1. The New Deal

2. Enter FDR Pledges “New Deal” Beats Hoover in 1932 election

3. FDR becomes President Inaugurated on March 4, 1933  “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” 9,000 banks had closed since 1929  1,500 of those in 1932 alone Unemployment  less than 3 million in 1929 (3.2%)  4 million in 1930  8 million in 1931  12 ½ million in 1932 (23.6%) Hoover- "Nobody is actually starving. The hoboes are better fed than they have ever been.“

5. First Hundred Days Roosevelt convened Congress in a special session Launched the New Deal with an avalanche of bills  15 major pieces of legislation passed through Congress  AAA, TVA, HOLA, NIRA, FCA….  Repealed Prohibition  Brought excitement and hope to nation Roosevelt revives the TR/Wilson activist presidency

6. Relief, Recovery, Reform Fireside chats  A voice of hope  Only 30 in 12 years  First talk addressed banking  Millions wrote letters to the president and first lady Keynesianism  Priming the pump The First New Deal  1933-35  Characterized by relief The Second New Deal  1935-1937  Characterized by reform

7. Major ND legislation Social Security Act The WPA  By 1941 it had pumped $11 billion into the economy.  Work crews seen as worthless  “Give a man a dole and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit”  Paid less than private sector FDIC AAA PWA TVA

8. Critics The Right  Taft and the American Liberty League  ND represented creeping socialism and a threat to American freedom The Left (populists and socialists)  Huey Long, Louisiana Senator  New Deal favored big business and not common man  “Break up the swollen fortunes of America… spread the wealth among all our people.”  Father Charles Coughlin, “Radio priest”  National Union of Social Justice  Wanted dictatorship to bring prosperity to masses  Anti-Semitic

9. Did the New Deal Work? Yes! Stimulated economy Ameliorated misery Rebuilt the country No! Didn’t create long term jobs Some bills ineffective  Revenue Act of 1935 WWII saved us

10. Challenges to the New Deal Schechter v. United States  Power to regulate interstate commerce did not justify rigid control of all businesses United States v. Butler

11. Harlan Stone’s Dissent Stone saw that the Court was allowing its opposition to the New Deal to color its objectivity in constitutional affairs The Court was not just checking an expansion of federal power here It was narrowing power to less than previously accepted limits

12. The Plan Increase the number of federal judges including 6 new Supreme Court justices “What is my proposal? It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice of any federal court has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new member shall be appointed by the president then in office, with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.”—FDR in a fireside chat

13. What FDR hoped to accomplish “That plan has two chief purposes. By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first, to make the administration of all federal justice, from the bottom to the top, speedier and, therefore, less costly; secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work. This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.”--FDR

14. Ooops The plan offended the elderly The Court as an independent institution was threatened Congress and the public opposed February 9, 1937 Brooklyn Citizen