The Legislation was phase two which followed the hundred days. This was a much slower pace of reform until 1935 which was when another series of major acts was passed by congress. BY now it had become clear that the recovery form the depression was partial and slow. The new public work programmes for example were still not being absorbing a large enough percentage of the unemployed. In addition there were still many areas of American life that FDR and the government wanted to reform. The acts passed I n 1935 shifted the focus of the new deal. Whereas the main aim of the measures passed in the hundred days had been to provide relief and recovery, the main aim of the legislation was to provide long lasting change. The reforms expanded the New Deal into new areas of government activity.
- Explain why Roosevelt introduced the New Deal
FDR introduced the New Deal So that the government could play a much greater part in American life to sort out the depression. The New Deal, introduced by F D Roosevelt was to transform America's economy which had been shattered by the Wall Street Crash. The Wall Street crash started when share prices were unrealistically high and when people began to sell their shares prices fell. By the end of the day people were ruined and companies were forced to be shut down and the stock market completely collapsed. This made economic problems worse and the Great depression affected America in many different ways.
Even before the Wall Street crash there were flaws in the economy and this only helped show these flaws which cost America. There was a weakness in the economy and it was suffering as a result of falling demand and overproduction. Too much income from the income from the prosperous was going into few hands and the republicans helped make the wealthy even wealthier. There was a decline in demand which led to industries cutting back production so workers were sacked and the unemployed could not afford goods, and a cycle appeared which was badly affecting America. The crash revealed badly structured companies and banks lacked proper cash reserves and lent too easily, by 1929 many banks went bankrupt and by 1933 4,000 banks had collapsed.
President Hoover blamed the depression on international economic problems. Even though this was true American policies such as raising tariffs and demanding the repayment of war debts mad their position worse. American banks also made loans to European countries and as a result of the crash these loans fell through and the Depression spread quickly affecting much of the world.
The main reason which the new deal was introduced was because President Hoover did very little to relieve the depression as he believed that it was not the governments role to help out in the depression as he thought the depression would just sort itself out. As a result America was faced with Unemployment, Hunger and Homelessness.
- “The New Deal was not a complete success.” Explain how far you agree with this statement
The new deal had its good points but it also had its bad points. Even though in 1932 FDR won the elections, Hoover still received 15.7 million votes for his “hands off” approach in conquering the depression. This was a large minority and wealthy businessmen joined conservative politicians in attacking the new deal’s relief and welfare measures were the first steps towards communism and undermined traditional American values such as self-reliance. Huey Long also at first supported the new deal but then changed his mind and announced a nationwide “share our wealth” movement. Father Coughlin also went against the deal as he thought it would be better to have a monetary system and Dr Townsend disagreed with it as he saw that the new deal did not support the elderly and there were no pensions in 20 states. The new deal also received opposition from the Supreme Court, it claimed that a number of the new deal acts were unconstitutional; the federal government was responsible only for national matters which affected all the states. Since the NIRA and AAA did not affect the whole of America it was seen as unconstitutional. The fight against the Supreme Court damaged the new deal and the government. One of the main aims of the new deal was to bring about economic recovery and the new deal was not completely successful in achieving this. The number of unemployed people did not fall below 10% of the workforce before the USA joined the war. The new deal did help unemployment recover from the state the depression put USA in but it did not fall enough, and it was only the approach of war and the need for the production of war materials that led to full employment. The new deal also did not wipe out poverty completely. The agencies provided relief which was food, shelter, minimum wage and the standard of living was improved. However not enough funds were there to provide for these programmes to cure the problem of poverty. The new deal helped to improve workers rights in America as unions brought better working conditions and a change in attitude towards work improved for the employees. Even though this was done employers were still arguing with the unions and the relationship between workers and employers still remained difficult. Strikes also still occurred. The new deal gained a large amount of black votes because of his relief agencies. But some agencies discriminated against blacks e.g. AAA and NRA. Black workers were removed form jobs and black farmers lost land. FDR never actually said he wanted “equal rights” for blacks as he would have lost many votes from white people. However FDR may have actually wanted this as he supported the anti-lynching Bill so the new deal helped this with the black people actually being appointed to posts in the new deal agencies. The new deal got the chance for women to promote “women’s rights”. Women made up nearly 25% of the workforce and many suffered from the effects of the depression. Eleanor Roosevelt and others helped set up public works programmes for women and in the 1930s the first women to become a member of the presidents cabinet was Frances Perkins, and women could be appointed to being administrators in the alphabet agencies.
The new deal did help America out of the depression however it did produce more problems to American life that was needed.
Edward Clive
11CBG
