As the present generation looks back on the Depression, knowing as we do the length of it, we tend to read the end into the beginning. Nacogdoches and SFA did not notice the Depression much in the year immediately following the Crash. Things in East Texas were fairly depressed anyway. One cannot study the early years of the college without coming to the conclusion that the Twenties were almost as meager as the 1930s. To put the era in a national perspective, the Depression did not hit East Texas in general with the same ferocity as it did other parts of the Union. The Oil Boom of 1930 made East Texas, comparatively speaking, into an island of prosperity in a national sea of depressed conditions. While the oil fields did not reach down as far as Nacogdoches, the multiplier effect and the general spin-offs did affect the whole region. Contemporaries recognized this.

“The community’s income from cotton, lumber, livestock and dairy products was not as much as its outgo in 1932,” according to bank statements. This absolute decline in wealth, at least as measured in bank deposits, paralleled the fall of cotton prices to $.05.

The coming of economic hard times did not seem all negative. President Birdwell, for one, looked for positive elements. The student body was improving; they seemed “to be passing out of the jazz age.” They were “more purposeful than during the recent intensive prosperous years.” Morale was good and discipline problems few. There were “cases of drinking ... [but] no drunkenness so far as we know.” Also, “very little if any gambling” and “no men expelled or suspended during the past year [1931].”

Budget Proposals

In its proposed budget for 1931-1933, the administration asked for an expanded department of Library Science, a new $7,500 grandstand for the athletic field, $10,000 in repairs and updating for the Austin and Rusk Buildings (including a new roof for the new Rusk Building!), and a dairy barn and poultry yard (approved earlier but lost in a conference committee.) Birdwell, as per ritual, again asked for an auditorium ($250,000.00), which he never lived to see. This budget even projected one major new building: a woman’s gymnasium or recreation building. On salaries, the budget adhered to the statewide formula for the teachers colleges adopted early in the year: no top salary above $4,000. SFA had three salaries in this range.

The question of salaries, however, did become “very embarrassing and distressing.” After holding the line in his budget, as agreed, the requests were cut by an additional amount at the last moment. Birdwell had either to let certain faculty go completely or to ask everyone to take a percentage reduction. He did the latter. In a report to the Board of Regents, he commented: “It has been difficult to finance the school with the money at our disposal, but by not employing teachers in places made vacant by leaves of absence, we will be able to get through without a deficit. It is going to be more difficult to finance the school next year.” He expressed at a later date: “I wish there was some way that we could pay our teachers in cash. It is bad their salaries were so greatly reduced, and it is even worse that they have to pay interest on deferred warrants. There is no other way, however, to handle it now. The morale of the faculty is good, and each one is glad to have even that which he receives.”

Self Study

The entire college’s attention seemed to be focused in 1931 on a review of the academic programs , not on the Depression. The faculty spent the year completing a self-study, looking at ways to improve the educational experience at SFA. The recommendations were like those which present generations periodically make. After an extensive review, the faculty concluded they needed to improve the advising system, to pay more attention to planning student schedules, particularly during their freshman and sophomore years, and to consolidate certain programs in the face of the up-coming statewide shift to the semester system. They recommended faculty retraining to handle the new requirements, to understand the changing high school system, and to provide a system of mentors for students which would accompany them while at SFA. Ways to improving teaching were also explored. As the college completed the 1930-31 academic cycle, it had no idea of the major crisis which loomed around the corner.

A shot across the bow

The Attorney General ruled in August of 1931 that all local funds had to be transferred to Austin and managed by state warrants and vouchers. To make all flexible money “subject to the deficiencies which often prevail in the state treasury,” was to Birdwell, “disconcerting, to say the least.” Without local funds, not even a day laborer, or call faculty, could be hired on the spot. Furthermore, all interest would also go into the general fund without any earmark for SFA. This was just the first salvo in the coming battles with Austin.

Think seriously and soberly

At the first assembly of the new year in 1932, the president outlined challenges for the students and urged them to apply themselves diligently. Of the year just past, he said: “It has brought much sorrow, much suffering, and must tragedy. It has brought a return of the fundamentals of life. Everybody is agreed that we will have to work out of our present condition.” Parents were sacrificing; students had to apply themselves, too. “Any man or woman old enough to go to college should not at this time waste their time. ... No great life is built on frivolities. Somewhere along the line you will have to think seriously and soberly. This year 1932 challenges you to do the best with the opportunities given you at a great sacrifice.” 1932 was an election year. Birdwell challenged the students to use the franchise intelligently.

The Depression meant hardship for the student population, too. Many were forced to withdraw from college. With few jobs around, those who could, stayed in college; it frequently was a choice between a year of idleness and what college had to offer. Others stayed in school to help give them a leg up on the competition. Students were concerned with the problems of the depressed country. The Pine Log denounced the frivolous attitude of the average student, however, and in one editorial, cynically labeled them “a collection of useless people flocking beneath our ‘contented pines’.” The editorial went on to charged them to think rationally, to maintain intellectual vitality after graduation, and to avoid “the old American game of passing the buck.”

