Are Food Stamps Theft?

I Believe · Nov 4, 2025 · 26m

Act 1. The First Food StampScene One: May, 1939. The Machinist and the SurplusOn the morning of May 16, 1939, Ralston Thayer stood first in line at Rochester, New York’s old post office. He was thirty-five years old. A machinist. A veteran of the Great War. He had been out of work for nearly a year. Newspaper reporters crowded around him. Photographers jockeyed for position. Thayer was making history, and they wanted a piece of the action. He walked up to the cashier window and handed over four dollars from his latest unemployment check. The clerk gave him four dollars in orange stamps and…