America: Faith, hope and charity

For the past month, I have been revisiting the New Deal to see what lessons can be gleaned from it about American politics, but today I propose to shift gears a bit and see what the 1930s can teach us about the American people instead.

After perusing the Christmas and New Year’s editions of the Daily Inter Lake from the midst of the Great Depression, I would have to say that the American people have a deep streak of optimism. No matter how bad times got back then, the people remained confident and kind, at least in Kalispell, Montana.

In fact, if I had to pick a theme for what I learned from the editorials of the Inter Lake from 1932 to 1939, I would have to borrow a phrase that has been re-popularized recently by Glenn Beck, but which originated almost 2,000 years ago when St. Paul listed them as the greatest Christian virtues — faith, hope and charity.

Beck has made a point of saying that America needs to be restored to its former ideals if it hopes to achieve its former greatness, and he points to faith, hope and charity as the building blocks that will make it possible.

It’s easy enough to defend our contemporary culture and modern America, and say reflexively that we have as much virtue as anyone ever has, but when you study what America was like 75 years ago, you begin to get a feeling that maybe we have indeed gone astray.

This, I should hasten to add, has nothing to do with politics — not of the partisan variety at least. Back in the 1930s, the rancor between Republicans and Democrats was quite a bit worse than it is now. If we go back to the model of the 1930s, we will not be returning to sweetness and light. Yet there was something fundamentally optimistic about the American character that reminds you of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” where Jimmy Stewart’s selflessness is rewarded generously when he falls on hard times.

So too, when Americans suffered reversals during the dark years of the Great Depression, they found that they could count on the kindness and brotherly love that we call by the name of charity. One small example noted in those long-ago editorials was that the Inter Lake and the Mothers’ Club of Kalispell proudly collected toys each year for “the children Santa Claus might forget.”

Fortunately, such charitable giving remains a strong trait of American society. It is indeed one of our fundamental strengths, and provides the surest path back to our traditional values.

Speaking of traditional values, I should note that in the 1933 Christmas editorial, it was announced that the Christmas packages were to be distributed with “the Board of County Commissioners furnishing the necessary transportation.”

Godspeed to the county commissioners. This obviously was before the age of political correctness when Christian charity and goodwill came under suspicion as somehow exclusionary and subject to “separation of church and state.”

Which brings us back to the differences between then and now. I suppose you could also make a case that America was less whiny and more resolved in the 1930s — which is another way of saying it had more faith.

Consider the Inter Lake’s Christmas editorial of 1934, “Occasion for Rejoicing,” which confidently said “everything now indicates we are on an upward trend, with prospects for a returning prosperity.” The same writer returned to his theme a week later when he wrote about “Brighter Times Ahead” in his New Year’s editorial:

“Every indication points to a return to normal times, and the state of mind has a great deal to do with it. Much of the depression has been blamed to lack of confidence. If there is returning confidence — if men believe that times are going to be better — it will have much to do with bringing about that desired result.”

Those sentiments speak very clearly of the power of faith, and in a sense echo the Sermon on the Mount: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

But the concluding words of the editorial writer are perhaps more reflective of the differences between then and now — as they speak of realism, self-sacrifice and dignity.

“...whether or not there is foundation for optimism, at least we have all learned to adjust ourselves to circumstances. We have picked up the loose ends: have stopped crying about our losses, and are ready to order our lives according to circumstances as they are.”

It does seem as though Americans of yesteryear were of a tougher breed than we modern ones. This notion of “adjusting to circumstances” seems to be a lost cause these days — otherwise you would think we would have thrown out the failed economic policies that have led us to the brink of disaster.    

Instead of ordering our lives “according to circumstances as they are,” however, we seem intent on carrying on as if we were living in the mythical America of “permanent plenty.”

But maybe I am being generous to the 1930s and too hard on the 21st century. After all, it wasn’t successful policy that ended the Great Depression; it was the Second World War. Yet Franklin Roosevelt got elected and elected again while ordinary Americans “picked up the loose ends.”

In Christmas 1935, the Inter Lake noted once again that there were “encouraging prospects for the coming year.” But there was a hint of caution this time as well. Foreseeing that the United States might finally be able to pull itself out of the hole in 1936, the Inter Lake somewhat laconically pointed out that “for several years there has been a gradual recovery in other parts of the world.”

Apparently not wishing to offend supporters of FDR’s New Deal, the editorial writer nonetheless noted that “it is said that Great Britain, which ‘muddled’ along without taking any unusual measures, had returned to the 1929 level of prosperity about two years ago” — in other words about the time that the New Deal’s “unusual measures” were kicking in.

So it went, year after year — “faith, hope and charity,” stirred but not shaken. As 1936 dawned, the Inter Lake proclaimed with a rather muted enthusiasm, down but not out, hopeful but perhaps no longer confident, “We think there is a future.”

By the end of the 1930s, however, it seems as though even the endlessly optimistic editor of the Inter Lake was starting to wonder when things would REALLY get better — and whether or not perhaps the New Deal wasn’t actually making things worse.

On Dec. 30, 1938, when he wrote of “cheering predictions of recovery for 1939,” after nine years of the Great Depression and, for that matter, nine years of “cheering predictions,” he concluded on a rather realistic note:

“If congress will take steps to remove many of the restrictions which have hampered business and industry for the past five years, we think some of the predictions would come true.”

Then the editorial writer went all dreamy again, and concluded with a note that still rings true 72 years later, and perhaps represents the eternal if yet-unfulfilled “hope” to go with our all-American faith and charity:

“A house cleaning of the radicals and theorists infesting Washington would also help, but this is probably asking too much.”