New Deal Dbq

One of the worst economic catastrophes in the history of the United States, the Great Depression, fell into the hands of Franklin D.Roosevelt’s administration. It began around 1929 with the collapse of the stock market during Herbert Hoover’s term. Hoover vastly underestimated the severity of the Great Depression and barely assisted the economy, favoring to keep the government uninvolved for the most part. This was where FDR stepped in in 1932 with his set of solutions, the New Deal. The responses of Franklin D.Roosevelt’s administration to the Great Depression were very effective in some aspects but barely helped in others. Many people continued to suffer in poverty. The New Deal programs greatly improved life through lowering unemployment and bettering the environment in America. Although it also grew the power and influence of the federal government. It had become extremely influential to the economy through new administrations run by the executive branch.

The New Deal affected poverty and the unemployment rate during the Great Depression.

The rapid increase of the unemployment rate was slowed and eventually reversed during FDR’s term. In a graph of the unemployment rate of nonfarm workers from 1920 through 1945, it is evident that starting around 1929 until about 1933 the unemployment rate was drastically increasing. Aside from an increase in 1936-1937, the unemployment rate dropped back down and even was lower than that of the 1920s for a bit. Poverty was so extreme during the start of FDR’s term that people couldn’t afford to buy quality food and were forced to resort to alternatives. In an article by the Senate Committee on Manufactures in 1932, the author explains how people in Philadelphia struggled to find food. “Another family did not have food for two days. Then the husband went out and gathered dandelions and the family lived on them”(Senate Committee on

Manufactures).

One of the major causes of the Great Depression was debt from loans. Many people went into so much debt that they could not pay it back. A point of controversy with the New Deal was debt on a larger scale, national debt. The New Deal programs were financed using loans which increased the national debt by quite a lot. A writer for The Nation, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., argued that increasing the national debt is counter intuitive to the goal of improving the economy. “The New Deal...began to find expression in diverse forms which were often contradictory...An enormous outpouring of federal money for human relief and immense sums for public-works projects started to flow to all points of the compass...Six billion dollars was added to the national debt”(Garrison, Jr.).

Franklin D. Roosevelt perceived an issue with the Court system which prompted him to propose a reorganization of it. FDR’s gripe with federal courts was how they strayed from their true purpose. He believed that federal courts were acting as if they were a part of Congress, creating laws, rather than interpreting the laws. FDR stated in his Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary,“The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body”(Roosevelt). So, FDR’s response to this was to have the President appoint a replacement once any federal Judge or Justice reaches the age of seventy. The main idea behind this was to cycle in younger people who have more recent experience of life in America. FDR also spoke on this in his Fireside Chat, “By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood I hope...to bring the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work”(Roosevelt).

All the New Deal programs and the reorganization of the judicial branch made the government much more influential. A lot of the New Deal programs used agencies for management which were a part of the executive branch. The New Republic believed that all of these were great improvement to the government. “This is not merely a matter of the addition of many new agencies, but of the more efficient organization of the whole executive department”(The New Republic). Alternatively, others thought Roosevelt was pushing for a dictatorship or communism and socialism. A newspaper publisher, Frank Gannett sent a letter stating his suspicions of Roosevelt trying to control the Judiciary branch by raising the number of Justices. “ Increasing the number of judges from nine to fifteen would not make this high tribunal act any more promptly than it does now, but it would give the President control of the Judiciary department”(Gannett). Another letter(to Senator Robert Wagner), speculates that government has been leaning towards communism and socialism based on many public statements that opposed the growth of businesses. It reads: “It seems very apparent to me that the Administration at Washington is accelerating it’s [sic] pace towards socialism and communism. Nearly every public statement from Washington is against stimulation of business…”(Letter to Senator Robert Wagner, March 7, 1934).