Roosevelt also had opposition from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court were alarmed at the amount of power Roosevelt had gained and said that he was behaving like a dictator. The Supreme Court was constantly declaring Roosevelt’s New Deal laws as unconstitutional. Roosevelt was not happy with this because the judges in the Supreme Court were undoing all the work he had done. Roosevelt then threatened to retire all of the judges who were over 70 hoping to replace them with younger ones (who would be more willing to agree with him). Because of this threat Roosevelt had even more opposition than before. However, the judges didn’t declare any of Roosevelt’s laws unconstitutional after the threat.
Not all of Roosevelt’s opposition were against him because they thought that he was helping the people too much and was wasting money. Huey Long who was the Governor of Louisiana in 1928, for example, was opposed to Roosevelt because he thought that Roosevelt was not doing enough to help the people. Long called for heavy taxation of the rich and in total confiscated over 5 million dollars. His ‘Share our wealth´ scheme, long claimed, would give each American family $6000 to spend. This would boost the economy and pull it out of the depression. His book, Ever Man A. King, published in 1933, promised economic security for all. Besides his criticism to Roosevelt’s plans, he had supported Roosevelt and his schemes of alphabet agencies and acts until 1934, however, Huey Long was extremely unpopular with the rich and he was murdered by a doctor who had been ruined by Longs schemes.
Even though Roosevelt’s New Deal had so much opposition, overall, it was still popular. Roosevelt aimed to please the poor and the working class and they all thought he was a saviour. His popularity was proved in the 1936 Presidential elections when he won with 61% of the votes. He was voted for again in the 1940 presidential elections. This shows that the public opinion was behind him. Roosevelt’s main opposition in the presidential elections was Landan. However, he did not pose a great threat because he was ‘buried´ in the presidential elections
The USA certainly did benefit from some of the schemes from the New Deal. Production rose from 1933 until the war in 1941 and unemployment fell rapidly. (There was a dip in both production and unemployment in 1937, but this was only temporary). However, the government had to borrow heavily to achieve this. The real recovery of the U.S. economy came with the Second World War. Because of war production, unemployment was at its lowest ever. Some figures of those years are these,
America's Gross National Product 1928 to 1939:
1928- $100 billion
1933- $55 billion
1939- $85 billion
Amount of consumer goods brought 1928 to 1939:
1928- $80 billion
1933- $45 billion
1939- $65 billion
Private investment in industry:
1928- $15 billion
1933- $2 billion
1939- $10 billion
If the 1928 figure is used as a baseline figure for a study as to whether the New Deal was a success or not, then in all three important areas, Roosevelt did not get back to the 1928 figure. However, America was at its economic peak then and after such an economic catastrophe as the Wall Street Crash, it would have bordered on the impossibility for Roosevelt got back to the 1928 figure.
If the 1933 figure is taken as a baseline figure - the year took office as president - then a different pattern emerges. In all three areas, there were significant improvements. Economic strength and development thrives on confidence and these figures give the clear impression that now had greater confidence in her economic ability after the . For GDP which stands for Gross Domestic Product, is usually taken as key pointer in a nation's economic health - 1933 to 1939 witnessed a 60% increase; the amount of consumer products bought increased by 40% while private investment in industry increased by 5 times in just six years.
Some successes of the “New Deal” were creating new jobs (PWA, WPA, CCC, and TVA) more people had more money to spend. This led to an increase in demand for goods and so more people needed to be employed. Unemployment came down from 15 million in 1932 to 8 million in 1936. Even when unemployment rose again in 1937 it never went higher than 10.5 million (far less than the original 15 million).A lot of the Alphabet Agencies’ public works schemes did very worthwhile things for society. The TVA and CCC have had a lasting impact on the environment. The PWA and WPA built many worthwhile things like schools and hospitals. These projects have been of long lasting benefit to America. But perhaps the greatest success of the New Deal was that it established the principle that the Government had some responsibility to help the poor and vulnerable (E.g. the Social Security Act helped to do this). The New Deal was for everyone, not just the wealthy. Many Americans, for the first time, thought Government was working for them. In short, the New Deal ‘included the excluded’. The New Deal was not all about unemployment figures.
However as stated before the “New Deal” wasn’t all a success and these are some of the failures of it. Mainly, the New Deal could not solve the unemployment problem as it never went below 8 million. Neither could the New Deal cope with the new depression of 1937 which sent unemployment back up over 10 million. One reason for this was that many of the jobs either wasted money or were not long term. ‘Boondoggle’ jobs accomplished little whilst wasting money and the CCC, for example, only provided short term work. Once their contract was up, many workers in the CCC and WPA, for example, found themselves unemployed.
I conclude that in my opinion the successes of the “New Deal” out weigh the failures of it. The New Deal may not have fully solved the unemployment problem but it was better than doing nothing and relying on ‘rugged individualism’. However, perhaps the main success of the New Deal was the New Deal itself - it brought hope and reassurance to many Americans who, until then, had none it also boosted the economic position and state of the American economy, finally America was becoming the great country it once was and it also proved in the second world war that it was a strong military force as well.
David A Ruddock 1173 4N
