3 Articles by Robert Geiger

Article 1: April 15, 1935
If It Rains…
These Three Little Words Rule Life in
Dust Bowl of U. S.
Editor’s note: This is the first
of three stories surveying the
situation in the dust sector of the
Southwest—large in itself-, but
small in terms o) the whole—which
has been swept by a series of spec-
tacular aust storms. i ney are
written by Robert Geiger, Associ-
ated Press staff writer, who trav-
eled through the greater part of
the “dust botcl.” The story he
found eomingles damage and forti-
tude reminiscent of the pioneers.
In fact, many of the farmers he
talked with were pioneers. Thou-
sands of acres have been hit hard,
but over many other thousands the
dust clouds caused only annoyance
—and more Spring house-cleaning.
Damage to wheat prooaoiy runs
into millions, but what part is due
to wind erosion and what to drought
is beyond separation or calculation
BY ROBERT GEIGER.
Associated Press Staff Writer.
GUYMON. Okla., April 15.—Three
little words—achingly familiar on a
Western farmer’s tongue—rule life
today in the dust bowl of the conti-
nent—
If it rains.
Ask any farmer, any merchant, any
banker what the outlook is. and you
hear them—if it rains.
If it rains some farmers will
get a wheat crop.
If it rains fresh row crops may
flourish.
If it rains pasture and range
for live stock may be restored.
If it rains fields quickly listed
into wind-resisting clods may stop the
dust.
If it rains …
it always has!
The next three weeks will tell the
story.
Black and saffron clouds of dust,
spectacular, menacing, intensely irri-
tating to man and beast alike, choking,
blowing out tender crops and lasting
without merry for days, have darkened
everything but hope and a sense of
humor in the dust sector of the South-
west.
War Brought Plow to Area.
The Southwest Is big and the dust
area is only a small chunk of it.
Roughly, it takes in the western third
of Kansas. Southeastern Colorado,
the Oklahoma Panhandle, the north-
ern two-thirds of the Texas Panhan-
dle and Northeastern New Mexico.
It always has been a region of
sparse rainfall. The World War, with
its high wheat prices and urgent
demands, sent the plow Into the sod
and turned this into wheat country.
Before then it was range land, and
the crop was native buffalo grass,
which held the soil firm against in-
sistent winds.
The last three years have been
years of droughts, with this Spring’s
field-eroding dust storms their stifling
climax, qpt dust storms are nothing
new in the Southwest. Forty year
ago—decades before the whaet farm-
ers came with their combines—a dust
storm of such violence swept Western
Kansas that it stopped trains, just as
they were stopped last week.
“This is a tough, hardy country,”
its farmers say. “It will come back
overnight.”
“Dusters” approach the prairie
country in two ways.
Sometimes they start when a gigan-
tic yellow-and-red cloud floats across
the country, high in the air, blotting
out the sun.
The wind is gentle, growing in
velocity very slowly. Thus type of
storm carries a fine, powdery silt that
seems soft and hazy—until you start
breathing in it.
The other type starts with a blast,
and a huge black cloud approaching
across the plain at tremendous speed.
It strikes all at once along a well-
defined front It carries sand and
on hands rnd face feels like he blast
of a chaff from a threshing machine.
When at its height, bright lights
in towns are invisible across the street,
visibility is zero and. within buildings,
lights must be turned on as at night.
Motorists continuously crawl along at
5 and 10 miles an hour, unable to peer
ahead for more than 10 or 15 feet.
Busses are stopped—sometime trains
The fine silt penetrates motor
blocks and. if motorists are unwary,
grinds out bearings.
Drifts Along Highways.
These are the storm which leave
drifts of dust along the highways and
fences—sometimes dust drfits up to
the eaves of farm buildings.
It can t be kept out of a house, and
dishes have to be washed—not three
times, but six times, daily—before
and after every meal.
Housewives don’t like them, of
course, but the dust belt grins and
bears It.
Merchants do business as usual,
unless the storm gets too severe. Then
they hunt a fourth hand at bridge,
lock the front door and retire to the
back room to play it out.
It get into your clothes, literally in
your hair, and sometimes it seem in
your very soul. Certainly it, gets
under the skin.
But. despite the hardship and a
generally unencouraging prospect, not
a single one of more than a hundred
farmers interviewed by your corre-
spondent was leaving the country.
Each one had hope of getting a crop.
Take Charles Hitch, an elderly
rancher-farmer, living south of Guy-
mon, who came here in 188(1.
“For the first time since I have
been on Coldwater Creek—and I was
the first settler—we are thinking of
shipping cattle to greener pastures,”
he said.
Drought Worse This Year.
“Recent dust storms are not much
more severe than others in former
years,” Hitch said, “but the drought
is worse.
“My ranges have supported as many
as 10,000 head, but I have only 800
head now and they cannot find suf-
ficient feed. We have to feed them
cottonseed cake.
