collapsed in the middle of the living room floor.

  “I think Mrs. Roosevelt must be awfully nice,” Anna said. “I saw a picture of her in the newspaper one day. She was helping in a soup kitchen.”

  “She does seem very nice,” Mother agreed.

  When I grow up, I want to be like Mrs. Roosevelt, Anna thought, nice and helpful like she is.

  There was an advertisement on the radio for a movie, a comedy with the Marx Brothers. “Oh, that sounds funny, doesn’t it?” Anna asked.

  “I haven’t seen a movie in years,” Dot said, with a faraway look in her eyes.

  Anna felt uneasy for a minute. Even though she and Dot were good friends, she forgot sometimes how truly poor Dot’s family was.

  “Oh!” Anna sat up straight. “I just had a marvelous idea!”

  “What?” Dot’s face was alight with curiosity.

  “Let’s put on a play. We can invite all the neighbors. No one would have to pay anything.”

  Anna didn’t think Dot looked too excited about her idea.

  “Do you know any plays?” Dot asked.

  Anna squirmed. “Well, no, but we can think of something. Maybe we can write one.”

  Dot laughed. “Sure. Like the book we were going to write about the girl detectives in Minneapolis.”

  “I know! Let’s do the Nancy Drew book! All the kids like Nancy Drew stories. At least, all the girls do,” Anna amended, “and the boys will if they see the play.”

  Dot’s face lit up again. “That’s a great idea.”

  “Do I get to be in your play?” Mother asked.

  Anna shook her head. “Sorry. There isn’t a mother in the play.”

  “But Nancy has a housekeeper,” Dot reminded Anna. “Your mother could play her.” She looked at Mrs. Harrington. “That is, if you don’t mind playing a housekeeper.”

  Anna’s mother smiled. “I don’t mind. There’s nothing wrong with being a housekeeper. Any work that’s necessary and legal is honorable.”

  Anna thought her mother looked as excited to be in the play as Dot did.

  Anna and Dot talked Fred, Steven, and Isabel into being in the play. They also asked some of their friends from school to help. They practiced whenever they could after school and on weekends.

  One day Anna handed the Nancy Drew book to Dot. “We’ve almost worn this book out!”

  Dot grinned. “I guess it would be easier if we had more than one copy, but that would cost money.”

  “Well, I think we’re doing okay with one book.”

  While the children were busy preparing their neighborhood play, FDR and Congress were busy trying to help the country. They passed the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which provided necessities like food for unemployed people and their families. Congress finally passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, too. “That’s the bill to help farmers,” Father told Anna. “The one FDR suggested a couple weeks after he became president.”

  “Why did it take so long for Congress to pass it?” Anna asked. “Farmers need help, don’t they?”

  “They sure do! Congress didn’t like everything FDR wanted in the bill, so the senators and representatives from all forty-eight states had to talk it over for a while before passing it.”

  “Oh.”

  The news reporter talked about the farm bill that night. “It’s called the Agricultural Adjustment Act, folks, or AAA. Since FDR took office, bills have been flying through Congress. We’ve had the Emergency Conservation Work Act—that’s the ECW; the Civilian Conservation Corps—that’s the CCC; the National Industrial Relief Act—that’s the NIRA; the Federal Emergency Relief Act—that’s the FERA; and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, or AAA. Yes, sir, folks, it looks like FDR’s doing real well with his alphabet soup programs.”

  Anna frowned. “What are the alphabet soup programs?”

  “Programs that are known by their initials,” Mother answered. “Every program that passes becomes known by its initials. There are so many programs known by their initials that it’s like alphabet soup.”

  Anna and Steven laughed.

  The children were still working hard on their play. Anna’s father and mother helped them turn their garage, porch, and backyard into a set for the play. They left one area for the audience.

  “At least we don’t need costumes,” Anna told Dot and Fred. “We can wear our own clothes.”

  “Except for the guys’ hats,” Fred reminded her. “I’m borrowing one of Father’s hats.”

  They had even recruited Fred’s older brothers, Harry and Larry, to play bad guys in the play. Addy was playing one of the women who had been robbed.

  When the children weren’t doing their chores or their homework or practicing the play or helping with the set, they were making posters and putting them up around the neighborhood.

  The yard was filled with neighbors the night of the play. Dot’s mother had made cookies. She sold them for a penny each before the play and during intermission.

  The play was a smashing success. “You should charge people to see this,” many of the neighbors told them afterward.

  Anna was just glad everything went well and everyone enjoyed the play.

  The next day was Sunday, and Fred’s family was spending it at Anna’s home. Anna and Fred looked through the Minneapolis Tribune together. At first, Anna didn’t pay much attention to the pages in front of them. Her mind was filled with wonderful memories of the play the night before.

  “Wow! Look at that!” Fred’s voice jolted Anna out of her memories.

  She looked at the picture he pointed to. There was a farmer in a cotton field. Anna couldn’t really tell what he was doing, so she read the headline beneath the picture. “Cotton farmers destroy their crops to earn AAA money.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “How can they get paid for destroying their crops?”

