Was Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal actually "New"?

Transcription

1 Was Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal actually "New"? NEW DEAL Viewpoint: Yes, the New Deal represented a fundamental break with the past because it paid attention to people previously ignored in the political process. Viewpoint: No, the New Deal was a continuation of earlier government policies, mainly intended to preserve the capitalist system. The beginning of every presidential administration is now measured against the first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term. Roosevelt, faced with the gravest national emergency since the Civil War, asked to be given the same broad executive powers he would have if the country were at war, called Congress into special session, and within three months his administration proposed, and Congress passed, laws that transformed the relationship between the U.S. government and the American people. The National Industrial Recovery Act, Agricultural Adjustment Act, Glass-Steagall Banking Act, Coinage Act, Truth in Securities Act, and the creation of executive agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, Civilian Conservation Corps, Civil Works Administration, Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Home Owners Loan Corporation, and Farm Credit Administration were all born in the initial one hundred days of Roosevelt's first term. Any other administration would regard the passage of one of these laws, the creation of one agency, as a major accomplishment. In 1935, still faced with the Great Depression, Roosevelt went further and in the Second New Deal brought into existence the Social Security Act, Works Progress Administration, and Wagner Act (creating the National Labor Relations Board). The federal government had a new and direct relationship with the American people. Or did it? In these two essays, Robert J. Allison and Christopher W. Schmidt discuss the "newness" of the New Deal. Was it a revolutionary departure, or was it a more modest shift in policy? Did these programs produce radical change, or did they prevent radical change? Scholars will argue these points, and citizens have continued to contest Roosevelt's legacy. The continuing debate over the New Deal is one mark of the impact Roosevelt had on American society. 147

2 Viewpoint: Yes, the New Deal represented a fundamental break with the past because it paid attention to people previously ignored in the political process. Politics in the late twentieth century tended to cloud the innovative, and even revolutionary, nature of the New Deal. As politicians argued about what to do with "big government" and the "welfare state," their actual existence was little questioned. What was both criticized and lauded had already been firmly established in all levels of society, yet this development was relatively modern. It is important to separate oneself from the influences of contemporary debate to fully appreciate history, as when considering the national situation in 1933 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, and to understand the real sense of fear in the country, as well as the hope that went into the pathbreaking reforms and ambitious challenges to tradition that were pioneered by countless people. Although it would be an oversimplification to date the birth of modern federal government to the 1930s, certainly this decade gave a distinct shape and direction to later historical developments and, more than any other single period in American history, indicated the direction of American government and society. One difficulty in assessing the "newness" of the New Deal is defining the program itself. Historians have often expanded the parameters of this term beyond its quite specific original agenda for reforms to be carried out from 1933 until roughly 1938 to encompass societal developments that went well beyond the confines of federal legislation. The New Deal was primarily an era of distinct political reforms, yet with an important impact on larger reforms in American society. It pioneered a new stage of American history, characterized by the transformation of the relation of the federal government to its citizens. The distance between the people and their elected officials, between society and government, was deeply and irreversibly altered during the 1930s. Just as Roosevelt used the radio for his "fireside chats" to reach out to millions of American homes, the federal government for the first time became directly involved in the lives of its citizens. Although the transformations of the New Deal might have their clearest articulation in the policies and institutional changes of Roosevelt's administration, they reverberated throughout all levels of society. The New Deal was spawned by the Great Depression, an economic crisis unlike any the nation, or the world, had experienced. Although the American economy had gone through alternating periods of growth and recession throughout its history, the scale of this depression, which lasted from 1929 to the beginning of World War II, was unprecedented. America was in despair as deflation overran the nation, production fell, and unemployment rose. People feared losing their life savings, which led to runs on banks, causing thousands of them to fail. The combined forces of depression and a severe drought in the Midwest forced nearly a third of American farmers to give up their lands. Roosevelt's 1932 campaign promise of "a new deal for the American people" offered hope to a desperate population. There were major weaknesses and limitations of Roosevelt's New Deal that are often used as evidence to discount its innovative aspects. Two points in particular emphasize the shortcomings of the New Deal: first, it did not end the Great Depression (the national economic investment and mobilization during World War II accomplished this end); and second, it had no coherent philosophy. While both points certainly indicate potential deficiencies of the New Deal, neither necessarily question the innovative qualities of Roosevelt's policies. True, his measures