Dade County FlArchives History - Books .....Depression With A Capital "D", Chapter 16 1965 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 April 5, 2009, 5:29 pm Book Title: Memories Of Old Miami CHAPTER SIXTEEN Depression With a Capital "D" FLORIDA was the first state to feel the effects of the Depression and the last state to feei the effects of Recovery. Within two months after the market crash in October, 1929, the paper value of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange dropped $16 billion. Yet we found it difficult to believe that the nation was on the edge of a depression. I remember we kept hoping that the "next season" would be a good one. It was not until the end of 1931 that we began spelling Depression with a capital "D." By that time stocks had lost a market value of $50 billion, which was almost equal to the gross national product - the nation's output - at the depth of the Depression in 1933. By 1934 more than 20 million persons were on relief. Anyone out of work had a very small chance of landing a job. This was especially true in Miami. In those days Florida's prosperity depended almost entirely on its tourist trade. We had hardly any other industry. Neither was our agriculture highly developed. Even the citrus industry was very unimportant compared with what it is today. The federal census of 1930 gave Dade County a population of 142,737 confined mostly to the Miami city limits. Miami's population had grown from 30,000 in 1920 to 110,637 in 1930. It seemed to me that half of the population was out of work. Nobody went hungry, though. There was plenty of surplus food. Farmers all over the country were producing a lot more than they could sell - more food than the population could eat - and they were losing their farms because they could not sell their crops for enough to meet mortgage payments. The government bought the surplus and distributed it among the unemployed. But the unemployed had no money and many people began to lose their homes because they could not meet mortgage payments. The homeless began to move in with relatives. It was common for three families to be living in one home. Fortunately, I had a job with The Miami Herald. I was making $27.50 a week.- a lot of money during the Depression. I lived well and drove a good car. We began to read about wholesale bank failures throughout the country. People generally began to lose confidence. Long lines formed in front of Miami banks. People insisted on withdrawing their savings. The situation became so bad that President Roosevelt declared a bank "holiday" on March 6, 1933, and ordered all banks to close their doors until the financial mess could be straightened out. A gloom fell over Miami. The Depression had hit the pocketbook; now it hit the spirit. For by this time the whole economy of Florida was pretty well shot. Florida counties and municipalities, which had borrowed heavily during the good years, could no longer pay interest on bonds. George E. Merrick, founder of Coral Gables, could not get credit to buy a new tire for his big Lincoln - a survivor of the days when he was a millionaire developer. Having lost his holdings in Coral Gables, Merrick went to Matecumbe Key and set up a fishing camp - but who in those days had money to rent a boat or hire a fishing guide? The Democrats, who succeeded the Republicans in 1933, soon set up a national recovery program which became known as the New Deal. We had a long list of agencies - Federal Emergency Relief Agency, Works Progress Administration, Reconstruction Finance Corporation, National Recovery Act. Civilian Construction Corps., Home Owners Loan Corporation, and a lot of others that I no longer remember. Alfred E. Smith lumped the New Deal under the name of "alphabet soup." In spite of the desperate period people could still criticize their government, and they did. People also had a sense of humor. Sometimes I think they had a greater sense of humor than than they have now. Here's a story they told. A Miami WPA foreman called his boss. "Will you send some more shovels?" the foreman asked. "We don't have enough for our men to lean on." The director, discovering that he was out of shovels, wired Washington: "Please send 500 shovels. Need them desperately." Washington replied: "Regret that we are in short shovel supply. Have your men lean on one another until we can fill order." Many good things came out of the Depressoon, [sic] in spite of the hardships. Conservation as a national policy got its start at that time with the establishment of the CCC. The Triple-C, as the Civilian Construction Corps was known, planted trees on cut-over land, built roads through forests so that fires could be fought with modern fire-fighting equipment; and the CCC did some of the first work in the prevention of soil erosion. Millions of people today enjoy parks and recreation areas built by the CCC during the Depression. The fine stone work at Matheson Hammock and Greynolds Park was done by the CCC boys. As we began to recover from the depth of the Depression the New Deal came under a lot of criticism. But many of its programs were highly beneficial. They restored confidence. