My Veterans

I first published this in 2007 and I added a "Word History" in 2012. I periodically rerun it, as it was a memorable experience in my life.

During my time in property management, I had lots of experiences and made many acquaintances, including a good number of American military veterans. Just like any group of people, there were some veterans who certainly were not model citizens, but overall, this group made an impression on me more than any other. Now, military veterans are everywhere in American society, but the specific group of veterans I’m going to emphasize here is a group composed of men who had problems with drugs and alcohol (it just so happens these were all men, but there could just have likely been women involved). They were part of a treatment program at our VA hospital in Cleveland (the then Brecksville unit) where the veterans had to actually live at the hospital facility where they received the treatment and the counseling for their addiction. To be quite honest, there were some rough and tough folks involved in this program, as many had been living out on the streets, but they had finally sought treatment; treatment that could last for many months or even for a year or two.

After the VA officials determined that a person had made sufficient progress, they would help them find work, and then housing. I want to emphasize, this was NOT some government give away program, nor did the VA coddle any of these guys. It was tough, and I can tell you the TREMENDOUS RESPECT I have for the VA counselors who worked in this program. At first I was a bit taken back by how tough talking the counselors really were in dealing with the veterans who first entered the program, or especially with those who went back to their addictions and had to re-enter the program, but it’s a tough world, and the counselors were only dealing with the harsh realities of folks trapped in their own addictions. Once a veteran was committed to trying to straighten out his life, the counselors relaxed the tough talk. I can testify how much these veterans respected the counselors as they moved through the program.

The VA tried a cooperative program with the local housing authority to provide Section 8 vouchers to veterans who were preparing to leave the treatment program. Again, this was not a give away program, as the veterans HAD to have a job, and show responsibility for a certain period of time before being able to move out on their own. The housing authority only paid a small portion of each veteran’s rent; I just forget the percentage, but I believe it was no more than thirty percent of the rent, and in many cases it was less than that. The VA monitored each veteran’s employment record, and then their tenant record; that is, the VA made sure the veteran paid their share of the rent and kept their living quarters in decent condition. When I had a problem with a veteran, all I had to do was call my VA contact, and she sent someone out to the property within a day or two to check on the situation. Let me make this clear, the program was not one hundred percent successful, but I’m happy to say that there were more successes than failures.

Over time, I developed a good relationship with many of these veterans. As I said, there were failures, and one guy in particular, whom I recall, went back to the streets. One little story on the positive side, a veteran was moving into the building one day, after more than a year in the recovery program. He always seemed to have “a chip on his shoulder,” but this story shows how that chip finally fell off. The building office overlooked a busy street across from a feeding center for homeless people. After the veteran had signed all of the paperwork to move in, he went out to get his belongings from someone who had transported him to the building. I was looking out the window when I saw two homeless guys approach and then call out to him. They may have known him from his “previous” life, but I’m not certain of that. They extended their hands and he went to them and shook their outstretched hands. When he came back to the office, I told him, “I saw those guys come up to you and I just want to say to you, leave those people alone!!! No good can ever come of it for you!” He just glared at me. Now, I probably would never have even remembered this incident, except about 8 or 9 months later, this same veteran came into the office to pay his rent. He had been doing exceptionally well, and had a good job working in a hospital. He told me the VA had given him a really good evaluation, and he then said, “And you’re part of the reason I’ve done so well.” I was stunned and I couldn’t imagine what I had done to earn such a remark from this battle hardened guy who had been living on the streets just a couple of years before. He said, “Do you remember the day I moved in? You saw those street guys come over to shake my hand.” He then mentioned what I had told him that day with emphasis on the  “no good can ever come of it for you.” He said, “At first I was angry that you would say that to me, but then it stayed on my mind. Every time I thought about going back to the streets, I thought of what you’d said that day. Those guys had their hands out to try to drag me back into the streets with them.”

A few of the veterans, including the above mentioned man, became friends with one another and acted as a ready-made support group. I so enjoyed the way these guys helped each other. These guys had come so far and were doing so well. I wasn’t afraid to let them know if they got out of line in some way, and they knew my remarks were for their own good. Then, the time came that the building was to be torn down for redevelopment. I had to give notices to all of the tenants that they would have to move within sixty days. I was concerned about some of these veterans finding housing, because their personal histories were not without some blemishes, namely arrests. A short time after the vacate notices were given out, a knock came at the office door. When I opened the door, in came a group of veterans and another tenant who had become friends with them. They sat down and I told them that when they went to look for housing, to use my name as a reference, and I’d be sure to get them in somewhere, even if I had to fudge the truth a bit. (Hey, I never claimed to be up for the “Mother Theresa Award” that year.)

Then came perhaps the nicest thing that has ever happened to me in my life. To this day, I get tears in my eyes when I tell or write about it. The one guy acted as spokesman for the group, and he said, “Randy, we didn’t come down here to get help from you. We came down here because we’re all worried about you and whether you’ll have a job now.” I can be pretty battle hardened myself, but I have to admit that it took me a couple of moments to get my composure. Here, these rough and tough guys were worried about me. So maybe old Randy did accomplish a little something in his life.

(This next part was published separately, but I'm including it here)

Just a few other thoughts about this story: I had an excellent relationship with the Cleveland VA Hospital counselors and I sadly miss them, as they did so much good for people. I called the Cleveland VA a few years ago to inquire about the counselors I had dealt with back during the time of this story, Jan, Steve and Charlie, only to find that they had all transferred to other parts of the country; a loss for Cleveland, but a gain for those other parts of the country. The veterans housing program that I participated in was the first in the country.

I don’t know where all of the veterans are, but I sure hope those who had progressed so much have been able to maintain their lives, without going back to any dependency on drugs or alcohol. And I hope that those who were not success stories at our building regained their footing and continued to fight the battle against addiction elsewhere, but not on the streets. My thoughts are often with you guys and will continue to be with you for the rest of my life.

After the building was vacated, I received a call from one of the VA counselors. He said the VA had something special for me and that he would be in to see me shortly. He showed up with a signed card, a cake and a special certificate that I have on my wall to this day.

It reads:
“Department of Veterans Affairs”Certificate of Appreciation Presented to Randy Smith

For his participation and service in the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) Program. As the FIRST participant in this initiative to provide veterans housing assistance, Mr. Smith provided the veterans with a unique opportunity to reside in the community, obtain employment and live a more productive lifestyle. Mr. Smith's contributions to the veterans are greatly appreciated by the veterans and staff of the Domiciliary Service.

Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Cleveland, Ohio
December 1, 1994

(It is signed by the Chief of the Domiciliary Service and has the seal of the Department of Veterans Affairs.)

WORD HISTORY:
Honor/Honour, first is the American spelling, second the British spelling-The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, but it traces back to Latin "honor(em)," which meant "esteem, respect." Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "honor," and it was carried to England with the Norman dialect of French in 1066 as "honour." It was borrowed into English in the late 1100s as "honour," and overtook the native Germanic word for "honor," which was "aar" (German, for instance, still has the related "Ehre" and Frisian has "eare" as their words for "honor"). The American spelling without the "u" developed in the 1800s. The basic meanings of "respect, esteem" have remained, as in the title/address "Your Honor;" that is, "someone due respect." The verb form developed from Latin "honorare," which had been derived from the original Latin noun (above). This gave Old French "honorer," which was also carried to England by the Norman dialect, and "apparently" it was borrowed into English as "honouren" or "honuren" a few decades after "honour," the noun.

The World In Protest, Revolution or Civil War? Part Fifteen

This was first published in May 2012


"Battle Over Budgets" Part Two/Austerity 

The huge deficits of the 2000s added trillions to the collective national debt by the time of the 2008 crisis. When voters elected Democrat Barack Obama as President, his economic team wanted a major stimulus bill passed by Congress to counter the economic decline. This was in contrast to many Republicans who wanted more tax cuts, naturally with much of the money going to the wealthiest Americans, and to their basic hands off of the economy beliefs. For the administration, with no money, there was only one way to get that money, DEBT. In the end a combination of spending proposals and tax cuts were enacted. Gradually, although faster than I thought possible, the economic plunge halted and the economy stabilized. The problem ever since has been, now what?* (See Part 14 for the headwinds that have also limited the recovery.)

Conservatives in America and the world over have been arguing that budget deficits are keeping the economy from expanding and that the tremendous debts will bring a day of reckoning.** Conservative governments in Europe have implemented "austere budgets" to cope with their respective debts, with much of the pain falling on those less then wealthy individuals and families. These policies have been especially implemented in Greece, Spain, and to some degree, in France and Britain. If you're an American and this all sounds familiar, it should, as Republicans, led by conservative Congressman Paul Ryan, have laid out plans to deal with the deficits, largely at the expense of everyone, but the wealthy, to whom he wants to give MORE tax cuts! These folks have used their policy ideas as an almost slogan of  "don't punish the job creators." They have attacked unions, attempting to destroy or to limit the labor movement. They have tried to "fix" unbroken election laws, thus limiting potential Democratic turnout. Not only that, but they want to remove all inheritance taxes*** so that huge estates can be passed on to the chosen few who may or may not have ever worked to earn any of it. So much for a meritocracy, and the creation of a true aristocracy. It seems to the world's conservatives that "austerity" is for everyone else, not for the wealthy or their corporate entities. Sacrifice is for everyone else, not for them, or perhaps better said in another slogan like, "Everyone else sacrifice for us."

