Welcome to the American Story.

Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful and worthy of our love.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

I call this one The Great Depression and the Cowboy philosopher.

The story has at that Grace Coolidge, a wife of the 30th president, was once asked why he did not run for the election in 1928.

Cal saw hard times coming, she said.

Cal was not alone.

Well before 1928, America's greatest humorist was warning of hard times to come, and he wasn't just joking.

William Penn Adair Rogers was born to a Cherokee family in Indian territory near what would become

Ulaga, Oklahoma on November 4th, 1879. Of his American bona fides he liked to say, my ancestors didn't come over in the Mayflower, but we was there to meet the boat.

After working as a real cowboy, he performed in Wild West

shows, developed a vaudeville rope act, joined the Ziegfeld follies, and by the time of the Great Depression

was one of Hollywood's most well-paid and popular movie stars

and known as America's most beloved citizen.

By 1933, America's gross national product had fallen to half its 1929 level.

Some 13 million workers, 25% of the workforce, were unemployed. And many of

those who had jobs worked only part-time. In big cities like Chicago and Detroit, the unemployment rate

approached 50%. Iron and steel production declined by 60%, and machine toolmakers cut their output by nearly two-thirds.

Residential and industrial construction collapsed to less than one-fifth of its pre-depression level.

5,000 banks failed. 600,000 homeowners lost their property.

Stockholders lost three quarters of the value of their assets.

Agricultural income plunged by 60 percent and by 1933 banks were foreclosing 20,000 farm mortgages a month.

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