Premium Essay

Fdr's New Deal

In:

Submitted By studentofdela
Words 2252
Pages 10
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal was an intensely politically active time, and in addition, American society was tremendously impacted by New Deal legislation. It can be justified to call the New Deal a revolutionary break with the past, rather than to say the New Deal was primarily conservative, pursuing to make only those new additions to legislation in order to prevent revolutionary changes. The New Deal increased the power of the Federal Government and brought about change to the citizens of the United States. Furthermore, the main goals of the relief programs created during the New Deal were to increase employment, and to stabilize the economy. Nevertheless, there were other important factors concerning relief policies such as voting, and the influence it had on retail sales. Although President Roosevelt thought that the New Deal would benefit Americans by increasing employment nationwide, the fact is the plan actually slowed the United States’ recovery from the Great Depression. On July 24, 1933, President Roosevelt stated to the public on the radio: To the men and women whose lives have been darkened by the fact of the fear of unemployment, I am justified in saying a word of encouragement because the codes and the agreements already approved, or about to be passed upon, prove that the plan does raise wages, and that it does put people back to work.1
President Roosevelt wanted to use government power in order to return the people and their economy to a feeling of normalcy. This is seen when he stated the following: I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis- broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.2
This is because he thought it would be best for him to handle the problems

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Fdr's Response To The New Deal

...the United States at the time, and during the four years of Hoover being in office millions of Americans became unemployed. 11,000 of the nation's 24,000 banks closed, the farming industry eroded and the national currency was dramatically devalued. But in the year 1932 a change for the better was coming to America. In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected into office as president of the United States of America. On Saturday March 3, 1933 FDR gave his first Inaugural Address speech. When giving his speech, Roosevelt addressed some major economic concerns that needed a solution, and with him as the new leader of the nation those issues would have a solution. The concerns that FDR recognized in his speech were that most banks were closed, farms were suffering, and nearly 13 million workers were unemployed. As for a solution Roosevelt explained to the American citizens what his “New Deal” was, and what those programs would do to help the nation for the better....

Words: 519 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Was Fdr's New Deal Succesful?

...FDR made a huge difference in the country’s economy by making the New Deal, designed to get America out of the Depression. FDR’s plan using the three R’s – Relief, Recovery and Reform was really helpful to the economy but some people seemed to strongly disagree on his methods. To begin with, FDR’s New Deal seemed to only help employees, and this maddened not only the employers, but also the companies themselves. “Nearly every public statement form Washington is against stimulation of business which would end in the end create employment” (Document B). This is trying to say that with FDR’s plan to not produce unnecessary product in order to not spend money that could be saved makes companies need less employees, and that creates more unemployment overall. Furthermore, the New Deal “began to find expression in diverse forms which were often contradictory. Some assisted and some retarded the recovery of industrial activity.” (Document D). People were confused as in what was what FDR was really trying to achieve with contradictory organizations like The National Recovery Administration- which controlled the industry codes in a really unfair way – and the Public Works Administration – a plan to spend (maybe waste?) 6 billion dollars from the American Government in building unneeded bridges, roads etc just so some people could get jobs. Some people also believed that having the employees’ wages increase “[has] no direct relation to interstate commerce.” (Document F) This meant that...

Words: 812 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Fdr's New Deal Programs

...Roosevelt’s new deal programs were brought up to bring relief after the great depression. These programs addressed to help with social and economic problems and aimed to provide relief and to get jobs for people in need. There were two phases that created these new deal programs. The Four programs that we’ll be exploring are The Federal Emergency Relief administration (FERA), National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA), Social Security Act, and the Fair Labor Standards. The FERA and The NRA are from Phase one while the two other programs are from phase two. Therefore, we will explore these four programs and see if they helped in bringing relief. The Federal Emergency Relief administration program or the FERA was part of Roosevelt’s phase one programs. The FERA provided funds to helping local relief agencies. The impact of this program helped people’s life by providing welfare for people. It distributed three billion dollars towards other efforts and this helped to bring relief to other programs that had been going down after the great depression. In 1935, the Social Security Board took over the FERA and it no longer exists today. Therefore, the FERA did bring relief during the time after the great depression but no longer is in action....

Words: 651 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Assess the View That the New Deal Promised so Much but Achieved Little of Real Substance.

...Alex Jones Assess the view that the New Deal promised so much but achieved little of real substance. Franklin D. Roosevelt took over as President during a difficult time, not helped by the failings of the previous incumbent, President Hoover. In his inaugural address he revealed his aims as to what he hoped to achieve with the New Deal. FDR’s aim was to achieve an economic recovery in order to stabilise the nation once again, hopefully returning to the economic prosperity of the 1920’s. However, historians often debate whether he achieved what he set out to do with his reforms, as unemployment was still present throughout his tenure, and social and economic development across all the states remained unequal. Despite the first one hundred days of the New Deal supposedly creating “an organised nation confident of their power to provide for their own”, criticism has been aimed at it claiming, “The New Deal, rather than helping to cure the Depression, actually helped to prolong it.” Despite these claims, others have praised the program saying that the reforms brought “structural stability and social security” to the nation. To evaluate these conflicting opinions, one must analyse the different areas that FDR focussed on which were: unemployment, redistribution of wealth, economic recovery and development of the Nation itself. 405 405 In the opening of FDR’s inaugural address he says that the “primary task is to put people to work”. In 1933 FDR quickly introduced three key...