The Occupy Wall Street movement has brought increased attention to the income disparity in America, and spinoffs in Europe and elsewhere ("Blockupy") have taken the ball and run with it, often to the cries of "We are the 99%." Protests in Europe have been large and frequent, with occasional outbreaks of violence. Recent elections in Greece and France have produced dramatic results, especially in France, where a socialist was elected president. In Greece the situation has been much more polarized, with a new government being in limbo. New elections have been called. In local elections in Germany, conservatives have lost ground, making the next national election suspenseful. The common thread seems to be that less than wealthy people aren't just rolling over for the wealthy interests, but they are taking to the streets, often led by the younger generations, and, when elections come, they are voting their own self interests. You have to start some place, and this is the signal "We aren't going to take it anymore!" Will it work? Now the discouraging part; probably not; at least not in the way some want it to work. Some countries have unrealistic spending levels, but the necessary changes will have input from those to be affected the most, and that's all we can expect in true democracies. People will not allow the wealthy and their allies to dictate how much they will cut others, while taking more money in tax cuts for themselves; money they don't need.

These movements have a chance to get this country and other nations of the world back from wealthy and corporate interests, but they must court the middle classes. Anarchists and extremism will only scare the very people who are needed to enact positive change.
       
 * Federal Reserve policy has also been very involved in the economy, but I'll try to keep this already complex subject limited.

** Just an observation here, as American conservatives didn't say much about all of the debt accumulated during the Reagan years; for instance, when the "Gipper's" economic team said "deficits don't matter." Nor did they rave or rant when George W. Bush was in office and debts climbed into the trillions.

*** Republicans are working at both the federal and state levels to remove estate taxes, as there are separate taxes at these levels.

WORD HISTORY:
Austere-The ultimate origins of this word are unclear, although some believe it to be Indo European, but it traces back to Greek "austeros,"^ which had the notion of "harsh," which seems to have also been applied food and drink that were bitter; that is, "harsh tasting." Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "austerus," with the same basic meaning. Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "austere," and English borrowed the word from French in the early 1300s. The modern meaning still retains the notion of "harsh, severe," but it can also mean "plain, simple," usually in terms of "showiness," but this retains the "harsh" notion, as in "deprived of, restricted in adornment." 

^ Greek is an Indo European language related to English, but further down the family tree.

The World In Protest, Revolution or Civil War, Part Fourteen

This was first published in May 2012.


"The Battle Over Budgets" Part One/Overview

While technically the "Great Recession" ended a couple of years ago, the effects of the crisis continue to linger. In America, new home sales remain at low levels, thus keeping the home building industry, and its associated businesses, slow. Hiring has been relatively steady, but not robust, bringing down the unemployment rate at what seems an agonizingly slow pace, although it must be noted that government employment cuts at all levels have negated part of the gains in the private sector. Further, we can't forget that just as the economy turned the corner from severe downturn to the upside, the Gulf oil spill brought new economic problems, as well as a literal mess to the states along the coast there. Then Japan was rattled by a major earthquake, shaking not only that country, but bringing the economic jitters to many, especially the then recovering American auto industry. We have to remember folks, like it, not like it, nations, including America, are no longer just dependent upon their own economies and resources, they are all entangled to varying degrees of, well, "entanglement." If a major nation, or group of nations, sneezes, other nations catch cold too.

Further, the attempts to rein in the "casino-like" atmosphere of the banking industry has not been very successful, although higher reserve requirements mean banks have had to take money from other parts of their business to meet these requirements. Bankers undoubtedly argue that this reduces the number of loans they can make, thus limiting economic expansion, and there's certainly truth to that, but we can't have things both ways folks. This is what happens when we let things get out of hand, which is what happened. The banks went wild, the collapse came, and now we're trying to get the cat back into the bag, but it is a painful process. Attempts to regulate the banks more directly has essentially failed, as banks, along with largely, but not exclusively, Republican allies, fought tooth and nail to keep regulation as lax as possible. They succeeded, but common sense failed. The result has been a very recent new revelation that super bank J.P. Morgan Chase has suffered an admitted two billion dollar loss, which might actually be four billion (do I hear five? Six?), from risky investments.*

One of the effects of the "Great Recession" has been on government budgets. As I noted above, in the U.S., at the federal, state and local levels (including schools), contractions in revenue,** and rising costs for certain things, have brought great budget squeezes. Federal stimulus money helped some communities keep layoffs to a minimum, especially of police and fire personnel, but the money was really a one time, short term shot in the arm. Once it was gone, major decisions had to be made to keep budgets in balance, and many a worker lost their job. Meanwhile, similar has been happening elsewhere in the world, in particular in Europe.

* Okay, anti-regulation people argue that you can't have freedom if you have regulation. "Freedom," however, is in the eye of the beholder. In the 2000s, the banks went wild and laid their very solvency on the line in all sorts of risky investments, much of it based on an overheating mortgage business. The resulting collapse in 2008 brought America and the world to an economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression. Quick action by many nations, including the U.S., even initially by the "free market" Bush administration, contained the damage, although the aftereffects are still with us. Banks are not just playing with their own money, they are playing with YOUR money, and with the nation's (and the world's) economic security. If you boarded a commercial airliner and the captain decided to start all sorts of risky maneuvers, I seriously doubt  you would say, "Oh that's okay, it's a free country, you can't tell the captain or the airlines how to fly their planes. Keep government regulation out of my air travel." Be careful in this election year when you hear politicians telling you they want to cut or eliminate regulation. You might just get on an airplane with a crazy captain.

** There has been a "double whammy," if you will, in that lower employment and business activity have naturally curtailed tax revenue, but also tax cuts, enacted at the national level and also at many state levels to promote growth, have taken a bite out of income. Less spending has meant less revenue from sales taxes. The dramatic decline in home prices has meant less money from property taxes.  

WORD HISTORY:
Budget-This word goes back to Indo European "bhelgh," which had the notion of "swell, inflate, bulge." This spawned a number of forms in Indo European's offspring, including Celtic, which had "bulgos/bolgos," meaning "stomach, bag," and this gave Gaulish "bulga(s)," with the same meanings. This then was borrowed into Latin as "bulga," which meant "leather bag, pouch." A leather pouch was used to hold money. Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "bouge" (initially "boulge") also with the meaning "leather pouch/bag, often used for money." This later became "bougette," which meant "small pouch/bag." English borrowed the word from French initially as "bouget" in the early 1400s, and the word expanded in meaning beyond the actual pouch/bag, but also to its content. By the 1700s government finance people kept their financial plans in such a "pouch/bag," thus modern "budget." The verb form developed from the noun in the 1800s.

Donna Summer, Your Music Was "Hot Stuff"

Note, July 30, 2017: Can't believe she has been gone for five years. 

Donna Summer* gave the world some music to move to. If you like to "boogie," Donna, the "Queen of Disco," had the tunes for you! She made the lives of many people better, and that was just for the exercise. Her death is a blow to the world of music, but she left us with such memorable songs as: "MacArthur Park," "She Works Hard For The Money," "Last Dance," "Hot Stuff," "On the Radio," and "Bad Girls." Farewell Donna, this is our "last dance." R.I.P.

* Maiden name "Gaines," married name "Sommer" (German), used English form "Summer" in her career. 

WORD HISTORY:
Dance-The "possible" ancient ancestor of "dance" was the Indo European root "tenwe/tenweh," which had the notion of "pull." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "t(h)insanan," which kept the notion of "pull," but also in the sense "stretch." This gave Frankish, a Germanic dialect,^ "danson," which also meant "pull, drag, move back and forth."^^ Old French, a Latin-based language (see note below), took the word from Frankish as "dancier," by which time the meaning of "dance" had developed, which gave the Norman dialect of French "dauncer." This was borrowed into English in the 1200s, initially as "daunsen." The noun was derived from the verb. The word is widespread in other Indo European languages owing to French influence in government and high society. French was long used as THE diplomatic language among European nobility. Other Germanic languages borrowed the word, too, and for instance, German has "tanzen."
    
^ The Franks were a Germanic tribe that conquered  large parts of western Europe from about the 3rd Century A.D. (or C.E., if you prefer). Some Franks participated in the Germanic invasion of Briton in the mid 400s, along with their more numerous invading relatives, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. A large segment of the Franks occupied what is now France (named after the Franks), where much of the population remained Latin speaking (the area had been part of the Roman Empire). Ever so gradually the Latin dialect(s) of the area absorbed the Germanic Frankish dialect, becoming "French" (simply a variation of "Frankish"), although a number of Germanic words remained in the Latin-based "French."

^^ Some related Germanic words meant "tremble" (thus the idea of "moving back and forth, pulling and dragging"), as well as "pull, drag."

They Can't Stop The Money Obsession

Some people are good at making money. Some people are great "wheeler-dealers," something I've never been good at. Some people just can't get money and making money out of their minds, EVER! A favorite television comedy of mine in the late 1960s was "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," starring Hope Lange, Edward Mulhare, and Charles Nelson Reilly.* The show was "based on" the 1940s movie with Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney. Reilly played Lange's nervous, money-loving, tightwad landlord. Even after all of these years, I still remember one episode where Reilly believes he will die within a few days. He has accumulated a substantial fortune, but with death staring him in the face, he decides to splurge on his funeral. When he goes to the funeral home to make all the arrangements for his own funeral, the undertaker is stunned to find Reilly willing to spend so lavishly. After making the initial plans, he asks what the bill will be. When the undertaker tells him the amount, Reilly's money-loving obsession kicks in, and he starts to make cuts. The cuts finally make the funeral less than most poor folks get.

