FDR Flashcards
Anthony Badger - The New Deal - The Depression Years
What are some of the historiographical challenges of the New Deal?
- Tendency to focus on denigration/ support rather than explanation
- That being said, most concede that Roosevelt appeared to be a substantial break with the past
- 1960s NL radical historians - ND did not go far enough (in face of poverty + racism)
- Paul Conkin - a series of ‘what might have beens’
- Rebuke - ND had to operate in the confines of persistent conservative strength and inhibiting localism.
- 1970s - rejection of the economic model of ND - exacerbated social problems
Anthony Badger - The New Deal - The Depression Years
Badger’s position on the coherency of the New Deal
Little ideological coherence - “Roosevelt had a flypaper mind that could assimilate contradictory ideas in a way that was logically inconsistent but politically feasible”
Anthony Badger - The New Deal - The Depression Years
Who rejected Roosevelt?
- Businessmen
- Seen as traitor to his class
- Against government controls, led nation to war through the back door, secretly sold out Europe
Anthony Badger - The New Deal - The Depression Years
Which projects did Roosevelt have a direct hand in creating?
- Civilian Conservation Corps - young urban unemployed into forestry
- Shelterbelt project - millions of trees planted to act as a windbreak for the Great Plains
- Lack of interest in low-cost urban housing impotant to a belated and inadequate programme
Anthony Badger - The New Deal - The Depression Years
Badger’s thesis
- the New Deal represented a sharp break with the past, impact was precisely circumscribed, constrained by forces out of the control of NDs, end of the ND was a holding operation for American society, life mainly improved with WWII
Anthony Badger
What was the initial political reaction to the GD in 1929 by the electorate?
- Election of colourful demagogues who condemned ‘fat cats’ but offered conservative fiscal policy
- William ‘Alfalfa Bill’ Murray - prepared to use national guard to stop over-production of oil - but hostile to unemployment relief.
Anthony Badger
1933 - Mississippi - what was taught to be the 6 pressing national issues (in order of importance?)
- Drink
- Illicit sex
- Gambling
- Narcotics
- Pornography
- (finally) poverty
Anthony Badger
Describe the situation which saw Roosevelt’s election
- Won only narrowly
- The alternative to FDR was to the right of the party
Anthony Badger
Key members of the Brains Trust
- Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle Jr
- Moment of glory in 1932-33 - laid out many of the ideas which would form the ND - but once launched, members played a peripheral role.
- Moley was ubiquitous in the interregnum, the banking crisis and the 100 days, but not much thereafter
Anthony Badger
Arguments of Brains Trust
- National, not international, economy was the source of trouble - national economy not sound, as Hoover suggested
- Ergo, conventional solutions would be inadequate
3Rs of the ND?
Relief, Recovery, Reform
How did the ND trigger a political realignment?
- Democrats became majority - holding 7/9 presidential terms from 1933-1969 - centred on liberal ideals
- Republicans split - with cons. rejecting ND
What stymied the second ND?
Loss of control of Congress - due to bipartisan conservative alliance in Congress
(Many historians distinguish between a ‘First New Deal’ (1933-4) and a ‘Second New Deal’ (1935-38), with the second more liberal and controversial.)
How did Roosevelt approach the challenges of the Banking Crisis?
dealt with pressing banking crises through the Emergency Banking Act and the 1933 Banking Act. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave $500 mill for relief operations by states and cities, while short-lived Civil Works Administration gave localities money to operate make-work projects in 1933-34. Securities Act of 1933 enacted to prevent a repeated stock market crash.
What did the National Recovery Act attempt to do, why was it rejected?
- Designed to eliminate cut-throat competition - by bringing industry, labor and gov together to create codes of ‘fair practices’ and set prices.
- Created by the National Industrial Recovery Act- rite ‘codes of fair competition’ – intended to reduce ‘destructive competition’ and help workers by setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as min prices at which products could be sold.
- 1935 - declared unconstitutional - stops quickly, but TSE subsumed by the National Labour Relations Act (Wagner Act)
Describe the Wagner Act, WPA and SSA
- Wagner Act - promotion of Labour unions
- Works Progress Admin - Fed government becomes single largest employer in nation
- Social Security Act - “An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation law”
What encouraged major republican gains in 1937-8?
- Roosevelt recession
- Split of the AFL and CIO
What happened with the Agricultural Assistance Act?
Declared unconstitutional, however was re-written and upheld.
AAA - reduced agricultural production by paying farmers subsides not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock – to raise value of crops. Money for these subsidies raised through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products.
New agency - Agricultural Adjustment Admin to oversee distribution of subsidies.
Seen as unconstitutional for levying tax on processors only to have it paid back to farmers – regulation of agriculture deemed a state, not federal, power.
Eisenhower’s treatment of ND?
Left ND largely intact, expanding in some areas.
