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Dust in the WindThe “Dust in the Wind” presentation recounts the determination of Hugh
Hammond Bennett (the father of conservation) to raise industry, political, and
public awareness of the dangers to agriculture and our food supply of eroding
soils. The presentation features songs, stories, and interesting facts and
highlights historical photos of the 1930s dust bowl crisis in the Great Plains. The Montana NRCS produced this program in an experimental format designed to inform, educate and entertain. The video is a large file that can take several minutes to load. If you experience difficulties playing the video on-line, right-click on the link and save the target to your computer before playing. The production, available in both audio CD video DVD formats, can also be requested by contacting publications. If you encounter any problems with the files provided on this page, please contact Public Affairs at 406-587-6971. The following video requires
Windows Media
Player. Transcript of "Dust in the Wind" VideoCOOPER: As singer Sarah Brightman suggests, close your eyes for a moment and join us on a historical journey, Dust in the Wind. SONG - DUST IN THE WIND: All my dreams pass before my eyes in curiosity Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind. Same old song. Just a drop of water in an endless sea. All we do crumbles to the ground, though We refuse to see. Dust in the wind. All we see is dust in the wind." COOPER: SONG - DUST IN THE WIND: COOPER: His work led him to predict a dire future. (music bed ends) He concluded there was some evidence the top soils were beginning to erode. His bosses did not agree. In fact six years Later the bureau proclaimed ”SOIL IS THE ONE INDESTRUCTIBLE, IMMUTABLE ASSET THE NATION POSSESSES.” Bennett knew they were wrong. He quietly decided he would repeat his warning whenever, however and wherever he was given an opportunity, even if it took him years to be heard. It did. Hugh Hammond Bennett continued his persistent personal crusade to raise awareness of the potentially devastating impact eroding soils could have on farming and on our food supply. For more than 25 years he repeated the message in professional articles, in professional presentations and in letters. In the late 1920s there was some evidence that what Bennett had been saying might have a ring of truth. Drought and wind conditions in the Great Plains were beginning to blow the topsoil around in the form of dust into actual dust clouds. Farmers were also feeling financial pressures caused by the beginning of the great depression. Bob Miller, at that time was a rag time piano player in a jazz band on a Mississippi River Steamboat – he started writing and singing songs about what he heard customers on his boat talking about. SONG - BOB MILLER: COOPER: Some of his fans thought he could foretell the future. He recorded a song about the assassination of Louisiana Governor Huey Long, predicting Long’s death and the location of the murder. Two years after the song was released Huey Long was indeed assassinated and it occurred exactly where the song said it would. SONG - BOB MILLER: COOPER: Because at that time in history many Americans lived and raised their families on farms, farming was not just a part of our culture, for many it was a matter of survival. This is Anita Dawn. SONG – NO ONE ON THE FARM: A new born colt or a baby calf makes a feeling in me warm. So I met a man, a rugged man and took him by the arm. I married him, we had some kids and lived out on the farm. Oh the north wind blew and the children grew and the fire kept us warm. I wouldn’t trade the life we made livin’ on the farm. Oh we planted seed and fought the weeds and toiled on and on- We prayed for rain and the showers came and the heat burned from the sun. With the drivin’ hail and the milkin’ pail our work was never done. Though our bones were tired from workin’ hard we loved it on the farm. Now the time may come when the farmer’s son won’t be there to carry on. With the price of fuels and the farmers tools and the market goin’ down. Oh we love the land and its been our plan to leave it to our son. But the time may come when there’ll be no one to live out on the farm. Oh the north wind blew and the children grew and the fire kept us warm. But the time may come when there’ll be no one to live out on the farm. Yes the time may come when there’ll be no one to live out on the farm.” In 1933 Hugh Hammond Bennett, the man who was virtually ignored for nearly 25 years was promoted to Director of the then newly organized Soil Erosion Service giving him a commanding voice. Now he focused on a newer stronger message to farmers-he urged them to change their farming methods to conserve the soil. He angered many farmers by proclaiming “Americans have been the greatest destroyer of land of any race of people, barbaric or civilized.” A young man whose family in Oklahoma had suffered one family tragedy after another eventually became representative of the era in which he was raised. His mother died in a state insane asylum where she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia It was later determined she’d suffered from Huntington’s disease, the same disease that killed both her parents and eventually her son. His father was badly