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From the Depths of the Great Depression

Currency:USD Category:Antiques Start Price:250.00 USD Estimated At:500.00 - 700.00 USD
From the Depths of the Great Depression
From the Depths of the Great Depression. Group of five T.Ls.S. of Henry A. Wallace, Jan. 2, 1931 to Feb. 20, 1932, 6 pp. in all, each signed "H.A.W.," to his friends Charles and Nita Roos, on letterhead of his publication Wallaces' Farmer & Iowa Homestead. "...Up to one o'clock every night and driving back home from farmers meetings. Very sad. Farm prices two-thirds the pre-war but their taxes and interest three times as high and the things they buy 20% higher. It is impossible and foreclosures are coming thick and fast. The economic conditions are now incredibly worse...Bank failures and fear have blighted many communities. In some sections the banks have declared a kind of moratorium and will pay out only one per cent a week. The way things are going, it will be a question of only a few weeks more until we can not meet our pay roll...The tension is very great...(The farmers) are strangely fatalistic ...the final convulsive spasm before the rigor of death." Also discusses his corn seed business. "...I believe we are going to sell our seed corn in spite of the hard times...." Refers to his publishing business, Sanskrit, astronomy, running for political office. "...My real craving is withdrawal from the world instead of throwing myself into the thick of it. Political life carries with it a bitter Karma...I am inclined to think it killed my Father when he was Secretary of Agriculture in 1924...." With two envelopes, one addressed in Wallace's hand, and postcard on which is printed a poem by Roos. Light clerical line markings on two letters, a third with toning, else fine to very fine.