Opposition to the New Deal Explained

Hey everyone, it's Mr. Drake. By now you've read and learned about the New Deal from Franklin Roosevelt and all that it entailed in trying to bring America out of the Great Depression, but the New Deal was not unanimously supported. This video is going to be about the opponents of the New Deal that really ran the gamut from left to right, both politically and ideologically, and you'll see the various reasons people opposed the New Deal and what they tried to do about it. Given the massive expansion of government that the New Deal entailed, it makes sense that there'd be plenty of opposition from the right. Many Republicans and conservatives felt the presidency was becoming far too powerful. This was compounded by the fact that anything FDR wanted, the Congress, which was overwhelmingly Democratic, would just pass it with token or no opposition. So people believed that FDR was becoming a little bit like a dictator in this case. It was also thought to be socialist in nature with the government taking over or at the very least regulating a lot of private enterprise. It was thought that the New Deal encouraged people not to work as hard maybe as they otherwise would because they were getting help from the government. And there was of course the belief that this was unconstitutional and infringed upon states' rights to regulate certain industries especially. FDR didn't worry as much about this criticism though because it didn't have a large popular following. You know, unemployment is 25% and the country is overwhelmingly poor. So there aren't a lot of people out there saying, hey, you know, give us less money. Don't help us. You know, these are wealthy people that are opposing the New Deal from the right, but they don't have a lot of popular support behind them. The other criticism comes from the left, which was people who believe the New Deal actually wasn't going far enough. that it wasn't helping farmers to a large enough degree, that the elderly still remained destitute and unable to contribute to the economy because they didn't have a job. And there was at this time, even though the Depression hit and made a lot of people poor, there's still plenty of people in the country who were plenty rich, who had enough still after they lost a lot of their assets to be considered insanely wealthy. And there's a wealth gap that's still there. And FDR had to do more to appeal. appease liberal opponents because they had a popular following in many cases. They were sort of demagogues who could get the public all riled up, and FDR, for that reason, wanted to sort of appease those people because he didn't want the public to turn on them. One very prominent New Deal critic at this time was Father Charles Coughlin, usually just known as Father Coughlin. He was a Catholic priest. He originated from Detroit. And he's what you would call a radio priest or a radio preacher. He broadcasts his sermons over the radio in weekly programs called Golden Hour of the Little Flower. I've never been able to figure out where that name came from in all the research I've done trying to find that out. He believed that the wealth gap in the country was far too great, and he believed that bankers were essentially conspiring to shut average Americans out of recovery. during the Depression. He created an organization called the National Union for Social Justice, which called for nationalization or government takeover of a lot of major industries such as railroads and coal mining. And he believed that everyone should be guaranteed what he called a living wage, that everyone should have enough money to live off of somewhat comfortably. For that reason, he had a fairly large following. He had originally been an FDR supporter early on and then broke with him. when he saw the New Deal as not going far enough. What did Father Coughlin him was a lot of his own remarks, that anti-banker sentiment I mentioned earlier. He connected that to Judaism and said it was Jewish bankers that were conspiring to rob Americans of the wealth that they deserved. And when Hitler and Mussolini came to power in the 30s, he expressed on his radio program a lot of support. for them and he primarily supported them probably because they were seen as being anti-communist because he was staunchly anti-communist as most Catholics were. But as the anti-Jewish legislation and programs ramped up in Germany, Coughlin continued to express support for Hitler and ended up being kicked off the air by a lot of radio stations that had initially supported him and carried his show. He starts off as being fairly popular, but loses most of his public support in the late 30s as World War II approaches. Another New Deal opponent was Dr. Francis Townsend, usually just called Dr. Townsend. His concern about the New Deal is that it was not doing enough to help the elderly. Because again, a lot of people at this time didn't have pensions, and so if they weren't working, if they were too infirm or elderly to work, they weren't bringing in any money, and they weren't able to contribute to the economy, and they had to be taken care of by their families and stuff like that. So he began in the early 30s to advocate what he called the Townsend Plan, which was an old age pension program. It was $200 a month to anyone over 60 who was unemployed. And that was going to be paid for by a 2% national sales tax. And the money would go to these elderly people, and one caveat of that was it had to be spent within 30 days. And the reason Townsend put that last provision in there is... to attempt to relieve the depression in some way. You're giving these people who didn't have money, money, and you're going to make them spend it. So they're buying goods and they're stimulating the economy that way. So you're helping old people and you're getting us out of the depression. It was seen by him as killing two birds with one stone. So inspired by the Townsend Plan in part, FDR passed the Social Security Act in 1935. But, It didn't give anywhere near $200 a month to unemployed people. It