FDR Flashcards

Question

**Michael Bernstein** - Why the GD was Great When did unemployment reach pre-GD averages?

Answer 1

not until outbreak of WWII that industrial production reached precrash peak levels and unemployment rate fell below decennial (ten year) average of 18%.

Answer 2

problem of delayed recovery/difficulties of reordering industrial structure in 30s quickly overcome by WWII – 1) mature industries brought out of their stagnations for war effort 2) new industries pulled along by gov orders, both due to their addition to general economic activity increase and demands on sectors such as petroleum, chem, electronics and aviation.

Answer 3

ND caused confusion - no basic principle - first four years of Roose admin, went in many directions – Richard Hofstadter called it “a chaos of experimentation,” and being bereft of ideologies – author argues that ND actually had many ideologies, but what it lacked was a single principle to bind its many diverse initiatives together.

Answer 4

Roose justified spending as a way of bringing whole econ back to health by increasing general purchasing power (vs earlier years, when only targeted spending to specific areas during Dep) – spending no longer seen as evil, ushering in a new era of gov fiscal policy

Answer 5

Third phase in 1937 1st: NRA and AAA - national planning and coordination attempts 2nd: Wagner, SSA, tax reform - politicised and reformist programmes 3rd: Turn to compensatory state of Keynesian fiscal policy - expansion of social welfare. **Marked by powerful constraints on reform.**

Answer 6

* **Court-Packing Bill 1937** * **Purge Attempt 1938** - (Activity in the House and Senate to remove southern democrats opposed to the New Deal) * **Executive Reorganisation Act 1939** - 1. President to hire six assistants to coordinate management of the federal government. 2. Reorganisation of the executive branch - within certain limits. (Creation of the Executive Office of the President) The powerful apparatus of the state was not accomplished

Answer 7

* Barry D. Karl thus must refer to the "abortive" Third New Deal What did emerge in the late New Deal was something different— not the powerful administrative state but instead the compensatory state of fiscal policy to achieve abundance and ensure security in a mixed economy.

Answer 8

Security, Work, and Relief Policies, which advocated much larger social insurance, public assistance and public works programs – started work on 1939 and issued 1943

Answer 9

southern Democrats supported spending but opposed the more intrusive administrative approach, especially because of the potential for interfering with southern racial norms.

Answer 10

It was increasingly neglected as the ND focused moreso on urban issues.

Answer 11

Congress, increasingly jealous of its power and prerogatives as the executive branch grew in size, scope, and ambition in the 1930s, acted for institutional as well as ideological reasons as a brake on the New Deal

Answer 12

the Department of Agriculture, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Veterans' Administration, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation - Rejected expansionist policies which would have brought them into the firing line of conservatives.

Answer 13

Ultimately the most enduring legacy of the New Deal," he maintains, "was not that of reform—it was the legacy of state building, the centralization of power within the executive branch, and the state's growing capacity to shape economic activity"

Answer 14

– federal spending from 1933-36 never more than 5.9 % of GNP (vs state and local gov spending which in fiscal 1936 was 9.6%).

Answer 15

Production declined 70% in steel, 50% automobiles, five million workers lost jobs, unemp reached almost 20% in this “Roosvelt recession”.

Answer 16

– crop control – wheat farmers to reduce production by 20%, cotton planters 40%, tobacco 30%, corn-hog 20%. In 1933, destroyed 10.5mill acres of cotton, and price of the 1933 crop rose to over 10c a pound compared to 6.5c in 1932

Answer 17

1934 - * 4.2 million employed * 5,000,000 miles of road * 40,000 schools * 3,500 parks * 1,000 airports * $15.04 a week * $200 million a month to fund

Answer 18

1935: $0 unemployment compensation payments 1940: $480 million

Answer 19

* 9,000,000 in 1939 * Agriculture, crop production and price support loans did not halt overproduction * Wrok relief never reached more than 40% of the unemployed.

Answer 20

Roosevelt had no ambition of removing captialism - he wanted to save and preserve it.

Answer 21

active and powerful lobbying from farm organisations Labour movements would also be key to the Wagner Act.

