CHAPTER 25

The New Deal1933 – 1939

“We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.”

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

“Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a

Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

A singer, songwriter, poet and activist, Guthrie sang simple folk songs, far cry from the bombast of today’s rock ‘n’ roll. Guthrie was born in Oklahoma in 1912. The dust storms and Great Depression forced him to move to California in the ’30s, and inspired much of his work. He wrote songs addressing social injustice and economic slavery, but added humor to keep his material from sounding preachy.

After an association with the American Communist Party in California, Guthrie moved to New York, where he collaborated with fellow folk musician Pete Seeger. Guthrie continued to use folk music as tool for political commentary for 20 years, singing in support of unions, farmers and migrants. The memorable piece “This Land Is Your Land,” was written as an answer song to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” The blacklisting of the ’50s saw Guthrie fall out of favor, and in 1952, he became ill. He was later diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, a rare, hereditary fatal degenerative nerve disorder. His music was rediscovered in the mid-’60s, and Guthrie was awarded the Conservation Service Award by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1966. As he lay dying, a then-unknown folk singer named Robert Zimmerman, later known as Bob Dylan, made a pilgrimage to his bedside. Guthrie died in 1967, leaving behind a lasting musical legacy.

FDR’s 2nd Bill of Rights [1944]

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;• The right to a good education.

New York Times [page A-1]: March 24, 2005 Report Says Medicare Is In Poor Fiscal Shape“In their annual report to Congress, the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs said the long-term financial condition of the Social Security System deteriorated slightly over the last year.

But the trustees emphasized that Medicare’s financial outlook was “much worse than Social Security’s” and predicted that the monthly Medicare premiums paid by almost all Americans who are 65 and older would rise by 12 percent next year after a 17 percent increase this year.”

Rexford Tugwell’s 1946 World Constitution

The establishment of executive, judicial, and planning institutions

To maintain peace To establish equality To protect and enlarge liberty To increase well-being and reduce personal hazard To develop resources To facilitate commerce and communication To organize mutual assistance among peoples To lay imposts and taxes To provide a monetary system To establish mutual credit institutions To establish common weights and measures And in general to assure the progress of mankind.

Bibliography

Saul Alinsky, John L. Lewis [1949] Alan Brinkley, The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and

War [1995] Paul Conkin, The New Deal [1975] Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic

[2004]John Patrick Diggins, The Rise and Fall of the American Left [1973] James Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and

Okie Culture in California [1989] Nelson Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther [1995]John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath [1939] Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished

Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever [2004}Studs Terkel, Hard Times [1970]

Chapter Review

Compare and contrast the first two years of the New Deal with the New Deal after 1934.

Explain the 3 “R’s” of the New Deal – relief, reform, recovery. Explain how the Social Security Act and the Works Progress

Administration were examples of the move of the second New Deal toward goals of social reform and justice.

Describe the economic and political impact of the New Deal on women and minorities.

Explain Roosevelt’s “court packing scheme.” Explain the long-term legacy of the New Deal for American politics

and life.

Identifications

New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps Harry Hopkins Civil Works Administration [CWA] Tennessee Valley Authority [TVA] Agricultural Adjustment Act [AAA] Dust Bowl Huey Long, John L. Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt The Grapes of Wrath Mary McLeod Bethune, Marian Anderson Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Henry James, Gene Krupa

Concepts

New Deal -- Relief, Reform, Recovery Bonus Army, 1932 Congress of Industrial Organizations [sit-down v. 1960s

boycotts] Fascist government Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC] Hoovervilles [1991 Border security conference at UCLA and

Brownsville, Texas] Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] Tennessee Valley Authority Woody Guthrie, Sunset Camp near Arvin Rexford Tugwell, a World Constitution Upton Sinclair 1934 campaign for CA Governor, Movie ads National Labor Relations Board – farmworkers, waitresses,

domestics Hard Times, by Studs Terkel [“Okies” at Fox Theater in

Bakersfield]

Bonus Marchers

Bonus Marchers battling police in Washington, D.C., in 1932. Police and military assaults on these homeless veterans infuriated Americans and prompted Democratic Presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare, “Well, this will elect me.”

Bonus Army camp in Washington, D.C. Spring 1932

Gen. Douglas MacArthur directs US Army as it evacuates Bonus Army demonstrators

After veterans are chased out with tear gas, the Bonus Army camp was burned

James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens, star of 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. [4 gold metals and 2 world records]

 The Dust Bowl

Years of over-cultivation, drought, and high winds created the Dust Bowl, which most severely affected the southern Great Plains. Federal relief and conservation programs provided assistance, but many residents fled the area, often migrating to California.

Migrant mother

A sullen mother stares vacantly between her two children in a migrant labor camp in Nipomo, California in 1936. This photograph, commissioned by the FSA, came to symbolize the Great Depression for many people.-- courtesy of the Library of Congress

FDR signs Social Security Act of 1935

FDR signs the Social Security Act in 1935 , establishing a program that would grow in size and importance in subsequent decades. To the left in a dark suit is Senator Robert F. Wagner; behind FDR is Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. All three were influential in shaping an activist federal government that some Americans would later decry as unnecessary.

The most ambitious of all New Deal programs provided was the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Out-of-work artists were employed by the WPA's Federal Art Project to exhibit their works to the public.

