Impact of History on the Different Aspects of the American Society - Essay Example

? This paper talks about some significant events from the American history and relates them to the Franciscan values. The major topic under consideration is “The New Deal” and its impact on the different aspects of the American society. One cannot talk or write about the New Deal without really understanding the circumstances or the causative factors that lead to it. Therefore, this paper also briefly talks about the Great Depression and its impact on the common man and the economy as a whole. There have been a number of arguments, for and against the New Deal. Some historians and researchers give due credit to the then U.S. president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) for his conviction in working towards the betterment of the common man and the economy by his bottom-up approach, even at a time when the members of his own party were against some of his decisions. On the other hand, some are of the opinion that although the New Deal did provide the much needed immediate relief to the nation that was suffering from the adverse impact of the Great Depression, the deal, however, was a failure from a long term point of view and was unable to bring America out of the economic depression. The depression ended only after the United States entered World War II in  1941, when the increased demand for wartime commodities such as ships, tanks, and ammunitions gave the U.S. economy the jump start it needed. The above issues in the American history, when analysed in terms of the Franciscan values, it is observed that although the Franciscan values were not explicitly referred to during these times of struggle, there were ways sought to achieve what are known as the Franciscan values, particularly the values of serving and caring for the poor and the oppressed, working for justice, and taking responsible social action. These values that help an individual or a nation to show compassion, are the most needed, particularly in a situation of distress, when an entire nation is feeling the impact of an economic depression. Also, in such situations, when there are major labor issues, when the definition of the government’s role in the economy is questioned and when the political leaders have to take difficult decisions of entering a war or not, the values of resolving conflict and promoting non-violence come into the picture. The paper talks about the struggle of the American leaders during these periods of economic depression and war, in successfully applying these values to resolve the grave issues facing the nation. The paper first talks about the significance of the New Deal from a short term as well as a long term point of view, followed by the circumstances and the causative factors that lead to the New Deal. This is followed by a detailed description of the various steps taken by Franklin Roosevelt in order to successfully implement the New Deal, after which, the paper talks about the achievements of the First New Deal, particularly in terms of the 3 R’s – relief, recovery and reform. This is then followed by the criticisms the First New Deal received which resulted in the birth of the Second New Deal. Lastly, the paper talks about setbacks in the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt including the famous court-packing controversy and the Roosevelt Recession, followed by the conclusion. Throughout the paper, the relation of the historical events and personalities surrounding the New Deal to the Franciscan values and the struggle in applying these values has been clearly demonstrated. Before I get into the circumstances that lead to the New Deal, it is important to understand its significance in the context of American politics and society. The significance of the deal can be seen in the fact that the deal took place when the nation was going through one of its worst phases and the deal promised to bring the nation out of the economic and the political turmoil. Moreover, the deal paved the path for the application of the concept of welfare state, based on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, and for this to happen in a hard core capitalist nation like the U.S. called for a fundamental change in the way the nation was administered. The success of the New Deal converted Democrats to Keynesian-minded policy makers for the next several decades. The bottom-up approach of the then president Roosevelt replaced the previous top-down approach and this resulted in providing immediate relief to the common man of America. So, if looked at in the context of the Franciscan values of showing compassion and making peace, the New Deal definitely holds a lot of significance. However, there were certain grave mistakes which were done by Roosevelt, especially in the later thirties. Those mistakes accompanied by the strong opposition that the New Deal faced at different points in time made it very challenging for Roosevelt to apply what we now identify as Franciscan values. If one looks at the significance of the New Deal from a long term point of view, it can be argued that the deal lost its significance as the years went by. As noted by Cowie and Salvatore (2008), William Leuchtenburg famously saw every president since the Second World War as “In the Shadow of FDR”, but it might be more accurate to reframe the historical portraiture so as to picture FDR fading in the dark shadows of American history itself. The New Deal order, that had begun with the first and the second New Deals in the thirties, seemed to lost its significance in the seventies and the eighties. As Bill Clinton once declared in the Democratic National Convention (Selected speeches of Bill Clinton, 1974 -1992) We were brought up to believe, uncritically, without thinking without thinking about it, that our system broke down in the Great Depression, was reconstructed by Franklin Roosevelt through the New Deal and the World War II, and would never break again. ... [But] we must remember we have no right to expect that this or any system will be permanently prosperous, free of all crisis. ... We