(Forgotten Man – emphasis mine)
The Burdens of “The Forgotten Man.”
NEW YORK, Feb, 2. — Professor William G. Sumner, of Yale college, delivered a lecture last night before the Brooklyn Revenue Reform club, at the Long Island Historical Society building. His subject was “The Forgotten Man.” Professor Sumner said that the forgotten man was the simple, honest man, who earned his living by good hard work, paid his debts, kept his contracts and educated his children. He was passed by and forgotten because he did his duty patiently and without complaint. On him rested all the burdens engendered by paupers, vagrants, spendthrifts, criminals and jobbers. All legislation which tended to relieve the weak, the vicious and the negligent to the consequences of their faults threw those consequences upon the forgotten man.
Daily Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Feb 3, 1883
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Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Oct 29, 1932
HE WHO PROVIDES IT ALL
William G. Sumner Gave Credit to the “Forgotten Man” for His Patient Industry.
Wealth comes only from production, and all that the wrangling grabbers, loafers and robbers get to deal with comes from somebody’s toil and sacrifice. Who, then, is he who provides it all? Go and find him, and you will have once more before you the Forgotten Man. You will find him hard at work because he has a great many to support. Nature has done a great deal for him in giving him a fertile soil and an excellent climate, and he wonders why it is that, after all, his scale of comfort is so moderate. He has to get out of the soil enough to pay all his taxes, and that means the cost of all the jobs and the fund for all the plunder. The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and school, reading his newspaper and cheering for the politicians of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide. Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays — but he always pays — yes, above all, he pays.
Denton Journal (Denton, Maryland) Dec 23, 1922
Don’t Think – Just Vote the Straight Ticket!
Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton, Ohio) Nov 6, 1932
“The Forgotten Man” is that individual who does an honest day’s work, pays his bills, brings up three or four children, indulges in a pipe or an occasional cigar, keeps up a small savings account, never asks for charity from anyone, never gets into trouble with the police, never makes a speech or writes a letter to the city editor — in short he’s the individual who keeps going on his own momentum, good times, bad times.
When the hat is passed around for the down-and-outers, or those lads who have lost $4.90 by some cruel, heartless flapper, the “Forgotten Man” chips in his mite.
The tax collector visits the “Forgotten Man” regularly, and collects toll for the upkeep of the police courts, jails, workhouses, and poor houses — none of which the “Forgotten Man” ever uses. He is self-supporting, self starting, self-sufficient, and being so he is counted in on nothing except the census. But in that document he cuts a big figure because he probably forms the vast majority.
— Harold the Imaginer.
Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Feb 25, 1929
LONG-SUFFERING LANDLORDS
In commiserating the “forgotten man,” an observant citizen suggests why overlook the forgotten landlord? He, too, in this painful period, may well be an object of sympathy. Often, too, of admiration.
There is still too much remaining of the tradition which represents a landlord as a ruthless old skinflint, who probably got his property dishonestly and who rejoices in any pretext to gouge rent out of a poor tenant, or to turn a sick family out into the cold. There have been, and are, such landlords, but certainly in these days they are exceptional.
The owner of a house or a farm today is lucky if he is getting enough out of the property to pay the taxes and mortgage charges, without any income on his investment. In almost any town there may be found hundreds of rented homes where, because the tenants are out of work, the owner is carrying them along for half their usual rental or for nothing at all, because he has not the heart to turn them out. Many a family has skimped and saved and put its savings into a house or two for renting, to help safeguard its own future, is as badly off as the tenants who never saved in good times. All in all, honest inquiry will probably show that landlords as a class have been behaving pretty handsomely.
Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland) Oct 11, 1932
But Ain’t We Got Beer?
THINKING OUT LOUD
Why is our prolific and prolix correspondent Jone Howlind, so incensed at the decidedly dubious prospects of the new deal? I presume she voted for the egregious F.D.R., and certainly has been an advocate of repeal. Her letter in Friday’s Post is inconsistent with former letters.
