The Fair Labour Standards Act (1938) established a Federal minimum Wage and maximum hours policy. The minimum wage, 25 cents per hour applied to many workers. The law was made to prevent competitive wage cutting by employers when the economy turned to war production.
These all were the main features of the New Deal which had been installed to meet the aims set by Roosevelt. The alphabet agencies did their own part to restore America, but some agencies were seen as unconstitutional and were met by many critics. In conclusion the main features of the New Deal were the NIRA, NRA, TVA, PWA, WPA, CCC and CWA, also known as the Alphabet agencies. They intended to meet the aims, whether they were successful will be analysed later.
b) The New Deal was implemented to combat the problems that America felt after the Depression, but this was not the only cause for Roosevelt introducing the New Deal. Although the main was the Wall Street crash and its aftermath, there were problems due to Prohibition and the state of the agriculture at that time. These needed to be attended to.
The main reason was the Wall Street crash and the Depression .They caused masses of unemployment which needed to be combated immediately as many people had no money to look after their families. They had tried to survive on underfinanced bodies for direct relief. Statistics show that there was a 25% unemployment rate. Although this was a main consequence of the Wall Street crash, a major one was the banks. These had been the basis of many of the speculation that had occurred during the 1920’s, and now that the stock market had crashed down, many people lost their faith in them. These people had also backed con men and they had lost money, but also that by 1931, 2294 banks had closed. Everybody had lost confidence in banks and many cartoons emerged showing exactly the devastation felt. John McCutcheon drew one in 1932 and it shows how those who saved money in banks still lost all of it. Roosevelt needed to bring confidence back into banks so that people would invest and help the economy back into recovery.
The New Deal was also a change from the policies that had been followed since 1919, when Wilson was beaten by a republican. Hoover was a Republican and followed the policy of laissez-faire, not even changing his policies when Depression set in. although some attempts were made to reduce the Depression, such as cutting taxes and setting up the Reconstruction Finance company which propped up banks to stop them going bankrupt. However, these did not work and many people were looking to extreme governments like the communist regime newly installed in Russia. The New Deal was a capitalist way out of their problems and as Raymond Moley, a member of the President’s ‘brain trust’, later observed, “capitalism was saved in eight days”.
The health of the people was soon deteriorating and needed to be looked at as it could be seen that the soup kitchens did not give enough help and many saw it as a blow to their pride. In New York City, 20% of school children were under weight and malnourished. This was a sign that something needed to be done. A reason for implementing the New Deal. Also, inflation had set in, making the majority of the money worthless. This had to be tacked as during the boom years, the policy of saving had been changed to spending. Roosevelt needed to tackle this quickly otherwise it could get out of control. This linked in with the banks and the confidence. Once confidence was restored people would be more trusting and would also agree with other terms of the deal.
Another problem with the economy was the agricultural side of the matter. During the boom years, the agriculture was starting to lose its profit, but the onset of Depression furthered this. The income from it was soon down to only $5 billion and it was more expensive to transport the animals then their actual worth. There was also loss of jobs, contributing to the unemployment rate. Also during the boom years, over farming had occurred so that dust bowls formed in some southern states. This would be difficult to combat. Farmers needed to be tackled as they were a main part of the economy and gave a big input. Over production meant cuts were needed. The New Deal could introduce them. The management of some rivers needed attention, such as the Tennessee Valley. There were areas of drought which needed the supply of the river. By diverting the river via dams, the Tennessee Valley could prosper and become fertile land.
Although not a major influence in the New deal, Prohibition was also on going but was immediately lost once Roosevelt was inaugurated. The crime rate had increased because of this amendment and was not helping many people. It was part of the economy and brought in money. The crime rate did not help the depression so its loss helped the New Deal.
In conclusion, Roosevelt needed to implement the New Deal, for social, political and economic reasons. Socially the loss of confidence in many things such as the government and banks. Also the loss of pride that had hit them which was unknown to one of the greatest empires of that time. Politically the lack of respect for the government as Hoover had done nothing great to combat the depression and believed fully in his policies. Economically the whole country was in the ‘slums’. The banks were closing and many people did not invest for fear of closure of that bank. The industrial production and farm production fell by 40% and average wages fell by 60%. A main reason was the Depression and the consequences of it. These all lead to Roosevelt introducing the New Deal.
c) The depression had hit the Americans very hard, destroying their American Dream. Before the Wall Street Crash, Hoover had said, “We in America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty then ever before. The poor man is vanishing from among us.” This statement had meaning as in the period of the 1920’s, there was a second revolution going on in America. The Republicans, with their attitude of laissez-faire, were in control, but once the Depression set in, many Americans looked elsewhere for a government for them. They chose Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, who quickly set up Alphabet agencies to help combat the consequences of the Depression.
The New Deal had four aims, we can use these aims to see if it was a success, but I need to take into consideration the fact that there were worries if it was too socialist and also to what extent the New Deal relieved the problems with the introduction of the war. The aims were combating the unemployment, protecting the savings and property, providing relief for the sick, old and unemployed and getting the industry and agriculture back on its feet.