Words: 2643 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

New Deal DBQ

...of the Roosevelt administration, during which FDR’s New Deal policies were implemented in an attempt to address the reform, recovery, and relief the country so desperately needed. These policies changed the role of the government from Hoover’s passive “rugged individualism”...

Words: 887 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Hoover Dbq

...immediately took action to try to help the suffering Americans. Roosevelt called Congress into session to form programs that will aid the US. He created the New Deal which “fought the Great Depression on a number of fronts. In the famous ‘First Hundred Days’ of his presidency, FDR pushed through legislation that reformed the banking and financial sectors, tried to cure the ills afflicting American agriculture, and attempted to resuscitate American industry. To meet the immediate crisis of starvation and the dire needs of the nation's unemployed, FDR provided direct cash relief for the poor and [job] programs. Roosevelt's reassuring ‘fireside chats,’ in which he spoke to the nation via radio about the country's predicament, calmed a worried public.” In FDR’s fireside chat on the New Deal, he reassures the...

Words: 1180 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Obama Stimulus Plan and the Great Depression

...important, it has also never been so expensive. Our nation hasn’t been in this sort of financial affliction since the Great Depression of 1929. In 1933, as an effort to “stop the drop” President Franklin D. Roosevelt offers an American solution to an American problem, the New Deal. Thus, to some extent, laying the foundation for President Barack Obama’s 2009 Economic Stimulus Plan, a plan designed to quickly jumpstart economic growth and save millions of jobs. Barack Obama once said, “I’m pledging to cut the deficit by half by the end of my first term in office.” As of then, 2009, the national debt was at $10 trillion, now in 2012 the outstanding national deficit has reached an outrageous $16 trillion. In 2009 President Obama signed the $789 trillion American Recover and Reinvestment Act that helped push our national debt 23 percent higher, to $13.2 trillion, a new record at that time. Many citizens will argue that Barack Obama’s Stimulus Plan did do better than they had anticipated, however it added an excessive amount to our national debt. Nevertheless, the US shouldn’t attack President Obama before one realizes how much was spent on funding for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s successful New Deals. At the start of FDR’s presidency in 1933 the US National Debt was $22.5 billion and at the end of it, 12 years later, the debt was at $258.5 billion. FDR even caused a so-called Roosevelt Recession after producing an austerity budget which reduced government spending; therefore, causing the...

Words: 626 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

New Deal Dbq Analysis

...during the nation's most catastrophic and debilitating economic depression, FDR put together an elaborate series of federal programs called the New Deal to aide the US and to commence national recovery. The new economic and social programs created millions of jobs to any capable individual from men to children. Also the New Deal helped stabilize the country's economy and generate confidence for the once hopeless sufferers of the Great Depression. Roosevelt's Administrations and New Deal programs provided jobs, resources, and confidence to millions which ultimately lead to the reconstruction of the U.S economy and...

Words: 677 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fdr Response To The Great Depression Dbq

...The great depression forced society and president Franklin D. Roosevelt to make major changes in government organization to relive the lives affected by the great depression. The great depression left millions of American citizens unemployed or underpaid and overworked. Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to the great depression was the new deal and the three R's (relief, reform, and recovery). Following the stock market crash in 1929, unemployment spiked and the great depression began. According to the graph in document one, the number of s of unemployment increased to nearly forty percent by 1938. This shows that FDR's programs started to make a positive impact on the extremely poor people and the huge poverty that will soon start because...

Words: 381 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

What Was the Short Term Significance of the New Deal?

...short term significance of the New Deal? To discuss the short term significance of the New Deal, it is imperative to define significance. Significance is defined by the number of people’s lives affected by an event; therefore the most significant of the short term effects of the New Deal was FDR’s implementation of radical legislative reforms. It led to a number of positive economic and social changes in a very short space of time, which contrasted greatly with the inaction of the previous Hoover regime. This opinion is supported by well-known New Deal historian Anthony Badger, who stated that "When Roosevelt took power on March 4, 1933; many influential Americans doubted the capacity of a democratic government to act decisively enough to save the country".The creation of public work schemes and relief programmes provided Americans with improved social stability giving them the confidence to support their government’s initiatives, thus enabling Roosevelt to restore elements of the pre-depression economy. Agriculture was also supported to create more jobs and allow business to grow again as opposed to declining as it had during the depression. These changes were all reinforced by the modernisation policies brought in by Roosevelt in the ‘100 days’. Page 1 Word Count: 291 Page 1 Word Count: 291 This cartoon was published in 1933 by the Pittsburgh Press by Harold Talburt. The use of this cartoon of Uncle Sam ‘holding all the Aces’ shows how the new policies of Roosevelt were supported...

