Transcript for:
The New Deal and Opposition

chapter 26 part two still dealing with the new deal roosevelt's attempt to fix the effects of the great depression we've seen some of the programs that roosevelt's administration had pushed congress had passed billions were being spent unemployment slowly starting to drop but roosevelt has created some opposition basically within his own party huey long is one of the most well known of roosevelt's opponents at the time this is huey he's a populist from louisiana he ran a very strong political machine he basically controlled louisiana he was banks and what he called interests especially the oil companies he felt were taking lots of money out of louisiana's oil and not giving it to the states he helped to become governor when he was pushing that he will help all the poor people huey was racist but he still believed in helping african-american poor also one of his big deals was that he promised the poor people that their children would have free textbooks which sounds strange today but apparently it was big then he created a program to run share our wealth his plan if elected president and he was a senator at this time was that all fortunes over 5 million were to be confiscated you could keep your 5 million but anything over that was confiscated and a tax of one hundred percent on incomes over one million dollars so if you made over a million anything over a million got taxed by the government which does beg the question we're in the middle of the great depression and the effects of it who's making a million dollars a year apparently some people were huey wanted to take this money and give each poor person a house a car some other necessities and an annual income of two to three thousand dollars a year huey never got too far because in 1935 he will be assassinated on a trip back to louisiana there was always a little bit of wonderment because franklin had said huey was the most dangerous man in america fdr was afraid that in 36 huey would run for the nomination and if he didn't get it from the democratic party he might run as an independent candidate draw votes away from the democrats and the republicans might win we'll never know because as i said he was assassinated and his assassin was killed right after killing huey the next opponent we want to look at is a catholic priest father charles coughlin here he is speaking what i think is an outdoor baseball stadium at the time he was the radio priest he had a lot of shows on radio but they weren't religious he spoke out on social and political issues he felt roosevelt didn't go far enough he wanted an inflated currency his organization was known as the national union for social justice and although he was catholic his organization attracted people of almost every faith except jewish especially in the lower to middle income brackets he attacked bankers like huey the new deal planners the farm program but he also accused the government of being sympathetic to communists and jewish people we don't spend any time on at this point but look up the ss saint louis it was a ship full of german jewish people trying to find a refuge roosevelt turned them away they were about two to three thousand of them and he turned him away when they ended up going back to germany everybody died in the holocaust so they were not sympathetic to jewish people but coughlin was making that point most of his points tended to be more fascist than socialist a californian enters the mix here with dr francis townsend he had a very unique idea he felt everybody 60 and older should be fired no matter if your ceo or what everybody 60 and older gets fired opens up a lot of jobs people get promoted make more money then he said that everybody 60 and older should get two hundred dollars a month now remember this is nineteen thirties two hundred dollars a month is 2400 a year and you can survive on that so he wants the old folks out of work and then he wants to give them 200 a month but here's the deal they'd have to spend all of it within 30 days so he's got this concept of old age retirement but they have to spend it to keep the economy running and of course part of that problem is if you want to buy a car it's more than 200 bucks a month that means more than 200 and you know once you buy a washer or dryer some couches how much stuff can you buy you can't save it it's all got to be spent these are just three of them the main speakers by this time as we get close to 36 a lot of business groups are opposing franklin and in 35 we have what's kind of called the second new deal unemployment has not dropped as fast as roosevelt would like he's also in two years managed to alienate a lot of businessmen who at first had been willing to give him a chance but they're turning against him and from this point on roosevelt will frankly be very pro-labor anti-business congress passes the national labor relations act also known as the wagner act this gives workers even more rights to collectively bargain and more important it prohibits employers from interfering with union organizational activities it used to be before this act if you tried to organize the union the guy that you know the owner would throw you out or seize your papers or you'd get beat up or you but no you can't do that anymore it outlawed company unions some companies tried to get away from having unions by paying people to create a union in their company and then the company controlled the union so no more company owned unions you can't fire workers after a strike this is all comes out of this bill it also sets up the national labor relations board what they did is if at a plant somebody wants to have a union there's an election and then the labor relations board comes and basically supervises the election to make sure that it's fair they're still in existence today the big one of course is the social security act of 1935. franklin may have been listening to dr townsend more than he ever wanted to admit it's a system of old age pension you have to be 65 to get it now it did not cover agricultural workers domestic help or the self-employed now the southern democrats didn't like it because it's federal aid to black people they didn't want that if you're old black person 65 you get federal money so originally the amount of the pension was based on how much you earned and you know was deducted it's not that way anymore it was set at 65. understand this it's a ponzi scheme that's why social security one of these days is going to go broke it's a ponzi scheme because when this was created only three percent of the population made it to 65 so most of the population would work work work work work pay into social security and never see a dime of it and they would die social security also this act social security act also included unemployment this is where federal unemployment starts yes i know you get unemployment from the state but it's federal monies all the laws about unemployment tend to be federal laws a real important