We May Be Able to Repeat the Stories yet They Seem So Foreign

-or-
Our Ulteriors and Their Effects on Our Posteriors


August 11, 1928
"Unemployment in the sense of distress is widely disappearing. . . . We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poor-house is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal, but given a change to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. There is no guarantee against poverty equal to a job for every man. That is the primary purpose of the economic policies we advocate. September 17, 1928
"When we [the Republican Party] assumed direction of the Government in 1921 there were five to six million unemployed men upon our streets. Wages and salaries were falling and hours of labor increasing. . . . The Republican Administration at once undertook to find relief to this situation. At once a nationwide employment conference was called. . . . Within a year we restored these five million workers to employment. But we did more; we produced a fundamental program which made this restored employment secure on foundation of prosperity; as a result wages and standards of living have during the past six and a half years risen to steadily higher levels.
This recovery and this stability are no accident. It has not been achieved by luck. Were it not for sound governmental policies and wise leadership, employment condition in American today would be similar to those existing in many other parts of the world." October 22, 1928
“Prosperity is no idle expression. It is a job for every worker; it is the safety and safeguard of very business and every home. A continuation of the policies of the Republican party is fundamentally necessary to the future advancement of this progress and to the further building up of this prosperity.” October 6, 1928
“As never before does the keeping of our economic machine in tune depend upon wise policies in the administrative side of the government. July 27, 1928
“The outlook of the world today is for the greatest era of commercial expansion in history. The rest of the world will become better customers.” November, 1929
“Any lack of confidence in the economic future or the basic strength of business in the United States is foolish.” January 21, 1930
“Definite signs that business and industry have turned the corner from the he temporary period of emergency that followed deflation of the speculative market were seen today. The reports to the Cabinet showed that the tide of employment had changed in the right direction." March 8, 1930
“The worst effect of the crash upon unemployment will most certainly pass during the next sixty days.” May 1, 1930
“While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States—that is, prosperity.” October 2, 1930
“During the past year you have carried the credit system of the nation safely through a most difficult crisis. In this success you have demonstrated not alone the soundness of the credit system, but also the capacity of the bankers in emergency.” October 21, 1930
“The idleness of the working public has become a drain upon the whole of the nation. The only valid response is that of expansion of business. Taxes on business are hindering the growth of this economy, and this hindrance is the beginning of a dangerous cycle for the health of this country’s economy. I am calling for an adjustment to the corporate tax code to encourage the expansion of the market and the help to place 2,500,000 persons back to work this winter.” December 15, 1930
“Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement.” June 15, 1931
“I am able to propose an American plan to you. . . . We plan more leisure for men and women and better opportunities for its enjoyment. We plan not only to provide for all the new generation, but we shall, by scientific research and invention, lift the standard of living and security of diffusion of wealth, a decrease in poverty and a great reduction in crime. And this plan will be carried out if We Just Keep on giving the American people a chance.” October 1931
“On September 8, I requested the governors of the Federal Reserve banks to endeavor to secure the co-operation of the bankers of their territory to make some advances on the security of the assets of closed banks or to take over some of these assets, in order that the receivers of those banks may pay some dividends to their depositors in advance of what would otherwise be the case pending liquidation. Such a measure will contribute to free many business activities and to relieve many families from hardship over the forthcoming winter, and in a measure reverse the process of deflation involved in the tying up of deposits." October 18, 1931
“The depression has been deepened by events from abroad which are beyond the control either of our citizens or our government.”

...das schwerste Gewicht

There is a vicious adherence to the concept of blindness in the face of eternal return. History blocks our route and we stand still, impatiently waiting for the reality of the past to step aside and permit us passage. This will never happen.
Incidentally, I despise everything which merely instructs me without increasing or immediately enlivening my activity. Our consideration of the worth and the worthlessness of history may begin at the intersection where it affects or impedes our experience of being. This work is to set down why we must seriously despise instruction without explication, why we must reject the permitting of ill-knowledge which structures societally destructive memes, and and why we must repulse the anti-intellectualism that holds to the belief of history as a worthless surplus of knowledge; a luxury for the out-of-touch.
This anti-elitism takes form and denies us what is most essential to us; they deny us our reliance of facts as if they were superfluous to the debate, and this superfluousness is necessarily aggressive and hostile to the rationality that is essential to logic. To be sure, we need history, but we need it in a manner different from the way in which the spoilt idler in the garden of knowledge uses it, no matter how elegantly he may look down on our coarse and graceless needs and distresses.
That is, we need history as that is permitting of life and action, not merely as a comfortable justification for turning away from life and action, or merely for glossing over the difficulties brought about by the absurdities of life or the subsequent cowardice to confront that absurdity. We wish to use history only insofar as it serves living in the most active senses.
But there is a degree of history and a valuing of it through which life atrophies and degenerates. Insomuch as history is the story that power decides, the recording of the struggle of the individual dissolves in the face of itself, this is rarely recognized by the individual. To bring this phenomenon to light as a remarkable symptom of our time is every bit as necessary as it may be painful.
I have tried to describe a feeling which has often enough tormented me. I take my revenge on this feeling when I expose it to the general public. Perhaps with such a description someone or other will have reason to point out to me that he also knows this particular sensation but that I have not felt it with sufficient purity and naturalness and definitely have not expressed myself with the appropriate certainty and mature experience. Perhaps one or two will respond in this way.

However, most people will tell me that this feeling is totally wrong, unnatural, abominable, and absolutely forbidden, that with it, in fact, I have shown myself unworthy of the powerful historical tendency of the times, as it has been, by common knowledge, observed for the past two generations, particularly among Americans.
Whatever the reaction, now that I dare to expose myself with this natural description of my feeling, common decency will be fostered rather than shamed, because I am providing many opportunities for a contemporary tendency like the reaction just mentioned to make polite pronouncements. Moreover, I obtain for myself something of even more value to me than respectability: I become publicly instructed and set straight about our times.

Prosperity Is No Idle Expression -HH, 10.22.28

"Oh Yeah?" -Edward Angly