New Deal Failures

During the 1930’s, the agricultural dominant San Joaquin Valley was being built up by public works programs that brought it new dams and levees that many argued would prevent flooding and subsequently loss of life. However, they weren’t simply built for that reason alone, the valley had been suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, and experiencing a flood of Dust Bowl migrants looking for jobs. Therefore, they were built for economic stimulus and the valley’s residents were not happy about the sudden increase in spending and even tighter job market that came with having to accommodate the new settlers, which also resulted in tensions with the migrants. New Deal programs helped relieve the valley’s economic problems, and address

the migrant crisis providing avenues to escape the squalor they lived in. The New Deal also went further by funding projects to build up valley infrastructure. Construction of levees and dams greatly benefited the valley’s irrigation systems and economy for the coming decades. The monetary costs of the New Deal were heavily outweighed by the many benefits it brought to the valley by alleviating economic woes, easing the migrant crisis, and building up the valley’s infrastructure
The Depression in combination with crashing agricultural prices had a huge negative impact on the valley, since cutting back supply would have also negatively affected the largely agricultural economy. Like in many agriculture dependent parts of the country, huge drops in prices from the surplus caused demand for farm labor to be almost halved. Before the implementation of the New Deal, simply adjusting to the shifting economy would have overwhelmed the valley economy by leaving much of the workforce unemployed while waiting for prices to recover. The government would have to step in to relieve the situation as simply remaining out of the economy would have been disastrous.
Unlike other parts of the country, the farms in the San Joaquin Valley were growing a variation of crops and were not as negatively affected as regions reliant on wheat, but the valley faced a migrant crisis unlike the other regions. Southwestern migrants impacted by the Dust Bowl and Depression flooded into California, the San Joaquin Valley being a popular destination attracting about 70,000 migrants, further worsening the demand for farm labor. Like in other parts of California, the valley too was influenced by xenophobic policies to deport immigrant groups such as Mexicans soon also shifted their views to the migrants. The scarcity of jobs caused tensions and hatred towards the migrants that even public libraries in Kern County banned The Grapes of Wrath.
The New Deal alleviated many of the valley’s problems when it came into effect, public works stimulated the economy and also diversified the valley’s agriculture dominated economy. The programs also helped with the humanitarian crisis by employing them to cleaner working conditions, which also diffused the tensions with the locals worried about job scarcity. The government programs built up camps throughout the valley to house migrant families that worked as farm laborers. Even though the counties in the valley were reluctant to increase spending to accommodate the migrants, the federal governments hand in this helped circumvent this.
The New Deal also went beyond economic stimulation by building up the valley with many projects involving infrastructure. In Kern County, the programs built East Bakersfield High School, the Central Fire Station, and buildings in Bakersfield High School. The programs gave the county lots of money to make the projects possible, with the fire station costing $120,000 in that time. The dams and levees built in the valley also heavily benefited the agriculture industry by improving their irrigation systems. Like everywhere else in the country, the programs also built roads where otherwise the valley would have been left with many impassible roads.
The programs also tackled low agricultural prices, generally by subsidizing farmers to not grow and even destroy their surplus. The government encouraged the agriculture industry to form market cooperatives to regulate the flow of food production with the goal of increasing prices. These programs allowed production to be cut back for the long term good, while reducing the short term impact of not harvesting crops. The government created monopoly would inflate the prices in hopes that it would also later increase the demand for farm laborers. Ultimately, the programs would prevent people dependent on agriculture from being punished by changing demands for their goods.
Social security programs also benefited the valley by providing economic aid to those in the valley who were too old in the valley and could not work. The benefits were also extended to hundreds of widows of social security beneficiaries in one instance in California, with an office located in Bakersfield to help with the process. The benefits allowed older people to retire, freeing up the supply in the workforce and further stimulating the valley economy with the money they received. The overall program provided families with safety nets to be able to support their elderly family members and children if a beneficiary died.
The opinions during the implementation of New Deal programs widely varied in the valley, and was seen as either a huge success or failure. A candidate for a Bakersfield city ward campaigned in favor of the levees being built arguing the costs were justified as it would prevent damage and loss of life from future floods. Meanwhile, some prominent valley business owners were against the increased spending, blaming the aide for attracting migrants into the valley, and further causing economic damage. Others claimed that certain policies were passed to hurt businesses that were not cooperating with the policies of the New Deal. Criticisms of how people thought the New Deal was only teaching people to survive on borrowed money were often brought up in opinion sections of valley newspapers.
Into the transition period into the Second World War, the country saw even bigger spending and stimulus, which resulted on policies similar to the New Deal on a wider scale. Despite most of the spending being on the industrial sector, the war also had a huge demand for agriculture to feed the armies overseas, which heavily benefited agricultural areas like the San Joaquin Valley. The larger unrestricted spending the war brought in, effectively brought most people out of unemployment, and kick started the economy back on track. The huge demand for labor actually resulted in a labor shortage that the valley and California in general had to use migrant labor to make up for it. The Second World War brought spending, which spent much more than New Deal policies confirmed these ideas to Keynesian economists when the country saw more government spending on a wider scale having a huge stimulus to the economy.
Despite the differences in opinion on the success of the overall New Deal, most scholars recognize that it had far-reaching impacts that shaped future American economic policy.

Most acknowledge its affects having lasted even decades after New Deals projects happened. Some of the succeeding socials programs that were implemented in the following decades were inspired by New Deal era social programs. Even though some critics argue that the New Deal was a critical failure, and that only the war brought the country out of the Depression, proponents justify New Deal spending by pointing out the war did the same, but on a more massive

scale.
The impacts of the projects had far-reaching effects, ranging from recovering the valley’s economic output to pre-depression levels to saving hundreds of thousands of lives in the years after they were finished. The first levees constructed by public works programs in Kern County alone are estimated to protect about 400,000 lives today from flooding. The levees also have had long term economic value in which it had saved the county money from the damage the floodings would have caused. The projects also helped modernize the valley with projects such as the airport hangar built at the Kern County Airport, which was described to be as” One of the finest and largest of its type on the Coast." Further examples of modernizations made thanks to the public works programs in Kern alone include the construction of sewer systems in Arvin and Tehachapi. Thanks to the programs, the construction of the previous mentioned projects and much more were made possible because the funding of millions of dollars at that time would have been very unlikely in any other time or situation.
Before the New Deal, the valley was stricken with the Great Depression, and a humanitarian crisis with southwestern migrants flooding the state in hope of jobs.

The eventual implementation of New Deal programs economically stimulated the valley and reversed falling agricultural prices, which resulted in more jobs diffusing social tensions with migrants over competition with jobs. The stimulus also included public work projects in the valley that built up infrastructure that had long term benefits such flood prevention, improved irrigation systems, and better roads, which resulted in improved economic output for the following decades. The short term effects also diversified the demand in labor needed for these projects, further alleviating the excess the flood of laborers that originally came for agriculture related jobs. The overall New Deal heavily benefited the valley, and discredited hands off approaches to the economy by fixing agricultural surpluses with a lesser impact on those who were living off that type of

work.