Words: 2449 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Fdr's Dilemmas

...FDR’s Dilemmas Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s isolationist ways helped him to overcome certain dilemmas in the United States including the Great Depression, challenges to liberal democracy from international socialism and fascism and responses to the gathering storms going on in Asia and Europe by allowing him to focus on America and develop programs such as The New Deal as well as implement Neutrality Acts. In From Colony to Superpower, George Herring deconstructs isolationism: The term isolationism has often and mistakenly been applied to all of U.S. history. It works best for the 1930s. To be sure, the United States never sought to cut itself off completely as China and Japan had done before the nineteenth century. Americans took a keen interest in events abroad, maintained diplomatic contact with other nations, and sought to sustain a flourishing trade. But their passionate 1930s quest to insulate the nation from foreign entanglements and war fully merits the label isolationist (522). FDR entered office during one of the country’s toughest periods, the Great Depression. Herring writes, “The years from 1931 to 1941 brought major changes in the U.S. foreign policy. Responding to the Great Depression and the threat of a new world war, Americans in the mid-1930’s embraced isolationist attitudes and endorsed neutrality policies…” (1055). What made Roosevelt one of the most popular presidents of the United States was his naturally strong and deep connection to the people...

Words: 1647 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

The New Deal

...Roosevelt ís in his first term. In a desperate attempt to solving the woes of the American population, FDR and his Congress passed more bills than any other president-congressional combination as ever done in their first impression time period. FDR’s domestic policy, known more widely as the New Deal, was intended to be a group of innovative measures to counteract the effects of the Great Depression. Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress, trying to reduce unemployment, restore prosperity and return a sense of morale to American citizens, endorsed a wide variety of bills creating new federal programs and agencies. These agencies were known as alphabet agencies due to their titles that included many different letters (i.e., WPA, FERA, TVA). Although the New Deal was initiated to return prosperity to the American economy, in the long run, the New Deal was probably the worst policy ever started. Though providing quick relief to some areas of depression, the New Deal was overall a very socialist, perhaps even communist plan. Controlling prices, giving out jobs, commanding water flow, were just some of the many practices engaged in by the government tat went against capitalistic American point of views. Some agencies did do good, however. The New Deal’s dealing with the banks was performed very well. It returned trust in leaving money in the banks with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This act insured investor’s deposits in banks tat were members of the FDIC. Also...

Words: 773 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Franklin D Roosevelt Dbq

...American history. He was the nation’s 32nd president to serve for more than two terms (March 4, 1933 to April 12, 1945). Throughout his presidential terms, FDR had to deal with tough times that have impacted history, such as, the Great Depression and World War II (WWII), but, however, he also has allowed blacks and women to have more responsibilities. During the Great Depression, FDR was a hard worker to have America finish it, and during WWII, he was encouraging people to not lose hope, and when he allowed blacks and women to be at a closer level as white men, he was tolerated of it. As a result, because of FDR’s steps, America is how it is today....

Words: 674 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

The New Deal and Obama

...new Paige Martin TIAS 305 SEMINAR IN IAS Winter 2012 Obama’s Rehashing of FDR’s New Deal Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the most memorable presidents in our history. His “New Deal” was a promise to American people - which the depression they were going through would come to an end. Much like Roosevelt, Barack Obama promised a new, new deal to his nation and proclaimed there would be “change.” This was the prescription that was much needed during the apparent economic downturn and it was modeled after the actions taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the great depression. One of the primary problems Franklin Roosevelt had to face was a high unemployment rate. Citizens were loosing their jobs because businesses were losing money. Roosevelt realized that the jobs were key, so he made a plan to try and create jobs for the citizens that needed them. One of the plans being put into action was the Works Progress Administration. This gave people government jobs for rebuilding America. Roosevelt also created the Rural Electrification Administration, which gave power to the majority of American farms that still had no electricity, as well as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and Soil Conservation Service helped to revive America’s forests and farmland and put more people to work on temporary projects. The current presidency was focused on repairing jobs as well, among other issues, such as health care and other social issues. There is also the withdrawal of funds from...

Words: 709 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fdr Response To The Great Depression Dbq

...The great depression was a of significant poverty which had many contributing factor. Some of the significant factors were, Stock market crash of 1929 and people buying goods on credit, unfair wages. This caused very high unemployment in poverty starting in 1931.In 1932 FDR was elected and was president until 1942. During his presidency he put new deal into effect which was designed to create programs that can support and help the world get out the depression. Overall FDR’s response to the Great Depression , such as social security and giving government money to relieve poverty,over all effective and expanded the role of government to make room for these new programs. One of FDR responses to the Great depression was putting money towards public projects and into relieving poverty which helped significantly. According to Document D “An enormous outpouring of federal money for human relief and immense sums for public-works...

Words: 602 - Pages: 3