When I was a small child, during the Depression years, I saw a newsreel that left a lasting impression on me. It showed farmers pouring milk into a ditch. They were angry because they could not sell their milk at a price that would allow them at least to break even.

City dwellers had it even worse. Photographs of that time show people lined up in hopes of getting their money out of the bank, and later photos show long lines at improvised soup kitchens.  There wasn’t much of a safety net. Social Security, originally part of the Socialist Party platform under presidential candidate Norman Thomas, finally came into being in 1935, followed in 1936 by unemployment insurance.

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