New Deal Speech

The article The New Deal, by Thomas Kessner, outlines Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s pre presidency, but more importantly, the policy he used in an attempt to bring America back to its pre Great Depression economic greatness. In order to do so, Roosevelt expanded federal authority over American citizens. He implemented a progressive income tax as well as created numerous federal work projects, aimed at increasing employment, as well as use federal money to help the economy. One example the author uses to prove this point of the large amount of projects is the Tennessee Valley Authority initiative, which spanned across seven states. The projects worked towards economic development and conservation. This projects protected endangered forests, built dams, and brought electricity and running water to the people.

In his work The Achievement of the New Deal, author William E Leuchtenburg argues that when the great depression was shaking the stability of the American life, the new deal which is the policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt led America towards the light. He shows us the drastic change that the deal brought which was very controversial and brought positive socioeconomic changes. It shows how the American life changes and the economy flourished in America. Leuchtenburg was a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a brilliant scholar of the life of Roosevelt.

In his presidential acceptance speech in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed to the citizens of the United States, “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.” The New Deal, beginning in 1933, was a series of federal programs designed to provide relief, recovery, and reform to the fragile nation. The U.S. had been both economically and psychologically buffeted by the Great Depression. Many citizens looked up to FDR and his New Deal for help. However, there is much skepticism and controversy on whether these work projects significantly abated the dangerously high employment rates and pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression. The New Deal was a bad deal

The New Deal allowed the government to create new programs that either provided relief or recovery, or were a reform for the problems during that time. In the time of an economic crisis, the government should get involved and provide a safety net for Americans. Government involvement is necessary to work towards a resolution, but too much involvement will put too much power in the Government’s hands, which could lead to a government type we do not want in America. During economic busts, the government should use the programs that are currently in place to provide a safety net and support Americans. However, during economic booms Americans should provide for themselves and not be reliant on the government to provide for them.

On March 4, 1933, when FDR took the oath of office to become the 32nd President of the United States, America was a country in the midst of the worst economic crisis in its history.

The Great Depression was one of the most devastating events in human history. When FDR was president, his administration contributed to the creation of relief programs in order to help solve the problems of the Great Depression such as the effects of the stock market crash. The government was helping the nation get back on it’s feet by being involved more in people’s daily lives. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration created relief programs in order to help Americans after the Great Depression. In Document C, FDR states, “Its evolution, not revolution, Gentlemen”!

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”- President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This words were announced to the American public by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his Inaugural Address, where he tried to reassure the people that everything would be fine. Having just experienced the prosperous era of the Roaring Twenties, not many people thought good times would ever end. However, this proved to be incorrects as pandemonium and turmoil overcame the people in October 29, 1929 with the Stock Market Crash. With the economy sliding downhill, Americans faced many problems that would change the government’s role in the economy. Nevertheless, many actions were also taken by both individuals and groups alike in response to this economic depression.

“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said after winning his party’s nomination in 1932 ("A New Deal for Americans"). The 1930s was a time of great economic depression; in response the New Deal was FDR’s plan for America’s recovery. By 1933, when FDR took office, one in four Americans was unemployed. Furthermore, there was widespread hunger, malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor health. The New Deal was made to combat these tragic conditions and it did so through the means of welfare and government intervention. Indeed, the New Deal was a radical change to the way America had

Imagine being unemployed and so poor that you call a shantytown your community and a shack your home. This was the economic situation for one-quarter of the civilian labor force in 1933 (Dimand, 2000, para. 4), and so, in the same year, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president during the worst economic recession in history of America (ABC-CLIO, 2000, para.2). Accordingly, FDR introduced a series of programs to help the American public called the New Deal. These programs were often called “alphabet soup agencies” due to the acronyms for various programs made to provide relief, recovery and reform, such as decreasing the amount of unemployed by creating jobs, giving secure wages and making housing more affordable. The New Deal was a success because of the numerous Federal programs Roosevelt created to accomplish its goal of helping the people.

It all started back in 1929, the depression era. The stock market had recently crashed and people were desperate for hope. Unemployment was at its all time high, more than one fourth of the U.S population was unemployed and gradually increasing. At the time of when the depression first began, President Herbert Hoover was in power. During the depression people would wait in long lines just for a few bites to eat. Volunteers would hand out food to the hopeless and hungry people, these were commonly known as Soup kitchens in “Hoovervilles” . The soup kitchens and the help efforts that were in place during the depression were named after the president of the time. The struggles did not get any better until the start of the CCC, The Civilian Conservation Corp.

It was the year of 1934. America was fighting to come out from the worst economic crisis that the world would ever witness. It was also the year of high crime rate, low Gross Domestic Product and the lowest unemployment rate America had experienced. The Depression had paralyzed American labor forces, but there was a hope still alive in every American including J.D. Rockefeller when he said, “These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again” (Rockefeller). At that time, the next president named Franklin D. Roosevelt, famous as FDR, brought Americans back to work through his confident efforts and new series of programs called ‘the New Deal’.

The economic crisis that showed all the contradictions of capitalism led to an increase of a deep political crisis in the USA in late 1920?s. October 29, 1929 is known in the American history as the Black Tuesday. It was the date, when the American stock market collapsed. In such economically difficult situation, in November 1932, a regular presidential election took place. The Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, who spoke with the program the New Deal, came to presidency. It was a series of social liberal programs applied in the United States in 1933-1938 in response to the Great Depression. The New Deal was focused on three main principles: relief, recovery, and reform.[footnoteRef:1] They promised to bring the country to prosperity and economically stable future. However, the Conservatives criticized the New Deal during the whole period of the reforms. It was expressed by Herbert Hoover in Anti-New Deal Campaign Speech in 1936 and Minnie Hardin in 1937 in a Letter to Eleanor Roosevelt. [1: (notes)]

A program that was successful in helping people recover from the depression was the FDIC or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corperation. The program was successful because it helped restore confidence in the banks helping to relieve some of the depression. It also helped prevent more depressions because people would always have at least some of their money protected in the banks and not everyone would rush to take out their money and cause another bank collapse. This program was successful because it provided relief to those affected by the deprssion and also had lasting affects in protecting the economy.

From January 1933 through August 1934, Hickok toured the country, she wrote to Mr. Hopkins on her trip through the Tennessee Valley and adjacent territory. She found great successes ten thousand men at work, construction with lumber and steel and concrete the New Deal's utmost glorious development, building an territory with potential so remarkable and so amazing. Some people doing this job that live in these towns will feel the impact of this program. The program also has many people skeptics, that don’t understand the impact of the Tennessee Valley Authority, even though it hasn’t decreased the number of citizens on relief. There are thousands of people are making a decent wage which provides a stable existence, living in better houses,

Features of the New Deal When Roosevelt won the American Presidential Elections in 1932, he needed to act quickly to provide the general public what he had promised. His first hundred days in office was a time of dramatic change to the American system of government. Never before had American Presidents been so involved with the every day life of their people or worked so hard to improve the country in almost every aspect affecting the lives of the public and the economy. However, it can not be doubted that the period that followed the Wall Street Crash in 1929 were times of desperation and depression for the vast majority of people from all walks of life.