1930 | Food Availability
Food Availability
Unprecedented drought parches the U.S. South and Midwest. Arkansas is the worst hit, but the lack of rain reduces the Mississippi to a comparative trickle and much of the Ohio River Valley is also deeply affected. President Hoover summons a conference of governors, freight rates are reduced for the counties that have suffered most, but Hoover wants to minimize the role of the federal government and instead encourages efforts by the Red Cross to feed the needy. Private resources are soon overwhelmed, Hoover asks for a congressional appropriation for the Red Cross but specifies that none of the money may be used to feed the needy lest it appear that Congress has funded a dole. The money is used to feed rabbits (critics call them "Hoover's hogs") while people starve. Refusing to admit failure, Hoover argues that the Red Cross handouts do not represent charity. Congress votes a $45 million Drought Relief Act December 20.
The International Apple Shippers Association offers its fruit on credit to jobless men, who will peddle apples on street-corners and help the association dispose of its vast surplus. Some 6,000 men are selling apples on New York sidewalks by November, and more thousands are selling apples in other cities, but by the spring of next year the apple sellers will be called a nuisance and City Hall will order them off the streets of New York.
New York has 82 breadlines by year's end, Philadelphia 80. Small towns in Arkansas and Oklahoma have food riots, with hungry crowds shouting, "We want food," "We will not let our children starve."