Relief for the Great Depression by President Roosevelt

In the United States of America, the Great Depression speaks of a time of both hardship and despair. The stock market crash in 1929 alongside multiple drought conditions across the land, reduced purchasing power across the national board, reduced purchasing, and failures by banks caused the Greatest Depression (Fishback 244). The depression had affected the entire globe and lasted for close to ten years. In a bid to combat and curb the effects of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt designed the New Deal, which was a designated plan that aimed at disseminating federal relief programs throughout the nation (Mitchell 1930). The New Deal plan included spending programs and multiple government agencies that worked together to reverse the Great Depression’s effects. There were quick and significant alterations as the world changed during this time. Many historians present arguments on the New Deal’s effectiveness. This paper acknowledges Roosevelt administration’s instant response to the Great Depression but highlights that more could have been done, especially by involving the federal government more sharply.

Dictatorships rose throughout the globe bringing about mixed feelings from Americans as it regards to their government’s position (Hofstadter 88). Their worries were mostly focused on the federal government's involvement at the time. Socialism and Communism at the time also arose fear and anxiety. These two forms of ruler-ship believe that every person submitting under the government should be equal, thus share everything including their belongings. People became worried that Roosevelt’s ideas would deviate towards the principles described in Communism. As a result, they feared that the government would soon gain control over them and later on upset the democracy of the entire American state. Other American’s believed in Roosevelt as the only person who could bring the Great Depression to a stop; they perceived his ideas as both effective and a revolutionary (Powell). Majority of the population in the U.S saw a savior in the eyes of Roosevelt. All their hopes depended on the new deal as a solution for the depression. Later on, they realized that everything wasn’t in order and the New Deal would not rescue them from the effects of the Great Depression. Initially, they had believed in the new deal as the best possible solution to what they were facing.

In responding to the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt’s responded averagely. Government programs alongside the new deal weren’t effective in curbing the effects of the Great Depression. However, they were instrumental in solving a couple of problems faced by the American population during this time of the Great Depression. In the 1930s, the American economy hit staggering low levels in all history (Norpoth 17). Many people, at the time, were either in poverty or unemployed. A survey during the Great Depression documented that the principle need by the people was money, indicating that the national economy had achieved deficient levels (Coen-Pirani & Michael, 40). People from all walks of life struggled to get cash and viewed it as an essential need. Another issue or effect of the Great Depression was starvation as food lacked. Throughout the land, food was unaffordable. A report by the Senate committee documented a woman who had borrowed 50 cents to purchase stale bread for her family. According to Cushman (12), this was her day’s wages and would buy food for the whole day to feed her family. Starvation was another negative impact of the Great Depression. The United States economy had become terrible.

People had to borrow money for basic needs such as food. Others couldn’t borrow money and would wait in long queues depending upon government-offered rations. The two mentioned cases were realized during the great depression. It was not until 1933 that Roosevelt was elected into the presidency. The committee results were documented a year before Roosevelt's election and interviews, where people expressed their great need for money throughout the land, was conducted a year after his election into power. This period of two years is concise to achieve huge government goals by any president. However, Roosevelt's progress by 1934 was realizable and commendable. Within the first 100 days of his presidency, Roosevelt had already established multiple programs that were under the New Deal as a response to the effects of the Great Depression. These programs aimed to relieve the population from as many immediate problems as possible. Some programs targeted fixing problems with banking while others worked on improving agriculture and employing Americans. Despite not being effective fully, Roosevelt's programs helped Americans to counter the effects of the Great Depression.

In their attempt to end the Great Depression, President Roosevelt’s administration did not achieve much. The new deal didn't benefit the entire American population and left many people in a worrying state of both despair and poverty. The rate of unemployment was 25% by 1933; this meant that 32 million people were unemployed at the time (Mitchell 1932). Programs in the New Deal didn't employ people in their millions; the president's plans achieved very little mileage in alleviating unemployment in the United States. The economy began to recover in 1937, but the unemployment rate remained high with 18.3 million people or 14.4% of people remaining unemployed (Mitchell 1933). This value may seem low, but the number of people is quite high. Roosevelt's plans didn't focus on aiding everyone but instead improved on the lives of middle-class citizens. By taxing the American to fund his newly planned programs, Roosevelt hurt the people. Powell in How FDR’s New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People acknowledges that “New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940.” Essentially, Powell explains that taxes brought about more problems as compared to the issues of unemployment throughout the nation. An increase of almost four billion dollars in taxes is quite a considerable amount considering the nation's state during a Great Depression.

