Three questions and answers on The New Deal.

Later on they were criticised and Roosevelt was accused of illegally setting up the agencies

2) Explain, why Roosevelt introduced the New Deal

The USA was in a bad state before Roosevelt introduced the New Deal. This was caused by the attitude of the previous government and the Wall Street Crash,

Roosevelt was elected president in the election of 1932. Before this election America was run by President Hoover. Roosevelt wanted to reform America. He wanted people to live useful lives as well as seeing an end to the depression. Hoover believed in rugged individualism which meant that it was up to each individual to run his life and sort everything out for himself without any help from the government. A famous quote from Hoover is; 'prosperity is just around the corner'. This proves that he was not going to interfere with anything and just let things run themselves. Roosevelt knew this was not working at that the people were growing weary of this.

He introduced the New Deal because he knew that the people would vote for him even if they didn't like it because it made a change to Hoover's way of trying to resolve the depression which obviously wasn't working. He introduced it to show the people that he had a radically different view of the government's role in American society. He believed that his style would restart the economy and give people back their confidence in the President which they had lost due to Hoover. This was also because his policies were in total opposition to the last 3 Republican Presidents.

Roosevelt also had introduced the New Deal because of his rich background. He believed it was his task to make life better for ordinary people. Over 12 million Americans were unemployed and this figure was rising by 12,000 everyday and over one million of the unemployed were homeless because they couldn't afford to pay their mortgages. In 1932 250,000 Americans stopped paying their mortgages and were then evicted. At this time here was no unemployment pay, people had to queue up for soup and bread, and sometimes the queues were 10,000 men long. Due to this people were not buying goods and this led to more and more people becoming unemployed.

Roosevelt had also noticed that the farming industry of America was in Depression since 1928. He needed to help them get them back up and running so that they could contribute to the economy once more. This was the job of the A.A.A which gave farmers money to produce fewer crops.

He believed that he had to try and resolve this. He wanted to end all the depression, poverty and unemployment, and restore faith and confidence into the American people and all aspects of life. He wanted America to be restored as a world power again.

3) 'The New Deal was not a complete success.' Explain how far you agree with this statement.

The New Deal that was introduced by President Roosevelt in 1932 and the different groups in the American society all felt very differently about what Roosevelt was introducing. To Roosevelt the New Deal meant going against what had happened in America before. He wanted to make a difference, improve America, give her its confidence back and improve the morale of its people.

The American Depression started with the Agricultural Depression of 1928. This was when farmers were producing too much food and it wasn't selling which meant that they had to cut prices until they were so low that they were not producing a profit. The Wall Street Crash caused the Economic Depression which made people lose money and their jobs. It brought the country into a crisis

The New Deal's aims were to reduce the vast amount of unemployment (12 million in 1932) by using government money to find the solutions. This was known as deficit funding. Roosevelt also wanted the people to rediscover the American Dream that was happening through the 'Booming 20s' before the Wall Street Crash.

He had set up Alphabet Agencies which were put in place to help reverse the Spiral of Depression. The CCC employed young men to do conservation work in the countryside. This not only provided jobs for the unemployed but it also improved the people's morale and helped get money back into the economy because they would once again have money to spend. By August 1033 the CCC had given work to 250,000 Americans. The FERA attempted to help the other fifteen million unemployed. It gave $500 million to give to the hungry and homeless and for every three dollars they spent it would give one dollar to the state government.

Most of the Alphabet Agencies were proving to be successful because they were accomplishing what they had set out to do which was to help the unemployed. However some of the agencies did not cater for all of the unemployed. Harold Ickes organised the Public Works Administration. Unlike Harry Hopkins and the Civil Works Administration the PWA was more selective to whom it gave jobs to. Ickes only organised schemes that would be of lasting use to the nation. He hated the idea of paying works to 'boondoggle' which was what Hopkins was accused off.

Ickes provided work for skilled unemployed to build schools, navy ships and military airports which all needed careful planning. This unfortunately ruled out the unskilled. This also shows how America started to remilitarise itself. This could have been because it had noticed what was going on in Europe.

In 1935 Roosevelt helped the unskilled unemployed with the WPA. He also introduced the Second New Deal to replace all the agencies that the Supreme Court had declared illegal.

In Conclusion the New Deal cannot be justified as a total success. It set out to reduce unemployment, and rediscover the American Dream. It did achieve this in some circumstances. It did reduce unemployment but it didn't give support to everyone. The unskilled American was not able to find work from the likes of Harold Ickes because he felt that it was up to the skilled to sort out the depression. Hopkins said 'Hell they've got to eat just like other people.' This meant that it didn't matter what a man was doing so long as he was working and earning his way. The New Deal did get the economy up and running again and America was starting to improve.

However one cannot tell whether or not the New Deal was the sole reason that America came out of the Depression because of World War II. It helped America boom again and therefore was also a reason the Depression ended.