The times can be described only as remarkable.
The mass media brought the sights and sounds of
the rapid changes to more people, more quickly than ever before.
From sports to business, from movies to
military, the public's appetite for celebrities and heroes to
look up to could never be satisfied.
As millions of women became established in
careers long thought for men only, some Americans relished the
rush towards "equality" while others decried the "erosion" of the traditional family unit.
Young people embraced the most outlandish -- and often meaningless
-- of fads. Juvenile delinquency and
crime were on the rise, especially in the strongholds of
poverty.
Millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens spent
millions of dollars on illegal mind-altering substances, making
organized criminals rich. Gang wars filled the streets of inner
cities with the sounds of automatic gunfire and the stench of
violent death.
The majority of Americans longed for a return to
traditional values.
"That Old-Time Religion" was "good
enough" for many a soul, often intolerant of those not
likewise inspired, as by the broadcasts of often flamboyant
evangelists.
White supremacists recruited new members, and
new sympathies, in greater numbers than they had in decades, as
many searched for racial, religious, or political scapegoats for
the seemingly intractable problems of modern life.
Although politicians won strong majorities of
votes talking tough about "law and order", corruption ran
rampant through the corridors of power in government and
business: Graft almost came to be accepted as the norm; and
greed, a necessary evil.
Sizable majorities of Americans voted time and
again for conservative Republican Administrations, which
triumphed at dismantling federal programs providing social
services: After costly actual or perceived failures of "progressive" policies in previous Democratic
Administrations, the majority had come to believe that the
government was more part of the problem than part of the
solution.
Big business was seen as the better caretaker of
power, so federal policies catered to the corporate
establishment. Regressive sales taxes and users fees took bigger
bites from the poor and middle class than progressive income
taxes took from those profiting most in the economy.
In the face of growing power and influence from
economic rivals overseas, protectionism began to flourish.
Technology produced more and better goods,
faster and cheaper than ever before. Consumers were inundated
with choices undreamt of just a generation earlier, material
goods that advertising insisted more persuasively than ever
before they "had to have". Buying on time was the thing to
do -- after all, "next year would be only better than
this."
The small farmers, however, suffered through
some of their worst years ever, more at the mercy of the
economic and political climate than of the elements.
Organized labor, too, was dealt its most serious
setbacks in decades; and the buying-power of blue-collar workers
lagged behind, casting an ominous shadow over the otherwise
record economic boom.
Flush with cash -- on paper if not in hand -- millions of individuals, businesses, and institutions rushed to
invest and re-invest in often high-yield, high-risk ventures.
Borrowing against inflated appraisals and taking credit limits
to the maximum, no- or little-money-down speculation fueled much
of the economy and tied-up much of the savings of the nation.
Government officials not only "looked the other way" (often
for a price) but oftentimes encouraged such superficially
profitable deals, as with tax breaks and lax anti-trust
legislation and regulation.
Then, on "Black Tuesday", October 29, 1929,
the house of cards that was America came crashing down: The
stock market -- as overvalued as today's real-estate market -- collapsed. Debts were called-in. Portfolios were dumped in a
panic unforeseen by most just days earlier. Fortunes and savings
were lost, as were lives and families. The Twenties would roar
no more. And the ensuing Depression would be greater than the
nation had ever had to endure before.
But America had not been alone in her folly, her
intoxication with wealth and her seduction by power. In fact,
never in history had the nations of the world been so
interdependent, dependent upon mutual trade and peaceful
relations.
But living high at the expense of others would
destroy not only the economy but also the new world order.
The greatest power in Europe had already been
devastated, as a consequence of its military belligerence.
Humiliated before all the world, its proud
people found their store shelves empty and their currency
worthless.
As insecurities grew, so did the desire for
scapegoats; and ancient ethnic tensions and hatreds grew as
violent as they were unfathomable.
Calls for international help were met mostly
with lip service, as chronic distrust and hatred for the old foe
festered, becoming acute when the world committed economic
suicide, with the lethal weapons of unproductive debt and trade
war.
Unfamiliar with the traditions of democracy and
fed-up with the failures of newly democratic institutions,
people in this and other desperate nations would empower the
most charismatic, yet psychopathic of dictators; and after
testing their arms, tactics, and strategies in third-country
conflicts, the great powers would engulf the world in a war that
would come closer than anyone could have ever imagined to
destroying civilization itself.
Those who do not learn from history...