North Carolinian's Poem About The Depression, 1935

From the March 1935 issue of the Carolina Co-Operator (formerly The Carolina Cotton Grower)

The Tragedy of Depression

The tragedy of this depression

   Is not the loss of lands,

Which with prideful joy we’d earned

   By the labor of our hands.

It’s not the loss of bank accounts

   We’d saved with some alarm,

Lest, perchance, we could not pay

   The mortgage off the farm.

It’s not the loss of stocks and bounds

   We’d managed to procure,

That, when apace old age comes on,

   We might then be secure.

It is not even the loss of home,

   The pride of every man;

 But the tragedy of depression is

   The loss of faith in man.

But less of faith is not the worst

   Depression’s brought about;

But remedies which God has given

   We’ve had the nerve to flout.

We’ve hugged to our bosoms

   All that righteousness discards,

And hoping for a better day,

   Have set up other gods.

We’ve relied on our President

   With faith he’d cure the pain,

While the King of Kings and Lord of Lords

   On the cross of doubt we’ve slain.

Thus the tragedy of depression

   To see it is not hard,

That, groping in our own blind way,

   We’ve all forgotten God.

--W.H. McDowell, Scotland Neck, N.C.