Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1941

This is Unit Eleven, part two, on the critics of the New Deal and the Second New Deal they helped shape. Part one closed with the Tennessee Valley Authority, and pointed to the end of Prohibition. Carry one theme through this part: pressure from outside government shaping what government did. Critics on the left and the right, strikers in the textile mills and the car plants, and a Supreme Court that struck down the first programmes all pushed the New Deal somewhere new. At the court-packing plan, ask whether the plan failed or worked. By the end you will be able to explain how the critics shaped the laws of nineteen thirty-five. To describe the Second New Deal's major laws. To explain how labour organised by industry, and what the Flint sit-down won. To explain whether the court-packing plan failed or worked. And to describe what the Indian Reorganization Act ended.

Three entries: the end of Prohibition, what the first two years achieved, and the strikes of nineteen thirty-four.

The end of Prohibition.

USH2 1525 Beer and Repeal

The Twenty-first Amendment, passed by Congress on February twentieth and ratified December fifth, nineteen thirty-three, repealed the Eighteenth, the National Archives records, and legal beer of three point two percent returned first, authorised and taxed by a law of that year. Unit eight taught Prohibition's arrival. Section two barred carrying liquor into a state against its laws.

What the first two years achieved.

USH2 1526 The First New Deal's Result

Between nineteen thirty-three and nineteen thirty-five the number of Americans at work rose from twenty-four million to twenty-seven, the anchor records, after a seven-million decline under Hoover, and output climbed in what the Yawp calls a robust though imperfect recovery. The Yawp adds that unemployment stayed stubbornly high, which is where the critics began.

The strikes of nineteen thirty-four.

USH2 1527 Labour Turns Militant

In nineteen thirty-four about one and a half million workers struck, Digital History records, a third of them demanding union recognition, and half a million textile workers walked out across twenty states in the largest strike the country had seen. Police shot sixty-seven striking Teamsters in Minneapolis. The strikes, Digital History says, forced the federal government into labour relations.

Five entries on the New Deal's loudest critics, three from the left and one from the right, and what their pressure achieved.

The Louisiana senator.

USH2 1528 Huey Long

Huey Long, Louisiana's senator, broke with Roosevelt, calling the New Deal too conservative, and in early nineteen thirty-four launched Share Our Wealth, with a plan to tax annual incomes over a million dollars at one hundred percent, Digital History records. The anchor counts over four million followers by nineteen thirty-five, and the Yawp records his assassination late that year in the Louisiana State Capitol.

The radio priest.

USH2 1529 The Radio Priest

Father Charles Coughlin, a priest broadcasting from the suburbs of Detroit to a weekly audience of sixteen million, by Digital History's count, first supported the New Deal, then argued that Roosevelt had done far too little for labour, monetary reform and nationalising key industries. The Yawp records that his attacks on Roosevelt were vitriolic and antisemitic.

A pension plan.

USH2 1530 The Townsend Plan

Francis Townsend of California proposed paying every retired citizen over sixty two hundred dollars a month, on condition that it be spent within thirty days; the Yawp says he argued that older workers leaving the workforce would encourage recovery. The sources disagree on his profession, so the course leaves it out.

The critics on the right.

USH2 1531 The Liberty League

The American Liberty League, made up largely of conservative Democrats, called the Agricultural Adjustment Administration fascist and later New Deal programmes a threat to democracy itself, treating them, as Digital History puts it, as infringements on individual rights. The League came from Roosevelt's own party. The criticism from the right came alongside three movements from the left.

What the critics achieved.

USH2 1532 The Critics' Pressure

Three of the New Deal's loudest critics attacked it from the left and one from the right, and the balance shaped the legislation of nineteen thirty-five. Long demanded the redistribution of great fortunes, Coughlin a state-directed economy, Townsend pensions for the old; the Liberty League called the programmes a danger to liberty. A Democratic poll, Digital History says, found Long could draw three to four million voters to an independent ticket. The anchor says the Coughlin and Townsend movements gave Roosevelt leverage, and that parts of the new reforms were drawn from their proposals. The Yawp adds that Long, even after his death, pushed Roosevelt to attack inequality more stridently. Federal pensions arrived that same year.

Seven entries on the Second New Deal: a court's first blow, the largest relief programme, the arts and the young, pensions, and the Federal Reserve.

The Supreme Court's first blow.

USH2 1533 Black Monday

On May twenty-seventh, nineteen thirty-five, the Supreme Court struck down the National Recovery Administration in Schechter v. United States, a kosher chicken dealer's case, Digital History records, and Roosevelt protested a horse-and-buggy definition of interstate commerce. The anchor puts the Agricultural Adjustment Act's fall in the same year; Digital History puts it in nineteen thirty-six.

The largest relief programme.

USH2 1534 The Works Progress Administration

The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of nineteen thirty-five, four point eight billion dollars and the largest single expenditure yet, created the Works Progress Administration, aimed, in the Yawp's quotation, at the maximum number of persons in the shortest time possible. The anchor counts over eight million employed in all, paid, Digital History says, a security wage below union scales.

What it built.

USH2 1535 What the WPA Built

The Works Progress Administration built more than two thousand five hundred hospitals, five thousand nine hundred schools and five hundred seventy thousand miles of road, the anchor records, with unemployed men and women working on projects local governments designed and proposed, the Yawp says. Coxey's marchers of unit five asked for federal public works in eighteen ninety-four; this is the answer.