did not get into these difficulties overnight, and we will not emerge from them immediately. It is not in the cards. However, if looked at in the context of the recent economic recession that hit the U.S., it is observed that the New Deal order and the concept of welfare state re-gained its significance, when in December 2008, president-elect Barack Obama unveiled what came to be known as the “21st Century New Deal”. (Allen & Martin, 2008) Having looked at the significance of the New Deal in the context of American politics and society, and from the point of view of application of the Franciscan values, let us now look at the causative factors that lead to the New Deal. In other words, let us try and understand what circumstances lead Roosevelt to resort to what we now recognize as the Franciscan values and his struggle in trying to apply the same. The trigger that catalysed, arguably, the worst phase of American history - the Great Depression - was the stock market crash of 1929, often referred to as the Black Tuesday in the American history. This, however, was not the sole cause of the Great Depression, which was the result of a confluence of factors. These included over-production in factories and farms, income inequality, faulty credit system and bad banking practices, coupled with factors like the after-effects of the First World War, that magnified it into a global depression. The then president Herbert Hoover initially did not react to the situation claiming that the economic slump would be only temporary and that it would actually help clean up corruption and bad business practices within the system. But when the situation did not improve, Hoover advocated a strict  laissez-faire policy dictating that the federal government should not interfere with the economy but rather let the economy right itself. Hoover also argued that the nation would pull out of the slump if American families merely steeled their determination, continued to work hard, and practiced self-reliance. This was coupled with another mistake that Hoover made by signing 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff law, which drove the average tariff rate on imported goods up to almost  sixty  percent. Although the move was meant to protect American businesses, it back-fired, since it prompted retaliation from foreign nations, which in turn stopped buying American goods. This retaliation devastated American producers, who needed any  sales - foreign or domestic - desperately. As a result, U.S. trade with Europe and other foreign nations tailed off dramatically, hurting the economy even more. When things got worsened, Hoover still held to his laissez-faire ideals and resorted to a top – down approach. He hoped that the federal dollars dropped into the top of the economic system would help all Americans as the money trickled down to the bottom. Hoover refused to lower steep tariffs or support any “socialistic” relief proposals such as the  Muscle Shoals Bill, which Congress had drafted to harness energy from the Tennessee River. No wonder why the large number of homeless and unemployed population became staunchly against their then president, Herbert Hoover. Apart from the factory workers, the ones hardest hit by the depression were the farmers and the middle-aged World War I veterans. Hoover’s repeated emphasis on the fact that the Americans could get through the depression simply by buckling down and working hard, convinced the citizens that he was unfit to revive the economy and destroyed his previous reputation as a great humanitarian. In the election of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), who promised a more direct relief and assistance rather than simply benefits for big businesses, won a landslide victory and carried all but six states. He immediately set to work upon taking office in 1933, creating The First New Deal policies (1933-1934) to end the Great Depression. FDR set out to provide relief, recovery, and reform in his bundle of programs known as the  New Deal. Roosevelt drew much of his inspiration for the New Deal from the writings of British economist  John Maynard Keynes, who believed that a government’s deficit spending could prime the economic pump and jump-start the economy. The different steps that were taken included the passing of the Banking Acts, creation of the  Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which hired unemployed young men to work on environmental conservation projects throughout the country, creation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration  (FERA) to dole out roughly $500  million to the states, creation of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)  to assist America’s farmers, formation of the Civil Works Administration  (CWA) which helped generate temporary labor for those most in need, as well as the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority  (TVA), whose goal was to modernize and reduce unemployment in the Tennessee River Valley, one of the poorest and hardest-hit regions in the country. In 1933, the  National Industrial Recovery Act  was passed. This was the federal government’s first attempt to revive the economy as a whole. The bill created the  National Recovery Administration  (NRA)  to stimulate industrial production and improve competition by drafting corporate codes of conduct. The NRA also sought to limit production of consumer goods to drive up prices. Furthermore, the act helped set up the  Public Works Administration  (PWA)  to construct public roads, bridges, and buildings. In accordance with Keynesian economic theories, Roosevelt believed that improving the public infrastructure would put more money into the economy. Additionally, FDR also took the country off the gold standard, which allowed citizens and foreign countries to exchange paper money for gold. To prevent people from hoarding the precious metal, the president also ordered all private gold stocks to be turned over to the U.S. Treasury in exchange for paper dollars. The Congress also created the Securities and Exchange Commission  (SEC)  to regulate trading on Wall Street and curb the