Aspects of Roosevelt's New Deal

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Aspects of Roosevelt's New Deal The New Deal was a series of acts that Roosevelt had enforced after the breakdown of the US economy, which became known as the Wall Street Crash. What followed was known as the depression, when people were to scared to buy into anything, and so the produce was there, just not the demand. The President at the time, Herbert Hoover, believed that the Depression was not actually as bad as it seemed, and he felt that he should not help the people, and that they should be left to get out of the economic rut themselves. Hoover's unpopularity was emphasised when he was not voted in to office for his second term of Presidency. Instead, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was voted in, a Democrat. The people were not sure if he could do any better than Hoover, but they were desperate. Their confidence in him paid off as he managed to turn the US economy around, and although many of his methods were controversial, he remained in office for 4 terms, longer than any other President. Roosevelt gave himself 100 days to turn around the American economy. He gave his people hope, jobs, and confidence. He believed that a government should help its' people as much as possible. He returned confidence in banks by an "Emergency Banking Act". The problem was that people took their money out of the banks and kept it at home. This was because banks were closing daily and people's money was lost if the bank did close. The emergency banking act stated that over the bank holiday, the accounts of all the banks in the country would be evaluated, and only those with stability and a lot of hard cash were reopened. The rest would stay closed. Roosevelt convinced people that their money was safer in a bank than at home, there was new confidence in the banking system. He also had the "Beer Act" imposed. This made the sale and manufacture of alcohol legal again. The government made money on this buy putting a tax on beer.

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