After sending the familiar Irish uncle back home, Nair turned around and headed back to town. After finally getting something done for everyone, it still felt like there was some trickery involved.
Patrick, after delivering coal to other places, came to town to pick up the relief funds. Since the funds were distributed by household and not on a first-come, first-served basis, and since most farmers lived in the countryside, some of them needed up to two hours just to get to town, so arriving early was impossible.
Nair found Patrick, the head of the household, standing in line holding his citizenship document (which was essentially a citizen identification number). Someone had once criticized that only a few countries in the world have strict household registration systems, claiming that America, as a "beacon of freedom," didn't have one. Nair couldn't help but laugh at such ignorance.
In fact, countries without strict household registration are rare, with Japan being one of the few, where the population has opposed the implementation of ID cards, calling them a remnant of militarism. Some people criticize without even knowing how to back up their claims.
"Why aren't you back home yet?" Patrick asked, surprised to see Nair.
Thinking it over, it wasn't that unusual. The Brook train had been delayed, and if there had been a heavy snowstorm, it might have been canceled altogether. Patrick was just casually asking, with no other intentions.
"I just thought I'd come check it out," Nair shrugged, not explaining further.
"Well, in that case, you can buy some things with me to take back," Patrick smiled and suggested.
Seeing that Nair's face had turned pale from the wind, Patrick quickly took off his woolen hat and, without asking, placed it on Nair's head.
"Alright, I'll wait for you," Nair didn't protest, as he was used to this kind of casual interaction since childhood.
Most of the Irish farmers around knew Nair, while the German farmers didn't know him well but were aware that it was Nair who had encouraged the Irish farmers to vote for the relief fund. When Nair asked them about the details, they didn't try to hide anything.
The funds were distributed based on family size—$80 for a family of five, with an additional $12 for each extra member, regardless of age. Nowadays, most farming households had at least five members, and it was rare to see fewer than that. With 150,000 households, the base number of people was around 750,000, and the additional funds would add another $6 million, making the total relief fund amount $18 million.
But the question was, where had the remaining $6 million gone? After asking around, Nair discovered that only a few households received military subsidies, so that wasn't the main issue. The rest of the families didn't have any concrete understanding of the full $24 million. They knew $240 was a reasonable amount for a family but couldn't fathom a larger sum.
Even though there were more than 1 million farmers in the state, the distribution per family was small—around $20. Most farmers wouldn't think twice about it.
Nair put his suspicions aside and went with Patrick to buy things before heading home to spend Christmas. Christmas was akin to the Chinese New Year for East Asians, a time when almost the entire country had the day off, though newspapers and radio stations never stopped. Nair had been gathering political news from Western Virginia and began to realize the state's game.
The state had set up a $5 million agricultural relief fund!
By adding that $5 million, the total amount would be $24 million. But what kind of fund was this really? Nair couldn't be sure.
Based on his understanding of the times, he suspected the so-called relief fund was likely a loan to relatively stable and profitable businesses, not actual relief for struggling farmers. From a bank's perspective, they would want to lend money to businesses with repayment capabilities, but these businesses didn't need loans in the first place. The people who truly needed loans were often not eligible due to their inability to repay.
In the future, Nair knew that banks would often beg business owners to take loans while ignoring those who actually needed them.
If this fund was designed to help farmers who had suffered through a drought and needed assistance with seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, Nair would applaud the government for doing something positive for once. This approach would be far more effective than distributing small amounts to individual farmers. The government could even negotiate better prices with fertilizer and machinery companies to benefit farmers.
However, if, as Nair suspected, the fund was just a cover for a loan scheme to businesses in order to collect interest, it would be another scandal waiting to happen.
Nair knew that local newspapers thrived on such sensational stories to grab the public's attention, but it wouldn't be wise for him to be the one to expose it. After all, Nair was well-known in the Irish community and even among farmers of other ethnicities.
To avoid putting himself in the spotlight, Nair decided to have someone less recognizable go to the government and inquire about the loan details—whether farmers could borrow money to purchase seeds and fertilizers. If they succeeded, he'd let the matter rest. If not, he'd use his connections with Wilkie and Meyerlanski to stir the pot with the press.
Nair sent a telegram to Wilkie in New York, asking him to send copies of any documents related to the establishment of the agricultural relief fund. Nair wanted to study how the government managed such funds and whether they had to disclose their expenditures and operational status regularly.
He also needed to know what happened if the fund generated profits—whether it would be reinvested or returned to the government. Any examples of similar funds would also be useful to see how they were handled in other states.
In the past, there had been many government-established funds for railroad construction, industrial development, and more. Some were public, others were raised privately. Nair wanted to dig deeper and see what this relief fund really amounted to.
Thus, the New Year of 1931 arrived with Nair in the midst of all this hustle and bustle.