"Nothing to Fear, But Fear Itself": The First New Deal

I) 1932 Presidential Election

A) Hoover’s popularity – Hoover, of course, was hugely unpopular; most of the blame and frustration with the economic woes most people were facing were placed upon him.

B) Franklin Delano Roosevelt – promised to balance the federal budget (Hoover was running the largest peace-time budget deficit in the country’s history at this time) and trim the federal payroll; his stand on religion and drink were completely unexamined during the campaign (much to his benefit). Roosevelt campaigned on the slogan “A New Deal for the American People.”

1) Background – patrician (meaning he came from old money, as did his cousin TR). In many ways, he tried to model his political career with that of his cousin’s—he served as New York assemblyman, secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic Party’s choice to run as Vice-President in 1920. In 1921 he was stricken with polio, and was never able to walk without some kind of assistance after that. That he was able to make a political comeback from this disease was due in large part to the assistance of his wife, his second cousin Eleanor.

2) FDR won 57% of the popular vote (against an immensely unpopular Republican candidate); the only state that he lost outside of New England was Pennsylvania.

II) First 100 Days – this has often been treated by historians as the implementation of the Roosevelt “plan;” however, Roosevelt operated during this time period without any plan, and often under conflicting advice from his advisors. Most of the actions taken during these 100 days were forced upon the administration by events.

A) March 1933 Bank Holiday – the first action that Roosevelt took during his administration was to order all banks closed to prevent a “run.” Banks were allowed to reopen when they were able to prove that they were solvent. This caused some temporary hardships, but as banks reopened they did so with the assurance that they were solvent

B) Fireside Chats – FDR became the first president to regularly use the radio to communicate with the American people. FDR used a friendly, conversational tone on the radio, and many people came to look upon the president as a personal friend, someone who was interested in their welfare. Because he also came to embody the government, many people came to see the government as directly interested in their welfare, as well.

C) “Alphabet Agencies” – these agencies were populated with young Jewish and Catholic intellectuals, who were largely unwelcome in the Protestant-dominated business world.

1) Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) – the agency charged with providing funds for the unemployed. Although the agency did hand out direct relief, much of the relief that people received they had to work for.

2) Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – largely served young adult males; moved city boys into the country (away from those corrupting influences) to work on conservation projects.

3) Civil Works Administration (CWA) – small scale public works projects, mainly road-building.

4) Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) – implemented a whole series of laws and policies to assist farmers; restored “parity”; government made payments to farmers for NOT planting crops, which acted to decrease the supply and force prices upward. The timing of the implementation of this piece of legislation meant that many farmers had to destroy crops that were already planted as well as livestock.

(a) Who benefited? – most of the benefit of these policies went to larger and corporate farmers, who could take more land out of cultivation

(i) Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union – formed to protest this development; it was a bi-racial group, which of course was threatening to those in power in the South, and therefore was swiftly and violently put down (evictions, and attacks on road side camps)

5) Public Works Administration (PWA) – funded larger building projects, like University Hall and the Glass Bowl, as well as much of the expansion of the Toledo Zoo, and eventually a new public library.

6) Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) – provided flood control for the Tennessee Valley (the Tennessee River flows northward from Alabama, through Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio River); the dams for this flood control also brought cheap electricity, which attracted industrial development in the area as well.

7) National Recovery Agency (NRA) – perhaps the most famous of the alphabet agencies was the NRA. What the NRA proposed to do was to foment the development of cartels in the US economy—that is, to encourage the formation of monopolies. It was thought at the time that this would help stifle cut-throat competition, because companies would be allowed to collude together to fix prices and divide the market between themselves.

(a) Section 7a – in return for being allowed to form cartels, businesses were to allow employees to join unions “of their own choosing.” This section was ambiguous on the point of whether these had to be independent unions, or whether they could be company unions. United Mine Workers president, however, sent organizers into the field with the message that “The President wants you to join the union.”

III 1934 Strikes

A. Electric Auto-Lite (Toledo)--automobile parts plants in Toledo struck over wages, working conditions, and union recognition

1. February strikes--Spicer Transmission, and the associated firms with Electric Auto Lite, including Bingham Stamping and Logan Gear (all three companies shared board members); strike called off when companies agreed to bargain "in good faith."

2. April strike--the failure of Electric Auto-Lite management--and that of Logan Gear and Bingham Stamping--to follow through on this promise led to a second strike. While initially successful, the plants had been able to hire and train a number of new workers in the month-and-a-half interim between the two strike, and by the end of May, when Judge Roy Stuart granted the company an injunction limiting the number of pickets, the strike was essentially lost.

3. Role of the Lucas County Unemployed League--organized unemployed workers, and used these people to reinforce mass picketing in open defiance of the injunction. By intimidating the judge in court, members won release from jail, and returned to the swelling picket line.

4. Auto-Lite Riot--arrests of picketers on May 23, in conjunction with the operation of the plant and a female picket being hit with an object thrown from within the plant touched off a riot that lasted several days--and included a two-day battle with Ohio National Guardsmen called in to keep the peace.

5. Resolution--when Ohio Governor White refused to use the Guard to ensure plant could reopen with strikebreakers, management had to bargain with union, and Federal Local 18384 (later UAW Local 12) won a contract with local firms.

B. Teamsters (Minneapolis)--Trotskyists Farrell Dobbs and the Dunne Brothers, after a bloody street battle against the Citizen's Alliance, were able to organize all truck drivers in the heretofore open shop city of Minneapolis.



C. Longshore Workers (San Francisco General Strike)--Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore Workers union in San Francisco, was able to win the right for the union to determine which workers would be hired for jobs, ending the "shape-up" that usually meant workers had to give hiring bosses "kick-backs" to be hired for a job.

D. The NRA was overturned by the Supreme Court, and was the impetus for Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court (which had to this point blocked much of the New Deal legislation).