Federal Water Shed

A pictorial criticism of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies.

Issued in the January, 1935 edition of Fortune magazine, this colorful chart by LeRoy Appleton is a satirical image poking fun at the high rates levels of government spending in the midst of the Great Depression.

The flow of “water” starts with the spurious rainmaking efforts of Congress, represented by the obsolete idea that firing cannons into the air would cause precipitation. The process continues with a complex network flowing from the People’s Savings and the Spring Ground of Business into the Reservoir of Revenue. A lake of billions of tax exempt dollars is protected by the Constitutional Divide Mountain Range, while the “vast and distant thunderheads of inflation” loom on the horizon and threaten to swamp the system.

Text in either corner explains further some of the map’s features. The founder of Fortune Magazine, Henry Luce, was vehemently opposed to New Deal spending and a stanch critic of President Roosevelt.