US-G+Chapter+25

Debate - Was Franklin D. Roosevelt a good president?


 * Compare and contrast the first and second New Deals and evaluate the success and failures of the relief, recovery, and reform measures associated with each.**

Most of the first New Deals tried to help the people by giving direct money to them. For example, Home Owners Loan Corporation assisted home owners who could not meet their mortgage payments. Also, Farm Credit Administration gave out loans to farmers. Federal Emergency Relief Administration gave $500 million to state and local agencies to help families. Some first New Deals tried to help but have failed. National Recovery Administration set up moral codes in the economy to prevent unfair actions. However, people did not always obey the codes. Workers and consumers complained about the wages and prices. In the end, the NRA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The first New Deals that tried to help the agriculture were led by Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). AAA tried to help the farmers by cutting the production and raising the price. This act met some criticisms because the benefit came at the expense of the consumers (high price). Also, landowners basically kicked out the sharecroppers and the sharecroppers did not benefit much from this. Supreme Court also declared this act unconstitutional because of the tax on food processors was unconstitutional. First New Deals to help improve a region were fairly successful because they did improve the lives in the Tennessee river valley. Although many first New Deals created discrimination, Roosevelt did not overlook and did try to prevent these issues. However overall, many New Deals were criticized for excessive spending of the government.

The second New Deals aimed to establish reforms and programs to help the US in long-term because the first New Deals were too slow to ease the troubles. Works Progress Administration was successful in this. In 8 years, it employed 8.5 million jobless people. The Social Security Act, instead of excessively using the government funds like the first New Deals, supported the workers with a payroll tax on business and wages. Second New Deals tried to support the farm workers, sharecroppers and tenant farmers as well. Farm Security Administration (FSA) did this by providing long-term loans to help them buy lands.

Like this, the second New Deals did fix some problems that existed in the first New Deals.


 * What were the effects of the Dust Bowl?**

Dust Bowl took place in the Great Plains. Government did act to prevent disaster by planting trees, but it was too late for the farmers. Dust Bowl farmers lost their land before the government could help. These people packed their few belongings and started moving to the West Coast. For them, California was the Promised Land. With all these people migrating to California, they found fierce competitions for jobs. There already was a huge competition for jobs in California before the Dust Bowl because of the Mexican Americans. However, the government's support to form unions helped the workers' condition. But because of the Dust Bowl, competition grew with the additional migrants. The lives of the migrants remained harsh.


 * Analyze the involvement of minorities and women in the New Deal and its impact upon them.**

Minorities received less benefits than white jobless people. Although in the same situation, Caucasian people would receive more relief than colored people. Blacks were segregated by policies of National Relief Association. They were restricted on opportunities. For example, they had restricted choice upon their habitat, and received lower wages. Empowered by the depression, blacks organized the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to secure their rights and opportunity in the New Deal project. Roosevelt was NAACP friendly and hired most number of black cabinet officials in US history. Especially Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, was an active equality pursuer. Many activities and rights that African Americans sought to do were accomplished with help of Eleanor Roosevelt such as concert of Marian Anderson in Washington, D.C. hall.

John Collier, sympathizing the poor and uncaring conditions in American Indian habitats, founded American Indian Defense Association. The organization won governmental care and support towards those indigenous Americans. Those Indians received no care whatsoever when Depression occurred, they were forgotten. It was their chance to advertise their culture and cult to rest of America.


 * Explain renewed efforts to protect the environment during the Great Depression and evaluate their success in places such as the Dust Bowl and the Tennessee Valley.**

Several regions during the Great Depression were under poor condition because of deforestation, disease, malnutrition, flooding, and poverty. Roosevelt tried to revitalize these regions by establishing programs to help recover the conditions. One example is the Tennessee Valley Authority. This program changed the economic and social life of the Tennessee River valley region. It built damns and several power stations to provide electricity, flood control, and recreational erosion. This program tried to improve the region. It was met with some skepticism because the frustrated people in the region didn't want to listen to the government. However, government managed to help this region in the end.