piece that comes in thirty five that doesn't get talked much is the rural electrification administration there were a lot of farms way out from any major city or even modern you know medium city didn't have electricity the utilities didn't want to spend the money to go out because interest rates were high enough that if they tried to borrow money to run a line out you know 30 40 miles for three farms or four farms they'd never make their money back so they just wouldn't do it the rea offered in utilities in extremely low rate interest if the utilities would run the electrical out to the remote farms in 1935 one farmer in 10 had electricity just 10 percent of the farmers probably close to the bigger cities by 1950 15 years later 90 of farmers had electricity that's how effective the rea was now also here in this next this period of time congress and roosevelt signs some tax increases on corporations tax increases on individuals and then in 1937 having just gotten re-elected roosevelt overreached we've talked a couple times about how the supreme court has killed various new deal programs and they had to rewrite them roosevelt got upset and decided we need to do something so he pretended to be concerned about the health and welfare of the supreme court justices he started talking about what a big load of cases they had well they did because everybody's challenging all these new deal laws and he said that they're overworked so what he would like to do out of the goodness of his heart is appoint another justice for every justice who was over 70. and i think at the time out of the nine there were six there were over 70. so he would have been appointing six judges but only of course in the interest of helping the current judges well this went over like a lead balloon the republicans screamed more important for roosevelt southern democrats screamed because they knew that if roosevelt could appoint more judges he would appoint northern liberal judges and southerners were afraid the supreme court would start dismantling all the jim crow laws the public got upset with roosevelt they began to think that this was a move to try to destroy the separation of powers roosevelt backed down but it hurt him badly and in 1937 into 38 he called congress back for a special session because he said there were bills they needed to pass to help the economy congress didn't pass any of them roosevelt got nothing that he asked for up to this point he had gotten practically everything he wanted now he's going to have to fight to get anything out of congress because they don't trust him because of this court plan in 1938 republicans gained seats let me back up here roosevelt as i said lost the war i mean lost the battle he did not get the judges he did not get to appoint those two judges but he scared two of the judges that's literally what he did and two of the judges who used to vote against him began to vote for him so the supreme court now will start approving his measures without having to pack the court so i was saying in 1938 republicans gained some ground in congress and in the senate southern democrats were so upset about the court packing plan that they now have an anti-new deal coalition and roosevelt is going to find it very hard to get anything through congress for the rest of the time before world war ii in 1937 unemployment had dropped from about 25 to 14 roosevelt felt okay the worst is over the gdp is up things are going well and in the budget for 38 he cut federal spending in 1938 congress passes the fair labor standards act minimum wage was 25 cents an hour within two years it was to get up to 40 cents an hour the maximum work week was 44 hours in two years it was to go down to 40 hours a week there was to be no oppressive child labor what that translates to is nobody under 16 can work if you're 16 they have to pay you a minimum wage but you could not do certain hazardous jobs by the way with that 40 hour work week if you worked more than that then you got overtime which was time and a half this is all federal law under the fair the fair labor standards act obviously the minimum wage is much higher than that today but this was beginning of that so what is the legacy of the new deal well the effects of the depression weren't solved in eight years companies are struggling a lot of plants are still closed there's still 14 unemployment fewer people moved from the low income to the middle income than in any time previously in our history roosevelt did not move people up the american economy was not going well he couldn't get it really going the one group that really did well out of this is the federal bureaucracy he added tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of federal jobs these government workers were in all these new administrations that he created the ccc goes into world war ii the aaa goes into world war ii these are all government workers under the civil service and once they're hired and get past their prohibition you can't probation you can't get rid of them so one group that really gets a benefit from this is the bureaucracy in washington and of course he causes a lot of lobbyists to get born when government has this kind of money to send out to the states to send to projects people come running to washington saying hey look at this why don't you spend money here lobbyist they've been around a while but this gives a huge shot in the arm unfortunately to the growth of the lobbyists fdr's programs also completely changed the attitude of the most of the people in america toward the government before the new deal before the depression most people expected the government to stay out after the new deal most people expected the government to get involved if there's a crisis the national government has to solve it so by 39 the country had basically decided that the federal government should accept responsibility for the national welfare and act to meet specific problems in every necessary way this is what the american people have come to expect from the federal government not what the framers wrote but this is what fdr left for us some unregulated areas of american life now are under governmental supervision or control the stock exchange agricultural production and prices ag prices are still greatly affected by the government labor relations old aid pensions and welfare one of the other legacies is what did it do for women and minorities well it did a lot for women franklin roosevelt's administration appointed more women to more positions than any other president before him one woman francis perkins became secretary of labor starting in 36 african americans left the republican party to vote for democrats but roosevelt did practically nothing for african americans the new deal did not really address prejudice segregation lynchings any of the key features for african americans why because roosevelt did not want to offend southern senators and congressmen southern senators and congressmen tend to serve long periods