Years Without Harvest

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destitute families from those areas into the states of Washington and Oregon and California. this is, this is setting ground on which the rear front, the face of the tower, to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom to give to 1936 as the founders gained to 1776 an American way of life. Labor like Israel has many sorrows.

It's women weep for their fallen, and they lament for the future of the children of the race. You hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile. The bank accounts show that one one hundred and fifth is part of the people owned two thirds of all the money that's in the back. The only way by which we can ever bring this country out is to redistribute the wealth. The report of the President's Committee on Farm Tenancy, 1937. Groups now insecure. The President's Committee on Farm Tenancy, after an examination of the agricultural ladder, has indicated a series of groups of farm families whose insecurity is a threat to the integrity of rural life. The families comprise within these groups constitute fully half the total farm population of the country. Approximately one farm family out of four occupies a position in the nation's

social and economic structure that is precarious and should not be tolerated. The principal groups found to be at a disadvantage in their relation to the land are tenants, croppers, and farm laborers. How am I to speak of you as tenant, farmers, as representatives of your class, as social integers in a criminal economy, or as individuals, fathers, wives, sons, daughters, and as my friends. And as I know you, here at the center is a creature. We specialize him a little more. He has seas of the depth of the working class. Certain individuals are his parents, not like other individuals.

They are living in a certain house. It is not quite like other houses. They are farming certain shapes and strengths of land, in a certain exact vicinity for a certain landholder, a man. His work is with the land, in the seasons of the year, in the sustainment and ordering of his family, the training of his sons, a woman. Her work is in the keeping of the home, the preparation of food against each day and against the dead season, the bearing and care of her children, the training of her daughters,

children, all the children. Their work is as it is told to them and taught to them until such time as they shall strengthen and escape, and escaped of one imprisonment are submitted unto another. And as it is told to them, they will not be able to escape. The work for your parents is one thing.

Work for yourself is another. They are both hard enough, yet light relative to what is to come. On the day you are married, at about sixteen if you are a girl, at about twenty if you are a man, a key is turned, with a sound not easily audible, and you are locked between the stale earth and the sky. The key turns in the lock behind you, and your full

life's work begins, and there is nothing conceivable for which it can afford to stop, short of your death, which is a long way of. The key turns in the lock behind you, and your full life's work begins, and you are locked between the stale earth and the sky. The key turns in the lock behind you, and your full life's work begins, and you are locked between the stale earth and the sky. The key turns in the

lock behind you, and your full life's work begins, and you are locked between the stale earth and the sky. The key turns in the lock behind you, and your full life's work begins, and you are locked between the stale earth and the sky. Effectiveness of past and present

policies of land tenure can be measured in terms of what has happened to the nation's chief natural asset, the soil. The correlation between soil erosion and tenant occupancy is very striking. To the rich country and part of the great country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day, until the line of brown spread along the edge of each green banner. The clouds appeared and went away, and in a while they did not try anymore. And as the sharp sand struck day after day, the leaves of the uncorn became less stiff and erect. They bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted the downward. In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the

ground, and the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crest broke, and the dust formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air. The dust from the roads, fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds beside the field, and fell into the field a little way. When the night came again, it was black night, for the stars could not pierce the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond their own yards. In the morning, the people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air, and covered them noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through a film of dust. The men were silent, and they did not move often. The owners of the land came

onto the land, or more often the spokesmen for the owners came. The tenants from their sun -beaten door yards watched and easily, when the closed cars drove along the fields. In the open doors, the women stood looking out and behind them, the children, corn -headed children with wide eyes, one barefoot and type of the other barefoot and the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner men. They were silent. If a banker or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, the banker or the company needs, wants and sits must have, as if the banker or the company were a monster, with thought and feeling which had ensnared them. The tenant men not had and wondered if the desk only wouldn't fly. If the top would only stay on the soil, it might not be so bad. The owner went on leading to their point.

You know the land's getting poor, you know what cotton does to the land, robs it, sex all the blood out of it. The squatters nodded, they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops, they might pump blood back into the land. Well, it's too late. The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can't we just hang on? Maybe the next year will be a good year. And at last, the owner men came to the point. The tenant system won't work anymore. One man on a tractor can take the base of 12 to 14 families. Pay my rage and take all the crop. We have to do it. The tenant men looked alarmed. But what had happened to us? How do we eat? You'll have to get off the land. The plower go through the door yard. And now the squatting men

stood up angrily. Pa was born here and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. And we was born here. There in the doors, our children were born here and Pa had to borrow money. The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised. And now the owner men grew angry. You'll have to go. But it's ours that tenant men cried. No. The bank, the monster owns it. You'll have to go. But if we go, where do we go? How do we go? We got no money. We're sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the 50 ,000 acre owner, can't be responsible. You're on land that isn't yours. Once over the line, maybe you can pick cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don't you go on the west to California? There's work there

and it never gets cold. Why you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why? There's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you grow there? And the owner men started their cars and rolled away. That old dust storm killed my baby, but he can't kill me. Lord, and he can't kill me. That old dust storm will kill my family, but he can't kill me. Lord, and he can't kill me. That old landlord, and he got my homestead, but he can't get me. Lord, and he can't get me. That old dry spell killed my crop boys, but he can't kill me. Lord, and he can't kill me. That old tractor got my homeboys, but he can't get me. Lord, and he can't get me. That old tractor run my house down, but he can't get me