burned in an in-home coal fire when this young man was only 7 his sister was killed in an earlier in-home coal fire. His family hoped to start over by moving to Texas. The young man tried to attend high school in Pampas Texas but shortly before graduation dropped out as many did during the depression. He played harmonica and guitar and wrote poems and stories. He sympathized with his friends in Oklahoma who were forced to leave their homes and he hit the road with them looking for work and to write about his experiences. Many of his songs were about the dust bowl days earning him the nicknames “The Dust Bowl Troubador”. He was Woody Guthrie. SONG – THE GREAT DUST STORM: You could see that dust storm coming, the cloud looked big and black and through our mighty nation it left a dreadful track. From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line, Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grand.. It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down, we thought it was our judgment, we thought it was our doom. The radio reported we listened with alarm The wild and windy actions of this great mysterious storm. From Albequerk and Clovis and all New Mexico, they said it was the blackest that ever they had saw. From old Dodge City Kansas the dust had run there now and a few more comrades sleeping on top of old boot hill. From Denver Colorado they said it blew so strong they thought that it had backed up but didn’t know how long. Our relatives were huddled inside their oil boom shacks and the children they were acryin’ as it whistled through the cracks. And the family it was crowded into their little room- they thought the world had ended and they thought it was their doom. The storm took place at sundown, it lasted through the night. When we looked out next morning we saw a terrible sight. We saw outside outside our window where wheat fields they had grown was now a rippling ocean of dust the wind had blown. It covered up our fences – it covered up our barns – it covered up our tractors in this wild and dusty storm. We loaded our jalopies and piled our families in – we rattled down the highway to never come back again." COOPER: One April day in 1935, Hugh Hammond Bennett was on his way to testify before a Congressional committee hearing when he was warned another great dust storm was blowing east from the Great Plains and actually might even effect Washington DC. Just as Bennett began his presentation the mid-day sun was blacked out-the wind rattled the windows and Bennett told his audience “This gentlemen is what I’ve been talking about.” Bennett managed to talk congress into providing federal funds to help farmers make changes in their operations to protect soils from erosion. Unemployment had reached record levels. President Roosevelt, as part of the New Deal created a plan to put young men to work and to protect forestland and water with conservation improvements. Three million 17 to 23 year old men signed up for the Civilian Conservation Corps. They were paid $50 a month to dig ditches, build reservoirs and plant trees in much of the country’s forested lands. Many lived in forest camps, their earnings sent back home to help families. Late in the 1930s President Roosevelt, who by this time was well acquainted with Hugh Hammond Bennett, called on the nation’s governors to create conservation districts. Milburn Lincoln Wilson, Assistant Secretary of the USDA was sold on the value of conservation and had been thinking about ways to spread conservation beyond the scattered demonstration projects. He felt that if farmers thought they were playing an active role in promoting conservation they would accept it as a goal and ultimately as a part of their operation. With the help from then USDA attorney Phillip Glick, Wilson created the “Standard State Soil Conservation District Law”. That act classified a district that would not be a unit of government but would have some of the powers of a government district. Because the work of a district often paralleled that being done by the Soil Conservation service it accommodated and encouraged cooperative ventures. Today there are over three thousand local conservation districts. In the 1950s another Great Plains drought resulted in dust storms that again blew away top soils, this time due to intensive cropping of marginal land and low rainfall. As a result the Great Plains Conservation Program was created. It placed emphasis on developing conservation plans for entire farms and ranches. Hugh Hammond Bennett himself was named Assistant Secretary of the USDA in 1951 – but retired in 1952. The industry had learned to learn from its mistakes and Hugh Hammond Bennett more than any other person influenced the development of soil conservation. In the long run that success may have averted what he firmly believed would have become a national catastrophe. Hugh Hammond Bennett passed away in 1960. Today, the agency he founded is called the Natural Resources Conservation Service with a mission to conserve our soil, water, air, plants and animals. This is our final tune, a classic by Kansas and I’m Larry Cooper with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, helping people help the land. SONG - "DUST IN THE WIND" Last Modified: 12/18/2008 |
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