Opposition to the New Deal Flashcards
Describe the sustainability of the New Deal:
When Roosevelt took money away from alphabet schemes unemployment rose, didn’t make any long-term systemic changes
When was the second New Deal?
1935-1936 = 2-3 yrs after 1st new deal
What was Roosevelt’s response to the Supreme Court challenging the New Deal?
Roosevelt’s response was to start 2nd phase
What were all the new agencies from the Second New Deal?
- The Resettlement Administration (RA)
- The Social Security Act
- Works Progress Administration (WPA)
- Security Farm Administration Project
The Resettlement Administration (RA):
- Helped smallholders and tenant farmers who weren’t helped by AAA
- Moved 500,000+ families to better quality land and new housing
The Social Security Act:
- Provided state pensions for elderly and widows
- Allowed state gov to work with federal gov to help disabled
- Set up scheme for unemployment insurance
- -> Meant employers and workers made small contributions to fund each week
- Unemployed workers – received benefits until employed
Works Progress Administration (WPA):
- Brought together all the organisations with the aim to create jobs
- Extended work beyond building jobs, creating jobs for office workers, actors, artists and photographers
The New deals’ Security Farm Administration Project
-Project took 80,000 photos of farming areas during New Deal = jobs + money
What were the 3 Types of Opposition to the New Deal?
- “The New Deal isn’t doing enough!”
- “The New Deal is doing too much!”
- Opposition from the Supreme Court
- “The New Deal isn’t doing enough!”:
- Socialists, communists etc.
- High-profile complaints made the New Deal wasn’t doing enough to help the poor
- Hardest hit were black Americans in poor farming areas
Who was a key figure arguing on behalf of people that thought the New Deal wasn’t doing enough?
Huey Long
When did Huey Long become Governor of Louisiana?
1928
When did Huey Long become a senator?
1932
Huey Long’s Methods of Gaining Power:
= unusual and sometimes illegal e.g. bribery and intimidation
What did Huey Long do?
- Relentlessly taxed big businesses in Louisiana and used money to build roads, schools, hospitals
- Employed black people on same terms as white people – clashed with KKK
Huey Long’s opinion on the New Deal:
Supported New Deal at first but by 1934 was scrutinising it for being too complicated and not doing enough
What scheme did Huey Long put forward?
“Share our Wealth” – maximum fortune = $3 mil, max income per yr = $1 mil, gov taxes shared between all Americans
What did Huey Long propose?
pension for everyone 60+, free washing machines and radios
Characteristics of Huey Long:
Aggressive forceful character with many friends and enemies
What did Roosevelt regard Huey Long as?
as one of the two most dangerous men in USA until Long was assassinated in 1935
What did Dr Francis Townsend do?
founded a number of Townsend Clubs to campaign for a pension of $200 per month for people 60+, providing that they spent it that month stimulating the economy
What did Dr Francis Townsend set up?
- Set up National Union for Social Justice – had large membership
- By early 1940s, movement had faded in importance
- “The New Deal is doing too much!”:
New Deal quickly came under fire from sections of the business community and from Republicans for doing too much
What was the long list or criticisms people who thought “The New Deal was doing too much!” had?
- New Deal was too complicated and there were too many codes and regulations
- Gov should not support trade unions and it should support calls for higher wages – market should deal with these issues
- Schemes such as TNA created unfair competition for private companies
- New Deal schemes were like the economic plan being carried out in the communist USSR and unsuitable for the democratic, free-market USA
- Roosevelt was behaving like a dictator
- Wealthy were wealth because they had worked hard and used their abilities – high taxes discouraged people from working hard and gave money to people doing nothing or unnecessary jobs
How did Roosevelt feel about the criticisms and tactics used against him by big businesses and Republicans
- upset
- turned on these enemies bitterly
Tactics used against Roosevelt by big businesses and Republicans:
o Used smear campaign against him
o Said he was disabled because of a sexually transmitted disease instead of polio
-Employers put messages in their workers’ pay pockets saying that the New Deal schemes would never take place
Result of 1936 election:
- Roosevelt won 27 mil votes – highest margin of victory ever achieved by a US president
- Joked triumphantly – “Everyone is against the New Deal except the voters.”
- Opposition from the Supreme Court:
- Roosevelt’s problems not over with 1936 election
- Now faced most powerful opponent of New Deal – American Supreme Court
What was the Supreme Court dominated with?
by Republicans who opposed New Deal
What strange case came before the Supreme Court in May 1935?
- Schecter Poultry Corporation found guilty of breaking NRA regulations:
- -> sold diseased chickens for human consumption
- -> filed false sales claims (to make company worth more)
- -> exploited workers
- -> threatened gov inspectors
What did the Schecter Poultry Corporation do?
- Appealed to Supreme Court
- Court ruled that gov had no right to prosecute company because NRA was unconstituitional – undermined too much of power of local states
What was Roosevelt’s reaction to the result of the Schecter Poultry Corporation case?
- Roosevelt angry a group of old Republicans should deny democracy by throwing out laws that he had been elected to pass
- -> asked Congress to give him power to appoint 6 more Supreme Court judged who were more empathetic to New Deal
- -> Roosevelt had misjudged mood of American public
- -> alarmed at Roosevelt for attacking American system of gov
- -> had to back down – plan rejected
- -> his actions not completely pointless – Supreme Court shaken by his actions + less obstructive in future
