The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was enacted by Congress in June 1933 and was one of the measures by which President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to assist the nation’s economic recovery during the Great Depression.
Continue Reading »Ida Minerva Tarbell: Journalist & Muckraker By Catherine A. Paul Ida Minerva Tarbell was an American journalist and lecturer best known for her work, The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904). The History of the Standard Oil Company is one of the most thorough accounts of the rise of the business monopoly and its…
Continue Reading »Hunter, (Wiles) Robert (April 10, 1874 – May 15, 1942), Social Worker, Author and Socialist Editor’s Note: The career of Robert Hunter is a complicated journey through social work, social activism, research, field studies, politics, golf course design and academia. Over the years he moved from being a prominent Progressive to a dedicated Socialist…
Continue Reading »“…For the old people who have lived so long a life of independence, how bitter it must be to come for everything they need to the youngsters who once turned to them!
From every point of view, it seems to me that the old age pension for people who so obviously could not lay aside enough during their working years to live on adequately through their old age, is a national responsibility and one that must be faced when we are planning for a better future.
Unemployment insurance in many homes is all that stands between many a family and starvation. Given a breathing spell, a man or woman may be able to get another job or to re-educate himself in some new line of work, but few people live with such a wide margin that they have enough laid aside to face several months of idleness….”
Continue Reading »“…Of course, no one woman has the right to say what the mass of women want to accomplish with their vote, but I can at least say what I hope the Democratic women wish to achieve.
First: Honest, clean administration in party organizations, coupled with a real desire to have the people understand fundamental issues. The trouble is the means for knowing the truth are very few, and I consider that it is one of the real duties of political parties to state clearly and plainly their belief and the things for which they stand….”
Continue Reading »“…To many women who fought so long and so valiantly for suffrage, what has happened has been most discouraging. For one reason or another, most of the leaders who carried the early fight to success have dropped out of politics. This has been in many ways unfortunate. Among them were women with gifts of real leadership. They were exceptional and high types of women, idealists concerned in carrying a cause to victory, with no idea of personal advancement or gain. In fact, attaining the vote was only part of a program for equal rights–an external gesture toward economic independence, and social and spiritual equality with men…”.
Continue Reading »“…My fourth point is the woman’s desire to see government lighten her burdens. The first of these burdens is the taxes. On the whole when women see that taxes which they pay bring direct returns in benefits to the community, I do not think that they are averse to paying them, but I do think that our ten million women want much more careful accounting for how their taxes are expended in the local, state or national government. They want to see the actual good which comes to them from these expenditures.
They feel very strongly that governments should not add to their burdens but should lighten them. They are gradually coming to grasp the relation of legislation to the lightening of these burdens, for instance, in such questions as the regulation of public utilities and the development of the water power of our nation. They realize now that cheaper electricity means less work in the home, more time to give to their children, more time for recreation and greater educational opportunities….
Continue Reading »“…We can hardly be happy knowing that throughout this country so many fine citizens who have done all that they could for their young people must end their days divided–for they usually are divided in the poorhouse. Old people love their own things even more than young people do. It means so much to sit in the same old chair you sat in for a great many years, to see the same picture that you always looked at!
And that is what an old age security law will do. It will allow the old people to end their days in happiness, and it will take the burden from the younger people who often have all the struggle that they can stand. It will end a bitter situation–bitter for the old people because they hate to be a burden on the young, and bitter for the young because they would like to give gladly but find themselves giving grudgingly and bitterly because it is taking away from what they need for the youth that is coming and is looking to them for support. For that reason I believe that this bill will be a model bill and pass without any opposition this year.”
Continue Reading »“…No right-thinking person in this country today who picks up a paper and reads that in some part of the country the people have not been willing to wait for the due processes of law, but have gone back to the rule of force, blind and unjust as force and fear usually are, can help but be ashamed that we have shown such a lack of faith in our own institutions. It is a horrible thing which grows out of weakness and fear, and not out of strength and courage; and the sooner we as a nation unite to stamp out any such action, the sooner and the better will we be able to face the other nations of the world and to uphold our real ideals here and abroad….”
Continue Reading »Though the community organization processes are varied, they all center upon the organizing act and subsequent nurture. Implementation is implied in the latter term. As preliminary and supplementary stages in the process several other activities are often necessary — research (to get a clear picture of the fundamental facts), planning (to develop a wise program of action, publicity (to make the findings known to possible Supporters), and promotion (to organize and apply the support effectively).
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