were not equal to the challenges of the Great Depression, but it would be difficult to imagine an economic policy that could have scaled this mountain. More importantly, Roosevelt was willing to act. He might be criticized for not going far enough, but compared to the relative unwillingness of his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, to make even the appearance of bold action, Roosevelt's forays into social democracy were rightly perceived as groundbreaking. The striking words of his inaugural address clearly indicate the extremity of the situation. Roosevelt declared that if Congress failed to go along with his policies for recovery, he would "ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency." Within this rhetoric, within the flurry of activity emanating from Roosevelt, there was little in the way of a clearly articulated philosophy of the New Deal other than to do whatever was necessary to end the depression. Richard Hofstadter captured this point in his classic The American Political Tradition and. the Men Who Made It (1948), when he wrote that the heart of the New Deal was more a "temperament" than a philosophy. This temperament was one of action, energy, and experimentation. In this situation coherence might have been a hindrance. "During his presidential period the nation was confronted with a completely novel situation from which the traditional, commonly accepted philosophies afforded no guide," Hof- 148 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS

3 stadter noted. "An era of fumbling and muddling-through was inevitable." The lack of a unified agenda might frustrate analysts of the New Deal, but it does not take away from the boldness of its innovations. One of the best examples of the willingness of the New Deal government to break from its largely noninterventionist orientation toward its citizens was the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933, an unprecedented experiment in publicly controlled regional planning. The TVA supervised the construction of a system of dams and power plants that provided electricity to rural areas in seven states along the Tennessee River. It also produced fertilizers, as well as implemented programs for soil conservation and reforestation. This type of government ownership of public services had been favored by the Progressive reformers of the previous generation, and public development in the Tennessee Valley had its origins in World War I, but it was only the Great Depression and the atmosphere of the New Deal that could implement an operation on the scale of the TVA. Focused in an area that had been economically stagnant since the Civil War, this program directly affected millions of struggling people whose quality of life improved with the introduction of electric power and more-efficient farming techniques. It is interesting to note that as significant as the accomplishments of the TVA were, Roosevelt's vision of the potential for such government intervention was even larger he saw this as the first step in a nationwide system of public corporations that would revitalize rural areas. Although these ambitions fell victim to practicality and the constraints imposed by a nation with a powerful aversion to public ownership of means of production (conservatives launched a concerted attack on the TVA), these goals only emphasized the pathbreaking nature of the program. The New Deal also initiated a new era of labor relations. First with Section 7a of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and then with the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (known as the Wagner Act), the federal government gave unprecedented levels of support to unions. Section 7a marked a dramatic break from tradition by explicitly recognizing the right of industrial workers to form unions. Despite the government's inability to adequately enforce it and the willingness of many industrialists to ignore it, Section 7a inspired a major unionization movement. Following the Supreme Court's 1935 ruling that the NIRA was unconstitutional, Congress passed the Wagner Act, which renewed the right for workers to form unions and put an enforcement mechanism, the National Labor Relations Board, behind the government's labor policies. Roosevelt, as with many New Dealers, had a mixed record with labor relations. Yet, despite what David M. Kennedy, in Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and, War, (1999), characterized as Roosevelt's "patronizing" attitude toward workers, the newfound willingness of the federal government to even consider putting its power behind the efforts of workers as opposed to factory owners was one of the New Deal's most significant breaks with the past. One of the most important results of the surge in this union activism was the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Partly a result of the assertion of the right to collective bargaining of Section 7a, there was a wave of growing militancy among labor that splintered the previously dominant American Federation of Labor (AFL). The CIO welcomed unskilled workers the AFL had shunned and was based on the principle of "industrial unionism," in which workers were organized according to their industry (for example, all those workers in the auto or steel factories) rather than by craft. In its effort to bring together unskilled workers, the CIO also welcomed women and minorities as well as expanded its efforts to areas previously ignored by labor leaders, such as textile factories. The drive for unionization had important implications for much of American society. As Lizabeth Cohen described in her study of Chicago workers, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, (1990), the organizing efforts of the 1930s helped create a new identity for laborers who, through exposure to national institutions such as the CIO and the Democratic Party, broke from the insularity of their ethnic and racial neighborhoods that had defined the previous generation to become a part of American mass culture. Although it would be a mistake to attribute too much credit to Section 7a and