There have always been people like Reilly's character and there always will be. I suppose they're insecure and afraid, deep inside. Remember Mr. Thurston Howell III, from the 1960s "Gilligan's Island?" While a multimillionaire, he needs his Teddy bear so he can sleep. The thing is, egos and insecurities have to have some control. For the last three + decades there has been all sorts of deregulation, permitting some of the most insecure and egotistical among us to ravage the country, in my opinion. Just look at how the income gap has grown during this time. Back when there was more regulation, the rich were still the rich, but there was some balance to the system, now...... Remember, they NEVER stop! It is up to us to put curbs on
them.

* A few years after "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir," Charles Nelson Reilly became a regular participant on the popular "Match Game," which had both a daytime and nighttime version. Years later Reilly publicly said he was gay.  

WORD HISTORY:
Funeral-The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, but it traces back to Latin "funus," which generally meant "funeral, burial service, death." This then produced Latin "funeralis," which meant "matters associated with a burial," which then gave Latin "funeralia," "the rites of burial." This gave French "funérailles," "funeral rites, funeral service." English borrowed the word from French in the mid 1400s. 

Addition To The Great Depression

I should have added this during my original articles, but better late than never. In order to add some balance, it should be noted that not everyone suffered terrible job loss or financial hardship during the Depression. We do need to remember, that while unemployment was far above what would have been considered normal, more people had jobs than were unemployed. Further, the ranks of the unemployed tended to be "revolving," just to use a term; that is, many who lost jobs at some given point, found other jobs eventually, although perhaps at lower wages, but while they were finding new work, others were losing their jobs. The situation at various points during the Depression was, however, that more folks were losing jobs, than finding jobs, thus the unemployment rate kept increasing for quite some time. Of course, the reciprocal of that was also true, as there were times when more people found jobs than lost jobs.

If a person or household had savings, or if a person was able to maintain a decent job during those times, they actually could have lived a pretty decent lifestyle, since prices fell faster, in most cases, than did wages; that is, some people actually GAINED purchasing power. As noted in one of the articles, I doubt many people wanted the Depression to continue in order for some to experience this benefit.

WORD HISTORY:
Save-This goes back to Indo European "sol(h)," which had the notion of "whole, keep together, keep well, keep sound." This gave Latin "salvus," which meant "safe, healthy, sound." This then gave Latin the verb "salvare," with the meaning "to make (something) safe from harm, to save." Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "sauver." English borrowed the word from French in the late 1100s as "saven," but initially with the religious sense "save a person's soul from sin." The meaning gradually broadened to "save, rescue."

The Great Depression, Part Twelve

Between 1929 and 1933, the economy suffered some staggering blows. Business investment plummeted by more than 95% from the 1929 level, international trade declined by about 50%, Gross National Product (GNP), used to measure the sum of all goods and services produced by the economy, dropped by nearly 30%, construction spending fell by 78%, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed an overall drop in prices by 18%, and the unemployment rate hit 24.9%; that is, 15 million Americans were unemployed, and millions more had only part time work. Even with these stark statistics, in 1932, charitable giving by Americans hit a record amount.

Franklin D. Roosevelt brought a new demeanor to the White House. Unlike the moody, more intellectual Hoover, Roosevelt was smiling, confident and optimistic. Highly respected Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, after meeting the new president, issued a statement that has, more or less, labeled Roosevelt ever since, “A second class intellect, but a first class temperament.” Seemingly aware of his intellectual limitations, he brought into his administration highly competent advisers who devised a wide variety of plans to combat the Depression. Roosevelt reviewed their plans and then acted to “sell” the ideas to Congress and to the public. He wasn’t a saint, and he could be downright petty and vindictive; a trait that got him into some trouble with the electorate during his second term*, but the good will he had established with the American people trumped his personal faults. He had a knack for politics, a natural feel for what people wanted and what they would support. While Hoover had great difficulty conveying his personal concern for people, Roosevelt excelled at “connecting to people;” and during the Depression, this kind of “national hand holding” was important. Roosevelt had suffered from polio during the 1920s, and he was left essentially unable to walk or even to stand for long periods. His affliction seems to have given him a deep compassion for others, and he carried that compassion into the White House. For a nation suffering with a crippling affliction of its own, that compassion was much needed.**

Roosevelt took action immediately. He called Congress into session and presented a basic plan of action to try to turn the tide against the Depression. The banks were closed, in a bank holiday (a tactic actually devised by many states, not the Federal government), and Americans were assured that the banks that reopened would be safe, that they would have Federal inspections, new regulations, and that deposits would be insured by Uncle Sam, through the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The stock market would have new regulation, too, with margin (credit) requirements being upped to 90%. (Remember in an earlier part of this series, I said that previously, if you bought $1000 worth of stock on margin, you only needed to put down $100. With the new regulations, you would have to put up $900, and thus you held a large equity in the stock, making “margin calls” a rarity.) Many mortgages were helped by the advent of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in 1934, which gave Federal insurance to many homeowners. New public works projects, through the Public Works Administration (PWA), put the unemployed to work building schools, highways, and dams. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) cleaned up riverbanks and did reforestation. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built dams to control flooding and to provide electric power to a large area of the southeastern part of the country where electric service had not yet been made available; thus opening new markets for appliances (you can’t very well sell electric appliances to places that don’t have electricity). Workers were given rights and protections, including minimum wage, regulated work hours, overtime pay, easier union organizing, and better Federal unemployment insurance. Not all programs proved to be politically popular, and the plan that paid farmers NOT to grow as many crops received harsh criticism at a time when many people lacked adequate food. This situation proved to be a tough one, as farmers had often been producing so much, that they were actually hurting themselves, and frequently they had to sell produce at a loss or at the break even point, at best. The Roosevelt administration opted to pay farmers not to grow as much, so as to bring prices for farm produce to the point where farmers would make a profit.

All of these programs and many more that I haven’t touched upon were enacted during Roosevelt’s first two terms. Many business interests and purist capitalists huffed and puffed and stomped about many of the programs designed to help average Americans, and in spite of the hand wringing by these folks, the country survived and Americans didn’t all go around wearing little hammer and sickle insignias, and a red flag was not run up over the White House. FDR helped save their basic system for them.

Roosevelt was not really all that far removed from Hoover’s beliefs, and he feared high deficits on a Keynesian scale. John Maynard Keynes was an economist who pushed the idea of countries spending their way out of depressions, even if they incurred huge budget deficits. Also like Hoover, Roosevelt feared the “dole” mentality; that is, that some unemployed people would develop a lifestyle of taking money from the government and then not wanting to return to work when work was available. In those times, it was called “being on the dole,” an expression seldom heard in our modern times. Unemployment remained very high throughout the 1930s, in the double digits, but life was made easier for the unemployed and low income folks by the new government programs. The basic plan for old age income security was taken from the Hoover administration’s never completed program. The plan was modified and expanded and enacted as Social Security. This was one of those programs that was never properly funded, and it was instituted as a pay as you go system, but it helped many older Americans with their incomes and their dignity in retirement and it continues as a highly popular program to this day.

Now all of this being said, Roosevelt’s program, termed the “New Deal, did NOT end the Depression, as even in 1939, ten years after the start of the Depression, the unemployment rate was more than 14%. The tremendous expenditures made to fight World War Two provided the final push that conquered not only Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, but also the Great Depression.

* Roosevelt got into some trouble with Americans when he began to try to “purge” members of his own Democratic Party from Congress who disagreed with some of his programs. Further, he tried a move to circumvent the existing Supreme Court by proposing an expansion of the number of justices, a plan that came to be dubbed by the Press and the public, “a court packing scheme.” These unpopular moves and a downturn in what had been a gradually improving economy led to big Republican gains in both houses of Congress in the midterm elections of 1938, but the GOP had been so decimated, that even with these gains, Democrats maintained control of both houses of Congress by hefty margins.

** I recall reading and hearing about when FDR's funeral train or funeral procession (I can't recall the exact details) was passing by mourners, a man was asked if he had known the President, and he said, "No, but he knew me." That one statement tells how FDR related to millions of Americans.  

WORD HISTORY:
Dole-This word, closely related to "deal," goes back to Indo European "dail/dhail," which meant "to divide, to part." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "dailiz," with the same general meaning. This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "dal," with the notion of "divide" giving the meaning "portion or share (of something)." This then became "dol," and with the more specific meaning "something given as charity." By the 20th Century, the term came to be used in England for "government support given to citizens," and thus developed the expression, "on the dole," to mean "someone receiving government aid." "Deal," from the same source, retained the more general meaning "divide, apportion;" thus later used also for cards. The verb form "dole" developed in the 1400s from the noun, and is most common today in the expression "dole out." Common in the other Germanic languages, but more so with the meaning "part, portion, allotment;" thus making these versions more directly related in meaning to "deal." English is the only Germanic language, to my knowledge, to use a variation to mean "government aid." German has "Teil," Low German has "Deel," Dutch has "deel," West Frisian has "diel," Danish, Swedish and Norwegian all have "del." Again, all of these forms generally meaning "part, portion." Icelandic has "deila," but it has come to mean "quarrel;" that is, "a division between people."

