He is against the fact that Roosevelt is providing benefit to people that were out of work, this shows that some people disagreed with what the New Deal was doing to America. There were people that agreed with what the New Deal these were usually the people that were benefiting from it. One such person was an old man living with his wife who had been unable to pay back a loan he writes to the president thanking him;
“I have never heard of a president like you. My wife and I are old folks and don’t amount to much but we join the millions of others in praying for you every night.” This shows that there was some disagreement between people as of how much good the New Deal was, some believed it to be necessary while others believed it to take away the ingenuity of the American people. Also some people believed that it wasn’t Roosevelt who helped put the unemployed American people back into work but it was the outbreak of war which created jobs for every man and woman. For example in source C an American historian says;
“The cities were filling with jobless workers. Taxes were rising. The debt was soaring. The war rescued him and he seized it like a drowning man.”
This is another person who disagrees with the New Deal he believes that the only reason the New Deal didn’t completely fail was because America entered into war providing jobs for everyone. However this again is argued against in another source was another historian writes about how the New Deal rebuilt America;
“First comes the restoration of self-confidence. Those who lived through the spring of 1933 will remember the change from depression and discouragement to excitement and hope.”
This quotation shows that this historian believes that because of the New Deal America was brought out of poverty and despair, Roosevelt himself talks about how his idea’s are going to change America;
“I am waging a war against Destruction, Delay, Deceit and Despair. With confidence we accept the promise of a New Deal.”
This speech was made by Roosevelt during his election campaign so this proves that the majority of American people obviously wanted change otherwise he wouldn’t have been voted president. The problem was that the majority of American people did not own large businesses; they were mostly out of work. These people wanted help from the president and they received it in the form of new jobs and benefits, however this meant that the state took control over previously privately owned businesses. This upset many of the business owners, because they were used to running their own company’s without any state intervention also the people that owned these company’s believed that by giving people money they would have no reason to look for new jobs. This is one of the main reasons of the disagreement over the effects of the New Deal. Another reason that people disagreed with the New Deal was the amount of money it used. Although the New Deal put a lot of unemployed people back into work it cost the country millions of dollars. This can be seen in source E which shows a cartoon of Roosevelt and his New Deal pump, the pump has many holes in and is leaking water which represents the amount of money that was wasted on the New Deal. These two factors together caused the disagreement about the New Deal, the poor unemployed thought it was a great help, but the rich businessmen believed that it was taking away the will for the poor to go out and find new jobs.
