Three California police officers search numerous makeshift shelters, looking for indigents. The officers approach an abandoned car body. They try to open the door, look under the covers of the hood and inspect the body. A ramshackle hut on the field, covered with stones, logs and rags. The officers inspect the hut, look into an opening on one side and walk around it. The officers inspect empty cartons and empty glass bottles on a table. A broken rack outside a hut. Things in an abandoned cart nearby. They inspect another shack, open the window and look inside. Dilapidated huts and shacks and covered vehicles. The cops inspect many huts, peep inside, try to open doors and windows. Posters cover a wall of one hut. They inspect the interior. An old car. The officers approach a shack as a man emerges from inside.
Three California police officers search shacks for indigents. The police officers stand outside one of the huts and a man emerges from it. Officers walk inside to inspect the ramshackle hut. They walk up to another hut. A group of men comes out of the hut and the officers look inside. The police officers escort group of indigents along a railroad track. Old people come out of another ramshackle hut.
A freight train moves on a railway track. Trainmen are seen on top of the box cars, and one on the caboose, who waves a flag. Police officers inspect vehicles on a nearby road in California. A sign reads 'California Inspection Station, Department of Agriculture'. California police officer speaks to car drivers and inspects vehicles before they drive past. Occasionally, the officer directs a car to pull off the road. A sign reads 'Stop State Officers'.
Recovery efforts from the Great Depression in the United States. (Footage largely from mid 1930's, produced in 1967). A farmer plows his field using oxen. Men and women work in fields. Price tags on food products. Officials of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in an office discuss reforms to solve farming over production and low demand. Statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. The White House building. Scenes of dilapidated farms and fields overcome by drought and dust bowl conditions. Farmers sit outside their houses fatigued and exhausted. Faces of tired, fatigued farmers. A town meeting of farmers in a small town. Franklin Roosevelt with cabinet and other officals in early days of his administration. Floods in Tennessee Valley washing away farmland. Farmland scarred by erosion lines and trenches. The Tennessee Valley Authority builds dams and power plants in the Tennessee Valley and helps farmers reclaim and improve land. Farmers in a rural town listen to a Tennessee Valley Authority official present plans of development. Establishment of Rural Electrification Administration. Electric power lines set up in the rural areas of the United States. Franklin Roosevelt addressing the U.S. Congress in the Capitol. Scenes from voting centers and of a voting booth in an American town. Wendell Willkie addressing a crowd. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt converses with an African American official (possibly in connection with signing of Executive Order 8802, the Fair Employment Act). Eleanor Roosevelt behind him, and Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. to her left. Eleanor Roosevelt speaking to group of African American children.
Aviator Jimmie Mattern in Floyd Bennett Field, New York. Jimmie Mattern boards the aircraft and takes off for his trip across the Atlantic. Crowd watches as the young Texas pilot takes off.
Pope Pius XI performs the Orbis et Urbis Service in Rome, Italy. A crowd of 150,000 pilgrims kneel and pray in front of the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran (Piazza di S. Giovanni in Laterano, 4, 00184 Roma RM, Italy). Pope Pius XI, wearing the Papal Tiara, conducts the religious ceremony. The pope blesses the crowd from the balcony of the Papal Archbasilica.