Peaceful years

     Iowa was fairly prosperous during the first decade and a half of the present century. During these years there were no serious floods, droughts, or all-devouring swarms of grasshoppers. Wages and prices on farm products were considered good and land values were rising.     

    Though a common laborer then considered himself fortunate if he could earn $2 a day for ten hours of work, it was more than he had been paid in previous years. Mechanics received from $3 to $4 a day; and salespeople from $5 to $18 a week.

    In 1907 there was a slight bank panic and some fears of bank closures. But the prompt action of President Theodore Roosevelt put an end to the panic and averted bank failures.

War and prosperity

     In July, 1914, the First World War broke out in Europe. At once there was a sharp rise in the demand for the products of American farms and factories. Prices and wages rose. Land values more than doubled.

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    After the United States entered the war in April, 1917, the Federal government supported high prices on farm products. This resulted in even greater prosperity for the whole country.

An aftermath of misery

     But it was a treacherous prosperity. When the war ended, government supports were suddenly discontinued and prices and land values fell. But taxes and interest rates remained high. Many farmers were soon in serious financial straits. Towns and cities, too, were hit. There was less business for merchants. The banks also were soon in trouble because so many of both farmers and merchants could not pay their debts or even the interest on their loans. Tax sales and foreclosures became frequent occurrences. Except for salaried people and those who had accumulated wealth, times were hard all through the nineteenth twenties.

     After the stock market crash in 1929, which caused a further drop in prices, there was misery throughout the whole country. Many more laborers and mechanics were unemployed. But even then some of those who were employed struck for higher wages. Prices on farm products fell to abysmal depths.

Self-help of despair

     Desperate farmers clamored for higher prices on what they produced. The dairy farmers, selling milk to Sioux City, struck by withholding milk deliveries to the city, and succeeded in raising the price of milk somewhat.. A more general farm revolt, the Farmers' Holiday, was soon brewing. Led by Milo Reno the Holiday farmers tried to keep all farm products from the cities until prices improved. The so-called Cow War in the vicinity of Tipton was caused by the farmers' suspicion that they were not getting a square deal when the State government made tuberculin testing of cattle compulsory.

    Several times the state guard (militia) was called out to deal with the disorders of despairing farmers. Many regrettable events occurred. Property was destroyed. There were bloody affrays, but no lives were lost.

    Still, little economic improvement came to Iowa in the twenties and early thirties.

Political turnovers

     Radical groups appeared in some of the larger Iowa cities. For a few years Davenport had a Socialist government, and Sioux City....

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.... had a labor government during the six years that Wallace M. Short was mayor of that city. Mr. Short also ran for governor on the Farm-Labor ticket.

    In Iowa as a whole there was a political turnover in the nineteen twenties and the early thirties. Since 1857, all the governors of Iowa with the exception of one, had been Republicans. And most of the representatives and all the senators sent from Iowa to Washington had also been Republicans.

    But in 1924, Iowa sent its first Democratic senator to Washington, D. C. Two others have been sent there since. And from 1932 to 1938 the governors of Iowa were Democrats.

The New Deal

     The political turnover in Iowa was but a part of the general turnover in the country at large. In 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president of the United States by a large majority. Under the New Deal, which he sponsored, economic conditions improved throughout the country. The Federal government paid subsidies to the farmers for producing less of farm products. Corn loans made it possible for farmers to obtain loans by storing the harvested corn and using that as security for the loans. The stored corn could also be sold also to the government at a fixed, a protected price.

    Other New Deal legislation provided work for millions of unemployed workers both men and women. And what has been called the most important New Deal legislation, the Social Security Act of 1935, set up an old-age insurance system for a large number of workers in homes, on farms, in factories, in offices and business establishments. This has later been expanded to include many self-employed.

More war prosperity

     In the later thirties urban employment and prices on farm products again sagged. But in 1939 the Second World War broke out in Europe. And in 1941 the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. There by the United States entered the general war.

    Employment and prices at once rose, for the war made a new and tremendous demand for many kinds of services and commodities. An era of prosperity set in similar to that during the First World War. But alas and alack, like that also, it was a prosperity at a terrible cost in suffering and human lives.

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Questions and Exercises: What wages were paid before the First World War? How was a bad panic averted in 1907? What is the relation between war and economic prosperity? Why did the governor of Iowa have to call out the National guard? Who was the only Democratic governor Iowa had between 1857 and 1932? How are economics related to politics? Why is Iowa sometimes said to be a rock -ribbed Republican state?