A Cure for Depression

By Calvin K. Sunderland

Edited by Michael K. Sunderland

The following is a short excerpt from the Family History my father worked on until Alzheimer’s progressively destroyed his memory.

The nation, and the world, found itself beginning the slide into The Great Depression by 1930. The unprecedented economic disaster began with the stock market crash of October and November 1929. It can hardly be argued the crash caused the depression, but it was the curtain raiser. The Great Depression is still a subject of intense study by economists and political scientists trying to determine its causes, and trying to discover how to prevent it from happening again. Whatever the causes, and there were many events and trends that happened to converge at one point in time to bring on the calamity. The Great Depression happened simultaneously throughout the industrialized nations of the world.

By March of 1933, there were some 13 million unemployed in the U.S. — more than 25 percent of the 48 million in the work force. The nation’s production had dropped an astounding 50 percent in two years. Franklin D. Roosevelt took office that same March and by the end of the year some 4,000,000 had been reemployed, leaving only 9 million out of work. Liberal and leftist writers give Roosevelt credit for the improvement.

However, a similar drop in unemployment took place that same year throughout other industrial nations, none of which had the benefit of FDR’s leadership and his radical brand of social and economic tinkering.

The fact remains that U.S. unemployment never fell below 7,500,000, most years holding at a stubborn 8 to 9 million, for the next seven years. During that time most other countries had almost completely recovered. So there are those (and I’m among them) who believe from the historical record that Roosevelt’s radicalism only prolonged the agony.

There’s nothing like a full scale war to put everyone back to work. It was the Second World War with its tremendous military buildup and consequent industrial expansion that finally brought the United States out of the depression.

(It is looking like history is about to repeat itself. America is on the brink of an economic crisis that may, or may not fall into a full scale depression. The Biden administration seems hell bent on taking America back in time to the days of the Great Depression, including getting us involved in what might evolve into another world war. Now that would definitely cure our economy of depression! They can call it a recession all they want, the effect on the middle and lower class citizens of this once great nation is brutal and may become catastrophic.

Like my father before me, I believe that with all the current efforts of the far left socialist leaning Democrats, they are trying to take America down the same path that FDR traveled. This time the end could very well result in the permanent removal of the United States of America as a world power and putting the vast majority of the middle and lower class into permanent economic bondage, AKA socialistic slavery. Unless a majority of Americans wake up and vote these rascals out in the coming elections that could very well be our future. It is up to you. – Michael K. Sunderland)