What were the major differences between the first and second New Deals?

- Work Relief and Social Security

- Works Progress Administration (WPA): dealt with unemployment + its demoralizing effects
- Employed about 3M a year to work on projects
- Earned low wages and built bridges, airports, libraries, etc
- 80% of funds went directly to salaries and wages
- One member of a family could qualify for WPA: mostly men went
- National Youth Administration (NYA): assisted young men/women
- Social Security Act of 1935
- Argued for national health insurance since progressive period
- 1930s: US was only major industrial country without such programs
- Act served as a compromise
- Congress dropped plan for federal health insurance
- Old-age and survivor insurance to be paid for by 1% tax (important!)
- Also had unemployment compensation, care for disabled/blind
- Aided dependent children → would be largest federal welfare program
- National Association of Manufacturers denounced social security
- Believed that it would destroy individual self-reliance
- No other country had taxes on wages to pay for social insurance
- Wasn’t supposed to be a pension program
- More of a “social contract” where one generation helped the previous gen
- However, excluded many people including laborers, domestic servants
- Discriminated against married women
- Couldn’t protect against sickness
- Aiding the Farmers
- Resettlement Administration (RA) relocated farmers on land purchased by government
- Wasn’t too effective: lack of funds, fears of Soviet-style collective farms
- Rural Electrification Administration (REA, 1935): lent money to cooperatives to distribute
electricity to isolated rural areas
- Changed the lives of millions of families who could now use radios, washing machines,
and more
- The Dust Bowl: An Ecological Disaster
- Natural disaster, but made worse by human actions/inactions
- Plains of the West weren’t suitable for intensive agriculture
- Overgrazing, too much plowing, indiscriminate planting
- Too little government planning and regulation; too many farmers exploiting natural
resources
- Roosevelt administration tried to deal with problem
- Taylor Grazing Act of 1934
- Restricted the use of public range to prevent overgrazing, ended unregulated use of
resources
- Needed a permit and a fee to use public land
- Civilian Conservation Corps and other agencies planted trees
- Soil Conservation Service promoted drought-resistant crops and contour plowing
- Government encouraged farmers to raise inappropriate crops → led to more dust bowl crises

- The Third New Deal

- Not consistent, nor well-organized effort to end the Depression and restructure society
 - First New Deal focused on relief/recovery, Second focused on reform
- Pace of social legislation slowed, but new measures were bills for minimum wage/housing reform
- The Election of 1936
- Republicans in 1936 nominated moderate: Alfred Landon of Kansas
- Attacked the New Deal, said that they were wasteful/dangerous
- Yet promised to do the same thing cheaply/efficiently
- ⅔ of the newspapers in the country supported him
- Roosevelt won because of improving economy, coalition of Democratic south/labor/farmers/voters

Why were portions of New Deal legislation struck down by the Supreme Court?
- The Battle of the Supreme Court
- Wanted to reform the Supreme Court and judicial system
- Court had invalidated number of New Deal measures and other measures
- Wanted to create a more sympathetic Court; appoint extra justice for each justice over 70
- Wanted to also modernize the court system
- Republicans accused him of being a dictator, subverting the Constitution
- Congressmen from his own party refused to support him
- Many southern Democrats formed a coalition with conservative Republicans
- Roosevelt had to withdraw the legislation and admit defeat
- Misunderstood his mandate and underestimated respect that people had for Court
- Spring of 1937: Court began to reverse its position and upheld National Labor Relations Act
- Made Supreme Court appointment: Court was somewhat more liberal
- Congress/federal power trumped states’ rights, local control
- However, after entire mess, it was harder to pass legislation
- Most unpopular action as president and made him vulnerable to criticism
- Supporters were dismayed by “attack on separation of powers”
- Economy improved in 1936-1937; realization that New Deal had failed
- “Deficit spending” → Roosevelt spent massive amounts of money on goods and services
- Economy never really recovered until wartime in 1940 ended the Depression