I. Introduction
A. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged 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". He thereby launched a program of federal activism called the New Deal that would change the nature of the American government.
B. The New Deal represented a new form of liberalism, the ideology of individual rights that had long shaped the character of American society and politics.
C. To protect those rights, New Deal activists called for "social welfare" liberalism, which expanded individual rights. Beginning in 1930s and cont. until 1970s, they increased the amount and scope of national legislation; created an increasingly centralized federal administrative system; and instituted new programs, such as Social Security, that gave the national gov. responsibility for the welfare of every American citizen.
D. Critics charged the New Deal as a program of "big government" and "social welfare" that directly repudiated traditional classical liberal principles.
II. The New Deal Takes Over, 1933-1945
A. Although many Americans, esp. wealthy conservatives, hated the new Democratic president, FDR, he was immensely popular.
B. Hoover and FDR were similar in that, they were both committed to maintaining the nations' basic social and institutional structures, believed in the morality of a balanced budget and extolled the values of hard work, cooperation, and sacrifice.
C. The New Deal program put people to work, instilling hope for the nation's future.
D. Roosevelt's Leadership
1. FDR's public correspondence was a staff of fifty to handle all the letters to the White House. Roosevelt's masterful use of the radio, esp. the "fireside chats" during his first two terms, bolstered his relationship with the people.
2. FDR dramatically enlarged the role of the executive branch in stetting the budget and initiating legislation.
3. He relied of his "Brain Trust" of professors from Columbia and Harvard universities: Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, Adolph A. Berle, and Felix Frankfurter.
4. His also turned to his cabinet: Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, Frances Perking at Labor, Henry A. Wallace at Agriculture, and Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the secretary of the Treasury.
5. Financier Bernard Baruch influenced FDR, attracting hundreds of talented lawyers to Washington, where they had a direct hand in shaping legislation.
6. Inspires by the idealism of the New Deal, many of them devoted their lives to public service and the principles of social welfare liberalism.
E. The Hundred Days
1. In a legendary legislative session, known as the "Hundred Days", Congress enacted 15 major bills, which focused on 4 major problems banking failures, agricultural overproduction, the business slump, and soaring unemployment.
Historians claim that Hoovers term during the depression was filled with false promises and accuse the president of doing nothing while the depression worsened. Along with worsening the debt and a fairly aggressive use of government it is clear his approach towards the situation was not the best. FDR’s approach would prove during his administration to suffice in the augmentation of the crisis. Although it seemed like a completely opposite presidency, many ideas came from his predecessor. Roosevelt’s team of advisors understood that much of what they produced and fashioned into the New Deal owed its origins to Hoover’s policies.
Still, Roosevelt's historical reputation is deservedly high. In attacking the Great Depression he did much to develop a partial welfare state in the United States and to make the federal government an agent of social and economic reform. His administration indirectly encouraged the rise of organized labor and greatly invigorated the Democratic party. His foreign policies, while occasionally devious, were shrewd enough to sustain domestic unity and the allied coalition in World War II. Roosevelt was a president of stature.
From the description of both classical liberalism and socialism provided above, it is clear that the two are conflicting ideologies where one supports individualism, the other supports collectivism that believes in the wellbeing of all citizens in a community. 2. What is the difference between a.. Franklin D. Roosevelt, president of the United States from 1933 to 1945 (and the distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt), was the first to convert to Keynes’s theories. He implemented massive public works programs to put people to work. Called the “New Deal”, an echo of Theodore Roosevelt’s square deal, it consisted of a series of programs from 1933 to 1938.
This led to numerous viewpoints on the New Deal and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Critics on the left begged for relief and an expansion of New Deal programs where, those on the right argued that the poor did not deserve their money because they didn’t prepare well enough prior to the Great Depression and that they would take advantage of it.
Though FDR did not realize it at the time, building up the military to establish the United States as a world power, would later lead to the realization of the United States as a superpower. Foreign policy was also a job given to the President during FDR's time. The U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Corporation, in 1936, gave the president control over foreign policy. What FDR is most known for is the New Deal, the campaign he ran to help America.
The American people began to view Hoover’s ideas of the ideal small government as conservative, while Roosevelt’s progressive policies became the representation of liberalism. Therefore, it can be said that the Great Depression was a major contributing factor in changing the way in which Americans differentiated between liberalist and conservative beliefs. As a result of this shift in America’s perception of these policies, Roosevelt became a liberal in the eyes of the people, whereas Hoover gained the reputation of a conservative. However, these former presidents are noted for occasionally supporting similar policies. The Great Depression hit the United States while Hoover was serving his first and only term as president.
Our society has consisted of a great number of presidents who have changed the United States by helping our economy, but the one I feel who had the most influence was Franklin D. Roosevelt. F.D.R. was the 32nd president of the United States and remained in office for twelve years. He was born on January 30, 1882, at the family estate in Hyde Park, New York. His early education was by governesses and tutors, which caused him to have little contact with children his age. F.D.R. traveled frequently to Europe with his parents, lived in New York City during the winter months, and spent summers at their home on the Canadian Island of Campobello. At the age of 14, he attended a boarding school. Between 1900-1904, F.D.R. attended Harvard and attained a degree in business. While at Harvard, he fell in love with his 2nd cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt and got married in 1905. He then attended law school at Columbia, until he quit in the spring of 1907. However, he later passed the New York state bar examination and took a job at a prominent Wall Street law firm. For the first time in his life he came into contact with attorneys who represented the working poor. By 1910, he was 28 years old and beginning to feel very restless in his life. He then...
