The bayonets were used to jab people, to make them move…. The entire block was covered by tear gas. Flames were coming up, where the soldiers had set fire to the buildings housing protesters to drive these people out.
Roosevelt FDR upon taking office that, given the present crisis, he would be either the worst or greatest president in American history. Private nonprofit organizations such as Community Chests, although valiant in their effort, were overwhelmed with requests, unable to meet the needs of their communities.
State and local governments, ultimately responsible for their poor throughout American history, now looked for financial assistance. What was needed was an expanded institutional partnership between the federal government and the other sectors of American society in promoting social welfare.
In the past, the federal government had been active in other areas such as railroad development and war veteran pensions. However, the American belief, as earlier expressed by President Franklin Pierce to Dorothea Dix , was that the federal government should not be involved in providing poor relief. The federal government was in the best position to initiate and coordinate national efforts among public, private, and nonprofit sectors of society.
As the crisis deepened, progressive leaders and average Americans increasingly demanded that the federal government take greater responsibility in relieving and preventing poverty. One of the more radical policy proposals to address the Great Depression was put forth by Senator Huey Long from Louisiana and a second by Dr. Francis Townsend from California. Consequently, the Roosevelt Administration established a two-tier federal system of insurance and relief programs.
But to address the social unrest throughout the nation, he took immediate action to create job opportunities. He did so by establishing several federal agencies and programs.
As its name suggests, FERA was given primary responsibility for managing the effort to distribute federal relief funds to individual states. The relief funds were used to sustain unemployed families during the immediate crisis. This federal program created jobs in public works.
These public sector jobs included road repair, the digging of drainage ditches and the maintenance of local parks. However, in contrast to the CWA, it focused on complex public works such as dams and airports.
The target population of this program was unemployed youth. That is, the Civilian Conservation Corps provided jobs for youth in various parks. The U. Army was used to supervise the youth. Furthermore, Congress passed the Wagner-Peyser Act in This legislation provided federal funding to individual states to develop employment offices.
Only 23 states had such services before And finally, though not directly job-related, emergency food programs were set up to prevent starvation. For instance, surplus agricultural goods were distributed to the poor. Federal reforms during the FDR Administration also included reforms to stabilize the economic sector. More precisely, this federal initiative sought to stabilize the economy by establishing wage and price agreements to curb the slashing of prices and wages during the depression.
Similarly, the Agricultural Adjustment Agency was created to curtail farm production in order to maintain higher farm prices and prevent further bankruptcies in the farm sector. A primary responsibility of this entity was to restore public confidence in the banking system. The FDIC worked with participating banks to insure consumer bank deposits against bank insolvency.
The federal government also collaborated with banks to address the millions of farms and homes threatened with foreclosure. For example, the federal government directly purchased from banks and refinanced at a lower interest rate the mortgages of needy farmers through passage of the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act and the Farm Relief Act.
Both were enacted in Through this program the federal government insured home mortgages and home improvement loans, allowing banks to refinance the loans of needy families at lower interest rates. The goal of the TVA was to facilitate economic development in that region of the country. To this end, dams and generating plants were constructed, providing inexpensive electric power to the region.
The TVA also developed flood-control projects, manufactured and sold fertilizer, and reforested large tracts of land. Regarding the Securities and Exchange Commission, many people felt that rampant speculation in the stock market played a significant role in causing the stock market crash and subsequent depression.
Therefore, the Securities and Exchange Commission took on the responsibility of regulating speculation abuses by investors and stockbrokers. Roosevelt is generally considered to be one of the three greatest presidents in American history, along with Lincoln and Washington. Because the disease left his legs paralyzed, he could not walk without assistance.
Could Roosevelt be elected president today? How would the press cover his disability? How would the voters react to a candidate who could not walk without assistance? This first set of reforms, as previously stated, was an emergency stop-gap measure.
From November of to November of , the Roosevelt Administration implemented a second set of reforms meant to define an ongoing responsibility of the federal government, a responsibility for social welfare similar to that found in European nations.