was really, it was like $20 or $30, I think, was the old age pension plan early on. So Townsend was very unhappy and began to criticize Roosevelt even more than he had already. Eventually, the Social Security program would improve, and Townsend was seen as being one of the inspirations for that. Huey Long was the most prominent New Deal opponent. He was a... a political boss in the state of Louisiana. He had served as the governor of Louisiana, and then in 1932 he got elected senator. And he proposed a plan called the Share Our Wealth Plan, where the slogan of the program was, Every Man a King. He said there should be a minimum household income of $5,000. So every family, regardless of their situation, should have at least a $5,000 income provided by the government if necessary. And that income was going to be... Um... paid for or funded by massive taxes on the wealthiest Americans. I mean, taxes so high it would essentially amount to not a tax, but like confiscation of those people's money. And this was incredibly popular to a lot of people that were, you know, particularly negatively affected by the Depression, the people who were unemployed especially. FDR saw this as being tantamount to communism. And, you know, the New Deal wasn't intended to be a socialist or communist. program in FDR's eyes. He often said that he was trying to save capitalism with the New Deal by, you know, regulating the industries to the point where they didn't have to be taken over and that, you know, they would provide money to their employees and the economy would sort of get going again on its own without the government having to redistribute any wealth. But Huey Long was very much in favor of this, you know, sort of communist sounding plan. And FDR called Huey Long the most dangerous man in America during this time. They were bitter, bitter rivals. And Huey Long, from the time he was elected senator in 1932, was already planning to challenge FDR in 1936 for the Democratic nomination. But in 1935, in a local political dispute gone south, Huey Long was assassinated by the son-in-law of a Louisiana state judge. whom Long had tried to remove from office. So that opposition was removed. But Huey Long remains a folk hero in Louisiana even after his assassination. And his son was eventually elected governor of Louisiana as well. So his influence and sort of his populist fervor lived on long after he was dead. Finally, the Supreme Court, which is the notable conservative opposition to the New Deal. You have to remember, before Roosevelt became president, there was 12 years of Republican administrations that were very pro-business and very conservative. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. And they appointed a lot of justices to the Supreme Court that were incredibly conservative and thought in the same vein they did about the role of government and business and all of that. And there were four justices in particular who opposed everything about the New Deal. And they were called the Four Horsemen. And then there were three justices who were fairly liberal and universally supportive of the New Deal. And then there were two that sort of swung back and forth. But usually... one of those two more moderate justices would vote with the conservatives and that served to hamper some of Roosevelt's New Deal programs. The National Industrial Recovery Administration was ruled unconstitutional by Schechter versus United States in 1935 and then a year later the Agricultural Adjustment Act ruled unconstitutional by US versus Butler. The gist of both of those rulings is that the New Deal or these programs in particular representative, too much of an executive branch's involvement in what the legislative branch should have been doing. So a violation of the separation of powers and also a violation of the Commerce Clause by the government trying to regulate business intrastate. You know, the government has the power to regulate interstate commerce but not really commerce within one individual state. So for those reasons primarily those programs are ruled unconstitutional. So in response to this, FDR decides he's got to do something to try to get the Supreme Court back. And he proposed a piece of legislation in 37 called the Judicial Reorganization Bill. The critics called it the Court Packing Plan. Roosevelt said, you know what, these Supreme Court justices, they're so old and they're so overworked. And so what we're going to do to lighten their workload is we're going to increase the number of Supreme Court justices temporarily from 9 to 15. And then every time a justice retires, we won't replace them until the court will eventually go back down to nine. And of course, it's obvious that Roosevelt would have been the one to appoint those six new justices. And this was seen even by a lot of Roosevelt supporters as being severely overstepping their bounds. And this plan was more or less dead on arrival. And it really made Roosevelt sort of look bad and look like he was over-politicizing the issue and all of that. It was also rendered sort of a moot point when one of the quote-unquote four horsemen retired and Roosevelt was able to appoint the replacement, and the Supreme Court at that time swung back to being a little bit more liberal. But the fact remains that throughout the early part of Roosevelt's presidency, the Supreme Court was not very sympathetic to the New Deal. That's all for today. Make sure to check Moodle if you're one of my students for any additional... videos or resources on the New Deal and its opposition and Feel free to post comments in the comment section below or ask me in class if you're one of mine All right. Have a good one. Cheers

This was compounded by the fact that anything FDR wanted, the Congress, which was overwhelmingly Democratic, would just pass it with token or no opposition. So people believed that FDR was becoming a little bit like a dictator in this case. It was also thought to be socialist in nature with the government taking over or at the very least regulating a lot of private enterprise.

