by Norman Lowe
There was also opposition from socialists, who felt that the New Deal was not drastic enough and still left too much power in the hands of big business. One of the most vociferous critics was Huey Long, governor of Louisiana and a member of the US senate. He believed that governments should spend heavily wherever it was necessary to help the poor. In 1934 he set up a scheme in Louisiana called Share Our Wealth which planned to make sure that every family had at least $5000, a house and a car, and old-age pensions. This was to be financed by taxing the rich, and he urged Roosevelt to do something similar throughout the nation. Long was considering running for president in the 1936, but he was assassinated in September 1935.
From about the end of 1936 there was opposition from right-wing members of his own Democratic Party. What upset them was that the New Deal led some of the new trade unions to strike. Both General Motors and US Steel were forced to give way by sit-down strikes, and this encouraged the formation of numerous new unions. Dissident Democrats joined the Republicans in Congress and blocked further important legislation.
Some people poured scorn on the wide variety of new organizations, known by their initials. Ex-president Hoover remarked: ‘There are only four letters of the alphabet not now in use by the administration. When we establish the Quick Loan Corporation for Xylophones, Yachts and Zithers, the alphabet of our fathers will be exhausted.’ From then on the term ‘Alphabet Agencies’ stuck.
Map 22.2 The Tennessee Valley Authority, 1933
Nevertheless, Roosevelt was tremendously popular with the millions of ordinary Americans, the ‘forgotten men’, as he called them, who had benefited from his policies. He had won the support of trade unions and of many farmers and black people. Although the forces of the right did their best to remove him in 1936 and 1940, Roosevelt won a crushing victory in 1936 and another comfortable one in 1940.
(d) What did the New Deal achieve?
It has to be said that it did not achieve all that ‘FDR’ had hoped. Some of the measures failed completely or were only partially successful. The Farmers’ Relief Act, for example, certainly helped farmers, but it threw many farm labourers out of work. Nor did it do much to help farmers living in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas; in the mid-1930s these areas were badly hit by drought and soil erosion, which turned them into a huge ‘dustbowl’ (see Map 22.1). Although unemployment was reduced to less than 8 million by 1937, it was still a serious problem. Part of the failure was due to the Supreme Court’s opposition. Another reason was that although he was bold in many ways, Roosevelt was too cautious in the amounts of money he was prepared to spend to stimulate industry. In 1938 he reduced government spending, causing another recession, which sent unemployment up to 10.5 million. The New Deal therefore did not rescue the USA from the depression; it was only the war effort which brought unemployment below the million mark in 1943.
Still, in spite of this, Roosevelt’s first eight years in office were a remarkable period. Never before had an American government intervened so directly in the lives of ordinary people; never before had so much attention been focused on an American president. And much was achieved.
In the early days the chief success of the New Deal was in providing relief for the destitute and jobless, and in the creation of millions of extra jobs.
Confidence was restored in the financial system and the government, and some historians think it may even have prevented a violent revolution.
The public works schemes and the Tennessee Valley Authority provided services of lasting value.
Welfare benefits such as the 1935 Social Security Act were an important step towards a welfare state. Although ‘rugged individualism’ was still a vital ingredient in American society, the American government had accepted that it had a duty to help those in need.
Many of the other innovations were continued – national direction of resources and collective bargaining between workers and management became accepted as normal.
Some historians believe that Roosevelt’s greatest achievement was to preserve what might be called ‘the American middle way’ – democracy and free enterprise – at a time when other states, like Germany and Italy, had responded to similar crises by turning to fascism. Federal government authority over the state governments had increased and Roosevelt had put in place the structures to enable Washington to manage the economy and social policy.
(e) The Second World War and the American economy
It was the war that finally put an end to the depression. The USA entered the war in December 1941 after the Japanese had bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. However, the Americans had begun to supply Britain and France with aircraft, tanks and other armaments as soon as war broke out in Europe in September 1939. ‘We have the men, the skills, and above all the will’, said Roosevelt. ‘We must be the arsenal of democracy.’ Between June 1940 and December 1941, the USA provided 23 000 aircraft.
After Pearl Harbor, production of armaments soared: in 1943, 86 000 aircraft were built, while in 1944 the figure was over 96 000. It was the same with ships: in 1939 American shipyards turned out 237 000 tons of shipping; in 1943 this had risen to nearly 10 million tons. In fact the Gross National Product (GNP) of the USA almost doubled between 1939 and 1945. In June 1940 there were still 8 million people out of work, but by the end of 1942 there was almost full employment. It was calculated that by 1945 the war effort had created 7 million extra jobs in the USA. In addition, about 15 million Americans served in the armed forces. Economically therefore, the USA did well out of the Second World War – there were plenty of jobs, wages rose steadily, and there was no decline in the standard of living as there was in Europe.