out-of-control speculation that had led to the Crash of 1929. All the above steps taken by FDR show that Roosevelt did resort to what we today call the Franciscan values of showing compassion and also preserving the environment. The New Deal was highly focussed on resolving the domestic issues that the U.S. was facing. However, in the midst of this, president Roosevelt also created a major international initiative with Latin America in the  Good Neighbor Policy  of  1933 and  1934. As part of the initiative, Roosevelt embarked on a tour of the region, signed new, friendlier treaties with several Latin American countries, pledged to avoid military intervention in Latin America, and shunned the (Theodore) Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine by withdrawing troops from several countries. This re-emphasizes the fact that FDR did resort to what we today recognize as the Franciscan values of resolving conflict and promoting non-violence. Roosevelt’s successful application of Keynes’s economic theories transformed the Democrats into social welfare advocates. Even decades after the Great Depression, Democratic politicians would continue fighting for more government intervention in the economy, redistribution of wealth, and aid for the neediest. In this way, the New Deal changed the government’s role in politics, along with providing the three R’s - relief, recovery and reform. (SparkNotes Editors, 2005) The Federal Emergency Relief Administration’s relief assistance provided millions of Americans with enough money to make ends meet. The Civil Works Administration put the unemployed to work, and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the National Recovery Administration, and the Public Works Administration kept millions of others alive as well. Americans were so relieved by the federal government’s quick action that many became die-hard Democrats and Roosevelt fans. The president’s optimism and can-do attitude, combined with the success of his immediate relief programs, made him almost politically untouchable during his first term. Many of the same programs designed to provide immediate relief were also geared toward long-term economic recovery. The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration put millions of men to work not only to keep them employed but also to improve the national  infrastructure. When the United States finally emerged from the Great Depression during World War II, it had hundreds of new roads and public buildings, widespread electrical power, and replenished resources for industry. The third goal of the New Deal policies was to reform the banking and financial sector of the economy to curb bad lending practices, poor trading techniques, and corruption. The president’s decision to take the country off the gold standard proved to be a smart move because it boosted people’s confidence in the U.S. dollar. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, created under the Glass-Steagall Act, eliminated untrustworthy banks that had plagued the country for more than a century. Once Americans became confident that their funds would be safe, the number of bank deposits surged. Likewise, the Securities and Exchange Commission in  1934, which weeded out bad investment habits, gave Americans more confidence in the stock  market. In spite of the initial success, FDR faced a lot of challenges and criticism for the work he was doing. This struggle, as we know, is an integral part of the process of trying to apply values like the Franciscan ones. Roosevelt’s New Deal came under attack from the right, from Republicans, conservative Democrats, bankers, and Wall Street financiers who claimed that it doled out too many federal handouts. Many of these critics also feared that the policy and programs involved were a dangerous step towards  socialism  and the destruction of the American capitalist system. By  1935, it was clear that more Americans still needed federal relief assistance. This, coupled with sharp criticism for the First New Deal, lead FDR to come up with the Second New Deal, which relied more heavily on the Keynesian style of deficit spending than the First New Deal did. Among the legislations passed under the Second New Deal was the  Works Progress Administration  (WPA) which was similar to the Public Works Administration of the First New Deal, but carried on a much larger scale. The Congress also passed the  Social Security Act  in  1935, creating a federal  retiree pension system for many workers. Despite its vocal critics, the Social Security Act had an enormous impact on the Great Depression-era Americans and future generations. It brought the most sweeping change of the Second New Deal legislation as it not only gave income to some of the most destitute in society but also forever changed the way Americans thought about work and retirement. The Second New Deal provided even more assistance to farmers by passing the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act and by creating a Second Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Some other Acts were passed as well for the benefit of the American urbanites as well as the laborers and the native Americans. As compared to the First New Deal, the second New Deal was different in the sense that it aimed majorly at long term reforms while the First New Deal majorly aimed at providing the immediate necessary relief to the victims of the Great Depression. However, one can argue that the Second New Deal was not completely successful in what it looked to achieve. The Deal was not able to take U.S. out of the Great Depression in a long period of around ten years. Millions of Americans were still hungry, homeless, and without jobs as late as December  1941, when the United States entered the World War II. By 1935, Roosevelt’s deficit spending had soared, and so had the number of conservative critics. This big number of critics became even bigger, when Roosevelt resorted to the “Court – Packing Scheme”. Roosevelt feared that the conservative Supreme Court rulings would cripple or even kill the New Deal policy entirely. To prevent this from