New Deal Hard Times Art (2/10): "One Third of a Nation"

Above: A WPA poster promoting the WPA's production of One Third of a Nation. In her 1940 book Arena, WPA Theatre Director Hallie Flanagan devotes an entire chapter to One Third of a Nation, "A play about people living in slums, about the historic development of slums and about their tragic effect on human lives" (p. 211). One Third of a Nation was perhaps the WPA's most successful theatre production (see, e.g., Susan Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 2008, pp. 225-228), but it also made enemies. Flanagan recalled one theatre owner who said, "Big money is going to fight this play... Big-monied people like landlords don't want people thinking about slum conditions" (Arena, p. 220). Image courtesy of George Mason University.

In his inaugural address to begin his second term as president, Franklin Roosevelt said: "I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day... 

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children... I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished... Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people. It can make constant progress when it keeps abreast of all the facts. It can obtain justified support and legitimate criticism when the people receive true information of all that government does... If I know aught of the will of our people, they will demand that these conditions of effective government shall be created and maintained. They will demand a nation uncorrupted by cancers of injustice..."

Roosevelt's heart was in the right place, but he was wrong about the American people demanding and maintaining good government. Through apathy, celebrity distraction, and a powerful lack of empathy, the American people have allowed their federal and state governments to be hi-jacked by the super-wealthy and their political marionettes. The government doesn't serve average Americans today - it threatens them with incarceration and poverty, places them in inescapable debt, and allows their livelihoods to be sent overseas. Today, the government doesn't tax record-breaking wealth more; instead, it places ruthless restrictions on debt relief for struggling Americans (e.g., student loan debtors and the entire territory of Puerto Rico). Today, the government doesn't ensure universal health care; instead, it allows pharmaceutical companies to overcharge and overdose us. Today, our government is not effective and just, as Roosevelt had hoped; instead, it is corrupt and foul-minded, neglecting those who are suffering and coddling those who are not.

"It is perverse and obscene. We are creating a generation of indentured people. It is mind-boggling that we would do this to a whole generation of young people."

--Daniel Austin, law professor, Northeastern University, on inescapable student loan debt ("Joe Biden Backed Bills To Make It Harder For Americans To Reduce Their Student Debt," International Business Times, September 15, 2015)