The Great Depression and the New Deal 1933-1939 Chapter 34

1
The Great Depression and the New
Deal1933-1939Chapter 34
2
FDR Politician in a Wheelchair
3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
Polio

• 1921
• Changed his character
• Courageous
• Patience
• Tolerance
• Compassion
• after trying to wiggle my big toe for two years,
  everything else was easy

6
Eleanor Roosevelt

• FDR asset
• Conscience of the New Deal
• Traveled for him
• Most active first lady
• Influenced policies of national government
• Battled for impoverished and oppressed
• Controversial figure
• Loved by liberals and hated by conservatives

7
FDR political appeal

• Amazing
• Turn on the charm
• Great speaker
• Sponsored heavy spending in New York to overcome
  Depression
• Forgotten Man FDRs deep concern for the
  Depressed
• Traitor to his class

8
I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for
the American people

• Smith cast aside for FDR
• Platform
• Repeal of Prohibition
• Against the Hoover Depression
• Balanced budget
• Social and economic reforms

9
Presidential Hopefuls of 1932
10
Campaign of 1932

• FDR wants to be seen as robust and eager
• Attacks Republican

11
Brain Trust

• Small group of reform minded intellectuals,
  mostly college professors
• Later authors of the New Deal
• Wrote speeches that contradicted themselves or
  went against later

12
Happy Days Are Here Again

• FDRs theme song
• Fit his style
• Optimistic
• Promises bold experimentation

13
Hoover

• Remains isolated in White House
• Prosperity is just around the corner
• Tried to produce fear if FDR elected
• Has to finally campaign

14
Hoovers Humiliation in 1932
15
Results

• FDR
• 22.8 million
• 472 electoral votes
• Hoover
• 15.7 million
• 59 electoral votes

16
New Voting Blocks

• Blacks vote Democrat
• Suffered worst from the Depression
• Vital element in Democratic Party

17
Depression hurt Republicans

• Americans want a new deal not the new deal
• Any democratic candidate could have won
• Anti-Hoover election

18
Lame Duck Period

• Hoover could not start any long range projects
• FDR uncooperative
• Hoover tries to bind FDR to anti-inflationary
  policies to make New Deal impossible
• Washington deadlocked
• American economy comes to a halt

19
FDR and the Three Rs Relief, Recovery, Reform
20
(No Transcript)
21
Inauguration 1933

• Nationally broadcast
• Government must wage war on the Depression
• Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing
  we have to fear is fear itself

22
Bank Holiday

• March 6-10, 1933
• Democratic Congress in special session
• Hundred Days
• Unprecedented legislation to deal with crisis
• If he set the White House on fire we would say
  at least he got a fire started somewhere

23
Three Rs

• Relief
• Short range
• Help for people and economy
• Recovery
• Short range
• From Depression
• Reform
• Long range
• Reform abuses in system

24
Congress

• Felt panic in America
• Rubber stamp FDRs policies
• Gave President more power

25
Intuition

• FDR worked off the cuff
• Next move depended on outcome of last move
• Public desperate for any movement, even in wrong
  direction

26
Many essential New Deal programs passed in
Hundred Days

• Owed reforms to Progressive movement
• Many long overdue
• Unemployment insurance
• Old age insurance
• Minimum wages
• Conservation and development of natural resources
• Child labor restrictions

27
Roosevelt Tackles Money and Big Banking
28
Emergency Banking Relief Act

• Gives President power to
• Regulate banking transactions
• Foreign exchange
• Reopen solvent banks

29
Fireside Chats

• 35 million listen
• Gave assurances that it was now safe to keep
  money in banks
• Banks begin to reopen

30
Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act

• Creates the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
  (FDIC)
• Government insures your money up to 5,000

31
Beer-Wine Revenue Act

• Government needed tax money
• Later the 21st Amendment repeals 18th Amendment

32
Gold Standard

• Orders all private holdings of gold turned in and
  redeemed in paper money
• Takes nation off gold standard
• Managed currency on its way

33
Managed Currency

• Wants inflation for debtor relief
• Stimulate new production
• Price of gold goes up to 35 an ounce
• Amount of money in circulation increases
• Back on limited gold standard in 1934