The Great Depression, Part Eleven/B

Hoover had great difficulty holding his own party together. He never seemed to be a big admirer of Andrew Mellon, and he had frequent disagreements with him, but he nonetheless appointed Mellon as Treasury Secretary, and kept him in that position far too long to placate the pro-business, conservative wing of the Republican Party. Republicans had a large pro-business, “conservative wing,” that had been in the ascendancy during the Harding and Coolidge era, but also a large “progressive wing” that had suffered from diminished influence since Teddy Roosevelt left the White House. In those times, the entire country did NOT have electricity. Many progressives were pushing for government funded, generated and regulated electrical power for the many, particularly rural, areas where electric power was not yet available. They thought Hoover, the former Teddy Roosevelt supporter, was one of them; that is, a progressive on this issue, but it turned out that he opposed Federal development of electrical power, favoring private business in the matter, and the progressive wing of the Republican Party was very embittered over this. Of course, the pro business, anti-government wing wasn’t terribly enchanted with Hoover either, as he criticized Wall Street and eventually took the government into the private economy by offering government loans to help hard pressed financial businesses, plus, his administration ran huge deficits, for those times.* For staunch Republican partisans, Hoover was almost anathema, as he preferred cooperation with Democrats, and almost appeared to be non-partisan, rather than just bi-partisan. It really wasn’t until AFTER he left office that the Republican label was anchored to him, as many Democrats, not nearly as endeared to bi-partisan cooperation as Hoover, fixed Hoover, Republicans and Depression firmly together in the minds of the American public, although not without reason. Hoover, always seeming to go against public sentiment, helped their efforts by critiquing the New Deal and serving as the “anti-Roosevelt” (Franklin, that is) for a time.

Much later in his life, Hoover’s reputation began to recover, interestingly with some help from Democratic president, Harry Truman. The two became good friends over time, and Truman asked Hoover to serve as head of a commission to overhaul the Federal government. Later still, Dwight Eisenhower gave Hoover an assignment for the government. Some Democratic politicians gradually developed a “guilt complex” for their political jibes at the former president, and one story I recall, had President Lyndon Johnson making a change in plans to visit the ailing Hoover not long before the ex-president passed away, in spite of Secret Service objections to LBJ’s diversion from his schedule. For much of his life, Hoover acted as the spokesperson for “The Boys Clubs of America,” which in more recent times includes girls. By all accounts, the kids loved the old man, and it hearkens back to that ball field scene I mentioned earlier in this series when he was president. Hoover died at the ripe old age of 90, in the fall of 1964.

Now, a new president occupied the White House, and Franklin D. Roosevelt and his advisers benefited not only from seeing Hoover's failures over three and one half years, but also from some of Hoover's basic programs, which they would take over and expand to combat the Depression, and then call them their own.

* Far worse deficits would come under Franklin Roosevelt during the 1930s and even worse during World War Two. It is interesting that Roosevelt criticized Hoover for deficits, but then proceeded to run even larger amounts of red ink. Decades later, Ronald Reagan criticized Jimmy Carter for deficits, only to run deficits that made Carter's debts look like a surplus. While this is a bit of "hairsplitting," Roosevelt was a politician who saw things "at the moment," rather than always as ideological. While this doesn't excuse Roosevelt's inconsistencies, Reagan "claimed" to be a conservative who supposedly truly believed what he said.

WORD HISTORY:
Bow-This is the word which rhymes with "how," and which means "front section of a ship." In a sense, it is really the same word as English "bough," originally "shoulder, arm," but now meaning "branch or limb of a tree" (see "The Great Depression, Part 11/A for the history of "bough"). It goes back to Indo European "bhaghus," which meant "arm, elbow," which was derived from Indo European "bheugh," which meant, "to bend." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "boguz," which moved the meaning upwards on the arm to "shoulder, upper arm." This gave the Germanic dialects and languages a number of related words, all with the meaning "shoulder" (usually in reference to an animal, not a human), but later with the sense referring to "the front of a ship" (and in more modern times often to "the front of an airplane"). English borrowed the word meaning "front of a ship" in the 1300s, likely from Low German "boog" or Dutch "boeg" (or both) as there was much trade between these related people, with closely related languages (English, German, including Low German, and Dutch are all West Germanic languages).

The Great Depression, Part Eleven/A

Political leaders are always important, but even more so in times of crisis. Hoover’s personality seemed unable to instill confidence or to inspire hope in a nation struggling with a terrible economic collapse. He was not a commanding public speaker, nor was he very good at articulating what he was actually trying to accomplish at times, nor in rallying the public to support his programs, and his shyness made him appear less than “warm and cuddly” to the public. Throughout his life, first in the mining business and then in public service, Hoover was used to being involved with relatively small groups of people dedicated to achieving certain goals. In helping the starving and dislocated in Europe, he was surrounded by many volunteers, most not prone to bickering and sniping. In the Wilson, Harding, and Coolidge administrations, he was a Cabinet Secretary, and while politics are always in play in such an office, it was on a much smaller scale than when he occupied the White House. Hoover was also a chronic “worrier,” and no doubt this showed through to the public.

Hoover misjudged the overall problems with the Depression and its severity, but he wasn’t alone. It became so severe; no one really knew what to do, including Democrats. Often Democrats in Congress went along with Hoover’s basic legislative proposals, sometimes even strongly supporting them, with many Democrats supporting the bill to raise taxes. On a public relations level though, Hoover was president, and he suffered the consequences, not the Democrats in Congress, when his programs couldn’t turn the economy around. He had a knack for choosing the wrong side of an issue, especially when he needed a “win,” if you get my drift, and when he needed to get the public onto his side. He approached many issues with “nuance;” that is, he favored or opposed certain things, but with qualifiers. With the attention span of many Americans less than the size of a centipede, trying to explain details of legislation can be difficult, even in the best of times, but with the economy in shambles, Americans just wanted some action that would right the listing ship, not explanations of why certain parts of legislation were considered to be good or bad by the President. Hoover was principled. (“Nuance” is a word now quite familiar to one John Kerry. Remember “I voted for it, before I voted against it?”) With a severe drought affecting a large part of the farm belt and adding to the economic misery, Hoover and Congress developed a relief package of many millions of dollars to help farmers buy seed and feed their animals. Hoover insisted that the money be given as a “loan,” and not an outright grant. Further, when some in Congress wanted to offer the farmers direct help to feed themselves and their families, Hoover insisted the Red Cross could take care of that. He maintained that if the government gave farmers money directly, it would be demoralizing to them. Farmers and others in the American public had a difficult time figuring out why accepting government money was “demoralizing,” but accepting money from the Red Cross was not. Later, it was much the same with government loans to banks and certain other financial entities. Troubled banks got money, but when one community asked for an RFC loan to pay some employees, it was rejected. Again, Hoover was seen as championing banks, but not people.

The public definitely had a problem with Hoover’s hairsplitting, and his inability to fully articulate his ideas compounded the problem. (Note: Like after 9/11, Congress voted to help out the airlines with billions of dollars, going against many members' own basic political convictions, but they saw this as the only way to keep many airlines in business and preserve competition. It was much the same with the banks during the Depression. If the government had allowed the banks to falter, the whole system would have come crashing down, along with everyone's savings, making a terrible situation even worse. Hoover's administration had little choice, but to loan money to banks and financial institutions, regardless of how bad it looked to the public.) Hoover had some tough issues to grapple with for those times; as the Depression was an unprecedented collapse of the American economy. America was founded on a basic skepticism of government authority, and he avoided, as long as possible, using the government in many roles; preferring voluntary cooperation and private charity, but when he found that these things just couldn't work under the conditions of the Depression, he finally gave in and used the government to intervene, but he received little or no credit for having done so. Conservatives could not say that he didn't give the old ways every chance to succeed, although he held out against using total government compulsion of business. As I noted in an earlier part of this series, Hoover refused to release his private papers from his White House days, even while he knew the papers would show many of his critics to be wrong about the charges of inaction against the Depression and an uncaring attitude toward the suffering of so many during those times.

WORD HISTORY:
Bough-This word, with the modern meaning of "branch of a tree," traces back to Indo European "bhaghus," which meant "arm, elbow." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "boguz," which moved the meaning upwards on the arm to "shoulder, upper arm." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "bog" (with a long "o"), with the same meanings, but including "arm," in general. The idea of "shoulder, arm" led to a secondary meaning, "branch, limb of a tree," which gradually developed into the main meaning of the word. To this day, English is the only Germanic language to have developed this meaning. The spelling changed to "bough," and the "gh" was once pronounced in English, although we now say "bow," which rhymes with "how," and the word appears in the famous bedtime lullaby "Rock a bye baby, on the tree top, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall." (Hey Mom! What the hell ya doin' putin' me way up here? I mean, down here?) German has "Bug" (long "u"), Low German has "Boog," Dutch has "boeg," West Frisian has "boech," Icelandic has "bógur," Norwegian and Swedish have "bog" and Danish has "bov." All of these mean "shoulder (usually of an animal) or bow, as in the part of a ship," although the meaning "shoulder" is now in more limited use in some of these languages.