  “That’s not the worst.” Anger threaded through Fred’s voice. “Read the rest of the article.”

  Anna read as fast as she could. “Why, farmers are killing their hogs! Six million baby pigs! And they aren’t to sell the meat.” The very thought of it made her sick to her stomach. “Why would the government pay them to do that? There must be a mistake!”

  CHAPTER 20

  Blue Eagles

  It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Father said when Anna and Fred showed him the article.

  “But it says the farmers are getting paid for destroying their crops and animals,” Fred told him. “Why would they get paid for crops and animals they don’t send to market? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “If the farmers try to sell those crops and hogs on the market, the price they are paid will go down. The price for hogs is only two or three cents a pound. It can’t go down much further than that, can it?”

  “Why not?” Anna asked.

  “Remember when you and Dot made bread?” Father asked.

  Anna nodded.

  “Remember counting how much money you made selling the bread and comparing it to how much it cost you to make the bread?”

  Anna nodded again.

  “If it had cost you more to make it than to sell it, what would you have done?”

  Anna only had to think about that for a minute. “We would have asked people for more money when we sold the bread, or else we would have just stopped making the bread and selling it.”

  “Right,” Father said. “What if you asked people to pay more money for it, but they wouldn’t?”

  “I guess we would have sold the bread we’d already made for as
much as people would pay. Then we’d stop making bread.”

  “Why?” Father asked.

  Anna shook her head. “That’s a silly question. We wouldn’t be making any money.”

  “Exactly right. And that’s why farmers are getting rid of their crops and hogs. They can’t make any money raising and selling them.”

  “Chet says that’s already happening,” Fred said.

  Father nodded. “Yes, in many cases, it is. There’s already enough cotton in storage from past years that the world doesn’t need any cotton at all grown this year.”

  Fred grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “This trick of getting money for not raising things sounds pretty easy. Think if I write and tell FDR I’m not raising hogs or cotton, either, that he’ll send me some money?”

  Anna laughed.

  Father chuckled and shook his head.

  Fred held out his hands and shrugged. “Well, I thought it was worth a try.”

  Anna and her mother were walking along the sidewalk, almost to the grocery store. Anna chattered away to her mother about plans to put on the Nancy Drew play for a penny a family at the local YMCA. She didn’t bother paying attention to the places they were passing. She’d walked this way many times before.

  When they reached the store, Anna started to turn in at the door. Suddenly she noticed Mother wasn’t coming to the door. Mother was looking in the windows.

  Anna looked in the windows, too. There wasn’t anything exciting to see—only some groceries and other household things, which were for sale inside. “What are you looking at?” she asked Mother.

  “I’m not looking at anything. I’m looking for the Blue Eagle.”

  Anna drew her eyebrows together, puzzled. “What Blue Eagle?”

  “The picture of the Blue Eagle that shows the store owner supports FDR’s new National Recovery Act, the NRA. It shows the owner supports the president’s campaign to get the country back to work.”

  “I thought everyone wanted more jobs for people,” Anna said.

  “Everyone does,” Mother agreed, “but not everyone agrees with the way the president is trying to go about it. You see, the NRA limits the number of hours an employer can ask an employee to work. It also says employers have to pay at least a certain amount of money to their employees. That’s called a minimum wage. The owners of stores with Blue Eagles have signed an agreement saying they will follow that law.”

  “Oh.” To Anna, it all seemed a lot to be thinking about when all they wanted was a few groceries.

  “There’s another grocery store two blocks from here,” Mother said. “Let’s see if they have a Blue Eagle.”

  Anna groaned, but Mother had already started out.

  As the days passed, Anna saw Blue Eagles everywhere. Even the grocer who hadn’t had one in his window that first day finally put one up.

  “Doesn’t pay not to sign the agreement and put up the Blue Eagle,” Father told her. “Stores that don’t have a Blue Eagle lose business.”

  “Like when Mother and I went to the other grocery store,” she said.

  “That’s right. The mill is even putting Blue Eagles on its flour bags. And Uncle Richard is displaying one at his office.”

  One evening Dot stopped at Anna’s house. She’d been selling bread, but by the time she reached Anna’s, she’d sold it all. The only things left in her large basket were the towels she used beneath and over the bread when she carried it from house to house.

  Mother picked up the basket Dot had set on the kitchen table and studied it. “What a wonderful basket!”

  “Thank you,” Dot said. “I made it.”

  “You made it?” Mother asked.

  Dot nodded.

  Anna stared at her in surprise. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “One of my neighbors taught me. It was easy. I made it from twigs and branches. Everyone seems to like it. A lot of the people I sell bread to have said they like it.”

  “Would you make one for me?” Mother asked. “I’ll be glad to pay you for it, of course.”

  Dot’s face brightened. “Sure!”

  “Have you sold them to anyone else?” Anna asked.

