THE IMPACT OF WAR 109 



were without previous farming experience, and 30 per cent had no capi- 

 tal. 44 Among them were men from sixty-three occupations other than 

 farming. "There were two circus musicians, a paper hanger, a sailor, a sea- 

 going engineer, two wrestlers, two barbers, a cigar maker, a race horse 

 man, a bricklayer, an undertaker, a deep-sea diver, six old maids, a mil- 

 liner, and a professional gambler." The fact that such people exposed 

 themselves to the hazards of a single crop increased the risk they took. 

 A fourth group of farmers failed because of their inefficiency. Their 

 production costs were simply too high. 4i> 



For a while the postwar depression in agriculture was paralleled by a 

 similar depression in industry, business, and finance. After the spring of 

 1920 industrial production fell off rapidly and price levels began to sag. 

 By the end of the year, wage cuts were common and unemployment had 

 become a serious problem. The year 1921 was dark for industry and agri- 

 culture alike, but for most business activities other than farming the 

 depression was fading out by the end of 1922 and recovery was beginning. 

 Thereafter, from 1923 to 1929, the nation's business, except for agriculture 

 and a few industries, experienced a long period of steady expansion, 

 marred only by a few minor setbacks. Iron, steel, and coal production 

 mounted steadily, trade revived, and a veritable boom developed. The 

 seemingly insatiable demand of the American public for automobiles, 

 radios, electric washing machines, electric refrigerators, and the like, ac- 

 companied by a widespread use of installment buying and supported by 

 an equally insistent demand for housing, made for a general appearance 

 of prosperity, at least for most of the nonfarm population. Much of this 

 prosperity eventually turned out to be more illusory than real, for the 

 position of organized labor was weak and unemployment was slowly 

 but surely growing in some industries. But the bulk of the nonfarm popu- 

 lation and its leaders believed that a permanent plateau of prosperity had 

 been reached, and the farmers were envious. 46 Speaking in Paris in the 



44. John H. Rich, The Economic Position of Agriculture in the Northwestern 

 Grain Areas (Minneapolis, 1922), p. 7. 



45. Friday, in American Economic Review, Supplement, XIII (March, 1923), 

 pp. 156-57. 



46. Reginald C. McGrane, The Economic Development of the American Nation 

 (Boston, 1942), pp. 547-49; George Soule, Prosperity Decade, From War to De- 

 pression, 79/7-7929 (New York, 1947), pp. 107-26, 208-28, 275-84. 



