To help deal with the relief part of his New Deal, Roosevelt set up the Alphabet Agencies. This provided much needed assistance to the unemployed. The first of these agencies was the CCC (civilian’s conservation corps). They undertook the aim to provide work for unemployed men under the age of 25, who got paid to work on projects in the countryside such as fishing, farming, planting trees, etc. Due to this project, 3million people went back into work. The Federal Relief Act (FERA) made it their objective to stop starvation by providing grants to local governments to give much needed relief to the unemployed. This was only an emergency measure, however, and it was designed to stop starvation, not to pay dole money. The Public Works Administration was established (PWA) and their aims were to use unskilled workers to work on large-scale projects, such as building bridges. The main parts of this act set up large scale building work such as building schools, hospitals and city halls. The Homeowner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) soon was established, which aimed to lower interest rates and to allow homeowner’s to continue paying off their mortgages even if they were unemployed. Also, a similar form of assistance was made payable to farmers, which also helped them. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was introduced which aimed to find emergency short-term work for unskilled workers in construction projects. This provided relief to the unemployed and unskilled people. It can be stated that Roosevelt set out to provide relief to the people of his country in the most appropriate way. The Alphabet Agencies that he set up aimed to solve the grim unemployment situation. These agencies managed to find success because they allowed people to earn money even though they were unemployed, and many, unskilled. These alphabet agencies provided relief, as they assisted unemployed people to gain work, for example, in the WPA.
There were alphabet agencies that were established to revive the American economy. These were linked to the recovery aim of the New Deal. The first of these was the Emergency Banking Act, which aimed to help banks to prosper. Roosevelt went onto American radio to get people to send their money back into the banks. The aims of this was to restore the confidence of investments into people and to do this, they made all the weak banks remain closed for at least four days and that allowed the stronger banks to regroup and begin to prosper again. Banks that did could be saved received government grants so that the people would regain confidence in them. The Securities Act was soon introduced and this aimed to bring Wall Street under control and to restore people’s confidence in investing in shares by making the businesses issue full information about themselves to the public when they buy their shares. This was also closely linked a little bit to the reform act because they wanted a just society and by making businesses show what they really are when the members of the public buy their shares is the first step towards it. This act was followed up in 1934 by another Securities act, which established Securities and Exchange Commission, which gave further powers to control the stock market. Its aim was to regain further confidence in USA business.
The Agriculture Adjustment Administration Act (AAA) aimed to stop farmers overproducing food. This would force prices up and make farmers earn more money. Farmers were given money for not producing food because at the time the farmers were producing too much food (therefore driving the prices down) and nobody bought it and it all went to waste. The government instructed the farmers what a sensible level of food production would be. The government told cotton farmers to plough their crops into the ground, and also, the government bought surplus piglets for a fair price off the farmers and slaughtered them. This act aimed to help the farmers recover from the crisis that they were suffering. The National Insurance Recovery Act (NRA) aimed to create a partnership between government and industry. This partnership, or code, aimed to abolish child labour and also, to guarantee workers fair pay and decent working conditions. This aimed to help workers. Companies that followed these orders by the government were given favours by the government to gain contacts in industry. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was set up to encourage industry to flourish and to help it and also, to try to regenerate agriculture, as this was one of the hardest hit areas of the US. It was also established to build a dam in Tennessee so that they could use that for hydroelectric power. All these aims were used in order to improve America’s very grim economic state. These all intended for the USA to revive themselves and their economy from the turmoil that it was in.
Along with Roosevelt’s other New Deal aims, he also set out to bring reform into society. He wanted a just and fair society. He decided to accomplish his task by first introducing the collective bargaining of wages and the aim of this was to create trade unions, and boost their power in order to create fair labour conditions and wages. This provided reform for workers in industry. This also aimed to set up Trade Unions in previously unorganised industries The Wagner act allowed workers to enter a trade union to get rights for workers, and it was set up to replace the PWA (Public Works Administration). Finally the Social Security aimed to create a National Insurance system and it aimed to help the unemployed, the handicapped and the old. The National Insurance Scheme set up benefit systems, such as pensions and unemployment benefit, which helped subsidise people who had no jobs throughout their lives. On the whole, Roosevelt helped create a just society in the following ways: he helped stop child labour, he made sure there were fair wages and working hours, and also, made sure that people were treated equally and received money if they were handicapped. In this way, he restored people’s confidence in the society.
In conclusion, Roosevelt aimed to restore people’s confidence in the country by helping them through the rough times they faced in the period after the Wall Street crash. His aims were to get America successful again. He passed all the acts mentioned above in order to achieve the aims and the goals he set out to achieve in the first place. All the acts that he passed were in order to achieve the objectives. Roosevelt’s New Deal was constructed to offer relief to the unemployed, for example through the PWA, who helped unemployed unskilled workers get jobs. Roosevelt also aimed to offer recovery towards the economy after the Wall Street Crash, by creating such agencies as the Securities Act and the Agriculture Adjustment Administration, the latter of which aimed to make farmers produce less so that they earned more. His last aim was to create an alliance between government and industry, which would help the worker, and the Wagner Act helped Roosevelt do this. The New Deal came in two parts and concentrated on the areas of finance, business and agriculture.