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Home Owners Loan Corporation are examples of beneficial federal agencies. The first guaranteed bank deposits up to $5,000 - since raised to $10,000. The second helped thousands of persons to save their homes. The RFC assisted banks and other business to get back on their feet. But after the bank holiday many banks never reopened. They didn't have enough assets to operate. Their properties were sold and the money received was distributed among depositors - often amounting to only a few cents on the dollar. Only two of the 21 banks in Dade County survived the Depression - the First National Bank of Miami and the Miami Springs Bank (now the Hialeah-Miami Springs Bank). Railroads went bankrupt and rail stocks and bonds fell so low that they were worth little more than the fancy paper they were printed on. The government had to step in and set up complicated reorganization programs. Florida county and municipal bonds were helped, though, when the state legislature passed an act setting aside part of the gasoline tax to pay them off. This reestablished Florida's credit. But people sold stocks and bonds for what they could get for them; because they needed funds to live. Many also sold heirlooms and fine jewelry. Valuable coins returned to circulation. It was a wonderful period for the person fortunate enough to have money. You could buy a five-carat diamond for a few hundred dollars. Jewelry not only lost its value; it lost its appeal. You couldn't eat carats. Eventually we began to see signs of recovery. I used to go fishing with J. E. Davis, now chairman of the board of Winn-Dixie Stores. When we caught more fish than we could use we divided them among our friends. During the depth of the Depression nobody ever asked if the fish had been cleaned. Later people began asking; and they were reluctant to accept fish that had not been cleaned. "You can tell that the Depression's ending," Mr. Davis said. But Recovery - we began to capitalize the word just as we had capitalized Depression - was awfully slow. When people spoke of Recovery they meant the return of the good times that the country had enjoyed before 1929 - when jobs were plentiful and salaries good. In spite of the slowness, though, Miami and Dade County grew. Gradually, after 1934 our winter seasons began to brighten. Greater numbers of people came to the resort hotels. Attendance at the horse tracks increased. We had something of a boom in home building, thanks to the Federal Housing Administration. We got a new skyscraper, the DuPont Building. Then, on Sept. 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and World War II was under way. It was to be more than two years before the United States entered the war. But Miami was beginning to feel the beneficial economic effects - if such a ridiculous statement can be made - long before we fired the first gun. The United States was making munitions, planes and ships for the Allies, and once again there was a large surplus of money for people to spend in Florida. And as late as 1940 and most of 1941, Japanese freighters came into the Port of Miami to be loaded with scrap iron. I remember seeing freighters tied up at the municipal docks, with the rising sun emblem flying from their sterns. Scrap metal was barged down the Miami River and loaded onto these freighters until their decks were nearly awash. "There goes our old Model-T's and Model-A's," I heard someone say as a loaded freighter steamed out. "One day those Japs will be shooting them back at us." But those who sold this scrap to the Japanese had an explanation: The Japanese were using the scrap to make fine instruments which we could no longer get from Germany because of the war in Europe. On Dec 7 1941, we found out what that scrap metal was being used for, when the Japanese, dropped tons of it on our fleet in Pearl Harbor. At last the Depression was over. Everybody had a job, or was in the military service. Nor were we to have another depression, like we had in the 1930's - certainly not a Depression with a capital "D.' Dade County grew rapidly after World War II, just as it had done after World War I. Its population reached 495,-084 in 1950; rose to 935,047 in 1960, and to an estimated 1,-200,000 by the end of 1964. This is quite a jump from the fewer than 5,000 who lived in Dade County when my parents moved to Miami in 1905. When I look back over the fantastic years - two world wars, a boom and a bust, a destructive hurricane, a black depression - and I see how Miami and its satellite communities have prospered, I can only think that this area possesses some kind of magic. I wonder if that "magic" isn't the climate, the beauty and the charm that the early settlers recognized, and which made them stick it out in spite of all the hazards of living here? Additional Comments: Extracted from: "Memories of Old Miami" by Hoyt Frazure as told to Nixon Smiley Reprinted from a series of articles first appearing in Sunday Magazine of The Miami Herald Undated, but circa 1965 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/dade/history/1965/memories/depressi48nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/flfiles/ File size: 10.9 Kb