34
Creating Jobs for the Jobless
35
Prime the Pump

• Using government money to get the economy rolling
• FDR would use government money to give jobs to
  unemployed
• 25 in 1933

36
CCC

• Civilian Conservation Corps
• Most popular of New Deal programs
• Government camps offer employment
• Mostly young men
• Reforestation, fire fighting, flood control,
  swamp drainage
• Required to send money home

37
FERA

• Federal Emergency Relief Act
• Give adults jobs
• Harry Hopkins
• 3 billion to states for direct dole or state
  works projects

38
AAA

• Agricultural Adjustment Act
• Millions given to farmers to help them meet their
  mortgages
• Gave farmers subsidies for every acre they did
  not sew
• Later declared unconstitutional

39
HOLC

• Home Owners Loan Corporation
• Provided refinancing of small homes to prevent
  foreclosures
• Bolted middle class homeowners to Democratic party

40
CWA

• Civilian Works Adminstration
• Branch of FERA
• Temporary jobs during winter
• Boondoggling

41
A Day For Every Demogogue
42
Demagogues

• Appear to relieve suffering of Americans
• Basically conservative

43
Father Charles Coughlin

• Catholic Priest
• Inflated currency and nationalize banks
• Attacks New Deal
• Becomes anti-Semitic and Fascist
• Radio broadcasts popular until told to stop

44
Huey Long

• Kingfish from Louisiana
• Most dangerous man in America
• Share Our Wealth program
• 5,000 for every family
• Luxury tax on wealthy
• Maximum wealth
• Candidacy for President
• Assassinated

45
Dr. Francis Townsend

• Plan for guaranteeing a secure income
• 2 federal sales tax
• Everyone over 60 receive 200 a month
• Stimulate the economy by making them spend it
• Becomes social security

46
A Helping Hand For Industry and Labor
47
National Recovery Administration

• NRA
• Most complex and far reaching
• Assist industry, labor and unemployed

48
Industry

• Work out fair competition
• Anti trust laws suspended
• Codes for wages, hours, levels of production and
  prices

49
Labor

• Right to organize and bargain collectively
• Yellow dog contracts forbidden
• Child labor restrictions

50
NRA Movement

• Patriotic parades
• Blue Eagle in store windows
• We Do Our Part slogan
• Upswing in business activity

51
Problems

• Too much sacrifice
• National Run Around
• Violations of codes
• Supreme Court rules unconstitutional in Schechter
  v. US

52
Public Works Administration

• PWA
• Industrial recovery and unemployment relief
• Headed by Harold Ickes
• 4 billion on 34 projects
• Grand Coulee Dam
• More electric power than the TVA
• Irrigated farms and increased production
• Appreciated after WWII

53
Paying Farmers Not To Farm
54
(No Transcript)
55
1. Have you completed your Chapter 33 Concept
Checks? 2. Have you Completed your Third
Practice EOI?
56
AAA of to wobbly start

• Started after cotton crop planted in 1933
• Much plowed under and many animals killed to stop
  surplus
• Looked sinful

57
Subsidized scarcity effect

• Raised farm income
• Increased unemployment
• Hurt many parties involved

58
Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of
1936

• Farmers given money to plant soil conserving
  crops rather than to lie fallow
• Emphasis on conservation

59
Second Agricultural Adjustment Act

• 1938
• Acreage restrictions on certain commodities
• Parity payments
• Farmers get larger share of national income

60
Dust Bowls and Black Blizzards
61
Dust Bowl

• 1933 drought
• Texas up to Nebraska
• Tore topsoil off land

62
Causes

• Marginal land under cultivation during WWI
• Dry farming techniques
• Mechanization

63
Okies

• Thousands leave ruined farms
• Many move to California looking for migrant jobs
  on farms
• Depicted in Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

64
Attempts to help

• Frazier-Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act
• Suspension of mortgage foreclosures for 5 years
• unconstitutional
• Resettlement Act
• Remove marginal farmers to better land
• Trees planted in plains to keep soil down