Unemployment insurance was very unpopular with business leaders. To illustrate, as late as , Henry Ford persisted in blaming mass unemployment on individual laziness. He claimed there was plenty of work for those who wanted it! The Social Security Act also contained several federal poor relief programs. It was not until that the single parent became officially eligible for assistance also.
Note that prior to the New Deal, relief was a tool used by social workers to rehabilitate. With the New Deal, poor relief became a right of American citizens meeting certain eligibility standards, including of course, financial need.
Yet, the legislation allowed each state to determine eligibility standards and levels of benefits. Also contained in the legislative package were a number of smaller scale health and human service programs. These included child welfare and maternal health programs in Title V of the act and public health programs in Title VI of the legislation.
During this second round of reforms, the Roosevelt Administration continued to confront massive unemployment and labor unrest. Numerous strikes took place throughout the country. To support the rights of union organizers, the Wagner Act was passed in The board enforced the right of workers to start their own unions.
For instance, specific procedures for starting unions were outlined, including voting procedures for choosing a collective bargaining agent. Family of agricultural day laborers living in tent near Spiro, Oklahoma. This family had farmed in this vicinity for twenty-five years but could no longer find a place to rent. They had no money and no car but hoped to get work in the potato fields and chopping cotton and picking roasting ears.
They wanted to buy a car and get on to California but if they couldn't make it the man said they couldn't run him out of Oklahoma. This map shows the forested areas planted as part of the Great Plains Shelterbelt, which began in Greer County, Oklahoma map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The government made the Civilian Conservation Corps CCC to help people without jobs find work, people without homes have a place to live, and to help stop the spread of the Dust Bowl. Young, single men without jobs could apply to work for the CCC. They could have a place to live, food, and some money for their work. The CCC also planted many trees. Trees have strong roots that can hold down a lot of dirt. They also act as wind blocks, which helps to stop the dirt from blowing away.
Oklahoma's first state forester, George R. Phillips, planted the first tree in this shelter on March 18, There are almost 3, miles of trees that were planted in Oklahoma as a part of this program.
Almost 19, miles and more than million shelter trees were planted nationwide as a part of this program that started in Oklahoma. Congress created the Public Works Administration PWA in to put citizens to work on large-scale building and construction projects as well as road and transportation maintenance. Its primary goal was to employ workers to create structures that provided long-term benefits to communities. Each state had its own priorities and ran its own projects. Road-building accounted for half of the projects completed by the WPA, but it also built canals, bridges, dams, post offices, National Guard Armories, schools, and even some sporting stadiums.
The WPA also helped the people that it employed. The father looks at the visitor and holds one hand to his chin. As the traditional family provider, his hands are strangely idle. The visitor, still in her coat and hat, leans towards the father as though listening to him, as she writes on a sheet of paper. The heaviness of her posture and expression suggest that she is burdened by sadness or despair. The artist himself was on a relief program and he could appreciate the stresses of many of his fellow Americans who needed government assistance in order to survive the Great Depression.
Applying for aid was considered a last resort and a humiliating experience. As part of the process, a case worker would come and inspect a home to ensure that the people living there were truly poor enough to qualify for help.
She completes her paperwork at an empty table, indicating that the family has no food or drink to share with her. Case workers, whose jobs were also part of the aid program, faced the desperate situations of fellow citizens time and again. This painting, completed nearly nine years after initial stock market crash, shows the demoralizing, helpless position that was so common amongst Americans at this time.
How would an infrastructure project such as building a dam impact Americans in their everyday lives? Directly in the center of this three-panel, monumental mural is a section of an enormous pipe being hoisted above a canyon. A man on top of it directs his co-workers, who include a surveyor and an engineer scrutinizing blueprints for the project. In the left panel, bravely positioned on the steep, jagged edges of the canyon, men operate air drills.
At the right, six men balance themselves on a large steel buttress. The artist, William Gropper, emphasized teamwork and physical courage by depicting three separate groups of workers, who labor under the oppressive heat of a southwestern sun.
The landscape is rocky and dry; in the background a mountain looms. The image flows across the three-part work, a sun-lit tribute to the American worker as a hero. Gropper deliberately romanticized the scene, showing the men smiling as they put innovative technologies to use to harness the enormous potential power of the water. In the new, industrialized America, he seems to say, technology can conquer anything.