the Wagner Act for labor activity during the New Deal era, these measures had an important impact on creating an environment of federal support that helped fuel this movement. Like the TVA and the labor acts, the Social Security Act of 1935 marked a clear departure in government policy. This act, more than any other, marked the birth of the welfare state, and it is the program probably most often associated with the New Deal. In a country that revolved around an ethos of individualism and volunteerism, a government system that provided support for the elderly, unemployment insurance, aid to disabled people, and a program of aid to dependent children was a step into unexplored territory for America. Some of the groundwork for such a break in tradition was put down by previous New Deal relief measures: the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), created in HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT Op PROGRESS 149

4 Image not available for copyright reasons 1933 to distribute relief to the unemployed; the Public Works Administration (PWA), created in 1933 to generate new jobs for the jobless; and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), passed early in 1935 as a more ambitious attempt at work relief. Proponents of the Social Security Act did much to sell the act as being in line with American individualism it was not a "welfare" program but an "insurance" program. The act also seriously excluded large numbers of workers from its benefits and was a relatively small-scale program. Yet, despite the careful presentation of Social Security, and despite its shortcomings, the act marked a major shift in government policy. In the words of historian William E. Leuchtenburg, in Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, (1963), the relief programs of the New Deal "represented an advance over the barbaric predepression practices that constituted a difference not in degree but in kind.... The Roosevelt administration gave such assistance not as a matter of charity but of right." Social Security, which would be extensively expanded in following generations, represented the future of federal policy. Important advances were made for minorities and women as well in the New Deal. Although the economic benefits of the programs were often slow in coming to those hardest hit by the Depression, especially women and African Americans, the New Deal offered unprecedented levels of support, at least symbolically, for these groups. Roosevelt helped initiate a new stage for women in public office when he appointed the first female cabinet member, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. In addition, he increased the number of women in various other government positions, including the first female ambassador and the first woman to serve on the Federal Court of Appeals. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt used her position to speak out on behalf of rights for women and minorities historian Harvard Sitkoff wrote of her in A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue (1978), that "no individual did more to alter the relationship between the New Deal and the cause of civil rights." With her efforts, along with other progressives on racial issues such as Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, the president appointed several African Americans to important positions in his administration, creating what was known as the "Black Cabinet." The symbolism of such appointments, along with the attempts by many administrators of New Deal programs to allow benefits to reach African Americans, helped create an historic shift in electoral behavior. Prior to the New Deal, blacks voted overwhelmingly for the Republican Party, the "party of Lincoln," yet, by 1936 more than 90 percent were 150 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS

5 voting Democratic. And in terms of actual versus symbolic gains from the New Deal, American Indians might have seen the greatest break in America's tradition of discriminatory policies. Led by John Collier, the commissioner of Indian affairs, the government broke from the much-abused policy of transforming tribal lands into individually owned plots. Under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934, the government recognized collective ownership of tribal lands and allowed the election of tribal governments. Although New Dealers have been rightly criticized for too often accepting prevailing cultural norms regarding gender and race, they demonstrated the ability to at least begin questioning certain traditional beliefs, initiating a process that a later generation expanded upon. For all the shortcomings of the New Deal, such as the new policies that Roosevelt's administration was unable or unwilling to implement, one must recognize that the basic principle of the era was a willingness to experiment and break from tradition. The impact of the Great Depression was fundamental to this attitude. Even before Roosevelt took office, the struggling people were increasingly anxious for change, and the New Deal supplied this. The federal government expanded, shortening the distance between Washington and the average American citizen. The New Deal began to pay attention to people who had previously been ignored in the political process. With the support of labor legislation, workers' relations to each other and to the factory owners was transformed. The New Deal also began the first steps toward ensuring at least a minimum of insurance for its poorest citizens. Among all the probing and reversals, there was a constant theme of willingness to challenge previously accepted norms about the government's role in individual lives. For this reason the legacy of this distinct era of innovation still dominates political debate. -CHRISTOPHER W. SCHMIDT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY Viewpoint: No, the New Deal was a continuation of earlier government policies, mainly intended to preserve the capitalist system. President Herbert Hoover was right. The election of 1932, he said, was "more than a contest between two men" and "more than a contest between parties. It was a contest between two philosophies of government." The Democrats, Hoover said, were "proposing changes and so-called new deals which would destroy the very foundations of our American system." Hoover warned, "You cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily life of a people without somewhere making it master of people's souls and thoughts." The Democrats, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt, were proposing to change the relationship of people to the federal government, making it, in particular the executive branch, responsible for the well-being of all the people. The American people had been warned, but they rejected Hoover and his dire predictions overwhelmingly. Hoover carried six states and Roosevelt forty-two in one of the greatest landslide elections in American history. The Democrats swept into control of Congress and captured control of most state legislatures. Roosevelt did not seek to reassure Americans that his administration would not make revolutionary changes. The "need for undelayed action" might require, he said in his inaugural address, "temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure." The Constitution had endured for a century and a half, Roosevelt said, because of its simplicity and the wisdom of its framers. It likely could endure the crisis of the Depression, but if it could not, if it stymied government efforts to correct the grave social and economic problems of 1933, Roosevelt would ask for greater power "I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will... confront me" but ask Congress for "broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe." In his address Roosevelt made it clear who the enemy was. The crisis had been brought on by the "rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods," who had "failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence." The "unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men." These speculators "know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and where there is no vision, the people perish." Using biblical language, Roosevelt attacked the lords of commerce and industry, telling the American people that "The Money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization." His administration would "restore that temple to the ancient truths." It would be difficult to find a sharper attack on concentrated wealth and privilege outside the campaign speeches of Eugene V. Debs. Roosevelt's inaugural address did not blast the Republicans or the Hoover administration; it obliterated them as factors in national politics. Roosevelt was working toward rebuilding American democracy, and the Great Depression gave HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS 151

6 him the opportunity to do this restoration with little concern for the interests of capitalists. Though Roosevelt's inaugural address was a bold call to action, he did not outline a particular program because he did not have anything specific. Instead, Roosevelt brought into the government an astonishing variety of advisers and set them to work on solving the nation's problems. Some historians, baffled by the contradictory nature of New Deal programs, have concluded that Roosevelt's administration was confused by design or that the intention was to protect the established order by creating contradictory policies. The confusion and seeming counterpurposes actually resulted from the attempt to do too many different things. One presidential aide recalled bringing Roosevelt two contradictory proposals on the tariff one would raise the tariff, the other would eliminate it. After explaining to Roosevelt the benefits and problems with each, and why some would want the tariff raised, and others would want it eliminated, Roosevelt told the aide, "Try to weave the two ideas together." In the months between Roosevelt's election and his inauguration the American banking system had completely collapsed. On the day Roosevelt became president, 4 March 1933, not a single bank was open in Washington, D.C. It was impossible to cash a check in Washington and in many other places in the nation. This development meant that if you did not have a supply of cash on hand, you had no way to get money. When banks failed, all deposits were lost. Roosevelt addressed the banking situation in several different ways. First, he delivered a national radio address to discuss banking with the American people. Roosevelt's radio addresses, his "fireside chats," were an innovation in American politics. Hoover, as secretary of commerce, had arranged the first national presidential radio talk in August In the 1920s speeches given at conventions and rallies were broadcast on the radio. The fireside chats, however, were different. Roosevelt was not delivering a speech to a large crowd while having the event transmitted over radio wires; instead, he was speaking directly, and solely, into the radio microphone. The president entered the homes of the American people and spoke directly to them. Roosevelt's voice and radio presence were phenomenal, and the effect of having Roosevelt speak to his nationwide network of friends cannot be overestimated. This first fireside chat, in which Roosevelt explained banking, was so effective (comedian Will Rogers said Roosevelt explained banking so clearly that even bankers could understand it), that he made this kind of broadcast a feature of his presidency, and since 1933 presidents have favored direct communication with the American people, either by radio or, later, by television, over every other form. In addition to format, though, Roosevelt offered a change in policy. He announced a "bank holiday." Eanks that had not failed would be asked to close their doors. These closings would prevent "runs" that might trigger their failure. Over the next weeks, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) would assess the strengths of banks in the twelve cities with FRB branches. Those found to be sound would be allowed to reopen. When banks reopened, depositors would know that the banks had sufficient