In 1933 the new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, brought an
air of confidence and optimism that quickly rallied the people
to the banner of his program, known as the New Deal. "The only
thing we have to fear is fear itself," the president declared in
his inaugural address to the nation.
In one sense, the New Deal merely introduced social and economic
reforms familiar to many Europeans for more than a generation.
Moreover, the New Deal represented the culmination of a
long-range trend toward abandonment of "laissez-faire"
capitalism, going back to the regulation of the railroads in the
1880s, and the flood of state and national reform legislation
introduced in the Progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson.
What was truly novel about the New Deal, however, was the speed
with which it accomplished what previously had taken
generations. Many of its reforms were hastily drawn and weakly
administered; some actually contradicted others. Moreover, it
never succeeded in restoring prosperity. Yet its actions
provided tangible help for millions of Americans, laid the basis
for a powerful new political coalition, and brought to the
individual citizen a sharp revival of interest in government.
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