  Dot shook her head. “No.”

  “I bet if you made some more, other people would buy them,” Anna suggested.

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Yes,” Anna said. “They’re pretty.”

  “I think you’ll be able to sell them, too,” Mother told her.

  “Maybe I’ll try,” Dot said.

  Anna grinned at her. “And you told me you didn’t know how to make anything you could sell.”

  Dot grinned back. “Well, I just learned how to make these a couple weeks ago.” Anna’s statement must have reminded her of Chet’s carved birds because she asked, “Has Fred heard anything from Chet since he went to the CCC camp?”

  “Only a short thank-you note he wrote to Fred and Uncle Richard. He didn’t say much about the camp or what he’s doing there, only that he and the other boys are kept very busy.”

  Dot was at Anna’s house the next night during the president’s next fireside chat. The girls listened closely. President Roosevelt said that during that year, more than one thousand people a day were losing their homes because they couldn’t pay the mortgages.

  “People like us,” Dot whispered to Anna.

  The president said he wanted people to save their homes so he had asked Congress to pass still another law: the Homeowners Loan Act. And they had.

  Dot clapped. “Oh, good! The president saved our house!”

  “I thought the state governor already said people didn’t need to pay their mortgages,” Anna said.

  “The governor never meant that to be forever,” Father told her. “He only meant it to last until the state or federal government passed a law protecting people’s houses during these hard times.”

  “Oh.”

  Dot looked up at him from the floor, where she and Anna sat. “But with the president’s new act, no one will be able to take our house away, will they?”

  “That depends,” Father said. “The new act might mean your father doesn’t have to pay as much money every month for the house, but he will still have to pay something every month. And it will still be a lot of money.”

  Anna watched as Dot’s joy seemed to seep away. She tried to think of something to say to cheer her up. “At least it’s better to pay less money each month,” she said.

  Dot sighed. “Yes, it is.”

  “Did your father apply for one of the veterans’ positions with the CCC, Dot?” Father asked.

  “Yes, but he wasn’t accepted. He was really hoping he would be, but …” Dot’s voice trailed off.

  Anna hurt for her friend. Mr. Lane worked so hard, but he couldn’t get a real job. He was still working with the Organized Unemployed, but he was only paid in scrip, so he had to try making money in other ways, too.

  One day, Anna had seen him on a street corner selling apples. It had been near the Foshay Tower, the great building where he’d once worked as a well-paid and admired executive. She knew it must be hard for him to sell apples to people who used to work for him.

  I don’t understand, God, she prayed that night before she went to bed. We’ve been praying for a better job for Mr. Lane for such a long time. Why are You taking so long to answer?

  CHAPTER 21

  Surprise Answers

  Anna looked about the crowd impatiently. She and her family had been here for at least fifteen minutes. Fred’s family and Dot were supposed to meet them here for the Blue Eagle parade. Where were they?

  She searched the sea of people. Everywhere she looked, the sidewalk was crowded with women in lightweight summer dresses and men in suits and straw summer hats.

  Someone poked her shoulder. She turned around. “Fred! I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to get here.”

  His blue eyes sparkled. “We wouldn’t miss a parade.” He held up an opened envelope. “Look what
came today: a letter from Chet!”

  “What does he say? Does he like the CCC camp? Have they had much work to do?”

  Fred laughed and handed her the envelope. “Here, why don’t you read it yourself and find out?”

  “If you don’t think Chet would mind …”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Fred said. “He says in the letter to say hello to you and Dot.”

  Anna flashed him a smile. She was in such a hurry to read the letter that she could hardly get it out of the envelope. Quickly she began to read:

  Dear Fred,

  Well, here I am in the wild north country. They work us hard in the CCC, but as one of my bunkmates says, it sure beats, “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

  We’re staying in tents for now. It’s rather like camping out. The leaders tell us we’re going to build cabins before winter sets in, though. And he means we are going to build them! That’ll be another new experience. Rumor is we’re going to use pine logs that were cut many years ago and are at the bottom of a nearby lake. Davy Crockett, move over!

  We’ll be pretty experienced by the time we build the cabins. There was nothing here when we arrived, so we’re making the whole campsite. So far we’ve built a large mess hall. Right now it’s also used for our recreation building, infirmary, and library! We’ve also built a small garage and a toolshed. And last but not least, we built and dug a few outhouses! We’ve yet to start a machine shop and quarters for the army officers who are in charge of our company.

  Of course, we do the work we were sent here to do, too. You’d hardly recognize me after the summer I’ve spent cutting down trees, chopping them up, cleaning up dead trees and brush, removing gooseberry bushes (they cause rust on pine trees), and planting new pines. Why, I have muscles now! Well, no more than any of the other guys, I guess. We were a pretty skinny bunch when we got here. With the hard work and three meals a day, we’re beginning to look like regular guys.

  A typical day up here goes something like this:

  6:00 A.M.: Bugler wakes us up. After making our beds army style, we dress and head for the mess hall for breakfast.