assets and were not in danger of failure. Gradually, the FRB would audit other banks and allow more of them to reopen. To help banks regain their solvency, Roosevelt proposed a way to get panicked Americans to redeposit withdrawn funds. Anyone who had withdrawn gold from the bank since 1 February was encouraged to return it by 13 March, or have their name published in the newspaper. The publication of these names would mean that men and women who had lost their life savings when the banks folded now would know who had precipitated the collapse. It was a bold move and it worked. In New York City $30 million in gold was returned to the banks in one day; one man brought in more than $700,000. In addition to restoring confidence by having the FRB audit the banks and coercing people to return their deposits, Roosevelt signed into law the Glass-Steagall Banking Act (1933). This act gave the FRB tighter control over the banking system, separated investment banking from commercial banking so that business deposits would not be the source of speculation (it was said in the 1920s that banks gave their customers everything but a roulette wheel), and required that banks keep a certain amount of its capital on hand. In the 1920s the fever of speculation had pushed banks to invest all of their capital, and sometimes more, in the hope of earning large returns. The Glass-Steagall Act ended this practice. In addition, the act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insured bank deposits of up to $5,000. If a bank failed, its depositors would not lose their entire life savings. In these two ways Roosevelt strengthened the American banking system by restoring confidence and tightening regulation. This renewal of hope ensured the future stability of American banks not until the 1980s, when the Reagan administration loosened regulation, would there be another wave of bank failures. Roosevelt's policies also insured that the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s was not as catastrophic as the failures of the 1930s. 152 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS

7 FDR'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 4 MARCH 1933 This is a day of national consecration, and I am certain that my fellow-americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency 1 will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our nation impels. This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met witt) that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you wilt again give that support to leadership in these critical days. In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fatten; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of Income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply... I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption. But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisisbroad executive power to wage a war against the emergency as great as the power that would be given me if we were in fact Invaded by a foreign foe. For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less. We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stem performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life. We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it. In this dedication of a nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us! May He guide me in the days to cornel Sourca: Documents at American Htetory, 2 volumes, edited by Henry Steels Commager (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1973), tt: HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS 153

8 Roosevelt likewise acted to regulate Wall Street. The Truth in Securities Act (1933) established the Federal Trade Commission to regulate stock issues, making sure that investors were not being defrauded. In 1934 this organization was replaced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whose chairman, Joseph P. Kennedy, a savvy Wall Street speculator, knew all the tricks of the stock market and so was ideally suited to prevent fraud and duplicity. The SEC was designed to prevent dishonest dealing and the kind of overexuberance that had brought on the depression. Roosevelt was also given power by Congress to regulate the American currency system. The issue of gold versus silver had divided Americans since the 1860s. Farmers and debtors favored a more inflationary currency either paper money or silver while bankers and creditors favored a hard currency, such as gold, which would generate little inflation. Congress gave Roosevelt the power to regulate the gold value of the dollar. Roosevelt used this power to take the United States off the gold standard; gold would no longer be the backing for American currency. Instead, American currency would draw its value from people's faith that the United States would survive and be able to pay its debts. The end of the gold standard, the U.S. director of the budget said, was the "end of western civilization." Roosevelt had also endorsed the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), in which the federal government created a public corporation that would build dams and generate power in the Tennessee River valley. The TVA provided electricity to consumers in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Kentucky. The Hoover administration had opposed the TVA as a big step toward socialism. The U.S. government could build dams, but it could not run a business. Roosevelt reversed this policy, and socialistic or not, his administration created the TVA. The Hoover administration had also created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which loaned money to banks and credit unions that could then loan this money to consumers. Hoover had rejected any proposal that the U.S. government lend money directly to Americans. This plan, like the TVA, would be socialism. Roosevelt rejected this narrow definition, and his administration created the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC, 1933), which lent money to homeowners to help them keep their property. His administration also consolidated the various