59 pages • 1-hour read
The Worst Hard Time
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Themes
Racial and Geographical Prejudice
Throughout The Worst Hard Time, there are lengthy vignettes of ethnic and geographical prejudice.
Egan traces the prejudice of Native American ancestry through three generations of Bam White's family. He begins with the story of how White's own aunt pleads with him not to tell people outside of the family that he's part Native American. The prejudice continues with White's peers, and culminates as school children tease White's son, Melt, calling him names because of his Native American ancestry.
George Ehrlich is called a Kraut, and he doesn't feel comfortable attending a non-German-Russian church. In Chapter 4, there is a three-page account of how a school teacher, whom Ehrlich invites to dinner at his home, sees a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm on her host's wall. The school teacher then alerts the authorities. Two days later, police barge into Ehrlich's home and search through all his belongings inside and outside of his home, and accuse him of being a German spy. Ehrlich (along with eleven other German immigrants) go before a federal judge, who finally exonerates the spy charges for insufficient evidence, particularly since Ehrlich shows the judge bonds he has bought for the American war effort.
There are also accounts of prejudice toward blacks. One notable story tells of a black man who gets off of a train in Dalhart, Texas and tries to buy a drink at the local bar, “apparently ignoring the sign warning blacks not to let the sun go down on them in Dalhart […] Next day, the man had disappeared, and people in the town said he was killed and no one was less for it” (85). Another story shows a black man going before a Dalhart judge, and the judge orders the man to tap-dance, since he has always heard that blacks dance well, and the judge wants to be entertained. Even the lone black cowboy of the famed XIT ranch was called Nigger Jim Perry.
Egan also states that during the Depression, many people blamed Jews for the state of the economy. He discusses a demonstration in Nebraska where 4,000 people gathered on the steps of the Nebraska Capitol Building holding banners with rattlesnakes; the snakes are labeled as Jews and they are drawn coiled around the American farmer. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray, governor of Oklahoma, claimed that FDR “was a Jew, who kept his ancestry secret" (132).
Two geographical prejudices referenced in The Worst Hard Time are prejudice against Okies and prejudice against Mexicans. Signs warning Okies and Mexicans not to enter certain business establishments, towns, or states in this era were common. During the 1930s, the word “Okies” had a broader definition than just people from Oklahoma. The term refers to any settlers in the Dust Bowl who have left the area. Residents of the Central Valley of California made it very clear how they feel about this new wave of desperate arrivals coming to their state, putting up signs that read: “Okies and Dogs Not Allowed Inside” (235).
Authority Figures Not Knowing What to Do
High Plains citizens are not the only ones who don't know how to combat the weather disasters and economic drama going on around them in the 1930s. Egan portrays the surplus of authority figures as not knowing what to do.
When the black dusters hit, the weather bureau is described as being “as confused as the callers” (202).They don't know how to even detect a tornado approaching, much less a black duster. Scientists studying the phenomena are struggling to create a definition and classification for the dusters.
The scientific medical community is also stumped by the new “dust pneumonia” associated with the dusters. Doctors don't know if the illness is similar or different from other known respiratory diseases. Egan describes the Red Cross as being “overwhelmed” as to how to handle the victims of the Dust Bowl (141). The doctors who once told people like Jeanne Clark's mother, and “Doc” Dawson to go west, for clearer and better air, are now confused.
Further, Franklin D. Roosevelt doesn't know what to do. Egan describes FDR as staying up at night, pondering: “Failed homestead acts. Settlers misled. A speculative frenzy. And now […] ten thousand people a month leaving the Great Plains” (269). Egan portrays FDR as thinking, “What was next?” (270), and because FDR can't make sense of the sudden downturn of the economy, or how to save the families on the High Plains, he turns to Hugh Bennett, his top agriculturalist, for answers. However, Bennett, who has lifelong experience with soil, admits he's unsure of what to do. Bennett begins his plan of sewing carefully tested and selected seeds, contour plowing, and beginning local soil conservation districts, giving no guarantees.
Tough, Determined People Nonetheless Defeated
Another theme that emerges in the Worst Hard Time is how these tough, determined, independent-minded people of the Plains are nonetheless defeated.
One such story is of George Ehrlich, the German Russian, who immigrates to Shattuck, Oklahoma. In Russia, his people are not just victims of the Czar, but also of a Tartar tribe that raped their women and sold their children into slavery in Asia.
Ehrlich survives a near-death experience on his journey to America. We watch Ehrlich as he struggles to learn English in the fields, and fends off local racial prejudice. He experiences the death of his son due to a dust storm, but he doesn't give up. However, after years of trying to live off the land, his family ends up starving and Ehrlich has no other choice but to accept government money.
The journal of Lawrence Svobida records another farmer's failure. Svobida had come to the plains in 1929, a young man whose motto was “[n]ever defeated” (112). Svobida raises one successful crop and then never makes any more money.
Dick Coon of Dalhart, Texas survives not only poverty but escapes from the Galveston flood. He has raised himself up from rags to riches, determined to overcome. Coon invests in a hotel, movie theatre, and other buildings and at one point practically owns the entire town of Dalhart, Texas. However, just like many others, Coon ends up penniless.
The independent-minded cowboys are not immune, either. The James brothers, members of an established, pioneer Texas family that owned the largest ranch on the Texas panhandle, are forced into bankruptcy from the cattle surplus and subsequent cattle-price decline. The brothers try to make money by drilling for oil. They drive the drills deeper and deeper, using bigger and bigger drill bits, but they still can't strike oil. Finally, the James brothers not only have to sell off large portions of their ranch, but Andy James ends up writing a letter to FDR asking for financial help.
John McCarty thinks Andy James's letter is humiliating, despite that his own newspaper business is going downhill. McCarty, a self-described Spartan, conducts a pep rally after the worst dust storm on record (Black Sunday, 1935) hits the town. McCarty believes that “No matter how hard the dust blew, no matter how deeply people were buried in sand, they would not retreat. They would hunker in their dust bunker” (229).Yet, in the end McCarty, also leaves Dalhart.
The Manipulation of the American Government
Egan weaves a tight thread of American government manipulation throughout The Worst Hard Time. There are many paragraphs in chapters throughout the work that emphasize how the government lures or pushes Americans to homestead in barren lands. Egan states that “the federal government was so anxious to settle No Man's Land that they offered free train rides to pilgrims looking to prove up a dry land […] The slogan was ‘Health, Wealth, and Opportunity’” (36). Egan also shows how the government partners with the Capitol Syndicate in order to push sales of the XIT Ranch promotors that made outlandish claims, such as “through the miracle of dry farming a fellow could turn this land to gold” (24).
The government not only falsely advertises substandard land, but also gives incentives for maximum plowing and wheat production. When the farmers do exactly what the government requests, they experience a wheat price crash. Herbert Hoover pushes wheat production guaranteeing the price of wheat at two dollars a bushel in an effort to help the war effort, but later, when the price of wheat crashes, Hoover refuses to buy the wheat, even to feed hungry families. Egan also cites the U.S. Government confiscation of six million acres of Cherokee land, and the Red River War of 1935-1936, the U.S. victory that forces free-roaming Native Americans off the High Plains and onto government reservations.
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