The New Deal

1. The New Deal I. Depths of Depression III. The Hundred Days III. The Second New Deal IV. The New Deal’s Challengers and Legacy

2. I. Depths of Depression

3. Hoover’s Principles • Maintain a balanced budget. • The government should remain as passive as possible. • If necessary, use federal funds to help banks and industry, which would trickle down to farmers and laborers.

4. Deepening Despair “Unemployment has steadily increased in the U.S. since the beginning of the depression . . . . The number . . . next winter will . . . be 11,000,000 . . . one man of every four employable workers . . . . Eleven million unemployed means 27,500,000 whose regular sources of livelihood has been cut off . . . . taking into account the number of workers on part time, the total of those without adequate income becomes 34,000, 000 or better than a quarter of the entire population . . . . And it is not necessary to appeal . . . to class fear in order to point out that there is a limit beyond which hunger and misery become violent.” - Fortune in September 1932

5. “I want to tell you about an experience we had in Philadelphia when our private funds were exhausted . . . One woman said she borrowed 50 cents from a friend and bought stale bread for 3½ cents per loaf, and that is all they had for eleven days except for one or two meals.. . . . Another family did not have food for two days. Then the husband went out and gathered dandelions and the family lived on them.” - From Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Manufacturers, 1932

6. The Bonus Army—a few of the 15,000 veterans who went to Washington

11. In July, 1932 Hoover ordered the eviction of squatters

12. The secretary of war then called in the Army to drive the veterans out of D.C. • 4 troops of cavalry • 4 infantry companies, • 6 tanks • Tear gas and machines guns • All under under the command of General Douglas Macarthur (two of his junior officers were Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton).

13. Macarthur called the veterans “a mob . . . animated by the essence of revolution.”

20. “A challenge to the authority of the United States Government has been met, swiftly and firmly. After months of patient indulgence, the Government met overt lawlessness as it always must be met if the cherished processes of self-government are to be preserved. We cannot tolerate the abuse of Constitutional rights by those who would destroy all government, no matter who they may be.” - Hoover, July 29, 1932

21. “These poor devils were driven out of this town like dogs. I saw them going through Maryland and the Belgium and Russian refugees we saw during the war did not equal that pitiful sight. The cavalry, tanks and infantry marched down Penn. Avenue and without one minute warning gassing those poor defenseless people. Men, women and children ran screaming for their very lives. It was like the sacking of a defenseless town by Russian Bolsheviks. At least 95% of these were ex-service men. - Letter from a witness, August 4, 1932

22. “Fixed bayonets, rifles, machine guns, tanks, gas bombs and arson . . . All directed against these defenseless, unfortunate ex-heroes of our country. During the war these same boys were equipped with gas masks to protect themselves that they might fight to protect the people and the wealth of the nation . . . . Most of these people lost their homes through the greed and lust of the few in power. Now these same few drive them out of their crude huts and hovels they had erected for shelter.” - Philo D. Burke, July 29, 1932, Former US Army Officer

23. Desperate for Alternatives “I wish we might double the number of Communists in this country, to put the fear, if not of God, then . . . of something else into the hearts of our leaders.” - Father John Ryan, a Catholic Priest

24. “Republican leaders not only have failed in material things, they have failed in national vision, because in disaster they have held out no hope . . . . I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democratic Candidate for President, after breaking tradition to accept the nomination in person

25. “Government . . . owes to everyone an avenue to possess himself of a portion of that plenty sufficient for his needs, through his own work.” - FDR

28. II. The Hundred Days

33. Farmer’s Falling Income

34. The Agricultural Adjustment Act - Plowed under 10 million acres of cotton - Slaughtered 5 million baby pigs One of the men in charge of the job said “to destroy a standing crop goes against the soundest instincts of human nature.”

35. The National Recovery Act’s Blue Eagle

36. The Civilian Conservation Corps employed over 2.5 million workers and planted over 2 billion trees by 1941.

37. Tennessee Valley Authority

40. Other Hundred Day’s Programs • The Federal Emergency Relief Administration, distributed $1 billion dollars to help the unemployed.  • The Public Works Administration used $3.3 billion to create jobs by building public works. •  The Civilian Workers Administration employed 4 million people by 1934.

41. III. The Second New Deal

42. Legislating Wall Street • The Glass-Stegall Act of 1933. • The Securities and Exchange Commission Act of 1934.

43. 1936 Social Security Poster

44. Current Social Security Facts • The average baby boomer will get over one million dollars in benefits. • When Social Security started there were about 25 workers per retiree. Now there are about 12, and in twenty years it will be down to 2 or 3. •  Social Security tax is 15%, half of which comes from the employee, half from the employer. •  Only the first $106,000 of income is taxed for social security. •  Because of Social Security and Medicare the middleclass actually pays a higher effective tax rate than the wealthy ($250,000 +). Respectively the total tax rates are approximately 24% and 22%.

45. The Works Progress Administration • Employed 8.5 million workers • Spent $10.5 billion

46. The WPA Constructed: • 651,087 miles of roads • 125,110 public buildings • 8,192 parks, • 853 airports • 124,087 bridges

47. IV. The New Deal’s Challengers and Legacy

48. The Liberty League “Make a test for yourself. Just get the platform of the Democratic Party, and get the platform of the Socialist Party, and lay them down on your dining room table, side by side, and get a heavy lead pencil and scratch out the word 'Democrat,' and scratch out the word 'Socialist,' and let the two platforms lay there.” Alfred E. Smith

49. Huey Long “There is nothing wrong with the United States. We have more food than we can eat. We have more clothes and things out of which to make clothes than we can wear. We have more houses and lands than the whole 120 million can use if they all had good homes. So what is the trouble? Nothing except that a handful of men have everything and the balance of the people have nothing if their debts were paid. There should be every man a king in this land flowing with milk and honey instead of the lords of finance at the top and slaves and peasants at the bottom.”