Roosevelt's New Deal: Assessing FDR's First 100 Days

1. Roosevelt to the Rescue “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” -FDR’s Inaugural speech 3/4/33 Thinking Skill: Explicitly assess information and draw conclusions Objective: Assess the success of FDR’s first “100 days” in office

2. Democratic Party Platform -1932 • Repeal Prohibition • Aid to farmers • Balanced budget • Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” for all Americans • Most importantly… He wasn’t Hoover

3. FDR’s Leadership Skills • Emphasized relief, • recovery, & eventual • reform • Exuded confidence, • charisma, personality • “Fireside Chats” were • reassuring • Open to suggestion, willing to experiment • (would try anything) • “Brain Trust” • Eleanor • Frances Perkins • “forgotten man”

4. Run on the Banks

5. Banking and MoneyRemedies • Four day “bank holiday” to halt runs • Emergency Banking Relief Act licensed “healthy” banks to reopen • -Fireside chat to regain confidence Fireside Chat • FDIC insured deposits up to $5000 & separated deposit banking from investment banking • Loosened gold standardto put more currency into circulation (and create inflation)

6. Securities/Stocks • SEC—Securities Exchange Commission • -regulates stock exchanges and investment advisors • -action could be taken against fraud (issuing the arrest warrants to people who publish dishonest financial statements, investigating dishonest stock brokers who steal from their clients.) • -Financial information required before stocks sold (preventing illegal “insider trading”)

7. Industry and Labor Remedies • RFC (not New Deal agency) continued low interest loans to businesses • NRA set production limits, wages, and conditions • -Banned child labor • -National campaign to buy from NRA businesses • Wagner Act legalized unionization/collective bargaining • -Est. NLRB to deal with labor law violations • FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) - 1938

8. NRA: “We Do Our Part” Infighting, code violations, & Johnson’s departure foreshadowed the Supreme Court’s ruling the NRA unconstitutional in 1935

9. Unemployment

10. Unemployment Remedies • CCCemployed young men 18-25 in reforestation, park maintenance, soil erosion • FERA provided $500 million to state/local relief • PWAbuilt dams, bridges, and public buildings • NYA, CWA, WPA

11. CCC employees constructing a retention wall

12. From the “American Experience” CCC documentary • Jonathan Alter, Writer: When Franklin Roosevelt took office in March of 1933, the official unemployment rate was 25%. But that grossly underestimated how many people were actually looking for work or unemployed

13. Vincente Ximenes, Joined the CCC in 1938: I remember having, you know, discussions with individuals who were so angry that they were saying, you know, “To heck with the government. Maybe this whole system maybe ought to be changed.” The seeds were there. I mean, the people were there who were angry enough to do it. I would say that FDR is the one that saved this country, you know, from having a revolt.

14. Jonathan Alter, Writer: When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, it was almost a perfect match of man and moment. He was somebody who could inspire people and used the crisis to redefine what we owe each other as a people. That’s one of the reasons why the New Deal really was a “New Deal” between the public and the government.

15. Jonathan Alter, Writer: Roosevelt believed that work was ultimately more important than relief. He wanted to put people to work as quickly as possible. The Civilian Conservation Corps was really the first of several jobs programs that Roosevelt developed, but the CCC was very close to his heart. And he took a very direct interest in it. And he designed a lot of it because he did have this longtime interest in conservation.

16. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (archival): First, we are giving opportunity of employment for a quarter of a million of the unemployed, especially the young men who have dependents. Let them go into forestry and flood prevention work. That is a big task because it means feeding and clothing and caring for. And we added twice as many men as we had in the regular army itself. And in creating the Civilian Conservation Corps, we are killing two birds with one stone. We are clearly enhancing the value of our natural resources. And, at the same time, we are relieving an insatiable amount of actual distress.

17. Jonathan Alter, Writer: The most amazing to me, was the speed with which he got it going. Three months later, by summer of 1933, 250,000 young men were in the CCC. It was the fastest mobilization in American history, and it has never been matched since.

18. Vincente Ximenes, Joined the CCC in 1938: There was a CCC camp in our community in Texas. And there were some farmers who didn’t like FDR and what he did. He was called a communist, a socialist, and whatever, any name you could find. So, therefore, the CCC-ers also, of course, were no good as far as they were concerned. There was large numbers of people who felt that government intervention is not good for the country.

19. Clifford Hammond, Joined the CCC in 1934: I joined the CC’s in September of 1934. I was 18 when I went in. And they took them up to 25. I liked it mainly because that was the only time in my life I ever had two pair of shoes. You had your medical and three squares a day. And you only worked about six hours a day. I had been accustomed to working 12, 14 hours a day on the farm. I thought I really had it made.