The artists.

USH2 1536 Federal Project Number One

Within the Works Progress Administration, Federal Project Number One employed about forty thousand artists in theatre, art, music and writing, and the Yawp says a Federal Art Project poster of nineteen thirty-six was made to prove the programme's value to the public. The anchor says the project let thousands of artists create public art. Relief here extended to the arts.

The students.

USH2 1537 The National Youth Administration

The National Youth Administration, part of the Works Progress Administration, gave work-study jobs to over five hundred thousand college students and four million high school students, with Mary McLeod Bethune directing its Division of Negro Affairs. Digital History credits her efforts for Black students receiving a fair share of its funds.

Pensions.

USH2 1538 The Social Security Act

The Social Security Act of August nineteen thirty-five created federal old-age pensions for workers over sixty-five, paid through a tax on employee and employer alike, unemployment insurance, and aid for dependent children, blind people and people with disabilities. The Yawp says Frances Perkins championed it; conservatives, Digital History says, called it the road to socialism.

The Federal Reserve's new board.

USH2 1539 The Banking Act of 1935

The Banking Act of nineteen thirty-five placed the regional Federal Reserve banks under a seven-member board of governors, gathering authority over the nation's money in Washington. Unit six taught the Federal Reserve's creation. The anchor names this act, with the relief appropriation and Social Security, as laws that still define the country.

Three entries on labour's charter, a split over how to organise, and a strike inside a factory.

The unions' charter.

USH2 1540 The Wagner Act

The National Labor Relations Act, signed on July fifth, nineteen thirty-five, guaranteed workers the right to organise unions and bargain collectively, and created a National Labor Relations Board empowered to prohibit unfair labour practices by employers, the National Archives records. It was named for Senator Robert Wagner of New York, and the anchor says it began labour's political support for the Democratic Party.

A split in the labour movement.

USH2 1541 The CIO

In nineteen thirty-five John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers led a split from the American Federation of Labor over organising by craft or by industry, and the CIO organised the unskilled in auto, rubber and steel. By the end of nineteen thirty-seven, Digital History counts, the CIO had more members than the AFL.

A strike inside a factory.

USH2 1542 The Flint Sit-Down

In nineteen thirty-seven United Automobile Workers at General Motors in Flint, Michigan, staged a sit-down strike, staying inside the plant until management agreed to negotiate, and after forty-four days, Digital History records, General Motors recognised the union. The anchor does not carry Flint; both witnesses do. U.S. Steel, Digital History adds, accepted a union without a strike.

Three entries: a landslide, the plan to enlarge the Court, and the minimum wage.

The election of nineteen thirty-six.

USH2 1543 The Election of 1936

In nineteen thirty-six Roosevelt beat the Republican Alf Landon by an electoral vote of five hundred twenty-three to eight, carrying every state but Maine and Vermont, with Democratic majorities of three hundred thirty-one to eighty-nine in the House and seventy-six to sixteen in the Senate, Digital History counts. It adds that about seventy-five percent of Black voters supported the Democrats that year.

The plan to enlarge the Court.

USH2 1544 The Court-Packing Plan

In nineteen thirty-seven, after his landslide, Roosevelt asked Congress for power to add a new justice for every sitting justice over seventy who had not retired, which would have enlarged the Court from nine members to fifteen; the Yawp says it was designed to let him appoint up to six friendly justices. The plan failed in Congress, and the anchor says Van Devanter's retirement and Senator Joe Robinson's sudden death all but signalled its defeat. Yet the anchor also says Roosevelt appeared to succeed in intimidating the justices, who went on to sustain the Wagner Act and Social Security. Whether the plan failed or worked depends on which result is counted: the bill was lost and the Court changed course. Keep the anchor's word, appeared.

The minimum wage.

USH2 1545 The Fair Labor Standards Act

The Fair Labor Standards Act of nineteen thirty-eight, backed by Roosevelt and Frances Perkins, created the modern minimum wage, twenty-five cents an hour rising to forty, and a forty-hour working week, bringing low southern wages within reach of northern ones, the Yawp says. Unit six's child labour law, struck down by the Court, found its aim achieved here.

One entry to close the part: the end of allotment.

The end of allotment.

USH2 1546 The Indian Reorganization Act

The Indian Reorganization Act of nineteen thirty-four ended the Dawes Act's allotment of tribal land, recognised tribal constitutions and repealed prohibitions on Native languages and customs, Digital History records, with John Collier, commissioner of Indian affairs from nineteen thirty-three to nineteen forty-five, as its champion. Allotment had cut Indian-owned land from one hundred fifty-five million acres to forty-eight million.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain how the critics shaped the laws of nineteen thirty-five: Long, Coughlin and Townsend from the left and the Liberty League from the right, with parts of the new reforms drawn from their proposals. You can describe the Second New Deal: the Works Progress Administration, Social Security, the Banking Act, and the Wagner Act. You can explain how labour organised by industry, in the CIO, and what the Flint sit-down won: General Motors' recognition of the union. You can explain whether the court-packing plan failed or worked. The bill was lost, and the Court, the anchor says, appeared to change course. And you can describe what the Indian Reorganization Act ended: the Dawes Act's allotment of tribal land.