Answer 22

One not focused on the broad needs of the nation and the modern economy, but one which enhanced the rights and freedoms of individuals and social groups

Answer 23

Movement from society-centred to state-centred understandings of public action "the preferences of the state are at least as important as those of civil society in accounting for what the democratic state does" Historians of Roosevelt align themselves with the notion of an autonomous state

Answer 24

Schechter Poultry Co. vs US - invalidated the central elements of the National Industrial Recovery Act 1933. (NRA by 1935 was however considered a woeful failure - no one lost sleep by hearing of its demise)

Answer 25

Within weeks of the bill's introduction, the Supreme Court began prudently to change course by upholding ND measures that months earlier it would have invalidated. With the retirement of Willis Van Devanter, Roosevelt was able to appoint a sympathetic replacement - Senator Hugo Black of Alabama. The threat of a hostile SC was removed.

Answer 26

* Deep and lasting damage to Roosevelt * frontal attack on SC was seen as duplicitous and was seen to challenge the constitutional separation of powers - giving credence to charges of dictatorship.

Answer 27

Committee report from 1936 - found that courts, parties and legislatures in the past had been more important in shaping the direction of policy - in 20th century, should be the president. Proposed: * Expanded White House staff * Move the budgetary powers to the White House * Presidental control of the Civil Service Brownlow was seen as connected to the court packing plan

Answer 28

Roosevelt was always serious about balancing the budget, and was uncomfortable with the deficit which had been growing. Continued to denounce 'fiscal recklessness'. This actuated in attempts to reduce spending in 1937.

Answer 29

Movement of gold into the US from Europe due to fears of rising tensions - Roosevelt had to quarantine the gold in order to prevent it from causing inflation in the country

Answer 30

A significant moment in this shift of American liberalism from a preoccupation with "reform" and toward a preoccupation with "rights", Rights based liberalism was in some respects part of a retreat from a broad range of econoimc issues that had been important to progressives and New Dealers for decades.

Answer 31

Like American liberalism on a whole, TUs began to shed their commitment to structural economic reforms and to a redistribution of wealth and pwoer. Instead - emerging liberal belief that the key to a successful society was economic growth through high levels of consumption. This was essentially a belief in the capacity of American abundance to smooth over questions of class and power by creating a nation of consumers.

Answer 32

Father Coughlin and ‘Kingfish’ Huey Long, both whom worked with and against Roosevelt, calling for a dispersement of wealth, assault on bankers, and a revivalism of localism in America. They acted essentially as lightning rods for populism and discontent, however were unable to maintain momentum and ultimately were crowded out by other dissidents.

Answer 33

Superficially, 180 flip - Rejection of European rearmament as evidence of capacity to pay war debt - Disavowed support of league Did however, maintain: - Smoot-Hawley tariffs as injurious to world trade

Answer 34

Global economic reform was to be realised, but domestic would come first.

Answer 35

12 March - 60 million tune in

Answer 36

The Amau doctrine - Japan announced that China was not to receive foreign aid - America quietly complied.

Answer 37

By taking European nations, the natural extension would be Latin American countries - the transfer of Dutch and French assets to Nazi control. Roosevelt found that there was a consensus in the country for opposing this.

Answer 38

Impulse was to strike down, however policy fell midway between sanctions and conciliation

Answer 39

End to business as usual "We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergence as serious as war itself. We must aply ourselves to the task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war" Opinion polls showed 80% support for policy

Answer 40

Formed an important precedent for arbitrary action by subsequent Presidents. In his determination to combat the Nazi threat, Roosevelt sanctioned the FBI to perform 'special operations' which undermined the democratic institutions he wished so much to preserve.

Answer 41

Though the surprise attack profoundly distressed FDR, it also relieved him - as told by Hopkins, the President said it took the question of peace and war 'entirely out of his hands, because the Japanese had made the decision for him;

Answer 42

Compliment the WWII stuff, disparaging on other matters: * 1930s isolation bad * Lodnon Economic Conference 1933 response bad * Dealing with Russia, China, France, Japan prior to Pearl Harbour- bad

Answer 43

ejected Hoover’s conceptual ideas of state centralisation - “He assailed the Hoover administration because it was “committed to the idea that we ought to centre control of everything in Washington as rapidly as possible”.

