Compelling Policy Question: What should be the goal of social "safety net" policies? 

Policy Case Study:  Social "Safety Net" Legislative Policies (The New Deal):

H.R. 1491  Emergency banking

Will allow the Federal Reserve Banks to lend money to banks to help them reopen

H.R. 3835 Agriculture Adjustment

Will pay farmers not to raise crops (subsidies) so their prices would rise.

H.R. 5755 Industrial Recovery

Will create public works projects (roads, bridges, etc.) in order to create millions of jobs- Will be managed by the Civil Works Administration

S. 598 Civilian Conservation Corps 

Will recruit young unemployed men and send them to camps to perform reforestation and conservation work. 

H.R.  4606 Federal Emergency Relief 

Will allow the federal government to give loans to the states, so the states can operate their own relief programs. 

H.R. 5081 Tennessee Valley Authority

The new agency will  tackle important problems facing the valley.  They will build dams to help control flooding, create temporary jobs, and provide electricity to homes and businesses.  

H.R. 5480 Securities Regulation

This bill will give the executive branch the authority to regulate stocks and bonds.  This aims to prevent another stock market crash.

H.R. 5661 Banking

This bill will;  

1.  create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protect depositors’ funds.  If a bank goes out of business, or is robbed, people will still be able to get money

2.  Make it illegal for banks to use their customer’s money to buy stocks.

H.R. 5240 Homeowners 

This bill will provide aid to homeowners in danger of losing their homes.

Historical Context: The Great Depression

Following World War One, America experienced many social and economic changes.  The economic prosperity led to an increase in consumer culture.  As the economy boomed people started to invest their money in the stock market, believing they were guaranteed to make money on the stocks.   On October 29, 1929 the Stock Market crashed.  This meant the stocks people had invested their life savings in were worthless.   When people tried to take the money that they did have out of the banks, it was discovered the banks had also lost the money, causing the banks to fail.  Companies failed and people lost their jobs.  In January of 1930 four million people were unemployed.  By December the number had risen to seven million.  "Hoovervilles", camps where people who lost their homes lived in tents popped up all over the country.   To make matters worse, severe droughts in the West had led to the Dust Bowl- giant storms made of dust that ruined the lives of many farmers.  People blamed the conditions on President Herbert Hoover, hence the name "Hooverville".     Franklin Roosevelt defeats President Hoover in the election of 1932, promising to create policies to fix the economy.  During the first two months of 1933, 4,004 banks fail, and  unemployment reaches approximately 14 million (about 25% of the population). FDR is inaugurated March 4. 

Supporting Question #1: Why do some people believe the United States should create policies that will provide a "safety net" for citizens who are struggling?

In his 1933 inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said...

 (modified/ link to original)

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We face common difficulties.  Many unemployed citizens face the grim problem of survival. Only a foolish optimist can deny this reality. 

   We are fighting no plague of locusts. The restoration requires we apply social values more noble than the chase of profits.  Happiness lies not in money; it lies in the joy of achievement.  

    Our great first task is to put people to work. It can be done in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war.

    We now realize our interdependence on each other; we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of all.  With this pledge taken, I will take the leadership of this great army of our people.

    In this national emergency I ask the Congress for Broad Executive Power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were invaded by a foreign enemy.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Address at Oglethorpe University, 1932 (modified/link to original)

The world around us has experienced significant changes.  During the happy optimism of past days there was a lack of planning and great waste.

We have not been brought to our present state by any natural disaster--by drought or floods or earthquakes or by the destruction of our productive machine or our man power. 

We have to inject life into our failing economic order, we cannot make it last for long unless we can become wiser.  It is within the abilities of man, to insure that all who are willing and able to work receive the necessities of life. 

The problems facing us are so complex that men and women who have the same goal do not agree how to fix them. Such disagreement leads to nothing. Agreement may come too late.

The country needs and, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Fireside Chat 168, (modified/link to original)

The programs of public works in these Acts will put men back to work. To those who say that our spending for public works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford, I answer that no country, however rich, can afford to waste its human resources. Demoralization caused by unemployment is our greatest waste.  Morally, it is the greatest danger to our society. 