Surely, prices are rising over the moon and the average person is being ground between the upper and nether millstones. What does that matter? We’ve got beer, and “hard likker” is in sight.
The many will continue to be sacrificed for the few and the hungry and ragged are increasing. Never mind — we’ve got beer!
Beer puts some men to work. The wet papers sedulously refrain from reporting the men who lose their jobs in the candy and soft drink and allied industries.
The well known “Boobus Americanus” with his propensity for following and believing the demagogue, turned out of office a wise, far seeing statesman and elected a man whose own neighbors refused to vote for him.
Now the “forgotten man” is still forgotten; thy new deal is the same old deal; the specter of anarchy rides the minds; the Blue Eagle is only a plucked pigeon, but “sing you sinners, sing” — we got beer!
MRS. EVELYN FORTT
4130 Pera
El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Sep 13, 1933
Roosevelt and Wall St.
THINKING OUT LOUD:
The Herald-Post editorial on the Farley-Pecora move was splendid, although I must confess I thought parts of it a trifle naive in view of the fact that while Farley gets Pecora removed from conducting his investigations of the crooked operations of Wall Street bankers, two more Wall Street men take up office in Washington.
I refer to James Bruce, now financial advisor to the Board of the Home Loan Bank, erstwhile vice president of the Chase National bank under Mr. Wiggin, and George Lindsay, fiscal agent of the Home Loan Bank Board, lately vice president of the Blancamerica – Blair Corp.
I can, by stretching my imagination, credit a newspaper with being naive about such a situation, but I can’t stretch it far enough to include Mr. Roosevelt. Consequently, what seems “new” about the “New Deal” is that the Wall Street operators are now operating in Washington where in the old deal they operated in Wall Street.
I advise anyone who doubts this to go over the old newspaper files of the early summer showing the corporations through which the House of Morgan stretched its influence and the lists of Morgan beneficiaries and with these lists check Roosevelt’s appointments. count ’em yourselves. The information isn’t hidden. The strength of politicians lies in the short memories of the public.
I think the Herald-Post’s optimism in regard to Roosevelt’s ability to keep hold of the Progressives was more a case of the wish being father to the thought than anything else. The public may be ignorant as to the character and background of the men with whom Roosevelt has surrounded himself by choice, but it can hardly be thought that the leaders of the Progressives are not perfectly aware of the personnel of the entire set-up. Their stand, therefore, will not be a case of ignorance, but a test of their weakness or strength of character.
Will the “forgotten man” be not only forgotten, but deserted by all as well?
JONE HOWLIND.
El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Oct 10, 1933
“The Forgotten Man”
THINKING OUT LOUD
We have been watching the administration of the “New Deal,” and have seen how the “Forgotten Man” — the banker, manufacturer, jobber and retail merchant have been remembered. We wondered, naturally, if another class of citizens who seem to be having a hard time “carving” a name for themselves on the torso of humanity, would likewise be “remembered.”
I make special reference to the “25,000 doctors out of a job” which the press mentioned as a surplus of the profession a few months ago. We felt worried about the future of these poor souls, when realizing that they are slaves to “medical ethics” and can not advertise the skill with which they can do human carving or puncture you with a hypodermic needle.
But thanks to the faithful press for informing us that prospects for their relief is in sight, as soon as congress convenes. Rex Tugwell, assistant secretary of agriculture under the guise of protecting the innocent from poisonous, harmful and mislabeled patent medicines, and habit-forming drugs, proposes (in a bill he has prepared for consideration of congress) to place our precious lives wholly in the hands of the medical doctor.
It seems that the doctor has for several years felt himself slipping from his exalted position of holding a monopoly on the lives of mankind. In the first place his business is regularly called “practice,” and it seems he has followed it so diligently in the trimming of human “giblets” and bank rolls that the people are leaving him in a manner most alarming. This fact is set forth in an article in the Literary Digest of Sept. 22, 1923 [maybe 1933?], wherein a certain member of the A.M.A. set about to find out why they were their patients who had not died under treatment.