FURTHER READING
Behr, E., Prohibition: The 13 Years that Changed America (BBC Books, 1997).
Black, C., Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (Public Affairs, 2005). Brogan, H., The Penguin History of the United States of America (Penguin, 2001 edition).
Cooper, W. M., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (Vintage, 2011).
Heale, M. J., Franklin D. Roosevelt: The New Deal and War (Lancaster Pamphlets, Routledge, 1997).
Luhrssen, D. and Jeansonne, G., A Time of Paradox: America Since 1890 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).
Roberts, A., A History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006).
Smith, J. E., FDR (Random House, 2008 edition).
Temkin, M., The Sacco – Vanzetti Affair: American Trial (Yale University Press, 2009).
White, R. D., Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long (Random House, 2007).
Zinn, H., A People’s History of the United States (Harper Perennial, 2010 edition).
QUESTIONS
Explain what impact the First World War and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia had on politics and society in the USA in the years 1914 to 1929.
In what ways did African Americans campaign for civil rights in the years before the Great Depression? How did they respond to the activities of the Ku Klux Klan?
Explain why the Palmer Raids took place in 1920. How did attitudes in the USA towards immigrants change during the years 1920 to 1929?
How successful were Republican policies in helping the US economy in the years 1920 to 1932?
Explain why unemployment was a major problem in the USA during the 1930s, and why the problem was reduced in the years 1939–43.
Explain why there was opposition to President Roosevelt’s New Deal. How successful do you think these critics were in the period 1933 to 1941?
Explain why Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election of 1932. How successful were the New Deal policies in relieving the depression in rural areas during the years 1933 to 1941?
How accurate do you think it is to talk about the ‘First’ and ‘Second’ New Deals? How successful had Roosevelt’s policies been in solving the economic problems of the USA by 1941?
There is a document question about Roosevelt and the New Deal on the website.
The USA since 1945
SUMMARY OF EVENTS
When the Second World War ended in 1945, the economic boom continued as factories switched from producing armaments to producing consumer goods. Lots of new goods had appeared by this time – TV sets, dishwashers, modern record players and tape recorders – and many ordinary working people could afford to buy these luxury goods for the first time. This was the big difference between the 1950s and the 1920s, when too many people had been too poor to keep the boom going. The 1950s was the time of the affluent society, and in the 20 years following the end of the war, GNP increased by almost eight times. The USA continued to be the world’s largest industrial power and the world’s richest nation.
In spite of the general affluence, there were still serious problems in American society. There was a great deal of poverty and constant unemployment; black people, on the whole, were still not getting their fair share of the prosperity, did not have equal rights with whites and were treated as second-class citizens. The Cold War caused some problems for Americans at home and led to another outbreak of anti-communist feeling, like the one after the First World War. There were unhappy experiences such as the assassinations of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald (1963), and of Dr Martin Luther King (1968). There was the failure of American policy in Vietnam, and the forced resignation of President Nixon (1974) as a result of the Watergate scandal, which shook confidence in American society and values, and in the American system. One reaction to this state of affairs was a wave of religious revivalism that led to calls for a return to a more strict moral code. The Christian ‘New Right’ became influential in politics, supporting Ronald Reagan and later George W. Bush.
After 1974 both political parties took turns in power, and confidence was gradually restored. Americans could claim that with the collapse of communism in Europe and the ending of the Cold War, their country had reached the peak of its achievement; it was now the world’s only remaining superpower. Many Americans believed that, wherever it was necessary, the USA, the land of liberty and democracy, would lead the rest of the world forward into an era of peace and prosperity. However, as we saw in Chapter 12, the American attitude was resented so much that many people were driven towards extreme measures – terrorism, culminating in the terrible events of 11 September 2001, when the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed. President George W. Bush issued a declaration of war on terrorism and the USA became embroiled in a long military campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was still continuing in 2013, an involvement that had important effects on domestic affairs in the USA. By the end of Bush’s second term in 2008, the US economy was in a state of crisis, and the Republicans were defeated in the presidential election of November 2008. The Democrat, Barack Obama, became the USA’s first African American president.
The presidents of the post-war period were:
1945–53
Harry S. Truman
Democrat
1953–61
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican
1961–3
John F. Kennedy
Democrat
1963–9
Lyndon B. Johnson
Democrat
1969–74
Richard M. Nixon
Republican
1974–7
Gerald R. Ford
Republican
1977–81
Jimmy Carter
Democrat
1981–9
Ronald Reagan
Republican
1989–93
George Bush
Republican
1993–2001
Bill Clinton
Democrat
2001–2009
George W. Bush
Republican
2009–
Barack Obama
Democrat
23.1 POVERTY AND SOCIAL POLICIES
Ironically in the world’s richest country, poverty remained a problem. Although the economy was on the whole a spectacular success story, with industry flourishing and exports booming, there was constant unemployment, which crept steadily up to 5.5 million (about 7 per cent of the labour force) in 1960. In spite of all the New Deal improvements, social welfare and pensions were still limited, and there was no national health system. It was calculated that in 1966 some 30 million Americans were living below the poverty line, and many of them were aged over 65.