farm credit bureaus that Hoover had created to try to stabilize farm prices. Instead of having the U.S. government buy up the agricultural surplus, leaving farmers free to plant as much as they wanted knowing either that the price would rise or the government would buy the surplus if it did not, Roosevelt created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (A A A, 1933) which paid farmers not to plant. Individual American farmers received more than $100 million from the U.S. government in exchange for not planting their crops. A visitor from communist Russia was touring the Agriculture Department in 1933 and saw thousands of checks being printed to mail to American farmers. "This," he said, "is revolution." The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA, 1933) created the National Recovery Administration (NRA, 1933), which was one of the most radical of Roosevelt's programs. The NRA allowed business leaders and industries to draw up codes that set prices, working hours, and wages in order to regulate competition and practices within their industries. Cooperating businesses were exempted from antitrust laws and were left to regulate themselves. However, the NRA also required that businesses have acceptable minimum wage and maximum hour rules, and that employees have the right to form unions and bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions. The NRA allowed businesses to regulate themselves but required that they recognize workers as part of the economic process. In addition to these major transformations of the American economy, with the federal government taking a stronger role in the economy, the Roosevelt administration also proposed the Civil Works Administration (CWA, 1933) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC, 1933). Both of these pieces of legislation were passed in the first hundred days of Roosevelt's first term. No administration since 1933 has come close to matching Roosevelt's legislative record, and it is hard to think of any president who has accomplished in his entire term as much as Roosevelt did in his first three months. Yet, these programs did not end the Great Depression. The economy seemed stalled. In 1935, after the Democrats routed the Republicans once again in the congressional elections of 1934, Roosevelt pushed through the "Second New Deal." This time he created the Social Security Administration (1935), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB, 1935), and Works Progress Administration (WPA, 1935) and revised the banking act, bringing more state banks under the FRB's control. In 1935 and 1936 the Supreme Court had ruled that parts of the New Deal, particularly 154 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS

9 the NRA and AAA, were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court may have expected the American people to reject Roosevelt and the New Deal in the elections. Instead, Roosevelt was reelected by a greater popular and electoral margin than any other president has enjoyed. Roosevelt, despite his veiled threat in 1933 to go outside constitutional barriers, remained within them, not using his popular mandate to revive the discredited policies. The Supreme Court, however, responding to the popular majorities for Roosevelt, later found other features of the New Deal Social Security, the National Labor Relations Board, the minimum-wage law to be constitutional. Hoover was right in 1932 when he said that Roosevelt threatened a revolutionary change in the nature of American government. Roosevelt boldly acted to make the president central to the national government and to give the federal government primary responsibility for caring for the people of the nation. As for Hoover's warning that the government could not become the provider without becoming the master, in 1933 the American people were not as worried about this possibility as they were with the problems of survival. In more prosperous times, the 1950s and 1980s, more conservative presidents and congresses tempered some of the regulatory power of the federal government and tried to diminish the federal role in reaching the American people. None dared challenge Social Security, the National Labor Relations Board, FDIC, or the Federal Reserve system, however, as these do what the American people believe their government should do. No president since Roosevelt, liberal or conservative, has found it expedient to diminish his own role in government. Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980 promising to "get government off our backs and out of our pockets," charging that "government is the problem," remembered that his first job was as a CCC lifeguard. The changes Roosevelt introduced transformed American government. His policies gave the federal government a direct relationship with the American people, and his personality and persuasiveness made him the model of an American president. Many New Deal programs were radical in their day, but some are now taken for granted as part of the American system. It would be unimaginable not to have Social Security, a Securities and Exchange Commission, or the TVA. It is also impossible to imagine how the nation would have survived the Great Depression without the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt. -ROBERT J. ALLISON, SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY References Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (New York: Knopf, 1995); Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F. D. R (New York: Knopf, 1955); Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Knopf, 1948); David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Thomas K. McGraw, TVA and the Power Fight, (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1971); Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, 3 volumes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ); Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue, volume 1, The Depression Decade (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 3: AMERICAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS, : PURSUIT OF PROGRESS 155