New Deal Dbq

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This famous quote was spoken by our 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom is indeed a fearless leader. Roosevelt was born on January 30th, 1882 in Hyde Park, New York. Coming from a privileged home life, he went off to Harvard University in 1900, but became nothing more than a “C” student. During his last year attending Harvard, he married Eleanor Roosevelt on March 17th, 1905. Even after transferring to Columbia University Law School and practicing corporate law in New York, he never received a degree and became bored with law study (biography.com). He searched for greater things in life.

Roosevelt eventually decided to do something with his talent and became the 44th governor of New

York from 1929-1932. Prior to this, he also served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1913-1920 during World War 1, however he suffered from polio and then entered the senate as previously mentioned. America during this time fell into the Great Depression, to which Roosevelt felt the need to relieve New Yorkers from the crumbling economy during this time (Eisenstadt). To relieve the unemployed, he created the Temporary Emergency Relief Act (TERA) which was a $30 million bond issue lent out by the state (Goldberg).
Roosevelt dreamt so big that he decided to run for president in the 30’s. Roosevelt claimed himself to be democratic, and by 1930, Republicans were being blamed for the Great Depression. As a democrat, he saw this as an opportunity to run for president. He promised John Nance Garner, Speaker of the House of Texas, a spot as vise president. His opponent, President Herbert Hoover, was very unpopular at the time, so Roosevelt made sure to use his charm and liberal views to win over the United States -which he did in the 1932 presidential election. He succeeded in becoming president of the United States (History).
During presidency, Roosevelt created the famous “New Deal,” which were a series of experimental projects and programs. He accomplished a lot with this deal, such as ending prohibition by ratifying the 26nd Amendment or the Roosevelt’s Emergency Banking Act on March 9th, 1933. In this act, he reorganized banks and shut down the ones that were insolent. Three days later, he encouraged Americans to put their savings in the bank; this was called the “fireside chat.” After he announced this, ¾ of the banks in the U.S. opened back up (History).
Also in the New Deal, Roosevelt added the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, it enable the federal government to build dams alongside the Tennessee River.

This controlled flooding and created hydroelectric power, which was inexpensive and efficient. Not only did Roosevelt help our communities, but he also made sure labor workers were thought of too -even though he was never a poor worker. June’s National Industrial Recovery Act enabled workers to unionize and bargain as a whole for higher wages and better working conditions (History). Especially during the depression, this act was important to help take the working class of America out of financial turmoil. Many other acts in the New Deal were important to the United States, however those were just some of the few that helped with putting new and progressive ideas into an economy that was stuck in

time.
The New Deal started to show signs of recovery for the United States, so in the spring of 1935 he started another series of more aggressive Federal programs, which is thought of at the Second New Deal. One of the most famous acts that we still use today is the Social Security Act. In August of 1935, Roosevelt signed this act to give pensions to the elderly, unemployed, and disabled and gave them system insurance care (History). The Works Progress Administration also affected the economy a great deal, because this administration strived to provide jobs for Americans. In fact, more than 8.5 million people became employed with an average salary of $41.57 a month (PBS). In addition to the Second New Deal, large corporations and wealthy citizens were taxed more heavily than anyone else in America, which was known as “soak-the-rich” tax (History).
In 1936, Roosevelt ran for a second term and at Madison Square Garden, the crowd roared in front of him as he won by a landslide. During this time, the United States yearned for progression and change. In fact, by 1937, 8 million workers joined unions to speak up about change (History). Many things were changing for the working class, and Roosevelt did many things for them. For example, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in 1933 allowed industry, labor, and government to come together to write codes and rules for fair competition. Not only did he help the industry workers, but also farmers as well. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) controlled several different crops: corn, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts, tobacco, and milk. The government pays for a certain amount of these products to raise prices in the market, which in turn created more money and a steady income for farmers (Alchin).
Roosevelt’s focus changed as World War 2 was around the corner. Around this time, we abandoned our isolationist policy and allowed Britain and France to “cash and carry” our weapons. Germany, our threat eventually captured France in 1940. We then created a Lend-Lease Act, which explains itself. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor which resulted in more than 2,400 naval and military personnel deaths. The day after Pearl Harbor, we declared war with Japan and entered the war. Roosevelt did everything from going on radio shows to encourage Americans to support the country, to meeting with Winston Churchill frequently and trying to befriend Stalin. He later was re-elected in 1941 for a fourth term in 1944. The February of that year, he attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin and Churchill to plan on fighting against Japan. However, he left the conference very weak and quickly left to his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. On April 12th, 1945, he passed away due to a massive cerebral hemorrhage (History). However, his time wasn't wasted as he helped pull the United States out of the Great Depression and started to lead us into the war.
During Roosevelt's presidency he worked under a unified government for all 12 years of his presidency.