Several thousand citizens were accosted on the street, street cars, offices, etc., and asked two questions: “What would you do if you got sick, and why?”
He found that over 90 per cent would not call a doctor. In his paper read before the A.M.A. convention, he recommended that the doctor be not quite so ethical and treat his profession as a business and “get the money;” that a campaign be instituted through the press, for education of the gullible humans, and to admonish them to “see their doctor first.”
There are many people who sincerely believe that mutilation of the body by surgical operation is sinful.
Whenever you give an organization of people a monopoly over lives or rights of others, you have destroyed respect for the law that created such monopoly, and created contempt for those who enjoy such special privileges.
The number of people who die under medical and surgical treatment are several thousand fold greater than those who succumb from home remedies.
I am for a law that will take away the monopolistic powers already granted the doctor and give the individual a course of commonsense instruction in food, cleanliness, habits of living.
Over three billion dollars is the annual doctor bill, besides the loss of time from work. This becomes an economic problem besides the question of relief from suffering.
So, who is forgotten?
LOUIS BOND CHERRY.
El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Nov 3, 1933
Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Montana) Nov 8, 1932
The Forgotten Man
THINKING OUT LOUD:
We will let the gold and silver rust
And pledge our faith to the brain trust
If they will unfold a plan
To help the long forgotten man.
In honest sweat he toils for years
With fondest hopes and sadest fears
Now on the brink of dark despair
In nature’s bounty he cannot share.
Hungry, ragged, bare-foot and cold
He possesses not silver nor gold
Still believing “the Lord will provide”
But knowing mankind must divide.
Let us hope they will find a way
To bring to us a brighter day
Spreading happiness, spreading health,
Learn us that gold is not wealth!
M.M. OWENS,
Lordsburg, N.M.
El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Dec 20, 1933
El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Mar 17, 1933
Image from Cosmeo
REMEMBER FORGOTTEN MAN
New Dealers Give Him Bill to Pay, Coughlin Says.
PROVIDENCE, R.I., (AP). The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin declared that under the new deal “the forgotten man has been remembered” in time to pay the government’s bills. He spoke at an outdoor rally which he said was attended by 25,000 persons.
“With the new deal the forgotten man has been remembered,” he declared, “because every gallon of gas you buy, every pound of butter, every loaf of bread, all your groceries and drugs, have posted on them a mortgage to the United States in favor of international bankers.” He made his statement after saying “one day out of every three you work is taken out of your payroll for hidden taxes.”
NEW BEDFORD, (AP). The Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, discussing the administration of President Roosevelt, declared: “As I was instrumental in removing Herbert Hoover from the white house, so help me God, I will be instrumental in taking a communist from the chair once occupied by Washington.”
Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Aug 3, 1936
I hear Spain’s nice this time of year.
ILL CHOSEN.
Ackley (Ia.) World-Journal: For a man who has talked about the “forgotten man” as much as Roosevelt, it comes with very poor grace to go on a cruise that costs the American people half a million dollars; it comes with even poorer grace to include his three sons, the “crown prince,” the “heir apparent” and another in waiting.
Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Aug 11, 1936
NEW TAX COMING.
Jan. 1 will usher in the era of short pay checks. One percent will be deducted by order of the new deal. The forgotten man will be remembered by a new tax. The little fellow will pony up. One percent will be the deduction. It will affect the payrolls of thousands of industries and the well being of millions. Not content with the present tax rate, where it is figured that the average citizen gives one day’s pay out of every week for government, another one-hundredth of what the people earn is to be deducted from individual earnings for government use. It will be paid to the government and retained for the use of new deal administrators, and perhaps for the establishment of new bureaus to help to administer the funds that will be collected. The benevolent touch of a paternal government will be felt in a new effort with the beginning of 1937.