1939 Dorothea Lange photo of Farm Security Administration migrant workers camp at Farmersville, CA

Dorothea Lange photo of pea workers’ camp in CA, February 1936

John Steinbeck [1902-1968] – 1939 novel Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer prize for literature.

Columbia University’s Rexford G. Tugwell [1891-1979], undersecretary of agriculture and part of the “brain trust” – new US constitution

Distribution of Income in the United States, 1929–1946

An unequal distribution of income contributed to the Great Depression by limiting purchasing power. Only slight changes occurred until after World War II, but other factors gradually stabilized the national economy. Source:U.S. Bureau of the Census

FDR with a young LBJ ca. 1936

The Tennessee Valley Authority

By building dams and hydroelectric power plants, the TVA controlled flooding and soil erosion and generated electricity that did much to modernize a large region of the Upper South.

Wall Street [Stock Market]

John Maynard Keynes [1883-1946] offered alternative economic theories to those of Hans Morgenthau –spending on public works and relief.

Adolph Hitler speaking at Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, 1935

A Douglas DC-3, first flown in 1935 carrying 21 passengers.

Mexican American workers on strike in CA, 1933

Unemployed marchers at Capitol, January 1932

Newsman Edward R. Murrow [1908-1965], CBS European bureau chief in London in 1941.

Roosevelt and Hoover riding together to inauguration on March 3, 1933

FDR’s inauguration – “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. . .”.

Harry Hopkins [1890-1946], head of Federal Emergency Relief Administration [FERA] in 1933, and later the Works Progress Administration

[WPA].

1936 dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma

Vernon Evans left South Dakota in July 1936 for a new start

A WPA tent theater in San Bernardino, CA in February 1937

Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, the Detroit “Radio Priest” New Deal critic.

Huey Pierce Long [1893 – 1935] Louisiana governor – “every man a king” and “Share the Wealth Program” [from inheritance taxes]

Educator Mary McLeod Bethune [1875-1955], appointed in 1935 to a federal National Advisory Committee to the National Youth Administration. [January 1943 portrait by Gordon Parks]

Striking Teamsters and police in Minneapolis, June 1934

Frederick Lewis Allen published Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s in 1933.

Greta Garbo and John Berrymore in Grand Hotel.

1935 The Littlest Rebel featuring Shirley Temple

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in 1939 Gone with the Wind.

Amelia Earhart [1897-1937] in Oakland, CA after her 1935 solo flight from Hawaii. In 1932, first woman to fly solo across Atlantic Ocean.

The Glenn Martin China Clipper flying over the Golden Gate Bridge on way to Manila in 1936.

The dirigible Akron in June 1932, just before it went down in an Atlantic storm. Dirigibles were first developed in 1900. The

Hindenburg caught fire and burned in Lakehurst, NJ in 1937

FDR at Pan-American conference in Buenos Aires in 1936 to finalize his “Good Neighbor Policy”

Charles Lindbergh with Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering at his German villa, July 1936

Germans marching into Paris following June 14, 1940 surrender

I. Rock Bottom

Roosevelt experiments when unsure what course to follow, beginning with a “bank holiday” and the first of his “fireside chats”

“First hundred days” sees much legislation enacted, as Alphabet Agencies are born

First administration concentrates on immediate relief, conservation, and regional planning [relief, reform, recovery]

Tennessee Valley

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II. Economic Recovery

Agricultural Adjustment Act brings some improvement for some farmers, but not for tenant farmers

Dust Bowl aggravates economic problems Public Works Administration and its construction jobs only one

example of FDR’s willingness to experiment with central planning

Dust Bowl

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III. New Deal Diplomacy

FDR pledges to put “first things first,” namely America New president recognizes communist government of

Soviet Union, easing tensions FDR also advocates Good Neighbor Policy in Latin

America and tries to remain uninvolved

IV. Critics: Right and Left

“Waiting on lefty. . .” Some believe FDR has gone too far, while others feel he has

not gone far enough Greatest challenge is from Louisiana’s Huey Long, who wants

to redistribute America’s wealth Another critic, Father Charles Coughlin, concentrates on free

silver Francis Townsend advocates $200 per month pension for all

Americans over sixty

V. The Second New Deal

In “Second New Deal,” FDR moves to left to counter critics

Social Security Act of 1935 provides “old age insurance” for Americans

Wagner Act of 1935 addresses labor problems 2007 – Labor congressional effort to have “card check”

as a replacement for secret ballots

VI. The Fascist Challenge

Hitler and Mussolini are viewed as more threatening to America

Americans still desire neutrality and say so, in formal Neutrality Acts

VII. Mandate from the People

The 1936 election is landslide victory for Roosevelt Voting patterns undergo dramatic shift as African

Americans move into Democratic camp

Presidential Election, 1936

VIII. Popular Culture in the Depression

Films such as The Grapes of Wrath illustrate problems facing Americans, who flock to nation’s movie theaters

Politicians and public figures gravitate to radio coverage

IX. The Second Term

FDR’s most serious miscalculation as president is his attempt to enlarge Supreme Court

Labor strikes escalate, but owners make concessions to workers and tensions ease

X. Losing Ground

Spanish Civil War divides Americans Germany becomes greater threat as Hitler targets

Jews, but America continues to look the other way Roosevelt moves toward tighter money policy, but

recession reappears