Tag Archives: Great Depression

Sins, Blessings, and Responsibilities

Sometime in the past, when the future United States was a colony of Great Britain, three young men from northern Ireland (so the family lore goes) left their native land and immigrated to this country.

At least one of them worked during the American Revolution as a “wagoner” of some sort for the American army. Apparently, people on both sides of my family served in some capacity for the American cause. After the war ended, according to records researched by my mother, the three immigrants settled in the southeast on land newly available for war veterans. I don’t know if the brothers took into account that native Americans may have been displaced for some of the land the veterans settled on.

Their descendants became farmers and small landowners. At least one of them owned a black slave and fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Records indicate he was captured by union forces and died in a federal prison camp, partly from malnutrition. Apparently, the food supply of my ancestor and other prisoners was purposely limited in retaliation for malnutrition allowed in Confederate prison camps.

After the Civil War, members of my family became a bit more well off. Some became farmers. One became a county sheriff and later moved to Nashville and became a police officer. Another did reasonably well as a foundry worker.

My father and my mother met in a Nashville public school, grew up, and fell in love, then married and began a family. My father took a bookkeeping course for free in a Nashville adult education school, founded to provide free vocational education for those unable to afford private schools. With his new training, he was able to take a job as a bookkeeper in an insurance firm, later advancing to sales. My parents moved to a new suburb just outside Nashville, where my brother and I were born and grew up.

My father’s company survived the great depression of the 1930’s, but reduced everyone’s salary to do so. My parents were saved from losing their home by one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, which produced lower payments by allowing more years to pay house loans.

Our growing suburb sprouted churches for all the new families. We ended up attending a very loving Christian church, and I chose to follow the Christian faith when I was about nine years old.

My parents made sure my brother and I had the college education they weren’t able to enjoy.

My life has been blessed beyond what anyone could ask for. I can never pay back the countless people who have contributed: parents, teachers, pastors, friends, this country’s freedom. I owe it to them to live a life that blesses others as I was blessed.

Because we are blessed in order to bless others.

To Make a Better Life

Sometime back before the American Revolution, my ancestors, probably including those of both English and Irish nationalities, immigrated to what would become the United States.

They were part of the great migration of European peoples to the Americas. Native Americans would suffer greatly, pushed further and further into less fertile areas, forced to give up sovereignty and lands.

Slaves and their descendants suffered also, shackled by prejudice that denied them the American dream.

For people like my ancestors, however, the new lands allowed them to flourish as they probably never would have in Europe. Like other immigrant families, some of my ancestors did better than others. A few became well-off, others became small farmers, others eventually landed in urban areas, becoming workers and small business owners, surviving both depression and times of war.

My own parents kept their home during the Great Depression of the thirties, saved by one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s new deal programs. Later, they managed to send my brother and me to college. We both enjoyed middle class American lives.

Not surprisingly, I have sympathy for immigrants. I think one of the greatest gifts the country has been granted is renewal brought about by managed immigration. Indeed, the castoffs of Nazi Germany, given sanctuary in the United States, helped power the defeat of that same regime.

Some of my beliefs, I freely admit, come from my Christian faith, a belief that those who are blessed are obligated to bless others. We the blessed, are called to share those blessings.

This country has allowed some to amass great wealth. I don’t believe that being rich is in itself a sin. I do believe it is a great responsibility. The responsibility is to choose between the path of the rich man in Jesus’ parable who ignored the poor seeking crumbs from his table, or that of the one known as the Good Samaritan, who chose to help the needy one he happened to meet.

Baseball Teams and Nations

A baseball team is more likely to win when its members seek the goals of the group before their own. For a nation to be successful, a significant number of citizens must seek the common good above their individual interests.

When citizens believe their country is in peril, they sometimes sacrifice a great deal for its survival, as Americans did during the Second World War. Things fall apart when a shared dream dies.

When elite groups choose to gather riches and power for themselves through corrupt or merely selfish practices, ordinary citizens begin to question the justness and fairness of the system. Communist movements grew in the United States in the 1930’s during the Great Depression, when unemployment resulted in growing poverty and despair.

Communism ceased to be attractive to most Americans during and after the Second World War. Jobs and prosperity returned. Higher education became possible for more Americans through programs for returning GI’s and others that made such education affordable for ordinary citizens. Most believed in the American dream, that if they worked hard and lived decent lives, they would be rewarded with a good life.

Perhaps hope is the most important ingredient of successful baseball teams and nations, the reason their members sacrifice for them.