Hard Times

by Studs Terkel

  “With a jury trial, you can hardly try one—at most, two—cases a day. At the rate of two thousand cases a week, in four months you’d have 32,000 people asking for jury trials. If they closed every court in this state, you still wouldn’t have enough judges to try your case. And then you’d wish there were a man like Heller, who had the courage to tell you: Why don’t you mind your own business and let him mind his business?”

  One of them said, “I admire your candor, but you’re not doing yourself any good.” He was right. When I ran for office, the real estate organizations sent out thousands of letters: I have no respect for private property. They defeated me. They keep score. The poor are so busy trying to survive from one day to the next, they haven’t the time or energy to keep score.

  There was a man running against me, who said you can evict people without notice, if it’s done peacefully. We agreed to have a public debate. He didn’t show up. In the election—in the very neighborhood where many of the tenants live—he got thousands of votes and I got hundreds.

  During those hard times, I learned a good lesson. A good deal of the misery that the poor suffer—and ignorance—is due to the fact that they’re not organized. They’re isolated, brainwashed.

  I could have remained on the bench until I died. If I could have degraded myself … just go along. I couldn’t do it. But I was on the bench for twenty-one years—and that, to me, is a miracle.

  A Young Man From Detroit and Two Girl Companions

  He is twenty-four and does collection work for a bank. “I call people who are slightly behind on their bills. I feel sorry for a lot of them, but it’s my job….

  “The salesmen are robbers. They quote a person one figure and when it comes time to sign the contract, they give a different figure. They don’t tell the people the interest rates they’re paying on some of these loans. The people we deal with are not very educated … honest, hard-working people. Many of them colored. And poor whites.”

  The two girls—one, twenty, the other nineteen—work in the same bank as the young man … “in check credit. You can continually borrow and make monthly payments on it. It can go on for years and years….”

  The Young Man’s Story

  ONE OF THE GENTLEMEN at work was telling me he wanted to take his daughter to a hamburger drive-in. She said: I don’t want to be seen with you. It seems like it’s not “in” to be seen at a drive-in with your parents. You’re some kind of kook. You never saw this during the Depression,’cause they went through everything, all for one and one for all, within a family.

  I think a Depression now might even solve this problem of civil rights. It would be man for man. I don’t think there’d be as much prejudice. If you’re going to be standing in a bread line, whether you’re white or black, and someone of the other skin will give you a piece of bread, you’re not gonna turn it down. This might solve the whole problem.

  I think some people would really go insane. My family has told me of people who had really gone crazy during the Depression of ’29. The financial losses they took. I think history would repeat itself all over. A lot of people, who invest a lot of money, who are used to living on fifty, sixty thousand, they might just go crazy, not having that much. He wouldn’t know what to do. Psychologically, his mind couldn’t take being a second-class average Mr. Joe, after being on top for so long.

  I try to put away something. I have it either in investments or a savings account. Then if I want something, I know the money is there. I bought a suit one time on credit, and after I paid the suit off, I tore up the credit card. Another thing: my generation, we’re so clothes-conscious. But I betcha they’re worrying about how they’re gonna pay that next charge when it comes up.

  Does your job disturb you, at times … ?

  No, ‘cause I feel it’s bread in my mouth and I’ve got a job to do. The only thing that bothers me is when a nice guy—we have to garnish his wages, ’cause that’s the only way we’re gonna get that money. He’s got to realize when he signs a home improvement contract, he signs this note—he has this obligation. It’s not me. I didn’t put the knife in their back. I’m just doing a job.

  The First Girl’s Story

  To ME, the Depression’s a story told. Just like World War II. To me, it means nothing, except I’d hate to experience it. I’m not used to low-class living.

  What kind of living are you used to?

  Middle-class. (Laughs.) I’m on my own now, and it’s rough. (Laughs.)

  What do you think would happen if a Depression came today?

  If I could get hold of a pill, that would end everything. And everyone I really cared for, I wish they’d do the same thing. I’d be afraid to experience it. I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t see having my family starve, I really couldn’t.

  You’ve never experienced want yourself … ?

  Yes, I want a lot of things right now.

  By want I mean need. Have you ever experienced going without?

  I was afraid of my father. Getting a pair of shoes or something like that, it was left up to me. When I baby-sat, I used my own money because I didn’t want to ask my father for too much. But I never starved. I’ve never really been hungry.

  When you see people on welfare, what are your thoughts?

  I feel sorry for them and I don’t. Their husbands or themselves can go out and get work. I know there are so many jobs to be had by them. The Welfare Department should be cleaned up. All the good money that’s going to waste.

  One of my girl friends, she works at this steel company. She was this secretary there. A lot of colored fellas worked there. This one she was telling me about: he’d work for six months or eight months, he’d quit. First, he’d get thrown in jail and then he’d call up his wife so that she could get aid from the state. That’s what really gets me. I can’t really see my good tax money going to waste. And I haven’t been paying it that long, but I will be.

  I just want one happy life, that’s it. And have a family and a nice little home, car, just to be comfortable. A housewife.