of time they move into senior positions and in the senate especially anything that southerners thought even smacked of edging up close to desegregation would get filibustered to death so roosevelt to get democratic votes out of the south basically ignore doing anything for african-americans the the highest ranked african-american in his administration was mary bethune and she was the head of that negro division of the head of the division of negro affairs in the national youth administration which was under the wpa so she's five or six levels down and that's the highest ranking african-american native americans did do better we talked a few weeks ago about the dawes act which broke up their reservations in 1934 congress passes the american reorg the american indian reorganization act it abolishes the dawes act and allows national tribes to organize and elect tribal government so native americans are taking control back recreating their reservations and this act gives the tribal councils the power of the city on a reservation today the law is the law in some ways of the tribe if you drive out interstate 40 heading east you get to the town of gallup and you turn north to go up to durango you go up through the middle of the navajo reservation if you're caught speeding you pay a ticket to the navajo reservation if you get a parking ticket you pay it to the navajo reservation you're caught trying to steal something you deal with the navajo tribal police this is all come about because of this indian reorganization act of 1934. the government also gave out money and helped organize programs for these tribes to try to recover their native cultures and religions which the dawes act in 1800s tried to get rid of now that's domestically all about franklin and the new deal as we roll into the 1930s 38 39 there are tensions all over europe and they're going to affect america so roosevelt is forced to have a policy of isolationism war will break out in 39. before that with hitler rearming italy taking over parts of africa the league of nations have fallen up has fallen apart america wants nothing to do with any of this in a past neutrality act saying we will be neutral spain has a civil war in the late 30s we don't get involved the americans made kind of an interesting definition if you're involved in the war they will not get you can't trade with us well the problem with that is if you're the one that did nothing wrong and you're being attacked we still can't help you we cannot help under the neutrality act the defensive people so in italy invades ethiopia and ethiopia needs a great deal of help sorry we can't help you you're involved in the war and they say but we didn't start it we don't care you're involved in a war we can't give you eight now after 39 wetlands invaded people began to re-examine these neutrality acts and wonder if they're really what we should have in 1941 we have the first excuse me 1940 1940. we have the first peacetime draft there's enough concern about what's going on in england not england in europe but the submarines on the eastern atlantic sinking english ships that congress barely but it approves a peacetime draft now economically this is huge because they're going to try to get a million men it's you serve for a year but a million men in the army not all at one time but think about the impact on the economy this is going to have they have to buy land for bases supplies to build marching grounds roads barracks electrical supplies plumbing supplies bunks mattresses blankets say uh classrooms windows paints not only that when the guys show up you've got to give them a bag full of clothes you got to give them all the uniforms underwear outerwear jackets boots helmets web belts you got to buy rifles for them to practice with that took a while to get those millions and millions of dollars are being spent boosting the economy roosevelt then basically gets us into an undeclared war roosevelt wanted to help great britain by now rosa great britain is all by themselves france has surrendered this is the north atlantic this is the convoy roots the u-boats were very active in this region so roosevelt in one of the neutrality acts makes a statement that says there is a line in the middle of the atlantic dividing europe from north america he said this is the united states policy no no military ship so no navy ship from anybody in europe can be west of this line well that helps the english because now if there's no german u-boats over here they only have to protect the convoy to this part and then go home meet a convoy hand off a convoy pick up a convoy come back so it's saving them a lot of gasoline roosevelt will keep moving this point farther and farther east it's called the mid ocean meeting point mop momp and it keeps moving east in may of 41 we send the army in and we seize greenland what did greenland do to us nothing but greenland was then as is today owned by denmark and denmark was under control of the germans and roosevelt was afraid the germans would take troops under the authority of the danish and land and set up weather stations here in greenland now the germans will try this a couple times some will get caught some will get away but they'll set up temporary weather reporting sites because the weather here becomes the weather here so if you know what it is here you know what it'll be here in two or three days so we seized greenland that was in may in july we seized iceland marines go ashore why well one the british were there and they left but why did the british go and why are we doing it because in 40 yeah 41 norway owned iceland and norway was controlled by germany so the war is not in it i mean we're not in the war we are not in the war where we've invaded and taken greenland we've been invaded and taken iceland we are convoying protecting the convoys to the mid-ocean meeting point but here's where it got tricky instead of picking up ships and coming back this way we would go on to iceland to refuel come back pick up convoys and go home in this stretch up here roosevelt had the navy issue a decree if any u.s ship sees a submarine on the surface they are to broadcast that in clear uh channels just get up and say hey this is the uss thompson and we see a submarine at this location now in reality that helps the english they know where the german subs are roosevelt is placing american sailors in harm's way without us being in the war without giving them the right equipment the greer will be attacked and missed but the reuben james will be sunk in october 1940 one the uss reuben james is sunk out here heading to iceland she she was radioing location of a u-boat and it sunk her roosevelt did not ask for war did not change his mind he was his hands were tied with neutrality the next chapter will be world war ii now we'll look about the build up and we'll look about what really solved the effects of the great depression this is the reuben james 140 men died when she was sunk this is the undeclared war