LBJ attempted to use ND ethos to empower Great Society
Undermined ultimately post-1974, with the call for deregulation
ND banking regulation (Glass-Steagall Act) overturned in 1990s
David Kennedy - Freedom from Fear
Rural/urban split?
44% pop. still rural - “Well over half the states of the Union remained preponderantly rural in population, economy, political representation and ways of life”.
- both urban and rural had expanded, but at different rates – while farmers brought 50% more product to market in 1930 than 1900, manufacturing output 400%
When did concerns over banking arise?
1927 - Speculative buying, failure of Federal Reserve System to tighten credit. Initial response to the crash - . Speculative buying, failure of Federal Reserve System to tighten credit.
1933 - Abandonded Gold Standard
Roosevelt’s response to the crisis of 1937?
Rather than NRA/ devaluation tactics, adopted an experimental program of conscious ‘pump priming’, which used gov spending to prop up the econ (foreshadowing of Keynesian policies after WWII)
How, according to Kennedy, was FDR a success?
“… what stands out is the novel type of political coalition that Roosevelt built…. A new [bloc of] capital-intensive industries, investment banks, and internationally oriented commercial banks. This new kind of power bloc constitutes the basis of the New Deal’s great and, in world history, utterly unique achievement: its ability to accommodate millions of mobilized workers amid world depression”
Kennedy: Who influenced the economic decisions made towards banks in 1933?
What occurred through the Glass-Steagall Act?
Advisors from major banks - such as Edward House - who promoted investigation of JP Morgan.
Glass-Steagall Act – by separating investment from commercial banking, the measure destroyed the unity of these who functions whose combination had been the basis of Morgan hegemony in American finance, also opened the way to a financial structure crowned by a giant bank with special ties to capital-intensive industry – oil
Michael Bernstein - Why the GD was Great
When did unemployment reach pre-GD averages?
not until outbreak of WWII that industrial production reached precrash peak levels and unemployment rate fell below decennial (ten year) average of 18%.
Bernstein
Why did the war bring about economic recovery?
problem of delayed recovery/difficulties of reordering industrial structure in 30s quickly overcome by WWII – 1) mature industries brought out of their stagnations for war effort 2) new industries pulled along by gov orders, both due to their addition to general economic activity increase and demands on sectors such as petroleum, chem, electronics and aviation.
Alan Brinkley - The New Deal and the Idea of the State
ND caused confusion - no basic principle - first four years of Roose admin, went in many directions – Richard Hofstadter called it “a chaos of experimentation,” and being bereft of ideologies – author argues that ND actually had many ideologies, but what it lacked was a single principle to bind its many diverse initiatives together.
Brinkley - how did the 1937 push towards balanced budgets reconcile with notions of public expenditure?
Roose justified spending as a way of bringing whole econ back to health by increasing general purchasing power (vs earlier years, when only targeted spending to specific areas during Dep) – spending no longer seen as evil, ushering in a new era of gov fiscal policy
John Jeffries - A Third New Deal?
When did the third new deal start in the opinion of jefferies?
Third phase in 1937
1st: NRA and AAA - national planning and coordination attempts
2nd: Wagner, SSA, tax reform - politicised and reformist programmes
3rd: Turn to compensatory state of Keynesian fiscal policy - expansion of social welfare. Marked by powerful constraints on reform.
John Jeffries
What were the motions which particularly concerned the republicans?
- Court-Packing Bill 1937
- Purge Attempt 1938 - (Activity in the House and Senate to remove southern democrats opposed to the New Deal)
- Executive Reorganisation Act 1939 - 1. President to hire six assistants to coordinate management of the federal government. 2. Reorganisation of the executive branch - within certain limits. (Creation of the Executive Office of the President)
The powerful apparatus of the state was not accomplished
What has the third new deal been described as?
- Barry D. Karl thus must refer to the “abortive” Third New Deal
What did emerge in the late New Deal was something different— not the powerful administrative state but instead the compensatory state of fiscal policy to achieve abundance and ensure security in a mixed economy.
What grander ambition in terms of social welfare was not achieved?
Security, Work, and Relief Policies, which advocated much larger social insurance, public assistance and public works programs – started work on 1939 and issued 1943
What did Ira Katznelson and Bruce Pietrykowski argue about the Southern Democrat position on spending?
southern Democrats supported spending but opposed the more intrusive administrative approach, especially because of the potential for interfering with southern racial norms.
What did Skocpol and Weir argue about the nature of rural support in the ND?
It was increasingly neglected as the ND focused moreso on urban issues.
Why did Congress slow the pace of reforms?
Congress, increasingly jealous of its power and prerogatives as the executive branch grew in size, scope, and ambition in the 1930s, acted for institutional as well as ideological reasons as a brake on the New Deal
How did entrenched agencies defend themselves?
the Department of Agriculture, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Veterans’ Administration, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
- Rejected expansionist policies which would have brought them into the firing line of conservatives.