Answer 44

- Leuchtenburg proposes that Roosevelt was not forthcoming with details concerning the New Deal, not because the concept hadn’t crystallised but because he was attempting to avoid controversies and was focussing on election.

Answer 45

Silver was an industry less important than chewing gum… yet the cohesive bloc of silver senators from the sparsely settled mountain states who often held the balance of power in the Senate was able to win concessions for the industry far beyond its actual significance * 1933 - silver bought at 64.5 cents an ounce - 21 cents above market average * an industry employing ~5000 would wring the government of 1.5 billion dollars - **more than spent on farming** *

Answer 46

interest group democracy had the tactical advantage of weakening opposition by incorporating potential opponents within the administration, but it also served to make the Roosevelt administration the prisoner of its own interest groups. The President often shied away from decisions that might antagonise one or another of the elements of the coalition”

Answer 47

**Leutchenberg:** The New Deal was never simply a broker state, The need to create overnight a new civil service brought to power men who had not been routinised for years in a bureaucracy and who were not easily disciplined; instead of viewing themselves as agents of the President, they often pushed programmes of their own which the president was compelled to accept. **Countering Argument:** Roosevelt is essentially a broker. He has neither the will nor the power to move against the political currents of the day. He does not and cannot invent his policies

Answer 48

Father Coughlin.. spoke weekly to the largest steady radio audience in the world” - “He oscillated between defence of the New Deal and sorties against it. In the spring of 1934, he promised he would “never change my philosophy that the New Deal is Christ’s Deal” but a week later he called the NRA and AAA “Abortive””. -

Answer 49

“death sentence” provision - which would empower the SEC after 1 Jan 1940 to dissolve any utility holding company which could not justify its existence. Power companies “mounted their heaviest artillery against the holding company bill” - over $1 million spent fighting led to defeat of sentence 216-146 further illustrating power from below

Answer 50

“CIO unions contributed the enormous sum of $770000 to the President’s campaign chest…$469000 of it came from the Lewis’ United Mine Workers. these contributions marked a historic shift in the financial base of theDemocratic party, as business sources dried up, the UMW’s donation made the union the party’s largest single benefactor”

Answer 51

1940, Congress, which in early spring had planned to slash war department appropriations, had voted over $17 billion for defence

Answer 52

* US economy was in dire straits at the time of Nazi invasion of Poland, the US economy was still trapped in the coils of depression. Of this 131 million citizens, millions had not enjoyed a regular pay check in nine years. Wages 20% below predepression days. 8,000,000 children from families on relief. 22,000,000 living in inadequate housing, etc.

Answer 53

300,000 aircraft, 315000 artillery pieces, 86000 tanks, warships totalling 8.5 million tons, and 51 million tons of merchant shipping.

Answer 54

* By Pearl Harbour, some $2 billion was already spent on war effort * 1945 - federal budget exceeded 100 billion, from 9 billion in 1939 * GNP from 91 to 166 billion * 17 million new jobs

Answer 55

First fired and last hired

Answer 56

Elanor Roosevelt

Answer 57

Hopkins, Williams (relief) Flanagan Straus (housing) First black federal judge - William Hastie

Answer 58

Very. 76% of AAs voted for him - jumping from Republicans (Party of Lincoln)

Answer 59

Politicised and militated them

Answer 60

"Capitalism was saved in eight days" Roosevelt shut the banks, and then proceeded to open them after four days with stronger government supervision - incld. guaranteeing deposits under $100,000

Answer 61

'You are the disciples and leaders of the free world - can't you come and help us?'

Answer 62

"Rejection of Europe is what America is all about"

Answer 63

20th biggest in the world, below the Netherlands. 5 divisions ready to fight: Germany had 141, Allies had 144,

Answer 64

The destruction of the British Navy would be the turning of our Atlantic Maginot Line', so America had an interest in keeping Britain afloat, as it were.

Answer 65

64% Figurehead = Charles Lindbergh - key motivator behind staying away from conflict.

Answer 66

Legal commentator - “Switch in Time Saved Nine”