(a) Truman (1945–53)
Harry S. Truman, a man of great courage and common sense, once compared by a reporter to a bantam-weight prize fighter, had to face the special problem of returning the country to normal after the war. This was achieved, though not without difficulties: removal of wartime price controls caused inflation and strikes, and the Republicans won control of Congress in 1946. In the fight against poverty he had put forward a programme known as the Fair Deal, which he hoped would continue Roosevelt’s New Deal. It included a national health scheme, a higher minimum wage, slum clearance and full employment.
However, the Republican majority in Congress threw out his proposals, and even passed, despite his veto, the Taft–Hartley Act (1947), which reduced trade-union powers. The attitude of Congress gained Truman working-class support and enabled him to win the 1948 presidential election, together with a Democrat majority in Congress. Some of the Fair Deal then became law (extension of social security benefits and an increase in the minimum wage), but Congress still refused to pass his national health and old-age pension schemes, which was a bitter disappointment for him. Many Southern Democrats voted against Truman because they disapproved of his support for black civil rights.
(b) Eisenhower (1953–61)
Dwight D. Eisenhower had no programme for dealing with poverty, though he did not try to reverse the New Deal and the Fair Deal. Some improvements were made:
insurance for the long-term disabled;
financial help towards medical bills for people over 65;
federal cash for housing;
an extensive road-building programme, beginning in 1956, which over the next 14 years gave the USA a national network of first-class roads; this was to have important effects on people’s everyday lives: cars, buses and trucks became the dominant form of transport, the motor industry received a massive boost, and this contributed towards the prosperity of the 1960s;
more spending on education to encourage study in science and mathematics (it was feared that the Americans were falling behind the Russians, who in 1957 launched the first space satellite – Sputnik).
Farmers faced problems in the 1950s because increased production kept prices and incomes low. The government spent massive sums paying farmers to take land out of cultivation, but this was not a success: farm incomes did not rise rapidly and poorer farmers hardly benefited at all. Many of them sold up and moved into the cities.
Much remained to be done, but the Republicans were totally against national schemes such as Truman’s health service, because they thought they were too much like socialism. However, some progress was made towards fairer treatment of the black population (see the next section).
(c) Kennedy (1961–3)
By the time John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, the problems were more serious, with over 4.5 million unemployed. He won the election partly because the Republicans were blamed for inflation and unemployment, and because he ran a brilliant campaign, accusing them of neglecting education and social services. He came over as elegant, articulate, witty and dynamic, and his election seemed to many people to be the beginning of a new era. He had a detailed programme which included medical payments for the poor and aged, more federal aid for education and housing, and increased unemployment and social security benefits. ‘We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier’, he said, and implied that only when these reforms were introduced would the frontier be crossed and poverty eliminated.
Unfortunately for Kennedy, he had to face strong opposition from
Congress, where many right-wing Democrats as well as Republicans viewed his proposals as ‘creeping socialism’. Hardly a single one was passed without some watering down, and many were rejected completely. Congress would allow no extra federal cash for education and rejected his scheme to pay hospital bills for elderly people. His successes were:
an extension of social security benefits to each child whose father was unemployed;
raising of the minimum wage from $1 to $1.25 an hour;
federal loans to enable people to buy houses;
federal grants to the states enabling them to extend the period covered by unemployment benefit.
Kennedy’s overall achievement was limited: unemployment benefit was only enough for subsistence, and even that was only for a limited period. Unemployment still stood at 4.5 million in 1962, and soup kitchens had to be set up to feed poor families.
Illustration 23.1 The assassination of Kennedy, 1963. Here the president slumps forward, seconds after having been shot
(d) Johnson (1963–9)
Kennedy’s vice-president, Lyndon B. Johnson, became president when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, in 1963 (see Illus. 23.1). Coming from a humble background in Texas, he was just as committed as Kennedy to social reform, and achieved enough in his first year to enable him to win a landslide victory in the 1964 election. In 1964 Johnson’s economic advisers fixed an annual income of $3000 for a family of two or more as the poverty line, and they estimated that over 9 million families (30 million people, nearly 20 per cent of the population) were on or below the line. Many of them were African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans (American Indians) and Mexicans. Johnson announced that he wanted to move America towards the Great Society, where there would be an end to poverty and racial injustice and ‘abundance and liberty for all’.