Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? - New World Records

solace in commenting on or complaining about the state of their lives rather than in
escaping from reality. Black music of this sort tended to be even more topical, and we
find blues dealing not only with the events and effects of the Depression but also with the
government’s attempts to cope with the disaster. Few of the “alphabetical agencies”
afforded much relief to blacks, as we are told in Big Bill Broonzy’s “WPA Blues” and
Washboard Sam’s “CCC Blues.” But here too we find complaint and lament, often tinged
with humor, rather than protest.
Despite the slow pace of recovery, Americans felt that Roosevelt was doing as much for
them as was humanly possible, and he was reelected by an overwhelming margin in 1936
over Governor Alf Landon of Kansas. The President acknowledged in his second
inaugural address, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.”
Programs of massive federal relief and deficit spending continued, and in the first months
of 1937 it appeared that the Depression was coming to an end. Industrial output was up,
national income was almost twice what it had been four years earlier, and unemployment
dropped to about fourteen percent. But unexpectedly the economic situation worsened
again. In the late summer of 1937 industry experienced a slump almost as severe as in
1929–30, and unemployment abruptly climbed back up to ten million, or almost twenty
percent of the work force.
Roosevelt’s second term was marked by severe labor disorders. Only six percent of the
nation’s workers had been unionized in 1932. Sustained by federal relief programs and
strengthened by provisions of the NRA that empowered workers to organize and bargain
with less fear of reprisal, labor became strong enough to fend for itself when the Supreme
Court declared the NRA unconstitutional in 1935. The first signs of a new militancy had
come in 1934, with strikes in Minneapolis and a general strike in San Francisco. The CIO
(Committee—later Congress—of Industrial Organizations), organized by John L. Lewis
as a sort of superunion for greater strength, encouraged members to use all means at their
disposal to press their demands. By 1937 there were many bitter struggles, with
management often using force to curb labor, and workers retaliating with the new tactic
of the sit-down strike, which effectively prevented management from bringing in
nonunion workers. In 1937 alone the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board),
established in 1935 to mediate labor disputes, was asked to intervene in more than thirtytwo
hundred strikes, involving a million and a half workers.