happening, president Roosevelt petitioned the Congress to alter the makeup of the Supreme Court on the pretence that the justices’ old age was affecting their ability to work and concentrate. Roosevelt asked for the power to appoint as many as  six new justices, bringing the total to fifteen, and to replace justices over the age of seventy. Roosevelt shocked his supporters with his attempt at misusing his executive powers. The “Theory of Separation of Powers” is a fundamental attribute of a democratic system and Roosevelt’s disregard for it stunned the American people. Roosevelt repeatedly denied charges that he was trying to bend the entire federal government to his will and defended his belief that aging justices were often incapable of performing their duties. The court-packing scheme marked the beginning of the end of the New Deal. It had a highly adverse impact on Roosevelt’s popularity who now came to be called by many as “dictator Roosevelt”. Politicians and regular Americans alike were keenly aware that the federal government under the tight control of a single individual would be nothing more than a dictatorship, no matter how benevolent or well intentioned the leader happened to be. This is a clear and precise example of the struggle that a leader goes through in applying what we today call as the Franciscan values. The court packing scheme became the most controversial of FDR’s presidency, and it nearly paralysed his administration for over a year and destroyed much of the fragile unity of the Democratic coalition. The court was on a mission to combat what the justices viewed as a great danger to the basic principles of American democracy, while the White House was on its own mission to save not just the New Deal but also its restoration of the nation. Inspite of all the criticism, if one looks at the situation from FDR’s point of view, there was no constitutional bar to expanding the number of justices, and court packing seemed to be the most moderate and cautious of all the available options, although an extremely risky one. Additionally, there were some other setbacks that FDR and the New Deal faced. In 1937, Roosevelt began to scale back  deficit spending, because he believed that the worst of the Great Depression had passed and because he was receiving pressure from conservatives in Congress and from some ardent New Dealers in his own cabinet as well. This decision turned out to be a serious mistake and came to be called as the Roosevelt Recession. The economy simply had not pulled far enough out of the depression to survive on its own. The stock market crashed for a second time in  1937, and the price of consumer goods dropped significantly. Roosevelt only made himself look worse by trying to place the blame on spendthrift business leaders. The American people were not convinced, and as a result, Democrats lost a significant number of seats in the House and Senate in the 1938  congressional elections. This return of Republican power effectively killed the New Deal. This only re-enforces the fact that extraneous factors, particular in cases of a national economy and politics, can make it extremely difficult for one to apply the Franciscan values. As Cowie and Salvatore (2008) state, the New Deal was more of an historical aberration – a by-product of the massive crisis of the Great Depression – than the linear triumph of the welfare state. They also remark that the broader political culture that came of age under Franklin Roosevelt was like a “fragile juggernaut”. The power of the New Deal order gave the illusion of permanence, but the political edifice contained a web of internal fractures that, when stressed, broke open barely, two generations later. As far as their remark regarding the New Deal being only an historical aberration goes, one can argue that it is during the times of adversity that the best in a leader shows. Had it not been for Franklin Roosevelt’s leadership and conviction in resorting to ways that we today recognize as Franciscan values, the situation might have become even worse. As regards the remark that the New Deal order was fragile and temporary, one can argue that the recent recessionary times have witnessed what is called as “21st Century New Deal”. In conclusion, it can be said that, although the Franciscan values for creating a caring community, showing compassion, reverencing all of creation and making peace, seem to be very easy to understand and apply, in reality, the opposite is true, as can be seen from the struggle made by leaders in the American history like Franklin Roosevelt in applying these values to solve national issues. Also, these values, although not easy to apply, are the ones which are repeatedly resorted to, directly or indirectly, during times of economic and social turmoil, as we have seen in the case of the New Deal during the period of the Great Depression, and as we have also witnessed during the recent recessionary times. References Allen M., Martin J. (2008). Obama unveils 21st century New Deal. Retrieved on May 8, 2011, from http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16258.html Brinkley A. (2010). With justices for all. New York Times Book Review. Retrieved on May 6, 2011, from Proquest database. Cowie J., Salvatore N. (2008). The long exception: Rethinking the place of the New Deal in American history. International Labor & Working-class History. No. 74. Pp 3-32. Retrieved on May 7, 2011, from Proquest database. Hyser R. M. (2010). The Great Depression: A diary. Vol. 47. Issue 12. p 2399. Retrieved on May 6, 2011, from Proquest database. Kazin M. (2008). A liberal nation in spite of itself. International Labor & Working- class History. No. 74. pp, 38-41. Retrieved on May 6, 2011, from Proquest database. Smith S. A. (1996). Preface to the presidency: Selected speeches of Bill Clinton, 1974- 1992. SparkNotes Editors. (2005). SparkNote on The Great Depression (1920–1940). Retrieved May 3, 2011, from http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/depression/ Wikipedia. (2011). New Deal. Retrieved on May 8, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal   . Read More