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🦋 States' Rights

I've been listening a lot to Disc B of the Mountain Blues box set from JSP Records -- there is a ton of great music on this disc and in this set, including many fiddle tunes that I want to learn. Plus a song I'm finding particularly interesting, and different from most everything else on this set: Bread Line Blues (1931), by Slim Smith.

There doesn't seem to be any biographical information on Smith that I can find, either in the notes to the box set or on the Internets. His singing style reminds me a lot of Woody Guthrie; I'm pretty poor at recognizing accents, so I won't venture to guess where he's from -- most of the other artist on the set are from Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, the Carolinas.

The song is basically a plea to vote Democratic in 1932. I'm interested in finding out some of the subtext -- I don't know a whole lot about the history of the Great Depression beyond generalities. I understand that Hoover, a Republican, was blamed for the economic collapse, and clearly the song says "vote Democratic to get the economy back on course." But I'm very intrigued by the lines, "If we had states' rights,/ I'll leave it to you,/ We could all have fun/ And better home-brew." If I heard someone in say, 1960 or later, invoking "states' rights," I'd assume he was speaking in code about resentment over desegregation, and appealing to memories of Southern separatism -- this is a major part of the theme of Nixonland. But I don't believe desegregation was even on the radar in 1931. It sounds from the verse like the resentment is against prohibition, and maybe more generally against federal regulation of distillation. But presumably memories of Southern separatism would have been fresher in 1931 than they were in the '60s; so maybe that is coming through as well.

I'm also pretty interested by this verse: "It's the rich man's job/ To make some rules,/ To rid me of/ These Bread Line Blues." What is the ideology here? The first time I heard the song I started out thinking I was listening to a Socialist after the manner of Woody Guthrie, advocating for FDR and the New Deal; but this verse makes no sense in that context -- it sounds more to me like what I think of as Republicanism, and it surprises me to hear a Democrat saying it. But obviously party boundaries and ideologies are fluid. Oh and another neat thing: the Donkey and Elephant party mascots make their appearances. How old are these symbols? Aha! finally a question I can answer with Google: the animals date to 1874, to a political cartoon by Thomas Nast.

posted afternoon of Saturday, January 17th, 2009
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I think your guess about state's rights and prohibition is right. States and counties decided about allowing sale of alcohol before the national amendment, so states and counties that allowed sale would see it as a state's rights issues. Today, counties and other small governments are able to prohibit sale of alcohol as they see fit.

On your second question, I think the lyrics do make sense as they are: Hoover thought that government intervention was not the answer, but FDR was arguing for government intervention: and who governs but the rich. So it is the responsibility of the rich to make laws to fight against poverty. I don't know if economic historians have agreed on whether FDR's programs helped to end the depression or not. Helping people get by during the depression is not the same as fixing the problems that led to and maintained the depression.

Hope I was of some help.

Woody

posted afternoon of January 19th, 2009 by woody

Helping people get by during the depression is not the same as fixing the problems that led to and maintained the depression.

This might be what I was not picking up on -- it makes more sense now.

posted afternoon of January 19th, 2009 by Jeremy

And another question in this regard: was repeal of prohibition a partisan issue? My expectation based on what I know about the country at that time would be that Democrats would support repeal, but I'm really not sure.

...Ah yes, Wikipædia says, repeal was part of the Democratic Party's platform in '32.

posted morning of January 20th, 2009 by Jeremy

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