I refuse to accept America having a permanent army of unemployed. We must fix our economy to end unemployment. 

In our efforts to recover we will avoid, on the one hand, the theory that business should and must be taken over into an all-embracing Government. We will avoid, on the other hand, the theory that it is an interference with liberty to help private companies when they need help. 

 I agree with Abraham Lincoln, who said "The legitimate object of Government is to do for the people whatever they need to have done but cannot do  for themselves”. 

I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.

The cartoonist Clifford Berryman had his cartoon "Of course we may have to change remedies if we don't get results" published by the Washington Star.

Cargill, The New Trend In Easter Fashions!, Cortland Standard 

Clubb, Good News, Rochester Times Union 

Looks as if the new leadership was really going to lead

Morris, "Sure I'll Try Anything Once!", Hoboken Observer 

S. J. Ray, What A Man!, Kansas City Star 

F.D.R. is pulling a number of boats labeled with the names of some of his goals, such as “Farm Relief”, and “Unemployment”.  He is tugging them to “Fort Prosperity”.

Kaiser, Confidence in Your Doctor is Half the Battle, Houston Post 

H.M.Talburt, Farm Relief!, Washington News

Paper reads:

Roosevelt Launches Farm Relief.

The paper has a quote from FDR;

“I tell you frankly that it is a new and untrod path.

If it does not Produce the Hoped for Results I shall be the First to Acknowledge it”

John Baer, Let's Hope It Succeeds! unknown Washington, D.C. paper. 

Norman Ritchie, Everybody’s in the New Deal, Boston Post

Munhall, On The Fire, the Lynn Item

The Cafe Roosevelt’s Menu:

Ready Soon:

National Economic Re-Investments

Increased Prices for Farm Products

Unified Relief

Better Banking System

Prevention of Farm Foreclosures

Bolte Gibson, Whoa!, Camden Post 

H. M. Talburt, Foiled! Washington News 

Supporting Question #2: Why do some people believe the United States should not create policies that will provide a "safety net" for citizens who are struggling?

In response to Roosevelt's New Deal proposal, radio host Father Charles Coughlin said during his show... 

(Modified) 

Coughlin was the host of a religious radio program called the “Golden Hour of the Little Flower”:

I stand before you tonight to warn you. Careless of what the future holds, These programs will raise taxes, and will not provide relief.  It will live upon us suckers, will take from the people every penny they own, and will fail in a year. You think you know what Depression is? You people who will live on the WPA program’s jobs, jobs paid for by the tax money taken from industry and commerce, how long can that last? It can't last forever. There's no bottomless pit to that spending.

What about the Bill of Rights for which men had bled and died?  It will take the Bill of Rights and our Constitution and tear it into shreds.  It will take the spending power from the purse of the people, from the purse of Congress, and give it to the President of The United States. One step backwards, one step towards dictatorship.  Congress will give up its own liberty, and its own freedom of speech.

The Chief Executive of the nation will have the full spending power of billions of dollars, and congress will have to bend its knee before him. Congress must become a rubber stamp congress, or else be rubbed out of existence.

When asked about what he had just read about in the American Guardian newspaper, North Head Knife Manufacturing General Manager, Mr. Henry Gill said... (modified/link to original)

Mr . Henry Gill , shows us the newspaper The American Guardian and asks "What do you think of this?". The Newspaper’s headline reads "Our Country--Not the richest and most powerful on earth; but the leader in all that's good true and beautiful on earth."

He says, “it's some new plan for improving the capitalist system. They believe the lack of buying power is responsible for the depression so they're going to give every family  head an income of at least twenty eight dollars a week while he is out of work and a minimum of fifty when he goes back to work, no matter what he does. They're also going to repeal taxes. Don't ask me how they're going to get the money. When I read that far I got dizzy.”

"Look here" (reading from the paper) "The American Foundation for Abundance--(that's what they call the plan--the AFA) would not break up monopolies. It suggests that the public take them over and put them under management for the common good.  They believe the only solution of the monopoly problem in the public ownership and public operation of the monopoly. Let us go forward not backward.