The Great Depression, Part Ten/B

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon felt that the bad banks should be allowed to go under, and that the strong banks would and should survive (Darwin is NOT dead, it’s the survival of the fittest! All of this sounds "good," to an extent, let the bad banks go under, but... keep reading). The thing was, there was a great deal of debt carried by banks on mortgage and business loans, in particular. Also, many folks had their life savings in banks; if a bank went under, it would prove a disaster for many, remember, there was NO deposit insurance back then. Hoover believed almost totally the opposite of Mellon’s “sink or swim” philosophy. He wanted to take some kind of action to shore up the nation’s banks, but he struggled with what exactly should be done. He resisted the idea of using the government to force the banks, or businesses in general, from doing anything. Hoover preferred “voluntary cooperation.” He tried using the stronger banks to voluntarily contribute to a fund to help bolster weaker banks, but the program was a miserable failure, as most banks didn’t want to contribute to the fund, including Mellon’s bank, if I remember right (Surprise! Surprise!). Finally, Hoover came up with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, or RFC. This was a government program that would make loans to banks and other entities. Hoover, while seldom given any credit by his critics, took the Federal government into the world of “private business.” It was a step that helped to change America, and temporarily, it helped steady the banking system.

"The Election of 1932" brought an end to twelve consecutive years of Republican occupancy of the White House. Franklin Roosevelt won by a wide margin in both the popular vote and in the more important Electoral College. Interestingly, Roosevelt was able to attack his former friend Hoover from both flanks during the campaign; attacking him from the right for running large Federal deficits, but then attacking him from the left for not using the government more to combat the Depression.

In those times, as I indicated in an earlier part, a president was elected in early November, but did not take office until March 4 of the following year; leaving a four month period of a “lame duck presidency” for the outgoing chief executive. During this period of late 1932 and early 1933 banks began to fail at an alarming rate, which only caused “a run on the existing banks,” which only caused more failures. It was a “vicious cycle.” Banks do many things, but mainly they take in money in deposits and then loan that money out at such and such an interest rate to make money. With the economy so depressed, not only were banks not making many loans, they weren’t getting paid for loans they had already made. Hoover’s RFC helped to stem the shakiness in the banking system at first, but it couldn’t totally prop up a system that was so filled with weaknesses.* The government loans were able to tide the banks over, much like the used car dealer mentioned in Part 10/A was able to stay in business by selling a vehicle and then paying off the previous vehicle he had sold, but eventually things caught up to the car dealer AND to the banks.

The reasons for the banking crisis and the run on the banks, which really triggered the major problems, are another contentious issue in history. Reasons given are colored by people’s political ideas. Hoover, whose bruised ego was still smarting from his re-election loss, blamed the crisis on President-elect Roosevelt’s vague campaign ideas about the economy, feeling that Roosevelt needed to state forthwith what he intended to do. Again Hoover’s political naiveté came into play. He wanted Roosevelt to, in essence, join forces with him to reassure the country about the banking system and thus curtail the run on the banks. Roosevelt, perhaps the best political president we’ve ever had, was definitely NOT inclined to lay his prestige on the line before he took office, nor did he want to be associated in any way with Hoover’s now very unpopular and failed policies.

So, you have a few thousand dollars in the bank in 1932/33 (again, quite a sum in those times). With deflation, your money is actually becoming stronger in terms of actual purchasing power). Suddenly you hear on the radio that such and such a bank has been stormed by depositors wanting to withdraw their money. The news is filled with new stories of banks being overwhelmed by withdrawals. What do you do? Sit and wait, and potentially lose your life savings? Hell no, you head to your bank and want to withdraw all of your money, figuring your mattress is safer than the current state of the banking industry. With so many depositors withdrawing their money, a slew of banks went down, with many others down for the count. The whole country seemed about to implode, but then in stepped a new president.

* I originally did this article about a year before the financial crisis of 2008, thus I wrote that Hoover's RFC "couldn't totally prop up a (banking) system so filled with weaknesses." As the crisis of 2008 came to a head, the Bush administration, along with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a Republican, decided to ask Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars to shore up the banking system. The money and some strategic mergers helped to eventually stabilize the system, but even then, a number of banks failed. Even with this recent event, however, many people, often, but not always, conservative Republicans (there really aren't many other kinds of Republicans these days), did not learn the lessons of the Great Depression. They were against any intervention into the banking system, and they wanted the weak banks to go under; thus letting things happen naturally, at least by their definition. Some folks just don't learn! In my fantasies, I'd like to put all of these "let things be natural" and "don't do something, stand there," people all together somewhere, where they have to live as people did 5000, 10,000, or 50,000 years ago, which seems to be want they want. Then if they got sick or injured, they couldn't call a doctor or go to a pharmacy for medications, they'd either survive or kick the bucket. I wonder how many would be screaming to get back to the reality of 2012, with all its shortcomings, and say, "Get me to a doctor?"

WORD HISTORY:
Branch-The ultimate origins of this word are uncertain, but it "may" go back to Gaulish^ "vranca," which seems to have had the notion of "angle;" thus the idea of "branch," "an offshoot that forms an angle." If true, where Celtic got the word is uncertain, but some believe Latin borrowed the word from Gaulish as "branca," which initially meant "paw" (offshoot from a leg), and also "footprint" (an impression made by a 'paw'). Later it took on the meaning "claw." Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "branche," which by then had taken on the meaning "bough, limb of a tree." English borrowed the word in the 1200s as "braunch." As had already happened in its previous history, the word has "branched out" in meaning, to include more than just trees; for instance, in reference to river systems and circulatory systems, as well as family history (branches of a family tree). The verb form developed from the noun in the 1300s.   
 
^ Gaulish was a Celtic dialect or language in western Europe, primarily in what is now modern France and part of Belgium. Celtic is an Indo European group of languages, thus related to English further down the family tree. Celtic dialects/languages, once widespread in Europe, are now much diminished, but include Welsh, Breton (in Brittany, France), and Irish Gaelic.

The Great Depression, Part Ten/A

With such an economic collapse, the nation’s banking system began to become unglued, or more precisely, become more unglued than it had been. I covered some items about the banking system in an earlier part, but it bears repeating. In those times, there were literally tens of thousands of banks across America; and by banks, I mean independent banks, not large banks with lots of branch banks. During the 1920s, with farming in a mini-depression, if you will, many banks in rural areas of the country collapsed or at least teetered on the brink of collapse. By the early 1930s, as the Depression gripped the entire nation, the banking system was in serious trouble, and not just in rural areas.

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was a “hands off the economy” kind of man and favored letting the economy take a deflationary course; that is, simply put, letting prices fall until they hit such a point that people would start spending again. The problem with that idea is, lots of folks get hurt, business people and workers alike, bankruptcies increase and given what we know from hindsight on how bad the economy was, the country might not have survived as we know it. Mellon, on the other hand, even saw some benefits to the Depression, in that people would live more frugal lives and work harder, and less competent folks would fall by the wayside, as new people stepped forward to pick up the pieces, but as some folks put it, no one wanted the Depression to continue so as to reap these “benefits.”

So what does “deflation” mean? Deflation is a period of generally falling prices. Now, you might say, “Hey I like lower prices,” but the thing is, as prices fall, the existing structure of the economy begins creaking and cracking, depending upon how long the slide in prices continues and how severe it is; that is, what the underlying conditions in the economy are. I suppose economists would say there’s a certain amount of deflation in the economy most of the time, at some level, or in individual cases. For example, I know the owner of a lower-end used car lot, or I should say the owner then, as the lot has now changed hands twice since the time of this story, only one and a half years ago. He told me that he got many, but not all, of his vehicles to sell by going to new car dealers, or used car dealers who deal mainly in more recent model cars; you go to buy a car, you trade in your old vehicle, they give you so much credit toward your purchase with them. These dealers then keep the title, but let him have the car to sell, like on consignment. When he sells the car, he pays them whatever price they’ve asked, they sign over the vehicle to him, and he signs it over to his customer. As I’ve noted in other articles, the Cleveland area economy has been struggling for quite some time. He told me how bad business was, and that he didn’t always have enough cash to pay off the other car dealers for their “consigned” vehicles right away; so he would take the money from his next sale to pay off the vehicle he had previously sold. Business got so bad, however, that at times, he needed to pay off several vehicles. In Ohio, and I assume most states are similar, when you get a used vehicle, you get a thirty day tag from the dealer until you get whatever you need (like emissions tests, for instance), including the title from the car lot, so that you can then go to get your license plates, or transfer an existing plate over to your recently purchased vehicle. The problem for some of his customers was, he couldn’t pay off the place where he got their vehicle, so they wouldn’t sign over the title to him, and consequently, he couldn’t give his customer their title. It was so bad, I heard him tell his employees “We’ve got to sell a car today, even at cost or a loss.” Eventually he put his couple of workers on part time, so now they weren’t making as much. Now this is an example of individual business deflation! When you take this example and expand it to a national level, businesses cut prices to lower high inventories or to get some cash to work with, lower prices mean less, if any profit, so workers are either laid-off or have hours cut, thus diminishing their purchasing power, their bills go unpaid or only partially paid, and they cut back on other purchases. When enough of this happens, these other businesses then feel the pinch, and they start doing the same thing, so the plunge goes on, until finally things hit bottom at some point, purchasing power and prices having some kind of equilibrium, and then the reverse process begins.

WORD HISTORY:
Twig-This word for a small branch goes back to Indo European "dwo(h)," which meant "two." This then produced Indo European "dwigha," with the idea of "forked, two-pronged." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "twigan," meaning "a forked branch." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "twigge" (seemingly with a long "i" sound), which later produced the modern version. German has "Zweig," Low German Saxon has "Twieg," Dutch has "twijg," West Frisian has twiich. All of these are West Germanic languages and I believe all, except Low German, pronounce it with a long "i" sound. Apparently the North Germanic languages do not use forms of the word, as I could not find any.