If at any time in the future the law should be repealed or declared unconstitutional that will not end the expense that has been incurred. Like the NRA and the FERA it will live on and on, the organization set up for its administration will continue and the government will pay the bill.
This is one of the new taxes made necessary by new deal management of public affairs. The tax may not be so obnoxious as the bureaucracy which it will help to enlarge and the complexity it will add to government.
Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) Oct 19, 1936
El Paso Herald-Post (El Paso, Texas) Jul 5, 1933
A BIT INCONSISTENT
Time marches on! And today we find the federal government doing the things for which it condemned private citizens only three or four years ago. Such as, for example, foreclosing mortgages on the homes of persons unable to meet their interest and principle payments. It’s a strange world.
It is only good business, we suppose, for the Home Owners Loan corporation (a federal agency) to get its money when due. But, as we witness the numerous foreclosures by the HOLC, we recall the bitter denunciations, a few years ago, of private individuals who did the same thing. State governments then passed moratorium laws, making it impossible for mortgage holders to foreclose. And the moratoriums undoubtedly gave temporary relief to many farm and home owners. We found no fault with them then; we find no fault now. But, it would seem that the federal government now would practice what it preached to private lenders back in 1934-1935. If it is wrong for a private to put a man out of his home, it also is wrong for the government.
In Lyon county, right now, a man and wife who have passed middle age are losing their home, upon which they gave a mortgage to HOLC several years ago. The mortgage is due — and HOLC wants its money, or else. Or else the couple moves into the street. The HOLC, as we get the story, refuses to compromise. Although the couple is able to raise half of the amount now due, HOLC officials have declared they want “all or nothing”.
It is a bitter awakening for those trusting souls who have been led to believe that the Man in Washington will chastise the bade, bad money-lenders and see the the “forgotten man” does not lose his home. The Lyon county couple to whom we have referred, as well as the rest of us, are beginning to realize that the grim realities of life are still with us; that they must be faced in the same old way. We are returning to the point where we again face such cold, hard facts as money borrowed, whether from private citizen or government, must be paid back. Also, that assurances of security by politicians seeking office often are merely a means of getting votes. Sad, but true.
Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa) Oct 21, 1937
Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa) May 14, 1942
National Debt Worries Farmers
[excerpt – Simon E. Lantz]
“Mr. Roosevelt promised to place the cost of government upon the shoulders of those most able to pay. In 1930, the wealth of the nation was paying 69 per cent of governmental costs and the laborers, farmers and common people were paying 31 per cent. But last year we found that the wealth of the nation was paying only 39 per cent while the ordinary people were paying 61 per cent. That is how Mr. Roosevelt took care of the forgotten man and soaked the rich.
Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Montana) Oct 24, 1940
WHITE COLLAR WORKER IS ‘THE FORGOTTEN MAN’
ON A BIG munitions plant being built with government money at Wilmington, Ill., carpenters are paid $25 a day; men trundling wheelbarrows or working with pick or shovel are paid $16 and $17 a day.
In Chicago, 50 miles away, the clerical forces working in the offices of business and industry are being paid from $17 to $35 a week.
The carpenters and laborers in Wilmington may, and do, dress in coveralls; they change shirts possibly once a week; they wear coarse, unshined shoes; they enjoy the lower rentals of the rural districts.
The clerical worker in Chicago, if he is to hold his job, must have a clean shirt every day; he must wear a white collar; there must be a crease in his trousers; his shoes must be kept cleaned and shined; he must pay the much higher rentals of the city. His income will average about one-sixth of that of the carpenter at Wilmington.
To meet the ever-increasing demand of taxes and labor, and to continue to operate, business and industry have been forced to economize in every possible way. The white collar man has paid the bill. He is the “forgotten man” of today.
Boyden Reporter (Boyden, Iowa) Dec 25, 1941
Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland) Nov 14, 1960
YesterYear Once More 