20. Jonathan Alter, Writer: Franklin Roosevelt was a very clever politician. And he planted CCC camps all over the country in strategically designated congressional districts. And that helped to build public support for the program. And, when he ran for reelection in 1936, which was really a referendum on the CCC and Social Security and the other New Deal programs, he carried all but two states, Maine and Vermont. He had the largest victory since George Washington.

21. Jonathan Alter, Writer: If you go out on a hike, now, all over the United States, there’s a very good chance that the trail you’re hiking on was cut by the CCC. The first ski trails in the United States, in Vermont, were also cut by the CCC. So a paralyzed President, who couldn’t walk, much less ski, indirectly launched the American ski industry. Any agency of government that manages to plant 2.3 billion — with a “b” — trees to create 800 state parks, to save the topsoil of the United States, has to be considered one of the most pro-environmental organizations ever established.

22. Vincente Ximenes, Joined the CCC in 1938: Without the CCCs, I really… I really don’t know what we would have done. We did not have an army prepared to go to war. And here was approximately two and a half or three million men who were prepared and had been organized to work together. I joined the Air Force in 1941. And they didn’t have to do a hell of a lot of training for me. I was prepared.

23. Jonathan Alter, Writer: The CCC not only was a major foundation of our ethic of national service in this country, but also an ethic of conservation. After generations of Americans essentially raping the land for whatever it was worth economically, as happens in so many other parts of the world, suddenly there’s a break in that in the ’30s. And you have a pretty large chunk of a generation, three million people, who have some experience in conserving the land instead of exploiting the land, who care about what we leave behind.

24. Jonathan Alter, Writer: Who were the people who pioneered the environmental movement in this country and who now are helping us to transition to more of a green ethic? Many of their parents and grandparents were in the CCC. An ethic of conservation is then born and developed and nurtured and built, because it’s all a generational conversation that takes place, that one thing builds on another, builds on another.

25. Farming Remedies • AAA hoped to restore farmers’ purchasing power with subsidies • Farm Credit Association(FCA)assisted in refinancing of farm mortgages • TVA, REA

26. Farm Credit Associationattempted to prevent…

27. Housing • HOLC-help save from foreclosures • FHA – insures mortgages

28. Old Age, Disabilities, Survivors • Social Security Act • -created in response to Dr. Townsend • Pensions, unemployment insurance, aid to disabled and dependents • Accounts for ¼ of the federal budget today

29. Environment Norris Dam in Norris, TN • Remedies • TVA provided cheap electricity, flood control, & recreation • CCC

31. What Hoover Said • In a 1934 book entitled TheChallenge to Liberty, he described the New Deal as "the most stupendous invasion of the whole spirit of liberty" in the nation's history.

32. Questions from the chart • Remedies? • Where did New Deal fall short? • Role of Government? • Did the New Deal solve the GD??

33. Criticisms of FDR • Roosevelt was strongly criticized for his economic policies, especially the shift in tone from individualism to collectivism with the dramatic expansion of the welfare state and regulation of the economy • Economist Thomas DiLorenzo said "FDR’s New Deal made the Great Depression longer and deeper. It is a myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt 'got us out of the Depression' and 'saved capitalism from itself,' as generations of Americans have been taught by the state’s education establishment”

34. Critics -from the right • Those who tended toward the political right wing tended to criticize the New Deal for attempting too much. It would have been enough, they suggested, if FDR had tried to help large businesses, or simply tried to manipulate the amount of money in the system through the federal banking system. Despite this, he insisted on interfering with the spheres of labor and farming. This resulted in what many people considered a tragic and unforgivable waste of crops. In addition to this “heinous crime”, it also (despite FDR’s original pledge) increased the national debt dramatically.

35. Critics - from the left • Those who tended toward the political left wing, on the other hand, tended to be of the opinion the New Deal was insufficient, and said FDR could have fixed a lot more a lot faster if only he were willing to do more with his New Deal reformations. In the end it took WWII to bring America out of the depression, which made many people wonder why the nation had given up so much in chasing FDR’s New Deal

36. The New Deal Coalition An American political term that refers to the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Franklin D. Roosevelt forged a coalition that included the Democratic state party organizations, city machines, labor unions, blue collar workers, minorities (racial, ethnic and religious), farmers, white Southerners, people on relief, and intellectuals. The coalition fell apart around the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, but it remains the model that party activists seek to replicate

37. To Be Continued…

38. Agree/disagree? • FDR over-extended his presidential authority during the 1930s • All things considered, The New Deal solved the problems of the Great Depression • The New Deal fell short in many significant areas (if agree, specify) • The New Deal created the dangerous problem of assistance leading to dependence