65
Native Americans

• Indian Reorganization Act
• Indian New Deal
• Reverse Dawes Assimilation
• Encourages tribes to establish self government
• Preserve native crafts
• Returns lands to their control
• Some Indians thought it demeaning

66
Battling Bankers and Big Business
67
Truth in Securities Act

• Stop abuses brought on in speculation
• Tell truth about stock values

68
Securities and Exchange Commission

• SEC
• Regulate the stock market
• Limits on speculation

69
Public Utility Holding Company

• Stopped being able to hold huge shares in
  utilities with a minimum amount of money

70
The TVA Harnesses the Tennessee River
71
TVA

• Huge experiment in regional development and
  public planning
• Government corporation
• Thousands given jobs in poor region
• Build dams, operate electric power plants,
  control flooding and erosion, manufacture
  fertilizer
• Sold electricity well below other power companies
• Set standard for prices around the country

72
Results

• Full employment
• Cheap electric power
• Low cost housing
• Restoration of soil
• Flood control
• Improved navigation of Tenn River
• Would stimulate more dams being built
• Socialistic???

73
Housing Reform and Social Security
74
FHA

• Federal Housing Administration
• Boost to homeowners and builders
• Insuring bank loans for new houses and repairing
  old ones

75
USHA

• United States Housing Authority
• Lend money to local areas to build low cost
  housing
• Fell short of need
• Opposition to expansion

76
Social Security

• Affect lives for generations
• 1935
• Federal insurance program
• Collected through payroll deductions
• Monthly payments to elderly (65)
• Unemployment compensation
• Blind, disabled, dependent children and mothers

77
Result in the 1930s

• Republicans insist on a cult of work not leisure
• Inspired by European nations
• Government now recognizes its responsibility for
  welfare of its citizens

78
New Deal For Unskilled Labor
79
Labor becomes assertive

• NRA allows them to organize
• Walk outs in 1934
• San Francisco turned bloody

80
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 Wagner Act

• Creates National Labor Relations Board
• Asserts labors right to organize
• Union memberships shoots up from 3 million to
  over 10 million by 1941
• Unskilled labor begins to organize

81
Committee For Industrial Organization - CIO

• John L. Lewis
• Began under the AF of L
• Unskilled labor
• Split

82
General Motors Strike - 1937

• Sit down strike closed plant
• Could not hire scabs
• Troops not given by governor or President
• Union wins
• United Auto Workers formed
• Leaders of union were driven off

83
Steel Strike in 1937

• US Steel had voluntarily agreed to recognize CIO
• Strikes in smaller firms
• Violence broke out
• Agree to recognize CIO

84
Fair Labor Standards Act

• Last major New Deal measure
• Victory for unions
• Minimum wage (40 cents an hour)
• Maximum work week (40 hours)
• Child labor restrictions (under 16)

85
Unions thrive under FDR

• Built a solid voting block
• CIO renamed Congress
• Blacks and whites in CIO
• Feuds with AFL for years

86
Landon Challenges the Champ in 1936
87
FDR re-nominated

• Democrats feel confident
• Millions of Americans felt relief

88
Republicans

• Hard to find someone to challenge FDR
• Alfred Landon of Kansas
• Moderate
• Platform condemns New Deal
• American Liberty League
• Conservatives who fight against the New Deal
  programs

89
I welcome their hatred

• Denounced those who would hide behind the flag
  and Constitution

90
Landslide

• Republicans carry 2 states
• FDR
• 27.7 million
• 523
• Landon
• 16.6 million
• 8 electoral votes
• Democratic majorities in Congress

91
Class warfare

• Economic needy against greedy economic groups
• Third parties turn to FDR
• Lincoln was dead to Blacks
• Socialists turn to FDR

92
Forgotten Man

• FDR appeals to forgotten man
• Dont bite the hand that doled the
• Powerful coalition forms
• Southern blacks
• Urbanites
• Poor
• New immigrants (Catholics and Jews)
• 1 of every 4 new judges were Catholic

93
Nine Old Men on the Supreme Bench
94
20th Amendment

• Moves the inauguration to the 20th of January
  instead of March
• Congress takes office on January 3rd
• Sweeps away the post election lame duck period by
  six weeks