The Great Depression, Part Nine

So the government tried to balance the Federal budget to help bolster confidence. Whether the attempt bolstered confidence, I have no idea, but if it did, confidence didn’t put food on any tables, or shoes on any feet. With unemployment far worse and the country far more restless than in the first couple of years of the Depression, an event took place that pretty much sealed Hoover’s fate in the upcoming election of 1932.

A few years after the Great War (later called "World War One") ended, Congress passed a law giving a “bonus” to veterans of the European War. The amount, $100, was a considerable sum for those days, considering that the average income was somewhat under $1000 a year. The “bonus” was to be paid in two installments of $50. The first installment was paid, but the law did not make the second installment due until 1945. By 1932, some veterans decided to lobby Congress to move the payment of the second installment up to help unemployed veterans and to give the economy a shot in the arm. Some Veterans organized a march to Washington to make an effort to persuade Congress to pass the desired legislation. Thousands joined the “march,” and when they got to DC, they made an “encampment” of tents and shacks in one part of town known as Anacostia Flats. Most folks heard speeches and marched, and when the House passed, but the Senate defeated the bill, they went home, but a part of the "marchers" remained.

President Hoover and his wife sent sandwiches and coffee out to those gathered to lobby for the bill, but to my knowledge, the whole matter was kept secret, as Hoover was so prone to do. (It bears repeating from an earlier part of this series; Hoover’s religious beliefs were that he wasn’t supposed to help folks, or do good deeds to get credit, but to help his fellow man. Of course, in politics, what the public sees, or doesn’t see, for that matter, is important.) After the Senate defeated the bill, a group of veterans, and some say communists and communist inspired radicals, stayed behind. The ensuing incident really pitted almost opposite political points of view against one another, with each side accusing the other of all sorts of misconduct. To be quite honest, I don’t know that anyone really knows all of the facts and details of the composition of the people in the encampment. I’m not naïve, and I’d certainly be MORE surprised to hear someone claim that no communists were involved, as during that time in history, the battle lines between extreme Right and extreme Left were beginning to sharpen in many countries, including the USA. So anyway, I’m going to try to give just basics, as the “truth” about this incident is in the “political” eyes of the beholder, so to speak.

According to some reports, some men of the “Bonus Army,” as it was called, tried to enter some government buildings, and the police opened fire, killing one man. This inflamed the entire situation and the president called in General Douglas MacArthur to get the “Bonus Army” back across the river to the Anacostia Flats and away from the government section of the city. Hoover ordered that the Army was only to move the men across the river in an orderly manner and was not to go into their encampment. There’s no question that MacArthur disobeyed Hoover’s orders, most historians do agree on that, as he decided to pursue the Bonus Army across the river and into their encampment. He claimed communist conspiracies and such, and I have no idea what the truth was. He ordered the veterans out of the city and tear gas was used, bayonets flashed and tanks rolled forward as the Army moved the Bonus Army along. Then fire was set to much of the Bonus Army encampment, some say accidentally. This incident would require a book in itself, so we’ll leave it right here, except to say that the whole ordeal, besides the personal tragedies involved, was a public relations disaster for Hoover. Film taken by newsmen showing Army troopers with fixed bayonets pushing against veterans of service overseas and their families, and the fires of the burning encampment in the background were powerful images for the American public (remember, in those times, before television, people saw newsreels in movie theaters). Hoover, at first unaware of MacArthur’s disobedience, made a public commendation to the general, which seemed to say to the public that Hoover approved of the whole operation, and this gave Democratic candidate Franklin Roosevelt cause to say, “Well… I guess this elects me!” Hoover then learned the truth about MacArthur’s actions, but, unlike so many politicians since those times, he took full responsibility for the matter. Roosevelt’s comment was certainly true, as Americans had pretty much had it with Hoover’s time in office.

WORD HISTORY:
Grand-The ultimate origins of this word, meaning "large, impressive, luxurious, dignified," are unknown. It traces back to Latin "grandis," which meant "large, fully developed, full-grown." This gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "grant," which became "graunt" in the Anglo-Norman dialect which developed among the nobility in England after the Norman invasion. The basic meanings remained the same. It initially came into English around 1200 as a borrowing only in compounds to copy from the French and Anglo-Norman usage for family relationships; as in, "grandmother" ("graund dame" in French). This usage denoted "removal by two generations;" that is, your grandmother is two generations removed (in this case older) from you, or from your grandmother's point of view, you are two generations (in this case younger) removed from her. The late 1300s brought the borrowing of the single word "grand," but it wasn't until the 1500s that the word came into widespread usage. The term "grand" to denote "$1000" is an American English meaning from the early 20th Century, apparently from criminal world usage.

The Great Depression, Part Eight

As the federal budget deficit ballooned, Hoover made a decision to try to get the budget back into balance; and his whole attempt to do so has been controversial ever since. Many leaders in both political parties felt the budget had to be balanced and that taxes would have to be raised to do so. The idea of some type of sales tax was floated, but public outrage squelched the idea, and rightly so, as much of such a tax would have been paid by poor and middle income Americans, many already struggling to provide food for their families. The tax package that passed Congress and was signed by the president into law was a pretty comprehensive piece of legislation, with support from both parties. The largest tax increase was on “true” millionaires (very few in number in those times, as people with incomes of like one hundred grand were certainly more than the equivalent of someone making more than a million dollars by the value of today’s money), who saw an increase in surtaxes on their hefty incomes. I’m sure the increase in the surtax contributed to a large part of the wailing that the Depression was made worse by the tax increase. Although he was no longer in the Hoover administration, Andrew Mellon had served throughout the 1920s as Secretary of the Treasury, until Hoover replaced him with Ogden Mills well into the Depression. One of the wealthiest Americans of his time and so conservative to be called "reactionary" by many, Mellon had a deep abiding sympathy for the plight of  millionaires, and it was with his urging, that Coolidge and congressional leaders cut taxes on millionaires by a large amount in 1926.

The wealthy and their surrogates have always argued that in order for “capitalists” to let loose and invest, they need the money to do so, and that the tax took too much of their income. Now, there is some truth to that, but the idea that millionaires of those times (equivalent to today’s multi-millionaires and billionaires) were so strapped for cash that they couldn’t invest in plant and equipment is nonsense. The problem remained high inventories and under consumption. Business people were not going to rev up factories to produce goods that were still in abundant supply. Let’s say you own a pencil factory and I work for you. (And no smart remarks like “Get the lead out!”) For whatever reason, pencil sales slow down dramatically. You have a million pencils in supply and you decide to lay me off until your inventory declines enough for it to make sense to manufacture pencils again. After a fair amount of time, you still have 900,000 pencils in stock. If Uncle Sam says, “Hey Mr. or Mrs. Pencil, we’re going to lower your taxes, so how ‘bout producing more pencils?” Are you going to call me back to work to produce more pencils just because of taxes? You can’t sell what you already have. So if Uncle Sam said, “Hey, we’re raising your taxes by such and such an amount,” is that discouraging you from calling me back to work to help produce pencils? Hell no! You weren’t going to produce them even if they LOWERED your taxes. Trust me, if there’s money to be made on something, capitalists will be there; high taxes, low taxes, in between taxes, and that is a part of our system, and I’m not knocking it. So, in the above example, you’re not going to produce pencils until your existing inventory is reduced enough for you to see that there is sufficient market for you to produce pencils again. (Get the “point?” Hey, after all of those “get the lead out” thoughts, you deserved that!) During the Depression, a substantial segment of American society lacked sufficient income, so the problem of under consumption remained. Throughout the 1930s this problem persisted, and it wasn’t until the outbreak of World War Two in Europe, and America’s supply of equipment to the Allies, and the build up of our own armaments, that unemployment fell substantially, incomes began to rise, and consumption picked up. The tax policy passed in 1932 remained essentially the same, and that didn’t stop capitalists from expanding then. There was a market!!!

Hoover, the progressive; that is, his progressive political side, felt that super large estates should not be allowed to be passed on, and part of the tax bill he signed in 1932 had an estate tax of nearly 50%, if I recall, on estates valued at more than ten million dollars. (I know I keep repeating, but 10 million was an absolutely HUGE sum in those times, much more akin to like 200 million dollars today.) Many, but not all Americans have developed a sense of “fairness” during our nation’s existence. If large fortunes are permitted to be passed on, essentially intact, the people in control will pretty much always be the same. Let’s be honest, if I make a fortune on some invention, let’s say; once I’ve got the bucks, that means a certain amount of power, and once I’ve got the drop on you… So, stop and think, I doubt that any of you reading my stuff are millionaires, but if roles were reversed, and I were the millionaire and you the “peasant,” how would you feel? And also how would you feel about immense fortunes being passed on? Many things in life are done in self-interest, and that’s human nature to a large degree. In fact, that’s the argument made by capitalists, but the argument works both ways, not just in their favor, and we are far more numerous Mr. or Mrs. Pencil, so be careful, or we might get to the “breaking point.” Ah, okay, that was a bad one!

WORD HISTORY:
Largess/largesse-Both spellings are used for this word closely related to, and derived from, "large." The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, but Latin had "largus," which meant "plentiful, abundant." This gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "large," with the same basic meaning, but with the secondary meanings "wide" (presumably from the notion of "abundant area") and "generous" (presumably from the notion of so much abundance, a person could afford to be generous). French then developed "largesse," with the meaning "having the desire and ability to spend or give freely." This was then borrowed into English during the early 1200s.

