FDR, New Deals, and the Limits of Power 223and higher wages and better working conditions, inside the capitalist system.
While there were a good number of real “Reds” in unions, particularly in the
CIO, they did not conduct class war to change the economic system or redis-
tribute wealth. Even when the employers “lost,” as in seeing the Wagner Act
passed, they retained firm and overwhelming control of the workplace and
the economy. The 1930s marked the high point for labor and class radicalism
in America, but the outcome was never in doubt—U.S. Capitalists were firm-
ly in control.
And in the Fields
As the crisis of the depression continued, with poverty, unemployment, class
struggle, and political turmoil all making recovery more difficult, Americans
faced a horrific environmental disaster at the same time, the Dust Bowl, which
roughly covered the period from 1931 to 1938. As agriculture became more
mechanized, the amount of land being farmed grew extensively, and often led
to overproduction [as during the crisis of the 1890s]. Between 1925-1930
farmers plowed over 5 million new acres of land and produced record crops
FIGuRE 4-15 Dust cloud approaching Rolla, Kansas on
April 14, 1935