Use Source A and your knowledge of the period to explain why people supported Roosevelt in the 1932 election.

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History Coursework

  1. Study Source A

Use Source A and your knowledge of the period to explain why people supported Roosevelt in the 1932 election.

In Source A, Roosevelt uses several techniques to increase his support in the 1932 election.  Roosevelt’s election campaign speech in 1932 said, “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America.”

This speech is a very new thing for the Americans for up till now they had been listening to the views of the current leader Herbert Hoover and his belief of laissez-faire. Roosevelt’s ideas were very different for unlike Herbert Hoover’s Ideology of leaving America to resolve its own problems, Roosevelt is trying to preach to the people for a change that will need to be taken to ensure that all of the problems America is facing at the moment vanish.

Firstly in his speech Roosevelt immediately makes a promise to the people of America “ I pledge myself” this insures that he cannot go back on what he has said and that the American people can trust him and the actions he is going to take. Next he tries to unite the American population to fight together by his patriotic phrase that there is a “call to arms” as if going to war but this war is not physical however it is to restore America back to its golden ages. Another technique he uses in his speech is to show where Herbert Hoover went wrong and to state that he will make change, “ war against Destruction, Delay, Deceit and Despair,” listing the faults Hoover committed. With Roosevelt’s last phrase in the source, “with confidence we accept the promise of the New Deal.” This sentence shows how Roosevelt is trying to get the support of the public in order to secure his place in the 1932 election. By this speech it shows why people supported Roosevelt in the 1932 elections and not Herbert Hoover.

In 1932 America was undertaking a major period of depression and it was not uncommon for people to connect this depression with Herbert Hoover. People did not support Herbert Hoover because they blamed the depression on him, an example of this is how they would call the poor shantytowns within America, ‘Hoovervilles’. Other examples of this non-support towards Herbert Hoover were a famous banner “in Hoover we trusted and now we are busted”, and his famous quote that “prosperity was only round the corner” was used against him as people felt ashamed at his failure. The general public believed that Herbert Hoover did do some things to help America, like his attempts to restore America during 1930 and 1931 by cutting tax and persuading businesses not to cut wages, however these attempts were definitely not enough and so this helped to the support of Roosevelt. Because of Herbert Hoover’s lack of trying to help those suffering because of the depression he was presented in the eyes of the American people as a cold and heartless human being.

Another reason because of Roosevelt’s’ huge popularity in the people of America was by good timing. The American people were looking for an answer to come to them to help them out of the depression. At that time Roosevelt was there to give them that answer.

  1. Study Sources B and C

How do these two judgements on the New Deal differ?

By analysing sources B and C we can see and state that they differ in many different ways to the views of the New Deal. We can immediately state that Source B is in favour of Roosevelt and the New Deal whereas Source C totally disagrees with Roosevelt and the New Deal.

Starting with looking at the authors of the sources it can be stated that in both source B and source C, we can see that they were written by an American Historian in 1945, this immediately tells us that the sources are likely to be less reliable than if they had been written at the same time of Roosevelt’s election campaign, 1932. Source B shows a view in favour of the New Deal.  It consists of descriptions of how the New Deal brought self-confidence to the people of the day describing how in the spring of 1933 there was a change of mood, “from depression and discouragement to excitement and hope.” Comparing this initial impression to that of source C we can clearly see the clash of view s on the New Deal, it immediately shows the historians attitude to Roosevelt’s action of returning self-confidence and of the consequences that it will have on the population. He is stating that people will rely on the government to give them money and become lazy when it comes to a job and earning money. This is shown through the phrase “one in four people depends on employment by the government,” as well as “more people are on government relief.”

Another reference from source B describing how Roosevelt had a huge impact on the American economical status is the mentioning of the “physical rebuilding of the country.” Roosevelt set up many agencies to tackle the problems that faced him and America. These agencies are known as the alphabet agencies because the wide variety of agencies and because of the names. A good example of an alphabet agency is the Civilian Conservation Corps known as the CCC, mentioned in source B. This agency was aimed at producing jobs for young people usually in helping the environment or in the similar category, “Three million young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps planted 17 million acres of new forest and built 6 million dams to stop erosion.”

We read otherwise in source C where it states how Roosevelt was actually making things worse in America and was increasing the national debt, “There is a national debt of $250 billion compared to a pre-Roosevelt debt of $19 billion.” According to source C all the employment and environmental projects are actually harming America’s national debt.

A direct contradiction we can sample from the two sources is on the subject of unemployment in America. Source B clearly states to us that 14 million people were unemployed when Roosevelt came to power. To help decrease this huge number of unemployed Roosevelt employed his alphabet agencies as well as old age pensions. On the other hand source C tells us that in 1983 Roosevelt has 11 million people in unemployment and that he raised taxes to squeeze what little money there was for the failure of the New Deal. “The cities were filling with jobless workers. Taxes were rising. The debt was souring.” We can see how the source C is against Roosevelt by the author compares Roosevelt to a drowning man and that the only thing that saved him from this desperate situation he was in was the world war, “the war rescued him and he seized on it like a drowning man.”

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The final way in which the two sources differ about the New Deal is on the subject of what power Roosevelt had. In source B is states that the people of America still had the power of free elections “All power is still in the hands of the people. They can vote out of power governments they do not like.” Whereas in source C it describes that Roosevelt was acting like a dictator in the government, and trying to gain as much money as he could through taxes so that he could get the country out of depression, Roosevelt at ...

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