Roosevelt’s goals in mind were superb. However, wrong strategies were used to implement them. For certain people, the burden increased. According to Powell, “Consumers had less money to spend, and employers had less money for growth and jobs." This was the roughest depression ever witnessed in America. From their bankruptcy and low wages, the citizens were incapacitated in paying taxes demanded by Roosevelt's administration. Additionally, Roosevelt also raised wages for employees who saw firms incapable of hiring more workers, thus resulted in unemployment for several people. The constitutional nature of the president's legislation was questioned by the Supreme Court at this time since it invaded the people's rights. Roosevelt packed the court through various schemes (Norpoth 18). He proposed that as president, he would add one justice to the court’s system for every justice above seventy years that continued serving the court. According to Norpoth (19), “Increasing the number of judges from nine to fifteen would not make this high tribunal act any more promptly than it does now, but it would give the President control of the Judiciary Department." Roosevelt would have opted another way of accomplishing his goals. Instead he ended up hurting many people as he tried to fix the economy during the Great Depression.

Roosevelt's administration fabricated an image of a federal government that was involved in handling challenges faced by its citizens. The government was primarily expected to respond to issues and crises, and later help all those in need. Before Roosevelt was elected, citizens provided for themselves and the government was not concerned about how families made ends meet. According to the belief systems in the federal government at the time, the economy had to be regulated. However, any step towards achieving this would significantly interfere with existing competition for market dominance. The stock market crash altered people’s views on involvement by the government. People became desperate and looked to the government for help. The need for economic regulations by the population was realized at this point. Many visualized the Federal Reserve’s involvement before the crash as the only possible mechanism that would have curbed the crash. People’s view of the government was not altered after the Great Depression. They still believed that it was necessary to involve the government and help was to be offered to all Americans facing challenges as a result of the Great Depression.

Part of the population believed that government involvement became too much in people's lives (Fishback 250). An example of such criticism is a political cartoon that demonstrated the differences between federal control and the constitution. The constitution was depicted as a horse, whereas a car depicted federal control. The message conveyed therein was that federal control had grown to replace the constitution. As a result, people's privacy was invaded by the government. Despite all these occurrences, the lives of the American people still depend on the federal government for both help and relief. The involvement of Roosevelt's administration acted to shape people's view on the need and role of federal relief in addition to their opinion on involvement by the government.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression through the introduction of innovative government programs was fair. However, more could have been done as people’s view on the federal government’s involvement was shaped. In conclusion, Roosevelt’s ultimate response to the Great Depression through the New Deal was appropriate. However, he inflicted a lot of harm upon millions of his subjects in a bid to recover the economy in the end. His failures should not be overlooked by any other administration. However, they should be considered as possible areas of avoidance. The New Deal helped many Americans and influenced the federal government’s role throughout the nation. The federal government became a camp and a resource to all that were in need. Through the New Deal, the federal government was able to get involved in its citizen’s lives.



Works Cited

Coen-Pirani, Daniele, and Michael Wooley. "Fiscal centralization: theory and evidence from the Great Depression." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 10.2, 2018: 39-61.

Cushman, Barry. "The Place of Economic Crisis in American Constitutional Law: The Great Depression as a Case Study." 2019. 1–71.

Fishback, Price V. "New Deal." Banking Crises. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016. 241-250.

Hofstadter, Richard. "The pseudo-conservative revolt (1955)." The Radical Right. Routledge, 2017. 75-96.

Mitchell, Broadus. The Depression Decade: From New Era through New Deal, 1929-41: From New Era through New Deal, 1929-41. Routledge, 2017.

Norpoth, Helmut. "The American Voter in 1932: Evidence from a Confidential Survey." PS: Political Science & Politics 52.1, 2019: 14-19.

Powell, Jim. “How FDR’s New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People.” Cato Institute. Last modified December 29, 2003. Accessed May 1, 2019. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-fdrs-new-deal-harmed-millions-poor-people