"Sounds almost like Communism, don't it? Only it goes a bit farther than Communism. They believe in the New Deal but they don't think it goes far enough.” 

He told us two men the FireHouse were arguing over the New Deal. One said if anyone paid him twenty eight dollars a week while he was loafin' he'd never go to work. Ed said it wasn't natural for a man to want to do nothing and He'd get sick of it after a couple of months and want to go back to work. 'Well,' Hawley says, 'It might not be natural for you, but it's natural for me. You give me twenty eight dollars a week for the rest of my life, and see how much work I'll do.' So there they were."

In 1931, in a press statement about how he thinks the Great Depression should be addressed, President Herbert Hoover said...

 (modified/link to original)

Hoover was President when the Stock Market Crashed and the Great Depression began.  Small communities of unemployed people who had lost their homes began to develop.   These shanty towns became known as "Hoovervilles".  Hoover's biography

This is not an issue as to whether the people are going hungry or cold in the United States. It is solely a question of the best method by which hunger and cold can be prevented. 

It is a question as to whether the American people on the one hand will maintain the spirit of charity and of mutual self-help through voluntary giving and the responsibility of local government as distinguished on the other hand from appropriations out of the Federal Treasury for such purposes. 

My own conviction is strongly that if we break down this sense of responsibility, of individual generosity to individual, and mutual self-help in the country in times of national difficulty and if we start appropriations of this character we have not only impaired something infinitely valuable in the life of the American people but have struck at the roots of self government. 

Once this has happened it is not the cost of a few score millions, but we are faced with the abyss of reliance [trap of relying] in [the] future upon Government charity in some form or other. 

The money involved is indeed the least of the costs to American ideals and American institutions.

The cartoonist Carey Orr's cartoon 'The Trojan Horse At Our Gate,' was published in the paper Voice of the People.

The Chicago Tribune published a cartoon by Carey Orr titled "When the Way is Dark Keep to the Main Road".

The Chicago Tribune published a cartoon by Carey Orr titled "Planned Economy or Planned Destruction?".

Sign reads:  Plan of Action For U.S. - SPEND! SPEND! SPEND!  Under the guise of recovery- bust the government- blame the capitalists for the failure- Junk the Constitution and declare and dictatorship 

Herbert Johnson had a cartoon titled "But the Old Tree was a Mighty Good Producer" published by the Saturday Evening Post.

In 1933, a cartoon titled "What we need is another pump" was published.

Cecil Jensen's cartoon, "The NRA And The Future Generations" was published by the Wheeling Intelligencer. 

In 1932, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle published a cartoon by Elmer Messner titled "Skeptical".

“Forgotten Man” was a term for the people who felt “Left Behind”

The Washington Star published a cartoon titled "Ring around the Roosevelt, pocket full of dough."

Wood Cowan's cartoon "Let’s Leave Out The Joker" was published by the Boston Transcript.

Halladay, Don't Crush Them!, the Providence Journal 

Jay Norwood Darling, Two Pairs Of Pants And A Pair Of Suspenders, South Bend News Times 

A Brand New Car, Washington Star

Casey Orr, A Peculiar Echo, Chicago Tribune, 

What were the results of the Debate?

The New Deal of the 1930’s was passed in three waves and led to the creation of dozens of different Government programs and agencies.  

Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies all had abbreviated names such as the C.C.C. (for Civilian Conservation Corps).  According to Roosevelt these “alphabet soup” programs were aimed at providing the Three “R’s” - Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

They included agencies the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) which hired millions of unemployed Americans to complete public works projects such as building roads and public buildings.   

Local Topeka Connections to the New  Deal

One WPA building is the current location of Historic Harley-Davidson in Topeka. It was originally built as a storage shed for the county.  (the building is pictured below).

Aaron Douglas Park in Topeka is named after the Topeka born Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas.  The mural in the park is a reproduction of a mural Douglas was hired to paint by the New Deal Program Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), in The New York Public Library's 135th Street branch. The mural is called “Aspects of Negro Life” (the replica mural in Aaron Douglas Park is pictured below)

Another WPA project in Topeka created to give jobs to women was a mattress production facility.  The picture below is of women in Topeka making mattresses.