NEW DEAL and GREAT DEPRESSION ...AND WORLD WAR TWO

Responding to the Great Depression

You must make an ethical decision about how FDR is remembered before we can move on:

Congressional Record dated Thursday, May 1, 1997

                      

Senate Section

The FDR Memorial was dedicated on Friday, May 2, 1997.

In the early days, the children of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt made it clear they wanted no statue showing President Roosevelt in a wheelchair.

However, in an effort to be sensitive to their concerns yet historically

accurate, the Commission agreed to display an exact replica of one of

President Roosevelt's wheelchairs in the entry building of the memorial.

So, here’s your ethical dilemma:

Should the FDR memorial have included a wheelchair, cigarette, neither, or both?

Justify your answer:

Here’s another one, just for discussion:

            Would FDR have been elected if the country

had known he was in a wheelchair?

Would someone in a wheelchair be elected president today?

I. The Election of 1932:

Herbert Hoover vs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Hoover: “General prosperity had been a great ally

in the election of 1928. Great Depression was a major enemy in 1932.”

“Herbert Roosevelt and Franklin Hoover”

   --one columnist’s opinion of the two candidates

Campaign Song for FDR:

At first, “Anchors Aweigh”

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhCko6qUGuc

“Sounds like a funeral march.” (two campaign workers)

“Happy Days are Here Again.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqsT4xnKZPg

Bonus Army: “Hoover sent the army. Roosevelt

sent his wife.”

   FDR: “Above all, be sure there is plenty of

good coffee. No questions asked. Just let free coffee flow all the time.”

Electoral Vote: 472 to 59

Inauguration: March 4, 1933

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX_v0zxM23Q&feature=related

II. THE NEW DEAL

“Brain Trust”

  --FDR’s trusted advisers

--politicians and professors

First Hundred Days:

  March 9 to June 16, 1933

Will Rogers:

“Congress does pass legislation—they just wave at the bills as they go by.”

John Maynard Keynes(1883 to 1946):

  Keynesian Economics

--unemployment leads to money hoarding

       --govt. must expand money supply

--short term but massive government spending

 

       Nixon: "We are all Keynesians now."

POLICIES OF THE NEW DEAL

--RELIEF, RECOVERY, REFORM--

A. RELIEF:

            1. work relief:

1935--1943

WPA --employed 8.5 million americans

--spent $10.5 billion

--constructed 651,087 miles of roads

--125,110 public buildings

--8192 parks

--853 airports

-- built or repaired 124,087 bridges

            2. direct assistance

B. RECOVERY:

1. industry:

NIRA…

PWA…

2. agriculture:

C. REFORM:

1. Social Security Act:

            2. Emergency Banking Act:

Was the New Deal Successful?

III. OTHER RESPONSES TO THE DEPRESSION:

A. Cultural Responses

B. Political Responses from the Left:

            1. Huey Long, "Share Our Wealth"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIMi7fBA6e4   huey on “grub”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8elIlcrNf0  every man a king

2. Dr. Townsend, "Old Age Revolving

Pension"

            3. Father Coughlin, "Social Justice"

C. Political Responses from the Right:

            1. Father Coughlin turns Right   

  

            2. William Dudley Pelly's "Silver Shirts"

IV. SIGNIFICANCE:

   A. desperate times require desperate policy

   B. changing expectation of govt. involvement

"It is my contention that no one should be allowed to write about FDR who did not experience that era. It really is one of those cases of you had to be there. Roosevelt may be a myth...today, but 60 years ago that myth looked more like hope. In his fireside chats, he turned our Philco radios into shrines, and when he said that America could not afford to live with one-third of a nation ill-housed and ill-fed, we thought he would do something about it. And he did."

Daniel Schorr, "The FDR 'Myth': You Had To Be There," Christian Science Monitor, 25 October 1996

How to Quarantine Disease in an Isolationist Country:

I. Intro:

     Abraham Lincoln Brigade

II. PEACE IN THE 1920s

     A. Isolation

     B. Washington Conference

     C. Kellogg-Briand Pact

     D. The Peace Movement

III. ISOLATION TO WAR

     A. Isolationist Tension:

          1. Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (1934)

“Foreign markets must be regained if producers are to rebuild a full and enduring domestic prosperity.” (FDR)

          2. Nye Committee

          3. Neutrality Acts

FDR: “no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another.”

          4. Ludlow Amendment

     B. Non-Belligerence:

          1. Stockpile Act

          2. Educational Orders Act

          3. Civilian War Resources Board

          4. Lend-Lease

          5. The Atlantic Charter

     C. War: Attack of Pearl Harbor

D-DAY

June 6, 1944 (to June 11, 1944)

--4,100 landing craft

--12,000 landing support aircraft

-- 1,000 air transports (paratroopers)

--10,000 tons of bombs dropped

--14,000 attack sorties flown.

--in all, 47 divisions (140,000 troops)