This quote from his inaugural speech, sums up the mood of the American people as Roosevelt was elected to be President of the United States in the deepest part of the depression. He faced numerous challenges as a result of the mismanagement of the previous successive Republicans governments such as a large proportion of the American population were out of work and the banking crisis. Roosevelt had promised the American people a ‘new deal’ at his acceptance of the democratic nomination for president in 1932, however, his campaign only offered vague hints of what it would entail. He put the question of economic security on the agenda. President Roosevelt explicitly and consciously defined the New Deal as the embodiment of freedom, but of freedom of economic security rather than freedom of contract, or freedom of every man for himself.
The New Deal occurred in 1933 when 13 million American workers lost their jobs. As a result of the massive job loss, thousands of workers demanded union recognition, unemployed Americans demanded food and shelter, and farmers demanded higher process on their goods. Federally funded jobs and social welfare programs to help the poor were set up by President Roosevelt in order to please the demands of the American people. The New Deal was established with the intention of improving lives, to save capitalism, and to provide a degree of economic security. In 1935, President Roosevelt passed the Social Security Act which, according to Katznelson, Kesselman, and Draper, “offered pensions and unemployment compensation to qualified workers, provided public assistance to the elderly and the blind, and created a new national program for poor single mothers” (332).This act allowed states to set the benefit level for welfare programs, which was set quite low (Katznelson, Kesselman, & Draper, 331-334). The Great Society programs were established by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 when Johnson declared war on poverty. This was would be the action that initiates the Great Society programs. The government used the New Deal as a foundation to build new welfare programs. Medicaid and Medicare were created to help poor and old people with their medical costs. Head Start was established to help low income
The FDR administration responded well to the challenge of the Great Depression. The Depression was on a scale that had never been seen before, and required an unorthodox response. The administration responded with the New Deal, which had some very successful programs, such as the works programs, and other programs which failed miserably, such as the AAA. The New Deal also made the federal government much more involved with the lives of individual Americans, rather than people as a whole, which it had been. This is mostly the result of the works programs and social security where the government pays attention to the economic needs of specific workers and elderly people. As a result, the precedent of the welfare state was set and has remained to modern day.
Thesis: Because the Great Depression quickly changed America's view of liberalism, Roosevelt can be considered a liberal and Hoover a conservative, despite occasionally supporting similar policies.
FDR’s goal for the New Deal was expressed in three words: Relief, Recovery, and Reform. This was the idea that the ND would hope to provide the relief from the poverty-stricken suffering during the Great Depression. Recovery planned to put the country back together and restore the market’s financial issues, the jobs or the people, and their confidence. Reform provided permanent programs to avoid another depression and to ensure citizens against an economic disaster. The Progressive Movement which targeted urban complications, there was a massive disparity between the wealthy and the poor and the goal was to bring equality into the nation. The movement aimed towards removing corruption and including American citizens into the political process. Additionally, to enforce the government to solve the social issues that were occurring in the late 1800’s and early 20th century, all while balancing impartial treatment into the economic
He did this by increasing the power of the presidency, “by taking the position that the president could exercise any right not specifically denied him by the Constitution.” Theodore Roosevelt saw the president’s role to defend the citizens by regulating businesses and breaking up trusts that had gained too much power, defend the very resources of the country by establishing 50 wildlife sanctuaries, 5 national parks, 18 national monuments, and placing more than 230 acres of American soil under federal protection, and lastly increased the role of the president in foreign policy by heavily engaging in foreign affairs. Before Theodore Roosevelt, Congress was the most powerful branch of the government, but with the help of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency it helped establish an influential and reliable executive branch. During both the Progressive Era and New Deal Era, many American citizens faced low pay.
Because the economy was doing so well during the “Roaring 20s”, there wasn’t much of a dispute over this type of leadership. While President Hoover kept that same mindset in his approach to economic recovery, his successor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took a completely different and pragmatic approach, willing to think outside of what was accepted at the time. President Hoover continually reminded Americans that things would get better if they kept working hard and pushed through. “Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced programs between 1933 and 1938, designed to help America pull out of the Great Depression by addressing high rates of unemployment and poverty. An array of services, regulations, and subsidies were introduced by FDR and Congress, including widespread work creation programs.
The New Deal period has generally - but not unanimously - been seen as a turning point in American politics, with the states relinquishing much of their autonomy, the President acquiring new authority and importance, and the role of government in citizens' lives increasing. The extent to which this was planned by the architect of the New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt, has been greatly contested, however. Yet, while it is instructive to note the limitations of Roosevelt's leadership, there is not much sense in the claims that the New Deal was haphazard, a jumble of expedient and populist schemes, or as W. Williams has put it, "undirected". FDR had a clear overarching vision of what he wanted to do to America, and was prepared to drive through the structural changes required to achieve this vision.