A City Mobilized

Because my time is rushed, and it is hard for me to get into the library, I decided to watch the DVD on the Spanish Civil War. The first section that I decided to watch was entitled "A City Mobilized". It was interesting to hear the stories of these people who were teenagers during the time of the Spanish Civil War. In the section called Subway (Re) Collections, they talk about how they would take tin cans (or Jewish pushkeys) and beg for money in the subway. Though little coinage was collected during theses Depression times, people were still donating to the aid of the Spanish Veterans and Republicans. Likewise, many people pushed to "Lift the embargo" and allow the United States to aid the Spanish Republic.
I think that a main reason that these people even helped in times of depression was because they wanted to make sure that no nation fully accepted fascism; likewise, I feel as though the US citizens thought that by changing Spain, they could change their own nation, making Hoover's destruction unapparent. The Great Depression also made people very radical and there were many people unelmployedd, contrastingly enough hurting the progress of the Revolution. Towards the end of the war, their were strong anti fascist movements, etc.

Question:

If so many people were interested in aiding Soanish Civil War effort, why didn't they join groups, getadd, or get a job??