The Great Depression, Part Seven

As the economy slipped and unemployment climbed, President Hoover tried to instill some confidence with the hope that consumers would spend, businesses would borrow and expand, and that this would lead to lower unemployment, and thus, to a reversal of the downturn. One of Hoover’s problems, however, was that when he made optimistic statements, and then the economy either didn’t improve, or slipped even further, his credibility, like the stock market, crashed. Certainly in any economic panic, and subsequent downturn, confidence is important, but there were serious structural problems in the American economy, and in fact, in the world economy, as I’ve already noted in the earlier parts.

In the midterm elections of 1930, Republicans retained control of both Houses initially, but by only one seat in the Senate and by two seats in the House. Several special elections were held prior to the House convening, and Democrats took control by four seats, and John Nance Garner became Speaker. To show how politically naïve Hoover could be, he considered asking Republican senatorial leaders to allow Democrats to organize the committees of the Senate, too, and thus the two parties would have a shared responsibility for bringing the economy back to health. Of course, this was all very absurd, as Republican committee chairmen and senior committee members would never have agreed to give up their powerful positions, nor would Democrats have been willing to take responsibility, and any blame, for the mounting economic mess that was occurring on the Republicans’ watch.

As I noted much earlier, Hoover, years before he was president, had been considering ways to lessen the effects of economic downturns in the business cycle. Hoover, and some others of that time period, considered deficit spending by government as a possible way of achieving some counterbalance to recessions/depressions, not necessarily feeling that such spending would actually or promptly end downturns, but that much economic hardship could be avoided, and that downturns could be minimized, and then the economy would recover and the upward march would continue. You have to remember, Hoover was something of a mixture of conservative and progressive. He supported Teddy Roosevelt’s (Progressive) Bull Moose Party earlier in the century, and he served in Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s administration. There’s no question that during the 1920s, while serving as Commerce Secretary for the Harding/Coolidge era, he got awfully close to business, and even to big business, as that was certainly a part of his job in that capacity, but he also made some less than favorable comments about the stock market and the speculative frenzy that seized Wall Street and the country in the latter part of the decade. A number of “Wall Streeters” made it clear that they preferred Coolidge to serve again, but when he bowed out, they had little choice, but to support Hoover. Hoover is also “somewhat known” for a statement about capitalism; and to paraphrase that statement, he said that there was a problem with capitalism, and that was capitalists, because they’re “too damned greedy!”

Deficit spending by the federal government cut against the grain of economic dogma of the time, and Hoover, misjudging the Depression as more a crisis of confidence, chose instead to try to provide confidence by balancing the federal budget, which, given the severe downturn, was by that time out of whack. So, Hoover the progressive now became Hoover the conservative, and it was this image that remained with him for the rest of his life, which was considerable, as he lived to be 90 years old, dying in late 1964.

The ranks of the unemployed grew so much that there were calls for federal aid to help individuals and families through the tough times. (It should also be remembered that many people who did have jobs had hours cut, even to the point where a good number were only part time employees.) Hoover, maintaining the federal system of separate national and state authority, saw “relief,” as it was called back then, as being a state responsibility, and in his defense, it had been just that. The system had worked before, but then again, we had never experienced such a dramatic economic collapse in the past. States, required to keep budgets in balance, were suffering from lost tax revenues and soaring aid expenses. Governors, politicians that they were, didn’t want to seem weak and ask for federal aid, so they seem to have assured Hoover that they had relief efforts well in hand. In fact, as time passed and unemployment grew to staggering heights, the states were overwhelmed, whether governors wanted to admit to it or not. Hoover promised federal aid, if requested by the states, and he assured the country that he didn’t want any citizen to go hungry, but for a man who had such a great reputation for feeding starving people, he seemed very out of touch with the situation. When the Mississippi River caused extensive and devastating flooding while Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, he went right to the problem areas and was given tremendous accolades for his involvement in helping people through the turmoil. During the Depression, Hoover could have gained further esteem by making appearances at food centers, and thus showing his concern for average people, and he would have seen, first hand, the situation that was developing. Then he could have made a decision about federal aid. We’ll never know, but such a demonstration “might” have bought him some political time and support. Again, he seemed not to understand the “big picture” of his image and what people wanted from a president in time of extreme crisis.

Hoover's opponents jumped on him for being against federal aid to help people weather the storm. Later in his term, he signed legislation putting the federal government into the relief business, but by then he received no credit, as he was seen as having opposed going down this road for so long. The federal budget continued to bleed red ink in an ever increasing amount.

WORD HISTORY:
Large-The ultimate origins of this word are unknown, but Latin had "largus," which meant "plentiful, abundant." This gave Old French, a Latin-based language, "large," with the same basic meaning, but with the secondary meanings "wide" (presumably from the notion of "abundant area") and "generous" (presumably from the notion of so much abundance, a person could afford to be generous). English borrowed the word from French in the late 1100s still with those meanings, but it wasn't long before the word came more and more to mean "big." With this meaning, "large" began to overtake "great" as the word to express "big," just as "great" had overtaken the native word "mickle/micel" which had this meaning (it still exists in dialect in England and Scotland). The expression "at large" apparently comes from the notion of being "free in the wide-open spaces."

The Great Depression, Part Six

Prior to the 1930s, generally, the Republicans were the “protectionist” party in terms of trade policy. American farmers wanted tariffs on any foodstuffs being brought into the country and American labor wanted tariffs on just about any goods being imported. During the Great War (later called "World War One"), American farmers produced agricultural products in huge quantities and a sizable portion of these products were sent overseas to help feed people where their own national economies had been disrupted so much by war. Since there was really no need to worry that these countries would try to sell agricultural products in America (after all, they couldn’t produce enough to feed their own people, let alone export anything), tariff issues were a cold topic and remained so for a time after the war ended. As the rest of the world recovered, trade issues began to heat up, although from my reading and recollection, the idea that masses of foreign agricultural products would somehow flood the United States in those times was mostly nonsense; still, American farmers liked the idea of high tariffs for goods coming into the country. Republicans benefited from supporting such tariffs, as farmers “tended” to vote Republican. Likewise, labor unions wanted high tariffs to protect against foreign manufactured items from entering the country, or at least to keep these products high in price. Naturally each industry and their workers wanted tariffs on items they produced to limit or exclude competition. The labor vote was frequently split between the two parties, but some unions “tended” to be pretty staunch supporters of Republican candidates. (Just a note: If you aren’t familiar with American politics in those times, you might think ol’ Randy has lost some of his marbles. Of course, you might think that anyway, but unions DID frequently support Republicans back then, and Republicans tended to be much more “protectionist” than Democrats. So yes, things have changed considerably since those times. Hey, what’s that rolling on the floor? Looks like a marble!)

Just for the sake of simplified example and explanation, let’s say that companies in fictitious country “Beneluxia” produce a surplus of radios. They want to sell their surplus in other countries. If American made radios cost $10.00, and “Beneluxia” made radios cost $7.00, our producers wanted to make sure that foreign made radios would cost more by the imposition of tariffs; so we would put a tariff of $4.00 per radio brought into the country, thus the “Beneluxia” made radio now costs $11.00, giving the American made product the price edge in the market.

In the spring of 1929, Congress took up legislation about tariffs. President Hoover wanted new legislation, but he and the White House staff lost control of the bill, and the whole situation got out of hand. All kinds of products were added to the tariff list, as business interests weighed in to limit or exclude competition. The problem was, a couple of years before, America had committed to trying to curtail tariffs and move toward a more open exchange of goods. The final legislation, known as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, was really not what Hoover wanted, but he reluctantly signed it into law in June 1930. Almost immediately other countries retaliated, and a virtual tariff war ensued, all in the midst of America’s economic downturn. Further, without American markets to sell their products, other countries began to experience their own downturns, and before you knew it, economic calamity began to become pretty much worldwide, although especially in industrialized nations.

Germany suffered tremendously, as the peace treaty ending the Great War imposed large reparations payments on her. American banks made loans to many European businesses and countries in the post-war era. As Germany struggled to pay reparations, and she and other European countries lost markets in the U.S. because of tariffs, loan payments began to become more difficult to make. If lots of folks owe money to banks, and they can't make payments, guess what? The banking system becomes shaky.

WORD HISTORY:
Tariff-This word traces back to Arabic "arrafa," which meant "notify, inform." From this came the noun "ta'arif," which meant "list of fees." Latin borrowed the term as "tarifa," with the same basic meaning, and it later was inherited by its Italian offspring as "tariffa." English borrowed the word as "tariff" in the late 1500s.

The Great Depression, Part Five

As I mentioned at the end of Part Four, the causes of the Depression were many. The economic catastrophe was so great, there was no one cause that triggered the decline, rather there was a whole series of weaknesses within the economy that brought an almost “cascading effect” to the downturn. Sometimes these weaknesses were exposed by other events. Please bear in mind that after the stock market crash, there weren’t suddenly millions of Americans out of work six weeks later, or even six months later, although that process had certainly begun, and unemployment spiked. The Great Depression was really more of a series of downturns, where at times it seemed that the economy had hit bottom and leveled off, only to have some new problem develop, sending the economy to an even lower point.

