Post by bluemingidiot on Aug 31, 2022 2:59:25 GMT
This was recognized as one of a half dozen major global droughts of the 20th century.
The drought was described by a state water official as "the most costly and one of the most devastating droughts in 600 years."
How does he really know? He wasn't around. Usually they round it to 500 years. The drought from more than 600 years ago must have been a doozy.
They say it actually began in central Texas in 1947. I remember my maternal grandmother's anxiety about the lack of rain during those times. I remember my grandfather talking about "burning (prickly) pear at night with hungry cows following a few feet behind. I can't imagine ranchers on the Edwards Plateau, south, or west Texas ever running out of prickly pear to burn for feed. Even so, the federal government provided feed to ranchers and stock farmers.
Was this any different from the government reducing student loans? Well, first of all this was an act of God. Haven't heard anyone blaming God for their loan amount. Also, I guess a lot of these men would have been unemployed without their livestock. Keeping livestock alive kept ranchers in business. Even with this welfare ranches and farms declined in just Texas by almost a hundred thousand during the 50s. I don't think many businesses will shut down for failure to reduce student loan indebtedness. It is not in the public interest to have an increase in unemployment. Third, the more of a breeding commodity, the lower the price of that commodity. If cattle had been converted to beef for dinner tables, the price would temporarily go down but it would have taken years to rebuild herds. Suppose we were attacked and we had decreased herds? That would be less food, less leather and less wool. Point is, that welfare was in the national interest. If we get attacked we need to spend money on defense which will increase the national debt. We don't need to maintain an ever spiraling national super debt by paying off some people's private debt. It is not in the national interest. Whatever argument one might want to make about paying off student loans, regardless of need, is in the national interest, I can make a better argument that paying off medical debts, for those who cannot do so for themselves, is in the national interest. So where do you stop?
But I digress.
In January, 1957, President Eisenhower made a speech in San Angelo, Texas, and said, in so many words, that if it didn't rain soon, he was sending in federal troops. Well sir, in February, 1957, we had flooding rains. I remember Wally Pryor talking about floods on TV.
1957 was when the Asian flu pandemic began. If it's not one thing, it's another.
