In its early years, the New Deal sponsored a remarkable
series of legislative initiatives and achieved significant
increases in production and prices – but it did not bring an end
to the Depression. As the sense of immediate crisis eased, new
demands emerged. Businessmen mourned the end of "laissez-faire"
and chafed under the regulations of the NIRA. Vocal attacks also
mounted from the political left and right as dreamers, schemers,
and politicians alike emerged with economic panaceas that drew
wide audiences. Dr. Francis E. Townsend advocated generous
old-age pensions. Father Charles Coughlin, the "radio priest,"
called for inflationary policies and blamed international
bankers in speeches increasingly peppered with anti-Semitic
imagery. Most formidably, Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana, an
eloquent and ruthless spokesman for the displaced, advocated a
radical redistribution of wealth. (If he had not been
assassinated in September 1935, Long very likely would have
launched a presidential challenge to Franklin Roosevelt in
1936.)
In the face of these pressures, President Roosevelt backed a new
set of economic and social measures. Prominent among them were
measures to fight poverty, create more work for the unemployed,
and provide a social safety net.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA), the principal relief
agency of the so-called second New Deal, was the biggest public
works agency yet. It pursued small-scale projects throughout the
country, constructing buildings, roads, airports, and schools.
Actors, painters, musicians, and writers were employed through
the Federal Theater Project, the Federal Art Project, and the
Federal Writers Project. The National Youth Administration gave
part-time employment to students, established training programs,
and provided aid to unemployed youth. The WPA only included
about three million jobless at a time; when it was abandoned in
1943, it had helped a total of nine million people.
The New Deal's cornerstone, according to Roosevelt, was the
Social Security Act of 1935. Social Security created a system of
state-administered welfare payments for the poor, unemployed,
and disabled based on matching state and federal contributions.
It also established a national system of retirement benefits
drawing on a “trust fund” created by employer and employee
contributions. Many other industrialized nations had already
enacted such programs, but calls for such an initiative in the
United States had gone unheeded. Social Security today is the
largest domestic program administered by the U.S. government.
To these, Roosevelt added the National Labor Relations Act, the
"Wealth Tax Act" that increased taxes on the wealthy, the Public
Utility Holding Company Act to break up large electrical utility
conglomerates, and a Banking Act that greatly expanded the power
of the Federal Reserve Board over the large private banks. Also
notable was the establishment of the Rural Electrification
Administration, which extended electricity into farming areas
throughout the country. |