It was thought that the New Deal encouraged people not to work as hard maybe as they otherwise would because they were getting help from the government. And there was of course the belief that this was unconstitutional and infringed upon states' rights to regulate certain industries especially. FDR didn't worry as much about this criticism though because it didn't have a large popular following.

You know, unemployment is 25% and the country is overwhelmingly poor. So there aren't a lot of people out there saying, hey, you know, give us less money. Don't help us.

You know, these are wealthy people that are opposing the New Deal from the right, but they don't have a lot of popular support behind them. The other criticism comes from the left, which was people who believe the New Deal actually wasn't going far enough. that it wasn't helping farmers to a large enough degree, that the elderly still remained destitute and unable to contribute to the economy because they didn't have a job. And there was at this time, even though the Depression hit and made a lot of people poor, there's still plenty of people in the country who were plenty rich, who had enough still after they lost a lot of their assets to be considered insanely wealthy.

And there's a wealth gap that's still there. And FDR had to do more to appeal. appease liberal opponents because they had a popular following in many cases.

They were sort of demagogues who could get the public all riled up, and FDR, for that reason, wanted to sort of appease those people because he didn't want the public to turn on them. One very prominent New Deal critic at this time was Father Charles Coughlin, usually just known as Father Coughlin. He was a Catholic priest. He originated from Detroit. And he's what you would call a radio priest or a radio preacher.

He broadcasts his sermons over the radio in weekly programs called Golden Hour of the Little Flower. I've never been able to figure out where that name came from in all the research I've done trying to find that out. He believed that the wealth gap in the country was far too great, and he believed that bankers were essentially conspiring to shut average Americans out of recovery. during the Depression.

He created an organization called the National Union for Social Justice, which called for nationalization or government takeover of a lot of major industries such as railroads and coal mining. And he believed that everyone should be guaranteed what he called a living wage, that everyone should have enough money to live off of somewhat comfortably. For that reason, he had a fairly large following. He had originally been an FDR supporter early on and then broke with him.

when he saw the New Deal as not going far enough. What did Father Coughlin him was a lot of his own remarks, that anti-banker sentiment I mentioned earlier. He connected that to Judaism and said it was Jewish bankers that were conspiring to rob Americans of the wealth that they deserved.

And when Hitler and Mussolini came to power in the 30s, he expressed on his radio program a lot of support. for them and he primarily supported them probably because they were seen as being anti-communist because he was staunchly anti-communist as most Catholics were. But as the anti-Jewish legislation and programs ramped up in Germany, Coughlin continued to express support for Hitler and ended up being kicked off the air by a lot of radio stations that had initially supported him and carried his show. He starts off as being fairly popular, but loses most of his public support in the late 30s as World War II approaches.

Another New Deal opponent was Dr. Francis Townsend, usually just called Dr. Townsend. His concern about the New Deal is that it was not doing enough to help the elderly. Because again, a lot of people at this time didn't have pensions, and so if they weren't working, if they were too infirm or elderly to work, they weren't bringing in any money, and they weren't able to contribute to the economy, and they had to be taken care of by their families and stuff like that. So he began in the early 30s to advocate what he called the Townsend Plan, which was an old age pension program.

It was $200 a month to anyone over 60 who was unemployed. And that was going to be paid for by a 2% national sales tax. And the money would go to these elderly people, and one caveat of that was it had to be spent within 30 days.

And the reason Townsend put that last provision in there is... to attempt to relieve the depression in some way. You're giving these people who didn't have money, money, and you're going to make them spend it.

So they're buying goods and they're stimulating the economy that way. So you're helping old people and you're getting us out of the depression. It was seen by him as killing two birds with one stone.

So inspired by the Townsend Plan in part, FDR passed the Social Security Act in 1935. But, It didn't give anywhere near $200 a month to unemployed people. It was really, it was like $20 or $30, I think, was the old age pension plan early on. So Townsend was very unhappy and began to criticize Roosevelt even more than he had already.

