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What did the choice of Hoover vs. Roosevelt represent to voters?
Prior to becoming president in 1929, Herbert Hoover had earned a reputation for being a highly intelligent and successful engineer and public servant as well as an innovative problem solver. But when the Great Depression quickly followed the October 1929 Wall Street Stock Market Crash, Hoover’s positive reputation almost instantly vanished. Deeply conservative by nature, Hoover steadfastly refused to provide any direct assistance to Americans devasted by the effects of the Depression.
By the time Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, most Americans believed he was the only person who could save the economy. As governor of New York, he had successfully used Keynesian-style deficit spending to inject money into the economy and reduce the devastating impacts of the depression. He had also had some success initiating long-term reforms in New York. But perhaps Roosevelt’s greatest advantage over the stern-looking incumbent in 1932 might have been his optimistic and upbeat presence. Compared to the conservative and aloof Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt seemed like a godsend to American voters.
What distinguished the First New Deal from Second New Deal?
Even though the First New Deal (1933–1934) and the Second New Deal (1935–1938) were both part of Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to reinvigorate the economy with Keynesian-style federal deficit spending, the two bundles of legislation can be characterized differently. Legislation in the First New Deal provided benefit to the bankrupt states and directly to the people with its primary goal being to provide immediate relief from some of the most devastating effects of the Great Depression. However, the First New Deal also contained some legislation focused on long-term economic reform.
The Second New Deal legislation passed starting in 1935 was more focused reforming the economy and prevent future depressions. As a result of these differences in intent, the First New Deal had the more immediate effect on the U.S. economy of the two phases, while the Second New Deal had much greater significance after the Great Depression.
What relief legislation was passed in Roosevelt’s First Hundred Days?
Most of the legislation passed during Roosevelt’s First Hundred Days was intended to help the poorest Americans, to whom Herbert Hoover’s administration had refused to give assistance. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration, for example, distributed over half a billion dollars in grants (rather than loans) to the individual state governments and directly to the people.
The Civilian Conservation Corps, Civil Works Administration, and Public Works Administration were also established to give jobs to the unemployed and improve the national infrastructure. The first Agricultural Adjustment Administration provided subsidies to farmers to cut crop production and artificially raise the price of agricultural goods. These programs had an enormous impact on those Americans who needed immediate relief the most. On the other hand, benefits from these “alphabet agencies” were all short-term benefits. The agencies distributed money to those who needed it but were not designed to cure the depression at the source.
What reform legislation was passed in Roosevelt’s First New Deal?
Although the First New Deal was focused on emergency short-term relief to Americans devasted by the effects of the Great Depression, there was also some reform-focused legislation that was proposed by Roosevelt and passed by Congress in 1933 and 1934. The impact of the reformed-oriented agencies created by this legislation had an immense impact on American society has continued to the present day. The best known of these are the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
What reform legislation was passed during Second New Deal?
Much of the legislation passed in the Second New Deal attempted to reform the system to prevent another catastrophic depression from occurring in the future. The Social Security Act of 1935 was arguably the most important of these, as it created a federal pension system funded by employers and taxpayers to keep the disabled and retired workers from becoming destitute. The Wagner Act and Fair Labor Standards Act altered the power imbalance between big business and labor by recognizing workers’ right to bargain collectively and by establishing a minimum wage and 40-hour workweek in select industries. These new laws gave a boost to blossoming labor organizations such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
What relief legislation was passed during Second New Deal?
While the Second New Deal legislation focused on reform, starting in 1935 Roosevelt and Congress also created several new relief organizations, such as the Works Progress Administration and the United States Housing Authority, in response to criticism that the First New Deal had not helped Americans enough.
Why were the Republicans so soundly defeated in 1936?
By the time of the 1936 election, Roosevelt had delivered on his promises from 1932 in many ways and thus earned the solid support of the American people. During his First Hundred Days in office, he put the nation’s banks back on solid footing and created a variety of new agencies such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, Public Works Administration, and Federal Emergency Relief Administration to dole out jobs and money. He also reformed Wall Street and propped up American agriculture. His Second New Deal initiatives were also so popular that he received all but eight electoral votes in the presidential election of 1936—winning 46 of 48 states.
What was Roosevelt’s “court packing” plan?
During his first term, Roosevelt had numerous legislative successes that delivered both short-term relief to the American people and long-term reforms to the American system. These successes were crowned by huge wins for Roosevelt and Congressional Democrats in the 1936 elections. Institutionally, however, Roosevelt was increasingly being held back by a rigid and deeply conservative U.S. Supreme Court that was dominated by conservative Republican justices opposed to the New Deal. After the Court ruled various New Deal acts unconstitutional, Roosevelt decided to take a highly controversial step that proved unpopular—not just with Republicans, but among many of the president’s supporters.
In early 1937, Roosevelt asked Congress to grant him the power to add as many as six additional justices to the Supreme Court and to force all justices over the age of 70 to retire. This action stunned Congress, which flatly rejected the request as an infringement on the separation of powers. The sound defeat of Roosevelt’s court plan marked a low point for Roosevelt, but one from which he would recover. The Democrats lost seats in the 1938 Congressional elections, but Roosevelt was easily reelected to an unprecedented third term in 1940. It’s also notable that Roosevelt’s relationship with the Supreme Court markedly improved after the court packing debacle. Acts that might have been ruled unconstitutional earlier were now passing muster with the Court. Moreover, old guard Republican justices who had been blocking his legislation began to retire and were replaced by Roosevelt’s appointees.
Why did the New Deal lose steam in 1938 and 1939?
Soon after his court packing defeat, Roosevelt made an additional mistake. Believing that New Deal reforms had already fundamentally changed the American economic picture (and perhaps even wanting to appease his critics), he reduced the amount of federal dollars being pumped into the economy. His hopes that the government had already injected enough money into the economy for it to right itself proved mistaken, as the stock market went into retreat again and unemployed spiked in what some called the “Roosevelt Recession.”
As a result of these missteps, many Congressional Democrats were defeated in the midterm elections of 1938. While holding onto majorities in both houses, the 1938 election effectively ending any chance of passing additional sweeping New Deal legislation. However, with Europe once again heading into war, government spending would soon gear up to unprecedented levels, rebooting the US economy once again.
Was the Roosevelt’s New Deal a success or a failure?
Negative appraisals of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal admit that it provided relief to millions of Americans but take issue with the fact that it was not the New Deal, but rather the new world war that ended the Great Depression once and for all. The New Deal was simply not enough to cure the economy of all its maladies, they say. This is a short-sighted analysis, however.
Roosevelt’s critics (then and now) tend to downplay that the New Deal was highly successful in achieving the goal of providing immediate relief to millions of hungry, homeless, and jobless Americans. But his defnenders answer this by pointing out that focusing on the New Deal’s long-term record ignores the fact that people don’t eat in the long term—they eat every day. Supporters also remind Roosevelt’s critics that he did actually put in place many longer-term economic reforms that have benefited (some even say saved) the capitalistic system that Roosevelt’s harshest critics claimed he was assailing.