Many people suffered from the Dust Bowl, several drought that struck the Great Plains. This disaster caused the region to be covered with clouds of dust in the sky at noon. Dust crept into houses through tiny holes. Dust was flying everywhere with the wind. The Department of Agriculture started extensive program to prevent similar natural disasters in the future. For example, it planted 217 million trees to prevent the dust from going all over the place. This program was successful because the amount of dried-out farmland did decrease dramatically. However, it was a bit too late as the farmers already lost their lands.


 * Identify the leading opponents of New Deal policies and assess their arguments.**

Major oppositions came from people holding the money bag. New Deal consisted of plans of relieving the poverty class, obviously, and government needed astronomical amount of money. What the government did was raising the tax. However that was the main mistake of the New Deal. It was shown that if taxes were raised, then wages would reduce, then people can't buy anything and flow of money stops, or a depression, then taxes were raised because government needed more money. Also, since AAA ordered farmers to abandon large portions of their products in order to raise the price. Some farmers were forced not to farm at all, and poor people could not afford the raised prices for crops. Construction programs such as TVA and WPA constructed numerous dams and public buildings, which were 'not necessarily needed immediately'. Thanks to that, little electricity were produced from dams and those projects gave little in return, thus, making all the taxes spent a waste. Their opposition is within logic of economics and it is based with actual data from time therefore the argument is valid.


 * How effective was the New Deal in ending the Great Depression?**

New Deal, in fact, was not really a remedy for the Great Depression but a painkiller. New Deal indeed showed some immediate improvement during the first New Deal in the 1936, but soon it fails because all of the resolutions were about immediate helps that could not last long. The Second New Deal consisted of more reasonable and cost oeffective long term goals but did not show much effect. It showed small but gradual decrease in number of unemployment however before it reached to stability, World War II happened which was the cure to the Great Depression. However, the graph of unemployment shows a small linear fall, which would have reached 0% at one point if World War II did not occur. New Deal, however, was effective enough from keeping America from fascist takeover like Germany and Italy.


 * How did New Deal agencies use photography to promote their goals?**

The Great Depression was portrayed by the sad faces of the suffering workers. Many photographers and filmmakers used these powerful experiences of the people for their art works. They created the New Deal Era. The pictures of the devastated unemployed men, hungry children, and the worried expressions of the exhausted women convey the human suffering of the era.

Roosevelt, who was doing whatever he could to recover the country from the Depression, did not overlook this move. He hired many photographers to take pictures of the harsh conditions of the people to support the need for federal reliefs programs. Many federal agencies and departments like the Department of the Interior, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and the Department of Agriculture hired photographers to travel across the country and document the lives of ordinary Americans. For example, Walker Evans depicted life among sharecroppers in rural Alabama. Dorothea Lange's //Migrant Mother// is one of the most famous picture taken by her. It shows an exhausted mother whose children survived by eating vegetables they scavenged from California fields. This picture helped gain support for the governmental help on housing. Like this, New Deal agencies used photographies of the harsh conditions to gain support for their actions.


 * What common themes emerged in the novels, films, and plays of the New Deal Era?**

Books and plays this time consists of a man, or an underdog, enduring and winning a hardship. //Gone With The Wind// by Margaret Mitchell's about a war torn man who lives on. Lots of other major publications like //Native Son, Their Eyes Were Watching God and Greapes of Wrath// is about a protagonist who goes through, and wins, all kinds of pressure and depressing tasks. Tasks emphasised on economical situations or racism. By putting an happy ending, it plants an optimistic view in reader's mind. Also in the musical Gold Digger showed American love toward money.

Other than money and heroism, respect towards high class has had pretty much collapsed and some plays indirectly satirized them such as Petrified Forest and Little Foxes.

Music showed juxtaposition of jazz and white folk music.

Overall, arts and craft thses days were showing distrust against the rulers, and showed potency of individualism.