New Deal Dbq

The United States was at one of the lowest points in its history before Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration came into office following the 1932 election and began to enact major economic, social, and political reforms to get Americans back on their feet and working. In order to make the changes needed to stabilize the country’s economy, Roosevelt was given new executive powers by Congress. These powers allowed him to expand the role of the federal government, which in turn gave the Executive Branch the power to create new government-run corporations, departments, associations, etc. that would go on to control almost every facet of the economy of the 1930s.

The changes made by Roosevelt’s administration in the New Deals were new and drastically

different than the approach of the Republicans who had dominated politics for the last decade. Some people liked Roosevelt and supported his efforts because he represented change, yet others felt he was using his momentum to turn the country towards Socialism and even Communism with his new government programs. There were a good number of Americans who feared Roosevelt was giving himself powers akin to that of a dictator. Though the election of 1932 may have been a landslide, Roosevelt was not able to walk through his presidency with a free pass. The pressure of fixing the economy and appeasing many despairing and fearful Americans was put on his administration’s shoulders as well.
The dozens of “alphabet agencies” created by Roosevelt were the driving forces in rebooting the national economy. Built upon the basis of the Three R’s—Relief, Recovery, and Reform—Roosevelt’s 1st and 2nd New Deals (1933 and 1935) relied heavily upon these agencies to guide the economy out of the Great Depression. Agencies such as the National Recovery Administration (N.R.A.), Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.), Tennessee Valley Authority (T.V.A.), Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.), and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (A.A.A.) that were founded thanks to the efforts of President Roosevelt all worked to provide relief and recovery to citizens via new jobs and developments while also providing significant reform that increased the federal government’s involvement with the economy. In using these various agencies, Roosevelt was able to effectively bring the country out of the Depression.
Before Roosevelt could begin to solve the problems of the Depression, he had to convince America that his New Deal would work. Many people were unsure of his plan at first and initially suspicious of it, believing it was just a method of instilling Socialist policies (doc. 1). This fear of Socialism and Communism would prove to be one of the greatest hindrances to Roosevelt’s efforts. Many fears Americans had of Communists and Socialists were still left over from the 1920s and the first Red Scare, and the level to which the federal government was involving itself only served to stir up these fears once more.
Once Roosevelt was able to explain and prove that his plan worked, his administration was able to make some serious progress.

In simplifying the intricacies of the New Deal for everyday Americans and promising his service, Roosevelt was able to gain the trust and power he needed to follow through with his plan. Roosevelt had quelled the fears of many Americans by explaining that he was not trying to revolutionize the government or the economy, rather he was trying to grow it. He explained how the many agencies he created were part of his plan of American growth, which began with him and the new amount of power granted to him by Congress in order to create the agencies (doc.

2).
With the ability to make the changes outlined in the New Deal, Roosevelt managed to found many programs for reform, some of which are still around today. For example, Social Security (doc. 3) was provided to “Everybody working for salary or wages,” which would motivate many people to become employed. In order to accommodate those people who were looking for work, the government set up the many agencies pictured in document 2, such as the C.C.C. and T.V.A. to give many young men and boys jobs as well as some extra money to support their families. Not only did these agencies provide jobs to millions of people (doc. 8), oftentimes they also doubled as ways to develop the nation’s infrastructure.
Many of the people who benefitted from these government-run corporations and agencies supported the Roosevelt administration. However, there were still those who were against the federal government having the power to monitor the economy as closely as they did. Republican Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes wrote the majority opinion in the 1935 case Schechter v. United States, a case in which the federal government was declared to be too controlling of private businesses (doc. 4). Hughes, the author of document 4, had some bias against the actions that Roosevelt was taking, as he was a Republican (nominated by Hoover in 1930) with fundamental differences in what powers he believed the federal government should and should not have. The reason he argued to support the 5-4 decision was that the government was overstepping its legal bounds because the A.L.A. Schechter Poultry company was not involved in interstate commerce, and that the federal government could not legally set wages.
Though Schechter v. United States recognized that the federal government violated the Constitution and consequently clarified the limits on the federal government’s power, the Roosevelt administration was still looked upon favorably by the majority of Americans as reflected by the major news networks at the time. With the radio networks on his side combined with his popular fireside chats, President Roosevelt was able to remain in favor with the majority of Americans. Soon enough, radio broadcasts were advocating the same ideals that Roosevelt and his administration supported (doc. 5). NBC specifically promotes the idea of collective bargaining and the worker’s right to self-organization in document 5 to the general public, increasing support of Roosevelt’s plan to all Americans with radios. These two concepts were shunned a decade earlier, but because of the various changes made in government policy and attitude towards labor unions, collective bargaining and unionizing were not only allowed, but also talked about daily in people’s homes on radios.
By the time the 1940s came around and the country had stabilized to the point where employment was high once more (doc.

8), newspapers such as The New Republic (doc. 6) began to reflect on the New Deal and the effects of the Roosevelt administration. The New Republic believed Roosevelt had done good by reforming the federal government, contributing a, “more efficient organization of the whole executive department.” The media had begun to advertise that times were changing for the positive and that the government was completely different than the Republican-dominated government of the twenties. Now, with new appointments to the Court, a majority of Democrats in Congress, and a powerful Executive Branch in place, it seems as if the federal government of the 1930s is all-powerful compared to its predecessor. In document 6, The New Republic describes the Supreme Court as being “abreast of the times,” which is to say, the a court that reflects the opinions of the public—the same public that has been drilled with a barrage of support for Roosevelt’s New Deal from their radio networks and newspapers for the past

decade.
Roosevelt efforts at expanding the U.S.’s infrastructure and supporting the agricultural market while creating many new jobs through agencies like the A.A.A. and the T.V.A. were similar to the hopes of Henry Clay in his American System. In the American System, one of the three major components was the use of federal subsidies for roads, canals, bridges, etc. to support successful markets for agriculture. Roosevelt’s T.V.A. helped build dams for electric power and energy for the Tennessee Valley, helping to stimulate growth in the still predominantly agrarian South. The A.A.A. regulated the farming industry in the South and Midwest in order to stimulate a great deal of growth as well. The key difference between Roosevelt’s New Deal and Clay’s American System is that the Roosevelt administration lowered tariffs, whereas Clay wanted to raise them. In the end, Roosevelt’s strategy to focus all of his interests and powers on domestic issues in an effort to rebuild the economy proved successful as employment lowered to a reasonable percentage (doc. 8) and the federal government began to play a much larger role in the American economy after Roosevelt left than before he assumed office.