President Roosevelt tackled each of the problems through the first and second New Deals. The New Deals were a series of Acts and schemes which Roosevelt hoped would pull America out of the depression. Roosevelt decided to tackle the economic problems before he did anything else because he knew that a strong and reliable money system would build up confidence in the Americans, which would act as a foundation for the American economy. In 1933 Roosevelt proved to the Americans that the promises he made before he was president were not just 'vote winners´ because he started to help straight away.
Roosevelt used the radio to talk directly to the citizens of America. On the radio Roosevelt explained his policies through a series of 'fireside´ chats. He explained that he was doing something to help America and that he would need their cooperation. Within the '100 Days´ relief program, there was also a rapid program of legislation which would help solve the country’s problems. were the AAA, & TVA and various other
However not everything went as Roosevelt planned. Unemployment was down in the mid-1930s but it shot up again in 1938 which showed that Roosevelt´s solution was not permanent. However, unemployment went back down in 1940 because there was a great demand for war goods due to the problems arising in Europe. Farmers were also having problems. Their prices were better but the problems such as 'dust bowls´ and poor crops were still there. The depression returned to America in 1937/38.
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 using Roosevelt´s schemes. The republicans also opposed the increased presidential power and some even claimed it was dictatorship. 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. 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 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.
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.
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 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 it´s lowest ever.
