Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Birth-Death: (1882 - 1945 ) Term: (1933-1945 )

President Roosevelt brought the New Deal to America when it was facing the Great Depression. Relief, Recovery, and Reform were the three points he emphasized, and for the duration of his New Deal, the depression improved. However, the improvement was only temporary and sustained itself upon goverment expediture.

Domestic Events of Franklin Roosevelt

    Franklin Roosevelt was elected on a "stop the depression" campaign. He promised the people a "New Deal." He said that the main concern of the American government was to see that no American starved. The Democratic platform pledged a repeal of prohibition, a downward revision of the tariff, aid to farmers, and stock exchange reforms to prevent fraud. He was elected over Hoover by a very wide margin (472:59 electoral votes). The Democrats also received huge majorities in both the House and the Senate.

    When Roosevelt was elected, he was seen as a leader to guide the nation out of the depression. Thus, his first few reforms passed with little debate and were immediately signed. The day after his inauguration the President called Congress into a special session and soon passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act. The act declared a short bank holiday. This stopped the actions of all banks, including the Federal Reserve System. Each of the banks would be checked individually and reopened when it was declared sound.

    In continuing the fight against the depression, Congress passed the Federal Securities Act in 1933. This law reformed the security exchange. From that point on, all securities put up for sale had to be accompanied with full veritable information about the company. The Securities and Exchange Commission took over the supervising job from the Federal Trade Commission in 1934.

    In 1933, the United States abandoned the gold standard; all contracts calling for payment in pure gold were marked void. A few months later, the Stegall Act was passed. Together with the Banking Act of 1935, these two laws gave more power to the Federal Reserve Board and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured all of the deposits in the banks.

    While solving the financial crisis, Roosevelt also fought unemployment, agriculture problems, and recovered businesses. In order to deal with unemployment, the Works Progress Administration was set up in 1935. It was then further subdivided into the National Youth Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration. The workers of the PWA built public schools, painted beautiful pictures, composed music, etc. The Public Works Administration recruited people of all different professions. Its main goal was to put money into the nation's economy.

    The Civilian Conservation Corps was also designed to put money into the economy of the nation. It tackled the program of unemployment among the youth. CCC camps were setup all over the country, especially in national forests and parks. The workers were paid $30 a month, of which $22 was sent home to parents, so that it could be spent and promote business. In the meantime the workers preserved and improved the "great outdoors."

    The National Youth Administration was set up three years after the CCC and helped those between the ages of 16 and 25 who wanted to continue their education. It set people up with part time jobs, such as typists and secretaries. Overall, about 8.5 million people were employed under the WPA, costing the government a total of about $11 billion.

    One of the main problems that caused the Depression was the plight of the farmer. There was massive overproduction of grain, and with Europe being peaceful, little grain was exported. Thus the price fell and the farmers were left with little income. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 paid farmers to plow their fields over. The money for this came from a special tax imposed on all agricultural business transactions. With the help of severe droughts, the AAA worked very well in cutting back production. However, in 1935 it was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. v. Butler decision on the grounds that the kind of tax levied on the buyers was a head tax and was thus unconstitutional.

    The next goal was to revive the business aspect of the economy. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was passed in 1933. Its was designed to restore businesses by enforcing fair trade codes. In reality these codes encouraged monopoly as there was almost no way that small companies could keep up with them. The blue eagle, the symbol of the NIRA, appeared everywhere, until 1935 when the Schechter v. U.S. case it was declared unconstitutional because it tried to control intrastate commerce, a power reserved to the states.

    The NIRA and the AAA were the two pillars on which Roosevelt's new deal was based, however both of them were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Roosevelt was furious with the court decisions and referred to the judges as the Nine Old Men. His plan was to increase the number of justices to fifteen, so he would have the chance to appoint six more justices and liberalize the court. However, Congress recognized the unconstitutionality of this and the true motives behind his actions, and refused to pass any legislation approving it. In the end, however, Roosevelt still won the battle for during the next four years seven judges resigned and he was able to appoint seven new justices.

    Although Roosevelt's programs definitely helped the Depression, it was not effectively solved until the businesses reorganized for the war in 1941, and the economy became a war economy.