The Agencies that were set up tried to tackle this and to some extent overcame them. The NRA helped a great deal in the unemployment and the regulation of the wages so that it was fair in all the parts of the economy. While the NRA was effective, it was bringing America closer to socialism by giving the President unconstitutional powers. In May 1935 the US Supreme Court, in Schechter Poultry Corporation, unanimously declared the NRA unconstitutional on the grounds that the code drafting process was unconstitutional. This did not necessarily mean that the New Deal did not work, just that its policies were questioned.
The PWA and CCC tackled the unemployment problem, by giving jobs in the construction projects and giving 2 500 000 men jobs planting or otherwise improving huge tracts of forestland. The Fair Labour Standards, which linked in, worked with wages giving many workers rises, but this excluded many workers as did the social security introduced in 1943 after the onset of wartime prosperity. These things would show that the statement was partly true as the very poor people were not affected by many of the laws put up.
The AAA helped to combat the problems felt by the farmers. One thing that happened was the slaughter of 6 000 000 piglets. Only a small amount was tinned. To some this was seen as a waste of food and made people question whether the government was doing right for them. There was some understanding behind this, as to cut down the production of food which had caused over production in the boom years and also the dust bowls in some farms.
To add to the growing use of electricity, Roosevelt set up the Rural Electrification Administration so that nine out of ten farmers were electrified by 1950, compared to one in ten in 1935. This also linked with the TVA which was managing the Tennessee Valley by building dams and power plants and in many other ways salvaging a vast, insolvent area. This shows how Roosevelt managed to make something eroded and arid land into a prosperous part of the country, giving electricity and hope to many.
These agencies all met his aims to make the country what it used to be-a prosperous country, with wealth and as Hoover had said with the “poor man…vanishing”. Many agencies tried to combat the opposition that Roosevelt met, as even those who backed him did not believe he was doing as much as he could to get rid of poverty. The agencies that were trying to get rid of opposition and were not unconstitutional all came in the Second New Deal that was implemented.
The 1936 elections proved useful for his popularity as he won by a major landslide. The inference from this shows that the people believed and trusted him as why would they elect someone whose policies were wrong and had not worked before. This also shows that the Democratic policies were being asked for rather then the policies followed by Hoover. The new Deal also did a lot more than Hoover, it may not have got rid of all the unemployment and may not have affected the very poor, but it did do a lot more than Hoover had managed. Here is an unemployment graph and it shows when all the new deals were implemented and there effect on the rate.
Source: Thomas A. Bailey, David M. Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen.
The American Pageant, 11th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), 818.
The inference from this source shows that when Roosevelt implemented his ides, the unemployment rate went down so it was a success that it did get people back into jobs. The recession does show that it was not a success as the depression was still going on and it had not fully gone. Also the war was the only thing that brought the unemployment rate down after the recession. This was some of the opposition given by Republicans and also modern historians also believe that as well. When a country is at war, many industries began employing to meet with the demand that the country needs. This happened in America and so more people were employed.
Even though Roosevelt’s New Deal had some success, it had a lot of opposition. The republicans and the rich opposed the New Deal for many reasons. They opposed the increase in the power of the federal government over the states because they thought that the individual state leaders were being forced into implementing Roosevelt’s schemes. The republicans also opposed the increased presidential power and some even claimed it was dictatorship. They also opposed the increased bureaucracy. Republicans claimed that Roosevelt was not a ‘saviour´ and that unemployment would have gone down anyway and criticised Roosevelt for high government spending. Other reasons why the rich opposed the new deal are that they were the ones who were being taxed. Enemies of Roosevelt despised him because although a rich man himself, he had chosen to help the poor and was therefore branded a ‘traitor to the class´. Rich businessmen hated Roosevelt because they thought that his policies interfered too much with their businesses.
Roosevelt also had opposition from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was 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 senator of Louisiana, 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. However, Huey Long was extremely unpopular with the rich and he was murdered by a doctor who had been ruined by Long´s schemes.
We can also see that there was need for the second new deal as it had to fill the gaps that were left out and also it showed that it did not tackle the people who were in desperate need of help, the very poor people and also there was not much done for then dust bowl farms which had cropped up around America.
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.
The New Deal established government responsibility for the welfare of the economy and the American people. Contemporaries thought that it was going closer to socialism, but modern historians believe that it was the reverse-that it went back to before the depression and did not cause much reform. Others believed that it was just an extension of progression and that it would have come sooner or later. At the beginning, Roosevelt was taking off where Hoover had left, but soon this became constant government participation in economic activities, a complete change from the policies of the republicans. However, the greatest achievement was to restore faith in American democracy at a time when people believed that the only choice left was between communism and fascism. Its greatest failure was that it did not bring complete economic recovery which was the main augment that the New Deal was not a complete success. Also the depression was only fully removed because of Americas involvement in the Second World War
In conclusion, the evidence shows that there were mixed reactions to then outcome to the New deal. At the time, many people would have said that it was a saviour as it brought hope to them and confidence back for the banks and the government, but it also showed that they could not fight the really poor and unemployed people. I agree with the statement ‘the New deal was not a complete success’ as it did use to much power to get its laws through and changing the Supreme Court was a step to far, but I also believe that it is very difficult to make anything a complete success and the fact that many people did support Roosevelt that it was a success to them. He set up agencies that are still around today and have benefited the country such as social security. These points prove that the new Deal was a success, but not a complete one.