Essays on The New Deal

In the times of the Great Depression, a New Deal was created to attempt to resolve the issues. Unemployment rates and debt hadn’t been resolved from creating the New Deal. Also people disapproved of the New Deal as it went against philosophical and social approaches in society. The New Deal clearly did not work as there were many adverse effects as a result of it. 

More debt was one of the reasons the New Deal failed. The goals of relief backfired with all the debt accumulated from the New deal. According to a document, “You citizens have shackled about your limbs a tax bill of $35 billion, most of which . . . was created by a flourish of a fountain pen. Your erstwhile savior, whose golden promises ring upon the counter of performance with the cheapness of tin, bargained with the money changers that, with 70 billion laboring hours in the ditch, or in the factory, or behind the plow, you and your children shall repay the debt which was created with a drop of ink in less than ten seconds.” (Document 2). The author of the document is saying that the government is being unfair with the tax bill by making the citizens repay the debt. With more debt piling the U.S, the working class would be the ones paying it off. In addition, a speech by Huey Long says “Instead of his promises, the only remedy that Mr. Roosevelt has prescribed is to borrow more money if he can and to go further into debt. The last move was to borrow $5 billion more on which we must pay interest for the balance of our lifetimes, and probably during the lifetime of our children.” (Document 3). As a portion of the speech describes, President Roosevelt borrows money only to get the country in more debt. President Roosevelt borrowed $5 billion only for the citizens to pay off that money throughout their lives. Additionally, another source says “We compare the Roosevelt depression with the Hoover depression and we find the Roosevelt depression debt is $9 billion more than the Hoover depression debt; the unemployment under Roosevelt has eclipsed everything Hoover ever heard about, and approximates mores than one-half the whole population of America; the wage earner of today is living further below the standard of a fair living than ever before in the history of the country.” (Document 4). This document proclaims that Herbert Hoover, the president prior to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had economically been a better president. FDR dug the U.S into a deeper hole than it already was. President Roosevelt brought the U.S into $9 billion of debt which had been higher than when Herbert Hoover was president. 

Unemployment rates had been one of the highest during the times of the Great Depression. The goals of recovery failed as the economy collapsed, with a significant amount of people in dire need of a job. However, critics may say that President Roosevelt was a big hearted man. In an interview, a cotton mill worker worker said “I do think that Roosevelt is the biggest-hearted man we ever had in the White House. He undoubtedly is the most foresighted and can speak his thoughts the plainest of any man I ever heard speak….Just knowin’ that for once in the time of the country they was a man to stand up and speak for him, a man that could make what he felt so plain nobody could doubt he meant it, has made a lot of us feel a sight better even when they wasn’t much to eat in our homes.” (Document 5). The mill worker feels as though FDR elevated the quality of life for the working class. FDR was the spark the country needed to get through the crisis. In contrast, the unemployment rate had been the highest recorded during FDR’s presidency. In a graph it shows the unemployment rate and when FDR launched the New Deal bar had peaked. (Document 8).  With nearly forty percent of the population listed as unemployed, it is far from a success. To add on, a boy wrote a letter to FDR to express concern of the inability of his father to find the job. (Document 10) The boy’s family struggled as his father could not find a job, making bills seemingly impossible to pay. Everybody in the boy’s family had to stay home and nobody in the household could find work. During the Great Depression, far too many families were in situations like these.

In the midst of the Great Depression, it can be difficult to forget the most important voice : the people. Many people questioned the New Deal.  In fact, an anonymous letter came in the mailbox of a senator stating “My Dear Senator: It seems very apparent to me that the Administration at Washington is accelerating its pace towards socialism and communism. Everyone is sympathetic to the cause of creating more jobs and better wages for labor; but, a program continually promoting labor troubles, higher wages, shorter hours, and less profits for business, would seem to me to be leading us fast to a condition where the Government must more and more expand its relief activities, and will lead in the end to disaster to all classes.” (Document 11) (Textbook pg. 357) The letter was primarily concerned with labor issues including wages and hours. Some citizens during the time were distraught by the wage gap. As they thought it would be fair if they received the same wages. Additionally, there was a quote from the newspaper article ``The Roosevelt Record`` “By what methods? And for whom?” (Textbook pg. 357). This newspaper had questioned the philosophical approach towards the New Deal. Many individuals had felt this way when the New Deal programs were introduced due to social and philosophical reasons. Some people felt the same way about the New Deal prior to and after the Great Depression. 

The New Deal failed as it produced more uncertainty and demise than clarity in the Great Depression era. Debt had been through FDR’s New Deal programs. Due to the economic collapse, unemployment rates were very high. As a result, people had trouble providing for their families. There had been a few people who questioned the New Deal from the very beginning due to its philosophical ways only to later be proved right. During the Great Depression, the New Deal failed leaving many financially unstable.