224 ChaPter^4
during the 1931 season. They were simply abusing the land by overplowing
in order to grow more crops and, in turn, make more money. With far too
much land being farmed, and trees being cleared for agribusiness [or “corpo-
rate farming”], the ecology of the west was already disturbed, and then a
long-term drought hit, creating a regional, and eventually national, environ-
mental catastrophe. Without adequate rain, crops died, and with millions of
trees cut to create open fields for crops, there was no wind break, so terrible
dust storms occurred. Nor could farmers could grow grain or wheat to feed
their livestock because of the drought and dust storms. During the winter of
1934 there was even red snow in New England from the dust that had blown
in from the Plains. The fallout was a huge tragedy, both for nature and humans.
One farmer told of pulling undigested food from manure piles in a hopeless
attempt to feed his animals. Farmers continued to harness and rope their
starving horses and desperately tried to make them work the fields, which
would normally be grounds for “cruelty to animal” charges. “I fear that before
next year’s crop can be matured we shall be called upon to provide the means
of sustenance, not for thousands, but for hundreds of thousands of people in
the Midwestern empire,” a Congressman said. That agricultural “Midwest
Empire” simply crumbled as land dried up, work animals died, and crop pro-
duction came to a halt.
The Dust Bowl began in the summer of 1931, when portions of Texas,
western Kansas, southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico and one-
third of the Oklahoma Panhandle were plowed under, leaving little but dirt
that would be kicked up by the frequent and intense wind storms. The disas-
ter affected some 100 million acres of land from Texas to North Dakota and
disrupted the lives of 5 million farmers and their families who sought federal
help. Crop production in 1934 onward was dismal; cattle were too weak to
stand and were slaughtered by the thousands. In 1934 alone, the financial cost
of the drought amounted to one-half the money that the U.S. spent on the
Great War. Federal officials estimated that a single dust storm in May blew
away 300 million tons of topsoil in a day. Within 2 years, farm losses reached
$25 million a day. Making the economic losses worse, and life more unbear-
able, intense heat storms were common. During the summer of 1934,
Nebraska reached 118 degrees and Iowa reached 115 degrees. Incredible heat
killed 370 people in Illinois that summer. One Illinois resident, who had been
living in a refrigerator to escape the heat, was treated for frostbite. Most