The Depression crisis comes home

By the end of the summer in 1932, the budget crisis was even more serious. The faculty returning from leave were not assured of positions, yet Birdwell was determined to take care of them and keep the budget in balance. If conditions necessitated it, he resolved again “to reduce the salaries at the middle of the term.” The salary question had to take a back seat to a more general assault on SFA and other colleges.

The State Board of Education, spurred into action by a legislature looking for cuts, called for a review of all the colleges and higher institutions in the state. The SFA review, while not a disaster, did make some serious criticisms.

The report said costs in the departments of Agriculture, Business, Chemistry, Education, French, Government, Sociology, and Spanish were above normal. It criticized the excessive number of small or short classes, the duplication of certain course offerings, and the expansion of certain programs into the junior and senior levels. In answering the criticisms, Birdwell “freely admitted” that the percentage of small classes was too large. He gave reasonable explanations for this, but he committed himself immediately to correcting the problem by insisting on ten students in an lower division course and at least 6 in an upper division one. He promised, as part of the transition to the semester system, to retrench in the areas of agriculture, home economics, music, and art. Although he argued that it was unwise, he agreed to reduce the faculty by one in each of the fields of Latin, art, music, women’s physical education, and men’s physical education. He also promised to move to a new statewide, uniform accounting system.

Before the review could even be considered in any depth in Austin, the Joint Committee on Economies of the Legislature proposed drastic legislation that would have decimated the state teacher college system. Birdwell and his colleagues had to fight off a threaten closure of SFA, or, at minimum, a reduction of the school to a junior college status. See the article, “SFA Threatened” in this week’s Heritage Series.

Not all gloom and doom

Regardless of the depressed conditions, modest improvements at SFA seemed to go steadily forward. The college paved the streets in 1930. The paving of the streets, with definite curb lines, made it possible to undertake a “systematic beautification” program in 1931. Using local funds, the college planted a large numbers of dogwood and redbud trees on the campus. Later in the decade, they would plant thousands of pine seedling. These moves led to the creation of a position called the “Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds.” The next improvement was the installation of a system of lights, at a cost of approximately $2,500. This made the use of the campus in the evenings more reasonable and safe.

Student activities also adjusted to the depression quite pleasantly. For the all-campus dance in 1933, the Pine Burrs advocated the romance of walking. “Soft lights! Sweet music! Beautiful girls! and Beautiful Surroundings! What a wonderful way in which to begin the new social season!” They were responding to the rumor “that some boys hesitate to bring dates for the reasons that they would have to walk.” The Burrs argued, “Girls realize all boys do not have cars, since the “depresh” is on, and so they are willing to stroll in the moonlight with their escorts. Now, we ask you, who could ask for more?”

“With confidence and yet with misgivings,” to cite Birdwell, they went forward.

The Ex-Student’s Association’s first announcement questionnaire actually went out in March of 1929, before the Crash. They even encouraged everyone to meet at the Bearkat game in November, since they knew many people would be there. The group scheduled their first big get-together for the regular homecoming activities in the spring. In April of 1930, officers were elected, county units of the Ex-students Association were organized, and plans for an expanded homecoming were set. While homecoming in the spring had already become a tradition at SFA, the first great Homecoming was in the May of 1930 with one thousand people attending. By 1932, the event was much larger.

Tenth Anniversary

On May 30, 1933, the college paused to celebrate its tenth anniversary. Over two thousand former students and friends of the college spent the days celebrating with barbecue and entertainment. It started with the High School graduation on Friday, a Karle Wilson Baker Dramatic Club play on Saturday night, commencement on Sunday, and then on Monday night, a colorful pageant on Birdwell Athletic field. The first student to enroll at SFA and two members of the class of 1925 attended the class meetings which were part of the weekend’s activities. S. A. Kerr was elected president of the 1933 graduating class and Sugene Spears was secretary.

The pageant, titled “A Decade of SFASTC,” began “with Minerva goddess of wisdom, coming to her throne which was in the center of the athletic field. ... accompanied by her court consisting of the muses of art, music, poetry, agriculture, history and home economics.” A “Spirit of East Texas” then appeared before Minerva to seek guidance for her people. In answer to this plea, Minerva sent her messengers in search of a person whom she might send on a mission. The messenger returned with Mr. Birdwell, who Minerva commanded to go to East Texas and there establish an institution of learning. Mr. Birdwell accepted the commission and later presented to Minerva his first faculty robed in caps and gowns. There were other episodes, although none quite so dramatic! Former Senator Edgar Thomason told how the college was founded. A crowd estimated at three thousand people watched this production, directed by Thelma Jagoe, before adjourning to Aikman Gym for a dance.

No Stone Fort was published in 1933. The student publications committee of that year decided that giving up the annual would be best. The annual for 1932 was pitiful. It did not have a hard cover, was small, and used every economy to scrimp by. Madge Stallings (Mrs. Jim) collected the material from families and friends so that the class of 1933 could have an “annual” for their homecoming in 1958. Twenty-five years later, just so the class could have a book, Madge Stallings and others put together a small book, with pictures and information from 1933 and 1958 all mixed together. The work, a small combination of those who responded and some SFA records, is a reminder of how deep the depression really was.