  The Second Girl’s Story

  I’m middle-class, happy, middle-class. My father works in a sausage company, he delivers meat. My mother is working in a die-cast company.

  DEPRESSION, it means loneliness. It was just a time when everything was very lonely and depressing. Everybody was like individual, fighting to keep their family alive. My mom, when she was young, went through it. So now she tries to give me everything, because I don’t have to go through it.

  My father’s family had it real good. There were four guys in the family. Each one had their own car in the middle of the Depression. They had brand new cars. They had a nice home. All my mom keeps telling me is how hard she had it and how easy my father had it.

  If it happened today, I don’t think the country’d be able to stick together like they did in the first one. I think the whole place would just fall apart. And America’d be completely ruined. Everybody seems to be just out for themselves. You gotta get a bigger car than your neighbor. Your daughter has to be dressed better than your neighbor’s daughter. Where back then it seemed like everybody tried to help each other, now it’s hard to get a relative to help you. Really. Why should I help him? I could have a bigger car and show that I’m much better. Because today everybody’s all to themselves.

  Like when I lived in Jacksonville, Florida. I was six or seven. A false alarm went off—they blew the alarm to take shelter for fallout. In case there’s an air raid. Well, it went off. We were in school at the time. Everyone was going nuts. People were running around. They didn’t care what happened to the kids. They were all to themselves.

  They were all running out into the street. There were so many cars, you couldn’t even get across the street. People wouldn’t let you in their cars, if you wanted to get in. There were mothers running, and their kids were following behind them screaming.

  It was so terrible, these people. You could tell they didn’t care. Some people thought the Russia
ns were coming. And the teacher said: Everybody, get under your desks. Other teachers were running around: What are we gonna do with the kids? And then it seemed like the teachers just disappeared.

  Outside was terrible. Cars were packed. Women were running with children, and maybe four men in one car, and yet they wouldn’t open the cars to let the women with the kids in. They weren’t even going two miles an hour. There were so many people, nobody could get by. Yet nobody would help anybody else.

  It’s probably gotten worse now. If anything ever happens—like you say, a Depression—probably the whole country would be overrun by Communists or it’ll be nothing … unless everybody gets together and fights for everybody, not just themself.

  I feel sorry for most people on welfare today, I really do. But it’s something I don’t like to talk about because when I think of things that depress me, I’d rather just block it out of my mind and say, well, I’ll think about it tomorrow. There are rotten ones, and you just don’t want to take the time to think about the poor ones.

  I consider myself rotten in those ways. Because I think about these people who are really starving, right now, living in shacks—and yet I’d go completely out of my mind, so I’ll think about it tomorrow. I don’t want to think about it now. There’s a lot of people who don’t even take the time to think at all.

  Honor and Humiliation

  Eileen Barth

  In 1933, she graduated from a university, where she majored in social service administration. Immediately, she was engaged as a case worker for the county.

  I WAS TWENTY-ONE when I started and very inexperienced. My studies at school didn’t prepare me for this. How could I cope with this problem? We were still studying about immigrant families. Not about mass unemployment. The school just hadn’t kept up with the times. We made terrible blunders. I’m sure I did.

  There was a terrible dependence on the case worker. What did they feel about a young girl as their boss? Whom they had to depend on for food, a pitiful bare minimum? There was always the fear of possibly saying the wrong thing to her. The case worker represented the Agency. We seemed powerful because we were their only source of income. Actually, there was little we could do.

  I had a terrible guilt feeling. I was living rather well sharing a nice apartment with two other girls. My top pay was $135 a month, which made me well off. Yet there were constant layoffs. I always felt that if I lost my job, I might go on relief, too. So I never really had a sense of security myself.

  I think most case workers felt as I did. Though there were quite a few who were self-righteous. They felt some of the people weren’t looking hard enough for work. Or they were loafers. They believed some of the stuff that came out in the newspapers. Even then. They sometimes made it very difficult for the clients. There was a lot of hypocrisy and sham.

  I worked with both whites and blacks. One could say the blacks were more accustomed to poverty. But they still said, “I wouldn’t come here if I had work.” There was a lot of waiting around the relief offices. Where they came to pick up their food orders. These places were mostly old warehouses, very dismal. That was another thing, dispiriting. Sitting around and waiting, waiting, waiting….

  The case worker was often the object of their anger. Where else could they give vent to their feelings? So they took it out on us. They didn’t know the cause of their problems. Of course, there were tensions. At one time, my job was to cover the entire city. I often worked at night. I found myself in very strange neighborhoods at all hours. I took it as a matter of course. Yet I knew when these people felt put upon….

  In 1934, a case worker was killed by her client, while sitting in the chair at his home. A youngish white man living with his mother. The story is: she had promised him a job. CWA was coming in. He was so overwhelmed by his joblessness he became maddened to the point where he shot her. He dragged his mother to the district office. He killed the supervisor, a clerical worker and then killed his mother and himself.

  We were all frightened. Bulletins were issued to all the offices: case workers could take a moratorium on visits. We weren’t told we must not visit. So I decided I’d go anyway. I was young and felt the clients needed me. (Laughs softly.) If this were to happen now, would I go? I don’t know.

