To say that during the year 1932, the crudest year of the Depression, the average number of unemployed people in the country was 12,5 million by the estimates of the National Industrial Conference Board and a little over 13 million by the estimates of the American Federation of Labor — to say this is to give no living impression of the jobless men going from office to office and from factory gate to factory gate; of the disheartening inevitability of the phrase: "We'll let you know if anything shows up"; of men thumbing the want ads in cold tenements; spending fruitless hours and week after week, in the sidewalk crowds before the employment offices; using up the money in the savings bank, borrowing from relatives less and less able to lend, tasting; the bitterness of inadequacy, and at last swallowing their pride and going to apply for relief —if there was any to be got. (F. L. Allen, Since Yesterday)