Herbert Hoover: I gave some info about Hoover earlier, but he is VERY important to the early years of the Great Depression, and therefore, I need to say even more about him. If you asked Americans what attributes they want in a president, I'm sure many of those named attributes would fit Herbert Hoover. At the time (1928), he seemed to be the perfect candidate for president. He was a self-made millionaire (something many Americans like, the idea that a person earned their money and didn’t just inherit it, and also something that shows that relatively poor folks can attain financial success), a successful engineer and businessman (in mining), the very epitome of American humanitarianism, having successfully organized relief efforts for Europeans during the Great War, a highly recognized and even admired Secretary of Commerce, he was a hard worker, and though he was ambitious, he had a great deal of humility; in fact, by all accounts, Hoover was shy, and rarely made or held eye contact with others. It's been said that he was far better in dealing with relatively small groups of people, or one-on-one, but when he spoke to large crowds, he was intensely nervous, and if you’ve ever heard some of his recorded speeches, they were given in monotone, and they often contained lots of facts and figures, something not always easy for listeners to follow. (Hey, he was an engineer, and engineers are detail oriented, but he hardly presented an inspiring leader for the crisis facing the country when he was president.) As we might tag him in more recent times, Hoover was more of a “technocrat,” and as such, he had great difficulty in conveying how much he cared about the suffering that was rampant in the country during his time in office.

Then too, he was stubborn; in his own term, “pigheaded.” He was criticized for not showing that he was in touch with average people, but when he had the opportunities, what we call today, “photo ops,” he seldom used them. I guess he really didn’t understand the “big picture;” that is, that presidents need to try to convey a certain image. Sure, it’s all managed, but it's what it is. For example, Hoover liked to walk. One day he was out for his walk and he saw a bunch of boys playing baseball. He stopped and the boys gathered around him, some even climbing up on his knee. The connection between the president and these kids was totally evident to one of his political advisers, who wanted Hoover to return to the ball field the next day with reporters and photographers to show how personable the president could be. Hoover refused, saying something to the effect that if he had to participate in such manipulation of the public, he didn’t want to be president (something that happened not long thereafter). Here again, many Americans would probably say, “We don’t like the way politicians try to manipulate us through staged events,” but, at the same time, we kind of expect it. We complain about politicians kissing babies, but see how mad folks can get if a politician passes their baby or grandchild by.

Further, Hoover kept quiet about the personal help and kindnesses he and his wife offered to many people during their White House years. I’ve read that he actually gave away much of his fortune during that time, and he refused to accept his salary as president, donating it back to the Treasury. Many misconceptions about Hoover could have been clarified after he left office, but he refused to release his personal papers and White House documents, ordering that they would only be made available after his death (there’s that “pigheadedness”). Hoover’s religious beliefs certainly had a role in some of his behavior. He was a Quaker, and his faith taught him that you weren’t supposed to help your fellow man in order to get credit for it. That shows that he was NOT a politician, but in fairness to politicians, people like to get credit or recognition, and Hoover was undoubtedly conflicted, wanting to get credit, but held back by his religious upbringing. Hoover's belief was a nice notion, ,and again, something with which many Americans would undoubtedly say they agreed, but office holders do have to establish a broad based image that says, “This is what I am; this is what I believe.” If the public doesn't know that a politician has given to causes to help others, they don't really know that person. It's always been my opinion that the fact that Hoover never had to campaign for, or hold, elective office prior to his becoming president, really hurt him. By not "coming up through the ranks," he didn't have the experience of dealing with voters or other elected officials in the political context and this contributed to his stubbornness. Throughout much of his adult life, Hoover had been in a position to give orders, and he hadn't had to worry about compromising or presenting a public case to get people on to his side of an issue. His wide range of experience made him a bit self-righteous and "preachy" too. (On a personal note, when I was in property management, I had a lawyer for each ear. I would tell them, "I could NEVER be a lawyer. I'm too judgmental and self-righteous." At least I know one of my faults.)

The Wall Street “crash” shook the country, and in an effort to calm the situation and instill confidence, Hoover gave a statement that the economy was still “fundamentally sound,” and that the country was still prosperous. In private, Hoover was far more concerned that the situation was more than just a slight downturn. Just a couple of weeks after the stock market debacle, Hoover called a conference with many of the nation’s business and labor leaders. He got commitments from business people to maintain production and wages. The problem with this was twofold: Hoover’s serious demeanor in public, and his calling the nation’s leaders together, told many in the public that, in spite of Hoover’s pronouncement that the economy was still sound, he really didn’t believe his own words. Secondly, with business inventories already at high levels, maintaining production only made the situation worse. The one good thing was, the president saw a problem and he acted. For a time, the economy declined, but basically it was a slow, steady decline. Unemployment continued to rise steadily.

WORD HISTORY:
Crash-For a relatively common word in modern times, this is a bit of a mystery word, as it showed up in English in the late 1300s as "crashen" and "crasschen," meaning "break up, smash, break to pieces," but its ties to forms in the other Germanic languages is not apparent, as German has "krach," meaning "crash," but it is really the same word as English "crack," although perhaps "crash" is simply a softer sounding form of "crack?" There is speculation it was an English creation to imitate the sound of "breaking," and that it was a combination of "craze" and "dash." In those times, "craze" more commonly meant "crack;" thus the later notion of "insanity."

The Great Depression, Part Four

If you ask most people today when the Depression started, most would probably say that it was when the stock market crashed. The stock market crash did not actually cause the Great Depression, although it can certainly be argued that it was a contributor to the economic collapse. Interestingly, since the time of the Depression, more Americans have become involved in the stock market, albeit many through pensions or 401 Ks. The major crash of 1987 didn’t bring the economy to a standstill, nor did the market problems in the 1990s. The thing to understand about the crash of 1929 is that the stock market was so psychologically tied to the economy in the public mind, that when the bubble burst, the economy did indeed suffer. The “crash” was a clear indicator to people that the “good times” were over. Consumer spending, already tightening before the stock fiasco, tightened even more. Businesses, already seeing inventories grow, began to consider cutbacks, especially in any expansion plans, thus curtailing investment. Lending institutions, shaken by the stock market plunge, tightened up on loans for just about everything. Leading up to the crash, stock prices were not based entirely on sound economic fundamentals, but rather on speculation. The market hit a peak in September 1929 and then bounced around for several weeks before the crash took place and the panic actually took hold. Undoubtedly the more savvy investors of those times came to realize that stock prices weren’t supported by actual underlying business activity, and that the time had come to sell. Economists usually tell us that the stock market predicts the economic outlook about 6 to 12 months down the road, but in 1929, the stock market reacted to a downturn already in progress. The price that was paid for ignoring such fundamentals was very high indeed, as stock prices collapsed and lost about 50% of their value. On the other side of the stock market/depression argument is the fact that stocks did recover to some extent at various times during the period of the Depression, including somewhat after the fallout from the "Crash" settled down. Other events, however, then triggered further stock slumps.

If I come to you and say, “Hey, I’ve got a company that sells such and such a service or product. I want to take it to a higher level. Do you want to invest?” What do you want to know, right off the bat? What exactly is the company selling, how well has the product or service sold, what is the potential market for it, how much does it cost to manufacture (if it is a product of some kind), what does your existing company balance sheet look like, etc. You want to know fundamentals! Why? Because if you invest, you want to make money, and knowing how the existing company is doing and functions gives you some idea of your chances of making money by investing in this company. Much of this sound business logic was forgotten in the late 1920s.

Just as there was a concentration of wealth at the very top of the economic ladder, there was also a concentration of corporate ownership of American business. By 1929, through various mergers and buyouts, only a couple of hundred large corporations controlled about half of all American industrial production. During the 1920s, the Coolidge administration gave a “wink and a nod” to such mergers, and it rarely used the antitrust laws to prevent business mergers of any kind; and, many small independent businesses disappeared.

A positive for the Coolidge administration was that the frugal Coolidge kept the Federal budget balanced, and in fact, in surplus for a time. He actually paid DOWN the cumulative Federal debt. Now, you might say, "How can anyone turn this into something bad?" Well, while it certainly wasn't Coolidge's fault, with the government in no need of borrowing, money that frequently went into government bonds went into.....the stock market!

To be quite honest, I could pretty much go on and on with the many "causes" of the Great Depression, but I think you get the point, so while there are still some "causes" that came into play later, I'll move on to what was done in the aftermath of "The Crash," and the already sliding economy in Part Five.

WORD HISTORY:
Great-This word goes back to Indo European "ghreu/ghrew," which meant "to grind, to rub." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "grautaz," which meant "coarse" (the product of grinding). West Germanic kept the general term, which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "great" (back then with emphasis on the "e"), which then became "greet" before the modern version. The idea of "coarseness" produced the eventual change in meaning to "large, big," and then "grand." The more common Old English word for "large" was "mickle," but "great" overtook it, leaving it as an obscure word in modern English. The same thing happened to an extent with "great," as both "large" and "big" generally replaced it in the context of size, but it has retained common usage in terms of respect, as in "She is a great woman," and in terms of relatives, like "great grandfather," "great grandmother," or "great uncle." It also can be used to add emphasis, as in "My garden produced several great big tomatoes." Common in the other West Germanic languages (English is West Germanic): German has "groß" (the script-like "ß" stands for "ss;" thus, "gross"),^ Low German has "groot," West Frisian has "grut," Dutch has "groot." All mean essentially "large, big, and grand," as with their English cousin.

^ Modern German is generally based upon high dialects, and hundreds of years ago in those dialects, a sound change ("shift") took place, which often changed "t" to "s" or "ss."