  I remember, for a time after that, peering into the window, before I rang the bell. I guess I was pretty scared. One family said to me it was terrible, but some case workers deserve to be killed. He looked at me and smiled, “But not you, Miss Barth.” (Laughs.)

  I’ll never forget one of the first families I visited. The father was a railroad man who had lost his job. I was told by my supervisor that I really had to see the poverty. If the family needed clothing, I was to investigate how much clothing they had at hand. So I looked into this man’s closet—(pauses, it becomes difficult)—he was a tall, gray-haired man, though not terribly old. He let me look in the closet—he was so insulted. (She weeps angrily.) He said, “Why are you doing this?” I remember his feeling of humiliation … this terrible humiliation. (She can’t continue. After a pause, she resumes.) He said, “I really haven’t anything to hide, but if you really must look into it….” I could see he was very proud. He was so deeply humiliated. And I was, too….

  Ward James

  He is seventy-three. He teaches at a fashionable private school for boys, out East. He was born in Wisconsin; attended school there.

  BEFORE THE CRASH, I was with a small publishing house in New York. I was in charge of all the production and did most of the copy. It was a good job. The company was growing. It looked like a permanent situation. I was feeling rather secure.

  I realized that people weren’t secure in the publishing business. There was no tenure. We didn’t have any union. That was the first move I made, organizing the Book and Magazine Union in New York.181 A lot of white collar people at the time felt unions were not for them. They were above it.

  Until 1935, I had my job with this publishing house. They insisted I take a month vacation without pay and a few other things, but it wasn’t really too distressing. It became tougher and tougher.

  I was fired. No reasons given. I think my work with the union had a good deal to do with it, although I couldn’t prove it. What hurt was that I’d gotten pretty good in writing technical books for boys. I had three published. By now, with things getting tight, no publisher wanted any book that wouldn’t be a best seller.

  I was out of work for six months. I was losing my contacts as well as my energy. I kept going from one publishing house to another. I never got past the telephone operator. It was just wasted time. One of the worst things was occupying your time, sensibly. You’d go to the library. You took a magazine to the room and sat and read. I didn’t have a radio. I tried to do some writing and found I couldn’t concentrate. The day was long. There was nothing to do evenings. I was going around in circles, it was terrifying. So I just vegetated.

  With some people I knew, there was a coldness, shunning: I’d rather not see you just now. Maybe I’ll lose my job next week. On the other hand, I made some very close friends, who were merely acquaintances before. If I needed $5 for room rent or something, it was available.

  I had a very good friend who cashed in his bonus bonds to pay his rent. I had no bed, so he let me sleep there. (Laughs.) I remember getting down to my last pair of pants, which looked awful. One of my other friends had just got a job and had an extra pair of pants that fit me, so I inherited them. (Laughs.)

  I went to apply for unemployment insurance, which had just been put into effect. I went three weeks in succession. It still hadn’t come through. Then I discovered the catch. At that time, anybody who earned more than $3,000 a year was not paid unemployment insurance unless his employer had O.K.’d it. It could be withheld. My employer exercised his option of not O.K.’ing it. He exercised his vindictive privilege. I don’t think that’s the law any more.

  I finally went on relief. It’s an experience I don’t want anybody to go through. It comes as
close to crucifixion as…. You sit in an auditorium and are given a number. The interview was utterly ridiculous and mortifying. In the middle of mine, a more dramatic guy than I dived from the second floor stairway, head first, to demonstrate he was gonna get on relief even if he had to go to the hospital to do it.

  There were questions like: Who are your friends? Where have you been living? Where’s your family? I had sent my wife and child to her folks in Ohio, where they could live more simply. Why should anybody give you money? Why should anybody give you a place to sleep? What sort of friends? This went on for half an hour. I got angry and said, “Do you happen to know what a friend is?” He changed his attitude very shortly. I did get certified some time later. I think they paid $9 a month.

  I came away feeling I didn’t have any business living any more. I was imposing on somebody, a great society or something like that.

  That ended with a telegram from Chicago, from the Illinois Writers Project. I had edited a book for the director, who knew my work. He needed a top editor to do final editorial work on the books being published, particularly the Illinois Guide. I felt we really produced something.

  This was the regional office, so I worked on Guide books for four or five other states. The Tribune said it cost two million and wasn’t worth it. No matter, they were really quite good.

  The first day I went on the Project, I was frightened as much as I’d ever been in my life. My confidence had been almost destroyed in New York. I didn’t know a single person here. But I found there was a great spirit of cooperation, friendliness. I discovered quickly my talents were of use.

  Had been in Chicago about a month or two. I remember I wanted to buy a suit on credit. I was told nobody on the WPA could get credit in any store in Chicago. It was some years later before I could establish credit of any kind.

  I bought an inexpensive radio, an Emerson. My son, David, who was four or five, dictated letters to his mother to be sent to his grandmother: “We have a radio. We bought it all ourselves. Nobody gave us it all.” Apparently, he had resented that he and his mother had been living rent-free in Ohio. And she may have been getting clothes from her sister. Yeah, there was an impact even on the very young.