Gropper organized the composition in three parts to accommodate a second-floor lobby wall divided by two marble pilasters. Each scene represents different phases of construction to show the drama, danger, and massive scale of the dam projects overseen by the government. The depicted Grand Coulee Dam was an inspiring feat of twentieth century engineering.
It bettered the lives of millions of people by providing them with electrical power and irrigation for their crops. The dam itself is hardly visible in this mural because Gropper wanted to emphasize the American workers who made it possible; he paid tribute to the courage and strength of the laborers and the country recovered from economic disaster thanks to President Franklin D.
The first rumblings of disaster were heard in September — stock prices fell, then quickly recovered. The following Tuesday, 16,, shares changed hands. For two weeks, stock prices continued to fall, and by mid-November, roughly one-third of the value of stocks listed in September was lost.
It was becoming clear that recovery would be neither swift nor easy, and that company promises of wages and pensions had been ephemeral. In reaction to the stock market crash , President Herbert Hoover met with business leaders during the winter of and During the s, banks failed at a rate of more than per year. In the first ten months of , America saw bank closures; during the last two months of the year, sixty more, many of them woefully undercapitalized to begin with, closed their doors.
Tens of thousands of unemployed lined up at soup kitchens, rode the rails in every direction of the compass hoping to find work, or hitchhiked wherever the roads might take them.
By early , more than ten million Americans were unemployed. Industries such as steel and automobiles which had flourished during the World War I years and fueled the economic boom of the s now came to a virtual halt — the unemployment rate for these industries was as high as fifty percent. Those who held their jobs took shorter hours or reduced wages. Unfortunately President Hoover failed the grasp the direness of the economic crisis and as a result, he was blamed by many Americans for failing to leverage the power of the American government to address the problem.
As such, he was soundly defeated for re-election in by Franklin D. President Franklin D. Following this, the Federal Emergency Relief Act FERA was put into effect on May 12, , allotting million dollars to give relief to the states, who could then help their citizens who were in need.
Infrastructure and conservation work were also a part of FERA. Two hundred thousand young men put to work on conservation and construction projects, projects improving bridges, roads, and sewers, and refurbishing schools and hospitals. A great part of its success was the understanding that the money distributed was not relief but wages. The heroic and powerful nature of this depiction of the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam were meant to inspire fellow American and provide them hope in a time of uncertainty.
The sheer size of the Grand Coulee makes it both a monument and a metaphor. It is one of the largest concrete structures in the world, with 12 million cubic yards of concrete — enough to pave a transcontinental highway. It is feet tall from top to foundation, though not quite as tall as another famed public-works colossus, the foot-tall Hoover Dam.
It will light homes and stores in towns and cities. It generates 21 billion kilowatt-hours, enough to power 2 million homes for a year. Relief was and continues to be our first consideration. Government officials were also afraid that if they gave too much, people would become comfortable on the dole and stop trying to find work elsewhere.
It is that the scale differs so little from the standard of living enjoyed by the workers who manage to retain complete independence. To keep costs down, they closely policed dole applicants to ensure that only those who desperately needed relief received it. The government also hired a limited number of relieving officers, which made it difficult for a lot of people to apply for the dole.
The officers had sweeping powers to investigate applicants and to determine how much government support they should obtain. This contributed to the economic and social hardships experienced by the poor and working class during the Depression. If people supplemented inadequate dole rations by hunting or farming, then they risked being cut off from government support. Furthermore, Magor recommended that the government not only refuse relief to people who cheated the system, but also to those who knew of abusers and did not report them.
This helped create an atmosphere of paranoia, discontent, and oppression in Newfoundland and Labrador during the s.
The Commission of Government only marginally improved matters when it came into power in Destitution remained widespread and the relief system was still harshly policed, left people hungry and malnourished, and did not allow recipients to buy their own provisions. The replacement of white flour with brown was a particularly sore point, as many applicants felt the new flour was difficult to bake with.
The Commission also introduced a land settlement program to Newfoundland and Labrador which had a promising start, but eventually ended in failure.
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