A New Deal

1
A New Deal

• FDR as New Deal broker

2
The Banking Crisis

• Bank Holidays
• FDRs inaugural address
• the only thing we have to fear is far itself.
• March 9, 1933 Emergency Banking Act
• 1,000 small banks never reopened,
• by March 15 half the banks
• Within three weeks depositors put 1.19 billion
  back in the banks.
• March 12 Fireside Chat 1 

3
Bank and Finance Reform

• Ferdinand Pecora and the Pecora Commission
• June, 1933 Glass-Steagall Banking Act
• May 1933 Securities Act
• full disclosure
• 1934 Security Exchange Commission
• Joseph P. Kennedy first SEC Chair

4
Mixed Agenda

• Some want inflation
• Some want massive federal spending
• Some want minimal spending and a balanced budget
• Some want industry-wide changes, others want
  targeted markets

5
Natl Industrial Recovery Act

• industrial self government
• Industry Codes
• business
• labor
• Consumers
• Suspended anti-trust
• Section 7a
• Title II
• created Public Works administration

6
We Do Our Part

• Blanket Codes
• Blue Eagle
•  Reaction
• Labor called it the National Run Around
• Small business upset
• Consumers upset
• In May 1935 declared unconstitutional  
• NRA demise
• Child labor and unemployment increase
• wages decrease

7
Federal Spending

• March 1933 Civilian Conservation Corps
• 250,000 young men from relief families,
• 30 per month, 25 going directly to family
• 1940 2.25 million served in it.
•  May 1933 Federal Emergency Relief Admin
• 500 million
• set up Public Works Administration,
• led by Harold Ickes, Secretary of Interior
• November 1933 Civilian Works Administration
• 4 million working
•  Works Progress Admin,
• 4-million man hours

8
Down on the Farm

• Spring 1933 Emergency Farm Mortgage Act and Farm
  Credit Act
• Agricultural Adjustment Act
• Price parity to 1909-14 levels
• Restrict ag production.
•  1935
• Wheat, corn and cotton prices doubled
• Farm income up 53.
•  Effect on Sharecroppers
• Declared Unconstitutional in 1936

9
Critics

• Depression better but not over
• Attacks
• The Left
• Conservatives
• Democrats
• Al Smith

10
Sinclair and Long

• Upton Sinclair
• End Poverty in California (EPIC)
• 50 per month pension for indigent over 60 
• Kingfish Huey Long
• Share the Wealth
• Every man a King
• 5,000 homestead
• 2,500 annual income 

11
Coughlin and Townsend

• Father Coughlin
•  Shrine of the Little Flower
• The Golden Hour of the Little Flower
• Francis E Townsend
• Old Age Revolving Pension
• 200 per month but must spend it

12
Second New Deal

• April 1935 Emergency Relief Appropriations Act
• 4.9 bil for public works and relief
• WPA
• 1940 8 million employed
• Cost 11.4 billion
• Average 1936 WPA wage 52.14
• 1935 National Youth Administration 

13
Labors Growth

• National Labor Relations Act Wagner Act
• Labor growth
• 1933 less than 3 million members
• 1934 3.6 million
• 1935 3.89 million 
• Under NLRA,
•  1941 10.5 million

14
The CIO

• John L. Lewis, United Mine Workers
• Craft vs. Industrial workers
• November 1935 Committee for Industrial
  Organization
• Becomes Congress of Industrial Organizations,  
• UAW
• Fall 1936 30,000 members / no contracts.

15
The UAW

• Sit-Down strikes
• Fisher Body in Cleveland,
• December 29, 1936 Fisher I in Flint
• Lasts through February 11, 1937
• Governor Frank Murphy
• exclusive bargaining rights in 20 GM plants
• right to represent members in 40 other
• GM rehire all strikers
• stop legal proceedings against them.
• UAW deal with Chrysler, April, 1937
• Henry Ford and the Ford Service Organization
• Walter Reuther

16
Social Security and Electric Power

• Social Security Act
• Old-age pensions and compensation for
  unemployment
• Payroll tax 1 on first 3,000
• payments begin in 1942 10 to 85
• Tax Laws of 1935
• inheritance tax
• surtax on incomes over 50,000
• Rural Electrification Authority

17
Foreign Policy and Economics

• November 1933 FDR recognized Russia
• Export-Import bank,
• 1941 47-million  
• 1934 Reciprocal Trade Act,  
• 1937 Exports 3.34 billion
• 1940 Exports 4 billion
•  Good Neighbor Policy
• 1938 Mexico

18
1936 Elections

• 1936 FDR v Alfred Landon of Kansas
• Landon only takes Maine and Vermont
• Republicans lost seats in congress
• New party organization
• organized labor
• African-American vote
• big city machines
• Depression-hit farmers

19
The Court Responds

• Composition of the court
• All but one Republican appointee
• Six of nine over 70
• 4 conservative
• 3 progressive
• 2 swing votes
• Schechter v US NRA declared unconstitutional
• Butler v US AAA declared unconstitutional

20
Court Packing

• February 1935 FDR letter to congress
• Court Packing

21
The End of the New Deal

• Recession, 1937
• 1938 unemployment went up to 19.2.
• FDR in the 1938 elections
• Republicans make headway 
• up 80 in house
• up 8 in Senate

22
Meaning of the New Deal

• A brokered plan
• saved or at least revived capitalism
• Gave capitalism closer ties to Federal govt
• Aided labor unions
• restructured Democratic Party

23
So

• What was the New Deal?
• How Effective was the New Deal?