“But cattle prices are on the up-
grade and I am not discouraged. We
even will get a wheat crop if rain
comes. If there is no rain we will
have to start shipping caftle in a few-
wee ks.”
A. L. Thoreson lives over the line
in Texas and is a big wheat pro-
ducer. He raised 90.000 bushels in
1931, got only 25 cents a bushel for
it. The best he can hoe for, he
thinks, is a half crop.
“But we are not suffering acutely,”
he added. “The Government is pay-
ing better than a dollar an acre to
as in wheat benefit payments and,
in addition, we can sell what wheat
we raise. That will keep the farmers
going. The Federal wheat program
is O. K., and if it wasn’t for that
the farmers would be in an awful
hole. They can hold on indefinitely
with wheat payments.”
And then there is I. R. Bryan,
farmer northwest of Guymon, who
could have left 10 v&rs ago. after
30 years of farming in the Pan-
handle, “with $35,000 in my pockets.”
“I made it in row crops and lost
it in wheat.
“I could have left here wealthy
and I’ll be damned if I am going
to walk out of here broke now.”
Article 2: April 16, 1935
“Let ’Er Blow”
Farmers Echo Words of Veteran of
Panhandle, Refusing to Leave.
Editor’s note: This is the second
of three stories describing the sit-
uation and the outlook in the
dust-plagued sector of the South-
west, the source of dust storms
which have swept as far east as
the Atlantic seaboard, and west
to the Pacific Coast.
BY ROBERT IGEIGER,
Associated Press Staff Writer.
SPRINGFIELD, Colo., April 16 —A
man unfamiliar frith the high plains
dry-farming region, birthplace of the
black blizzard, might see only despair
and desolation in wind-scdured fields
and dust-drifted roads and farmyards
It does look pretty desperate, aad
some families have given up hope
and moved away. Not many. Dry-
land farmers have been through dust
storms before, and most of them echo
the anonymous old timer, a veteran
of the Panhandle, who said:
“It takes grit to live out here—let
•or blow!”
As a matter of record, they had
storms a century ago much like those
of 1935.
Pastor Recalls Storm of 1839.
Rev. Isaac McCoy, pioneer surveyor
and missionary, reported one in West-
ern Kansas in November, 1830, which
cut visibility to 30 yards, made hoof
prints invisible and masks imperative.
Again, in 1913, sand and dust
drifted to the eaves of Isolated farm
buildings in one section, and in spots
the region looked as it does today.
With this background of experience
and endurance, and the knowledge
that, given water, they can get re-
markable crops, the dry-landers are
hard to discourage.
Traveling through the dust sector
—through Southeastern Colorado,
Southwestern Kansas, the west end of
the Oklahoma Panhandle and the
north tip of the Texas Panhandle—
you see a region which now has the
appearance of a vast desert, with
miniature shifting dunes of sand. A
rain might turn it green overnight,
but that is how it looks now. There
are spots where wheat fields still were
green last week.
Great Colony of Ant Hills.
Many of the fields that were
planted to wheat last Fall give the
illusion of a great colony of ants, with
hills marking spots where tumble-
weeds have caught and dust drifted
around them, These little dunes are
about a foot high.
In other places the drifts are as
high as fences, especially in corners.
Snow fences that have held virtually
no snow for four Winters are drifted
to the tops with sand, and one can
walk over them.
Roads are blown clean of sand (sur-
facing material) for miles at a stretcn,
acid in many parts of the region a
powdery white silt covers the country-
side.
On the roads can be seen an occa-
sional car, loaded with a farm family,
usually with a truck following carry-
ing household goods. Some are head-
ed for Eastern Kansas or Missouri
or Eastern Oklahoma, where rainfall
has been normal, or to the Colorado
mountain country.
To Return When Rain Comes.
Postmaster Herman Davis of
Springfield, Colo., says about a dozen
families have moved away, but most
of them made a temporary change of
address, planning to return when rain
comes.
J. R. Peters of Boise City, Okla.,
said he would leave • immediately” if
he had means.
“If I leave I can’t get wheat and
com payments or relief, and that’s
all that’s keeping me alive,” he said.
He hasn’t had a crop In four years.
But E. H. Libbey, a neighbor, came
out of Sunday’s big dust storm smil-
ing.
“Theyil have to carry me out of
this country feet first,” he said, grin-
ning. “I won’t leave voluntarily.”
“However,” he added, “I’m going to
move about 20 miles west, where the
dust ain’t so bad. I live farther down
that way now than the prairie dogs
will live, but I’m sticking it out.”
Salty Sense of Humor.
Edna Lynn, social service director
of Texas County, Okla.. one of the
biggest wheat counties, says that many
farmers who swear they will move
away every time a dust storm strikes
change their minds with the first
sunny day.
Her staff, working over the county,
has reported almost 100 families leav-
ing this section a week ago. Many
of these families were land owners and
will return when the dust subsides
and rain comes. She does not expect
the “renters” to come back.