Roosevelt lead with the democratic party’s support and always had the majority support in the Senate (senate.gov). Although he made several great laws and had the power to push them through, not everyone deemed his legislature constitutional. Conservative judges were in disagreement with the policies of the New Deal (Smithsonian.com). In the spring of 1935 before Roosevelt's second term, Robert Owens began to cast his vote conservatively and swung the court away from Roosevelt. During the year 1935, Roosevelt’s “Blue Eagle” project for industrial recovery was shot down by the Supreme Court. In the next year, several of Roosevelt’s programs, including the NRA and the AAA, were shot down as “unconstitutional” by the Supreme Court (Smithsonian.com). With the Supreme Court’s backing who knows what FDR would have been able to accomplish. In contrast, if Roosevelt was misguided in his philosophy he could have lead the United States deeped into to the depression, possibly into its

collapse.
While in office Roosevelt pushed through an incredible amount of legislature. While he is regarded as the president who dug us out of the Great Depression, that did not come with some trial and error along the way. Arguably, Roosevelt’s best accomplishment was bringing us out of the Great Depression. This momentous feat would have not been possible without his New Deal plan. To briefly simplify, this deal ended prohibition, subsidized agricultural prices to support farmers, and provided workers with better working conditions and more income (History.com). Without this deal and Roosevelt’s careful but rash decision making, the Great Depression may have lingered onward into World War 2. If the United States had entered the war a crippled nation, we may not have seen the same success. In April 1935, he created the Works Progress Administration to hire the unemployed workers of America. This administration was barred from competing with private business so it steamrolled through project after project. The administration built several bridges, highways, schools and parks (History.com). In doing this he lowered the unemployment from 25% to 2% during his presidency (insidegov.com). This is exactly what the U.S. needed to get everyone who had lost a job to get working again. It was genius to partner this with his Social Security program so that you couldn't reach 40% of the people working and paying for the other 60%.
While Roosevelt did great things for struggling Americans in the 1930’s, the same cannot be said for Japanese Americans in 1942. President Roosevelt relocated approximately 100,000 Japanese Americans into U.S. based internment camps ( insidegov.com). His reasoning for this was to eliminate the threat of possible Japanese spies, but most of the people were just civilians. While he was trying to defend the United States citizens from the threat of espionage, he unintentionally imprisoned tens of thousand of the people he was trying to protect. On April 5th 1933, Roosevelt issued executive order #6102. This order, for purposes of regulation, forbidding the hoarding of gold in coins, bullions, and certificates. This was done in order to keep large amounts of gold from being barred from trade from civilian ownership. Roosevelt did this so the government would have more money to use and trade, also this was average civilians could not hide large amounts of precious metals and tamper with the international prices or influence trade (moneymetals.com). Since the stock market collapse in 1929 and the huge mistrust in banks, hoarding money and valuables was commonplace. Therefore, this anti-hoarding order made sense, the only problem was that the government would just take the money. This was a huge infringement of people's right to property and would not be tolerated by any means in today’s world.
We personally believe that Roosevelt’s presidency was complex more than anything else. Some people dislike the rash legislative actions he took, while others idolize him. For a true factual view of his presidency, we must appreciate everything that he did for our country. When it comes to putting people to work and getting the ball rolling on economic change, you’ve got to give Roosevelt props. He was able to bring our country from one of its darkest hours to an immense military power that went on to defeat the axis powers of World War 2. We believe that while some of his legislature may have been questionable we may not be the country we are today if not for the work of Franklin D. Roosevelt.