The New Deal

The great depression began on October 29th, 1929 and put the country into the most severe economic downturn. President Hoover was in office during that time and tried many propositions to avoid the depression from getting worse but it all failed miserably. When president Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House in 1932 he promised a new deal for the American people. There were many New Deal measures that did make a significance to America but they are questioned whether they were successful. Roosevelt’s new deal measures will be analyzed and described regarding their response to the depression. When president Hoover was in office he proposed many things to fix the depression. “Hoover proposed to congress an increase of 423 million, but the spending was not nearly enough in the face of such devastation.”(Brinkley, 676) Hoover also created the Agriculture Marketing Act and Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to help farmers maintain prices and to provide federal loans to trouble banks, railroads, and businesses. Everything failed and the people put popular protests in place. Two popular protests were the farmers holiday association, called the farmers strike, and the American veterans protest of world war 1 and they demanded one thousand dollars for serving, which Hoover couldn’t acknowledge at all due to no room in the budget. Hoover failed when he was in office and the American people said “Hoovers own reserved personality reinforced the public image of him as aloof and unsympathetic to distressed people.”(Brinkley, 678)
March 4, 1933, Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address on the capitol plaza stating, “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”(Shi, 201) He said this because he was promising to take drastic, warlike, and action against the great depression. “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolved problem if we face it wisely and courageously,” (Shi, 201) and that being said; Roosevelt’s action was called the “New Deal” and it started off by repealing the 18th amendment against prohibition, fixing the banking industry, making new regulations for stock market, fixing farm prices, and creating new federal agencies and programs to open factories, fix problems, and put people back to work. With that being said, the new deal’s measures would be taking effect, but what exactly are they all?
In March 6, 1933, The Emergency Banking Act was created to protect large banks from small banks from bringing them down and every bank had to be inspected with provisions before reopening. This was a success and banking crisis was over and Roosevelt said, “that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress.”(Brinkley, 684) Now regarding the food industry, The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was passed in May 1933 to end agricultural surplus and halt spiral farm prices. Now every commodity was under a provision to limit production. The first three years it was considered a success because the industry was becoming more prosperous and stable. There was also a drive to fix the industry and it was the National Industrial Recovery Act and the National Recovery Administration (NRA). Both were to help ensure workers incomes along with prices and eliminating child labor along with minimum wage and maximum work hours. With future problems and many businesses ignoring the provisions, congress could not overrule the power. This ended both of the provisions in the new deal making it unsuccessful. Continuing on, there was a growth of Federal relief, like the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The Federal Emergency Relief Administration provided cash grants to states to remove bankrupt agencies. The Civil Works Administration, which was created in April 1933, put 4 million people to work on certain