NEW DEAL: LATER STAGES 5 11 



The aid given to the low-income groups of the western Middle West 

 was quite substantial, but hardly comparable in amount to the aid extended 

 to the low-income farmers of the South. The farm-tenancy loans provided 

 by the F.S.A. during 1938-39 to the southern states was somewhat greater 

 than the similar type provided for the farmers of the western Middle 

 West. The same, however, was not true with respect to rural rehabilitation 

 aid over the period 1936 to 1939, when considerable sums were extended 

 to farmers in Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. 21 



Unfavorable weather had great bearing on the New Deal. The drought 

 years of 1934 and 1936 and the tragedies that followed, especially in the 

 Great Plains, prompted the administration to take action to relieve a sit- 

 uation that over a period of years had grown progressively worse. Of the 

 ten states falling within the Great Plains area, only portions of four fell 

 within the confines of the western Middle West: North Dakota, South 

 Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Adequate data on farm incomes for this 

 area are lacking, but figures available tend to show that such matters as 

 low and variable incomes, poor living standards, abnormal indebtedness, 

 rapid foreclosure increases, rising relief demands, and tax delinquencies 

 had contributed materially to the misfortunes of the farmers there. 22 



In 1936 President Roosevelt appointed a special committee to report 



. . . not later than January i on a long term program for the efficient utilization 

 of the resources of the Great Plains area. I am anxious that we leave no stone 

 unturned in exploring and reporting on all the possibilities of this region, as 

 one in which reasonable standards of living can be maintained by the largest 

 possible population. We should face the fact that the climatic conditions make 

 special safeguards absolutely necessary. I would like your report to include such 

 recommendations for legislation as you may deem necessary. . . , 23 



This special task brought to mind the report that Major J. W. Powell 



the field of rural medicine, see "Washington Notes," New Republic, XCVII (Janu- 

 ary 4, 1939), pp. 258-59. 



21. Hearings before the U. S. Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Appro- 

 priations on H.R. 2481, Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 1944, U. S. Senate (78th 

 Congress, i session, Washington, 1943), pp. 654-57. 



22. Report of the Great Plains Committee, The Future of the Great Plains (75th 

 Congress, i session, House Document 144, serial 10117, Washington, 1936), pp. 51- 

 62 [also in plain-title edition]. 



23. Ibid., p. 131. 



