Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a positive because of his effect on the Great Depression, helping with America’s economy and forever changed the way banks operate. When Roosevelt came into power on March 4, 1933, he helped restore the Great Depression with the New Deal. Before he died in 1945, he served longer than any other president before or since and led the United States through one of the biggest challenges in the 20th century.
Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York and died on April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia. He graduated from Harvard College; attended Columbia Law School, become a member of the New York State Legislature, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New York, and 32nd President of the United States (FDR). Diagnosed with polio in 1921, Roosevelt spent his adult life in a wheelchair. Roosevelt served four terms in office. In the first 100 days of Roosevelt’s presidency, he planned and designed methods to counter the effects of the Great Depression. Some ways he did that were through banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs.
Roosevelt was positive influence because he helped us end The Great Depression, and he did this through the ‘New Deal’. The first way Roosevelt helped America through the depression was helping industrial recovery. He did this by passing the National Industrial Recovery Act and the National Labor Relations Act. The National Industrial Recovery Act helped both business and labor by regulate industry for fair wages and costs that might stimulate economic recovery (social welfare). Companies were required to write industry codes of fixed wages and prices, and placed restrictions on the entry of other companies into the alliances. These codes were a sort of industry self-regulation and represented an effort to market stable growth and stop another depression. The National Labor Relations Act protects the rights of employees and employers, to encourage negotiation and to curtail certain management practices, which may harm the overall welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy (‘Franklin D. Roosevelt’, Salem). This helped protect American citizens that work anywhere and helped destroy certain factories that were practice illegal techniques. The next way Roosevelt helped was Agriculture through the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. This helped by “subsidizing certain farm products they could not afford to sell at market prices. In relief, FDR straddled the line between welfare and public works. At first, the New Deal doled out money to unemployed people through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (1933) and sent young men to work camps through the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933)” (‘Franklin D. Roosevelt’, Salem).
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Agricultural Adjustment Act and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration helped distribute federal aid to the states for relief and offered farmers subsidies in exchange for limiting their production of certain crops. Even with the help of Agriculture and industrial recovery Most of the Great Depression's economic damage was caused directly by financial reasons. Roosevelt, “Closed all the banks in the country, and kept them all closed until new legislation could be passed” (The Biography). When he closed the banks, he quickly passed Emergency Banking Act and the Glass-Steagall Banking Act. This is important because he saved the banking structure and helped prevent a future crisis by creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Franklin D. Roosevelt guided America through The Great Depression. Roosevelt took office during a horrible economic crisis but Roosevelt’s plan the ‘New Deal’ helped cause the beginnings of a national recovery by passing banking reform acts, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs.
Even though Roosevelt helped restore our economy, there were still many critics concerned about the use of too much power in the government. The primary critic was Huey Long. As governor and U.S. senator, he kept funds deducted from state employees’ salaries. Yet the people of Louisiana loved him because he attacked the big oil companies, increased state spending on public works, and improved public schools. Although he backed Roosevelt in 1932, Long quickly abandoned the president and opposed the New Deal as too conservative (‘Roosevelt's Critics’, Digital History). Another critic that Roosevelt had was Father Charles E. Coughlin. Coughlin was a radio priest from Detroit. He was also a supporter of the New Deal, but Coughlin turned against Roosevelt when he refused to nationalize the banking structure. As time passed Coughlin turned openly anti-Semitic, blaming the Great Depression on an international conspiracy of Jewish bankers. For libertarians the New Deal was breaking the Constitution. Many conservatives shared this view and emerged as a movement of denial against the New Deal. They were angry about Roosevelt trying to reorganize the supreme court by adding a new justice each time a justice reached age seventy and failed to retire. Basically, making his political party unstoppable (‘Roosevelt's Critics’, US History).
Even with the criticism Roosevelt received he ended up saving America from the Great Depression lifting us through our economic crisis. This was highly important because the depression left American citizens on the streets starving and hungry. One example of this is in, “Chicago, a crowd of some fifty hungry men fought over barrel of garbage set outside the back door of restaurant” (Leuchtenburg, 36). Half of all banks in America closed down. Unemployment rose to 25% and homelessness increased, and the exchange of goods and services between countries collapsed by 65%. Prices fell 10% per year. It took 25 years for the stock market to recover from this horrible incident. This is why when Roosevelt passed all these acts to help us recover, and to reform from this event. Roosevelt passing Emergency Banking Act helping broke banks, giving Secretary of the Treasury to strengthen bank finances when needed too. Then the banks could give money back to the citizens over all helping the economy. He was so highly positive because helped not only the country but millions of Americans out of poverty and making it stay that way. He secured money to the banks, and made us believe that America could bounce back from this tragedy.
To sum everything up, Roosevelt got elected into office with horrible and crippling economic depression. Roosevelt's combination of banking, emergency relief, work relief, and agricultural programs. Which came together within the social programs of the ‘New Deal’ – helped cause the beginnings of a national recovery.
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