 
the 1920's were a period of great expansion for american capitalism. 
for the trade unions, it was a period of decline, which they met by trying 
to persuade employers to establish unionism in order to guarantee labor peace. 
by the late twenties, one of america's leading economists was widely 
seconded when he declared that the country had entered an era of "permanent 
prosperity." 
already, however, serious constriction had begun in such industries as 
coal and textiles, and with the collapse of the stock market in october, 1929, 
depression, long believed a thing of the past, set in. 
with it came enormous misery, loss of jobs, some fifteen million workers 
were unemployed. 
by early 1932, according to a new york newspaperman, groups of thirty or 
forty men would enter chain grocery stores and ask for credit. 
when the clerk tells them business is for cash only, they bid him stand 
aside; they don"t want to harm him, but they must have things to eat. 
they load up and depart. 
out of this kind of desperation the unemployed began improvising a variety 
of forms of direct action to meet their needs. 
most dramatic was direct action to stop evictions. 
a reporter described a typical anti-eviction "riot" in chicago: 
a woman living in a certain block in chicago has five children; her 
husband is a stockyards workman who has been out of a job a year and a half. 
but on ten dollars a month sent by her brother-in-law, and borrowing now 
and then from the neighbors" pantries, she has fed her family. 
there is no money left for rent. 
so after two warnings from the landlord, a crisis. 
she is to be evicted next tuesday at five. 
in the same block lives a member of the local branch of the unemployed 
council, who has been through it all before. 