down, and he can't get me. That old con job got my furniture, but he can't get me. Lord, and he can't get me. That old highway has got my relatives, but he can't get me. Lord, and he can't get me. That old dust, my baby. It lays a heavy hand upon the large numbers of rural children caught in this current, who find their schooling periodically interrupted if not made impossible. They suffer from mental as well as economic insecurity. What happened to the folks in that car? Did

they walk? Where are they? Where does the courage come from? Where does the terrible faith come from? The water tastes like wine. I'm going where the water tastes like wine. I'm going where the water tastes like wine. Lord, and I ain't going to be treated this way. I'm going where the dust storms never blow. I'm going where the dust storms never blow. I'm going where the dust storms never blow. They say I'm a dust pole refugee.

Yes, they say I'm a dust pole refugee. They say I'm a dust pole refugee. Lord, Lord, but I ain't going to be treated this way. I'm looking for a job at honest pay. I'm looking for a job at honest pay. I'm looking for a job at honest pay. Lord, Lord, and I ain't going to be treated this way. My children need three square meals a day. Now my children need three square meals a day. My children need three square meals a day. Lord, and I ain't going to be treated this way. It takes a $10 shoot if it my feet. It takes a $10 shoot if it my feet. It takes a $10 shoot if it my feet. It takes a $10 shoot if it my feet. Lord, Lord, and I ain't going to be treated this way. Your $2 shoot hurts my feet.

Your $2 shoot hurts my feet. Yes, your $2 shoot hurts my feet. Lord, Lord, and I ain't going to be treated this way. I'm going down this road, dusty road. I'm going down this road, dusty road. I'm going down this road, dusty road. Lord, Lord, and I ain't going to be treated this way. This, they changed their social life, changed as in the whole universe, only man can change. They were not farming anymore, but migrant men, and the thought, the planning, the long staring salads that had gone out to the fields went now to the roads, to the distance, to the west. The man whose mind had been bound with acres lived with narrow concrete miles, and his thought and his worry were not anymore rainfall with wind and dust with the thrust of the crops.

Eyes watched the tires, ears listened to the clattering motors, and minds struggled with oil, with gasoline, with a thinning rubber between the air and roads. Then the broken gear was a tragedy, then water in the evening was the yearning and the food over the fire, then health to go on was the need and strength to go on, the spirit to go on. The wills thrust westward ahead of them, and fears that had once apprehended drought or fled and now lingered with anything that might stop the westward crawling. The

wills thrust westward ahead of them, and his thought was the need and strength to go on, the spirit to go on, the spirit to go on. And the dispossessed were drawn west, from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out, carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry, 20 ,000 and 50 ,000 and 100 ,000 and 200 ,000, they streamed over the mountain, hungry and restless, and the dispossessed, the migrants floored into California, 250

,000 and 300 ,000. There's a Hooverville on the edge of every town, the ride town lay close to water, and the houses were tents, and we'd fetched enclosures, paper houses, a great junk pile. The man drove his family in and became a citizen of Hooverville, always they were called Hooverville. The man put up his own tent as near to water as he could get, or if he hadn't or tent, he went to the city dump and brought back cartons and built a house of cargated paper. And when the rains came, the houses melted and washed away. He settled in Hooverville, and he scoured the countryside for work, and the little money he had went for gasoline to look for work. Because it's killing

me, across the mountains to the sea, come the white hands, kids and me, it's a hot old dusty highway for adjustable refugees. Hard it's always been that way, here to day and on our way, down that mountain, across the desert, just a dust bowl, refugee. We are rampers, so they say, we are only here today, then we travel with the seasons where the dust bowl refugees. From the Southland and the drought land, to come the wife and

kids and me, and this old world is a hard world for a dust bowl, refugee. Yes, we ramp, and we roll, and the highway, that's our home, it's a never ending highway for a dust bowl refugee. Yes, we wander, and we work, in your crops and in your fruit, like the whirlwinds on the desert, that's the dust bowl refugee. I'm a dust bowl refugee,

I'm a dust bowl refugee, and I wonder, will I always be a dust bowl refugee. Recommendations for Action In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him too once more,

and of each of us, our terrific responsibility towards human life, towards the utmost idea of goodness, of the horror of error, and of God. I've sung this song, but I'll sing it again, of the place that I lived on, the wild wind it planes in the month, called April. County called Gray, and here's what all of the people I say, so long it's been good to know you, so long it's been good to know you, so long it's been good to know you, this dust you'll dust is getting my home, and I've got to be drifting along.

A dust storm hitting, it hit like thunder, it dusted us over, and it covered us under, blocked out the traffic and blocked out the sun, straight for home all the people did run, singing so long, been good to know you, so long it's been good to know you, so long it's been good to know you, this dust you'll dust is getting my home. I've got to be drifting along, we talked at the end of the world, and then we'd sang a song, and then sang it again, we'd set for an hour and not say a word, and then these words would be heard. So long it's been good to know you, so long it's been good to know you, so long it's been good to know you, this dust you'll dust is getting my home, and I've got to be drifting along. Sweet heart said in the dark and spark

they hugged and kissed, and that dust you'll dark, they sighed and cried, hugged and kissed and stood and married. This is NET, National Educational Television. Thank you.