Withal, a salty sense of humor pre-
vails.
In Guymon, Okla., a farmer pur-
chased a pair of rubber boots, slung
them over his shoulder and started
down the three blocks of Main street,
where farmers stood in gossiping
groups. The sight of the rubber boots
brought shouts of laughter.
Article 3: April 17, 1935
Rain Now Hope in Dust Belt,
Where Aid Is Farm Reliance
South west Resigned to Fate With Daily
Storms, hut Land Is Not Beyond
Restoration in Most of Area.
Editor’s note—This is the last of
three stories summarizing condi-
tions in the dust and drought belt
of the Southwest.
By the Associated Press.
LAS ANIMAS. Colo.. April 17.—The
dust belt suddenly ends on the road
that turns west from Lamar, Colo.
It is like coming out of a tunnel into
an archway of sky.
The stars twinkle to the west; be-
hind, to the east, hangs the pall of
dust. You start swinging up the irri-
gated Valley of the Arkansas, and
thinking of the words of Bill Baker,
back in Boise City. Okla., “what this
country needs is water.”
Baker is the county agent for
Cimarron County, and he calls it
“some of the best land in the Pan-
handle.”
Everything has been seared to a
discouraging lifeless gray. Dust storms
come almost daily. Mostly, the resi-
dents are resigned to them, sustained
by their philosophy that when rain
comes their county will be green
overnight.
54 Years in State.
Baker has lived in Oklahoma 54
years, and for 13 years has been a
county agent. Now he is seeking to
have a huge dam constructed, the
Kenton.
“We must have water to grow vege-
tables and produce for our families,”
he said.
“During the years from 1926 to
1931. the first records were kept, the
rainfall was 19 inches a year. Since
1931 the average has been but 12.
This county is a story of the drought.
It has lost its vegetation, and the dust
storms will last until we can cover
the country again with green, grow-
ing things. The land has not been
seriously or permanently hurt.”
Again he voiced his faith:
“This is the most productive coun-
try in the world. And you will see
it come back overnight.”
From Cimarron County north and
south is what appears to be one of
the worst sections of the drought-dust
belt seen on a week’s tour of the
sector. There hardly is a green blade
left. Only one day on that week’s
trip was the sun visible, and only
one night could you see the stars.
Barbed wire fences are only dark
lines, jutting up from what looks like
desert. The roads are only wind-
swept streaks of hard-packed ground,
shut in by a fog of dust.
Kept Alive by Aid.
Just south of Boise City, near a
dust-blown cemetery, lives J. R.
Peters, who has been in the region
about 20 years. His house is a two-
room frame building, weathered and
gray.
“All that is keeping me, and a lot
like me. on this land, is the benefit
payment the Government is making,”
he said. ‘‘We get about $1 an acre
for our wheat lands. I have about
100 acres of land classified as wheat
growing. We haven’t had a crop for
four years.
“I’ve been hanging on because I can
make a little money in relief work,
besides the wheat checks. It’s barely
enough to keep me, my wife and two
children going.
“If we move we lose the wheat
money and relief work. Where would
we go? The dust seems to be almost
everywhere. We can’t get out of it.”
But R. H. Libbey, who lives only a
few miles away, insists “they’ll have
to carry me out” before he would
leave.
Dust storms are a not uncommon
characteristic of the high dry-farm-
ing region that fans Eastward from
the Rockies, but not of the intensity
or endurance this Spring has seen.
The drought, four years long, is
blamed for that. Wheat needs a fine-
tilled soil, and with no vegetation to
hold it, the land blows. No wheat
can grow in the drought.
Several plans have been urged by
erosion experts as control measures,
but foremost is listing, which digs deep
furrows across the eroding land. Ter-
racing of rolling land, pond and lake
construction and three shelter belts
are other methods to combat the
drought.
A great ‘‘dust barrier” in Far West
Kansas is being listed now, but fre-
quent dusters have made work s
difficult that of the 2.500.000 acres in
the blowing area which were to be
listed, only 50.000 have been com-
pleted.
There are other methods of prepar-
ing the ground whirh the agricul-
; tural experts believe will help control
| the dust, and D. A, Savage, who is in
charge of the forage crops investiga-
tion at the Government station at
Fort Hays, Kans., believes relief lies
in resodding the poorer lands of the j
Great Plains with Buffalo grass, Its
original crop.
; It would have to be done by hand,
and experiments at the station indi-
! cate that the grass will re-establish
! itself in three normal seasons. Culti-
j vated land left to revert to grass itself
will do it—in about 20 to 25 years.
But there is no question of what the
dry-land farmer wants. He wants
rain.
Bibliography
Evening Star. (Washington, DC), Apr. 15 1935. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045462/1935-04-15/ed-1/.
Evening Star. (Washington, DC), Apr. 16 1935. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045462/1935-04-16/ed-1/.
Evening Star. (Washington, DC), Apr. 17 1935. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83045462/1935-04-17/ed-1/.