95
Mandate

• FDR sees reelection as mandate for the New Deal
• Supreme Court stood in his way
• They went against 7 of 9 New Deal cases
• FDR did not appoint 1 member in first term

96
Conservative Bench

• Old guard justices
• Felt it their duty to curb socialistic tendencies
• Majorities in both houses show what Americans
  wanted
• Court should get in line

97
Court Reform Bill

• FDR wants to expand the court from 9 members to
  15
• Appoint new member for everyone over 70 years old
• Six new justices would give FDR majority on court
• FDR does not read the public who believes the
  Court a sacred cow

98
The Court Changes Course
99
Court Packing

• Congress and nation do not like the scheme to
  pack the Court
• Voted against it
• Basic liberties seemed in jeopardy
• FDR loses
• Hurt his reputation for a while

100
Court changes course

• Conservative Justice Owens begins to support New
  Deal
• 1937 support minimum wages for women and reverse
  decision from last year
• Congress votes Justices full pay after 70
• Conservative retires and Hugo Black appointed

101
Court reform bill passed

• Dealt with lower courts only
• FDR loses first major battle
• Dont tamper with Supreme Court!
• FDR will make 9 appointments later on
• Aroused conservatives in both parties
• New Deal slows down

102
The Twilight of the New Deal
103
First Term

• New Deal does not end Depression
• Unemployment at 15
• Pump priming works modestly
• Nation moving forward

104
Roosevelt Recession

• 1937
• Economy takes a down turn
• Government policies cause this
• Social security begins
• Cut back on government spending

105
John Maynard Keynes

• Economist
• FDR embraces his ideas of deficit spending
• Planned deficit spending
• Turning point in governments relation to the
  economy

106
Remaining New Deal reforms

• Reorganization Act
• To reorganize National Administration to make it
  more efficient
• Finally passed 2 years later

107
Relief checks

• Usually came right before an election

108
Hatch Act

• Administrative officials could not campaign
  politically and solicit money
• Forbid use of government funds for political
  purposes
• Could not collect campaign contributions from
  people receiving relief payments
• Limited campaign contributions and expenditures
  in 1940

109
New Deal losing momentum

• By 1938
• 1938 elections saw Republicans cut into
  Democratic majority
• International crisis coming into play

110
New Deal or Raw Deal?
111
Foes of the New Deal

• Waste, incompetence, confusion, contradictions,
  graft
• Leftists and communists in government
• Roosevelt was too Jewish

112
Business community shocked

• Dont confuse noise with movement
• Leap before you look attitude of FDR

113
Bureaucracy

• US government becomes largest business in the
  country
• States fade into background

114
Balanced budget dies

• 19 billion to 40 billion
• Handout state
• Trying to squander itself into prosperity
• Undermine virtues of thrift and initiative
• Instead of going west, Americans went on relief

115
Business bitter

• Labor and agriculture pampered
• Felt business could get us out of Depression if
  government would get off their backs
• Private enterprise being stifled by government
  planning
• States rights being ignored

116
FDR criticized

• One man super government
• Browbeat Supreme Court and Congress
• Opposed Congressmen who opposed his policies

117
Failed to cure the Depression

• Need more deficit spending?
• Gap between production and consumption not closed
• Many still unemployed
• WWII gets us out of Depression but also increase
  national debt to 258 billion

118
FDRs balance sheet
119
New Dealers defend their record

• Relief was their main goal at first
• Graft yes, but haste was needed and makes for
  waste

120
Government morally responsible to prevent mass
hunger by managing the economy

• Balance the human budget
• Use the government dont fear it
• Collapse of the economy avoided
• Fairer distribution of wealth
• Citizens retain self respect

121
May have saved capitalism

• War not against capitalism but capitalists
• Purged America from some of its worst abuses
• Mild dose of socialism may have saved US from
  moving all the way

122
Bold reform without a revolution

• Left thinks they did not go far enough
• Right thinks they went too far
• Hamiltonian in believing in government
• Jeffersonian in concern for forgotten man
• Helped preserve democracy in America when
  democracies were disappearing around the world

123
(No Transcript)