Eventually, the Social Security program would improve, and Townsend was seen as being one of the inspirations for that. Huey Long was the most prominent New Deal opponent. He was a...

a political boss in the state of Louisiana. He had served as the governor of Louisiana, and then in 1932 he got elected senator. And he proposed a plan called the Share Our Wealth Plan, where the slogan of the program was, Every Man a King.

He said there should be a minimum household income of $5,000. So every family, regardless of their situation, should have at least a $5,000 income provided by the government if necessary. And that income was going to be... Um...

paid for or funded by massive taxes on the wealthiest Americans. I mean, taxes so high it would essentially amount to not a tax, but like confiscation of those people's money. And this was incredibly popular to a lot of people that were, you know, particularly negatively affected by the Depression, the people who were unemployed especially. FDR saw this as being tantamount to communism.

And, you know, the New Deal wasn't intended to be a socialist or communist. program in FDR's eyes. He often said that he was trying to save capitalism with the New Deal by, you know, regulating the industries to the point where they didn't have to be taken over and that, you know, they would provide money to their employees and the economy would sort of get going again on its own without the government having to redistribute any wealth.

But Huey Long was very much in favor of this, you know, sort of communist sounding plan. And FDR called Huey Long the most dangerous man in America during this time. They were bitter, bitter rivals. And Huey Long, from the time he was elected senator in 1932, was already planning to challenge FDR in 1936 for the Democratic nomination. But in 1935, in a local political dispute gone south, Huey Long was assassinated by the son-in-law of a Louisiana state judge.

whom Long had tried to remove from office. So that opposition was removed. But Huey Long remains a folk hero in Louisiana even after his assassination.

And his son was eventually elected governor of Louisiana as well. So his influence and sort of his populist fervor lived on long after he was dead. Finally, the Supreme Court, which is the notable conservative opposition to the New Deal. You have to remember, before Roosevelt became president, there was 12 years of Republican administrations that were very pro-business and very conservative. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

And they appointed a lot of justices to the Supreme Court that were incredibly conservative and thought in the same vein they did about the role of government and business and all of that. And there were four justices in particular who opposed everything about the New Deal. And they were called the Four Horsemen. And then there were three justices who were fairly liberal and universally supportive of the New Deal.

And then there were two that sort of swung back and forth. But usually... one of those two more moderate justices would vote with the conservatives and that served to hamper some of Roosevelt's New Deal programs.

The National Industrial Recovery Administration was ruled unconstitutional by Schechter versus United States in 1935 and then a year later the Agricultural Adjustment Act ruled unconstitutional by US versus Butler. The gist of both of those rulings is that the New Deal or these programs in particular representative, too much of an executive branch's involvement in what the legislative branch should have been doing. So a violation of the separation of powers and also a violation of the Commerce Clause by the government trying to regulate business intrastate.

You know, the government has the power to regulate interstate commerce but not really commerce within one individual state. So for those reasons primarily those programs are ruled unconstitutional. So in response to this, FDR decides he's got to do something to try to get the Supreme Court back.

And he proposed a piece of legislation in 37 called the Judicial Reorganization Bill. The critics called it the Court Packing Plan. Roosevelt said, you know what, these Supreme Court justices, they're so old and they're so overworked.

And so what we're going to do to lighten their workload is we're going to increase the number of Supreme Court justices temporarily from 9 to 15. And then every time a justice retires, we won't replace them until the court will eventually go back down to nine. And of course, it's obvious that Roosevelt would have been the one to appoint those six new justices. And this was seen even by a lot of Roosevelt supporters as being severely overstepping their bounds. And this plan was more or less dead on arrival.

And it really made Roosevelt sort of look bad and look like he was over-politicizing the issue and all of that. It was also rendered sort of a moot point when one of the quote-unquote four horsemen retired and Roosevelt was able to appoint the replacement, and the Supreme Court at that time swung back to being a little bit more liberal. But the fact remains that throughout the early part of Roosevelt's presidency, the Supreme Court was not very sympathetic to the New Deal.

That's all for today. Make sure to check Moodle if you're one of my students for any additional... videos or resources on the New Deal and its opposition and Feel free to post comments in the comment section below or ask me in class if you're one of mine All right.

Have a good one. Cheers

Transcript for:Opposition to the New Deal Explained

Transcript for:
Opposition to the New Deal Explained