My great uncle always amazed me with his stories about life during the Great Depression. He was a vagabond - he rode the rails from Holland to Chicago in search of sustainable work. Looking back on that time period, it's amazing to see how we got through it. President Roosevelt took some risks and acted for the good of the people - as governments ideally should. It introduced a whole new realm of government power to the United States: Public Welfare. Professor John E. Hansen, PhD, observes that forty states had established a relief program for mothers with dependent children by 1926. Authorities worked to bring US citizens back from the murky depths of poverty, and established new systems to ensure that it would stay that way. The USA certainly wasn't the first country to implement this system. Governments have been enlisted to care for their citizens since ancient times. I'm talking all the way back to Rome, with it's emperors and aqueducts and coliseums alike. Emperor Constantine was the first to start the public works projects - which is how the aqueducts were actually built - because by giving the people jobs and, therefore, an income, he gained political support from more of the population. Other emperors held to this standard as well, adding in rations of grain to those who needed it. Giselle Aguiar adds that political influence was directly related to control of the grain supply. She makes this statement: "The more grain an emperor provided, the more popular he was. Bread and Circuses was a phrase used to describe handouts and petty amusements that emperors used to gain popularity rather than gaining it through policy and civic duty.".
While this system of welfare and benefits was initially established for the political success of the emperors, the citizens of Rome truly did benefit from it. The quality of life was steadily improving because officials were making attempts to improve the economy.
