Article by Martha Rosen-- The Miracle of Franklin Roosevelt-- How A Man Who Couldn't Walk Lifted the Nation On His Shoulders
“The Miracle of Franklin Delano Roosevelt— How A Man Who Couldn’t Walk Lifted The Nation On His Shoulders
… “when FDR took office in 1933, the US was literally on the verge of anarchy. The 1929 Wall Street crash triggered an economic disaster of such enormous magnitude that it all but destroyed the American economy overnight. Within months unemployment hit 25%, homeless and starving people roamed the cities. At the same time, a large swath of the Great Plains, after being 'developed' and sold by unscrupulous real estate systems to unsuspecting farmers, was wreaking a different kind of havoc across Western US. The tough prairie sod, which anchored the soil for centuries, had been broken apart for farming. Stripped of its leather tough top layer, wind and drought turned the Plains nascent farmland, literally into billowing clouds of doom"...The Great Plains became the dust bowl. Massive dust storms buried towns, blackened skies, blotted out the sun....farmers committed suicide throughout the country” --Former US Senator Al Franken, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=susZ2ceEHwk
By the time Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, 15 million people were unemployed, and half the country’s banks had failed. There was starvation, homelessness, a National Crime wave, and anti-immigrant rioting by angry workers incited out of fear of having their jobs taken away.
[Hunger March 1933]
[Soup Line-- Times Square NY]
The first order of business was a bank holiday in order to push through reform legislation to stabilize the monetary system. FDR started "fireside" chats, utilizing radio to explain to the American people what he was doing to deal with the crisis, and sent emergency legislation to the Congress setting up works projects to begin putting millions of people back to work rebuilding and building the United States coast to coast.
[FDR signing the Banking Act of 1933]
Over 450,000 letters arrived at the White House after Roosevelt's 1st radio chat...120 people were hired just to handle the mail. Streets remained virtually deserted during his discussion with the American people.
The Securities and Exchange Commission Established.
In June of 1933 Roosevelt announced a major change in banking through the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.(FDIC) The FDIC separated commercial banks from investment banking. Under the new law, local bank deposits would be insured as long as those banks agreed to have only checking and savings accounts. No speculative investments were allowed or could be sold. Meanwhile Investment Banks would be allowed to buy and sell any form of finance paper but would not be insured. Only 9 banks failed in 1934, compared to more than 9,000 in the proceeding four years.
“After all, there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people”. --These words, spoken during Roosevelt’s first fireside chat in march of 1933.
The first food stamp and unemployment benefits program was established and the Social Security Administration was set up with the aid of the first female member of the Cabinet, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Today, the building housing the Department of Labor is named the after her.
[Frances Perkins Time Magazine 1933]
Roosevelt also insisted that Social Security
should be financed by payroll taxes rather than from the general fund,
"We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors the legal, moral and political right to collect pensions and unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program". Franklin Roosevelt. --Wikipedia
With the aid of Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins labor was put to work. New programs were created.
The Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civil Works Administration
The Farm Security
Administration
The Projects Works
Administration
The National
Industrial Recovery Administration
The Public Works
Administration
The Tennessee Valley
Authority
The Rural
Electrification Administration
The Agricultural Adjustment
Administration
Home Owners Loan Corporation
[Harry Hopkins with FDR]
Part 2--
So, what did FDR accomplish? Within the first 100 days 15 new agencies were created.
The CCC, which began in April of 1933, put 300,000 people, living in 1,433 working camps, to work on environmental conservation projects. Workers were trained to fight forest fires, they planted over 3.5 billion trees, constructed trails and shelters in more than 800 parks nationally, cleared and maintained access roads, re-seeded grass lands, and carried out major soil erosion control projects. "Additionally, they built wildlife refuges, fish-rearing facilities, water storage basins, and animal shelters. To encourage citizen's to get out and enjoy America's natural resources, FDR authorized the CCC to build bridges and campground facilities ". [History channel, May 11, 2010)].
Young men were required to send money home to their families since all meals, tools, necessary clothing, shelter and transportation was provided to them by the CCC. Over 57,000 men learned how to read and write. African Americans were hired, living in separate camps.
By 1935, at the peak of the CCC’s work they had over 500,000 corpsmen working. Over half of the reforestation done in this Nation’s history was done under auspices of the CCC. Today, the program called National Civilian Community Corp runs 100 local, state and national level programs.
The Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) headed by the Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes were started in 1935 and lasted until the onset of WWII. These two works projects alone consumed 1/2 of all the cement produced in the country and 1/3 of all the steel.
The PWA put 8.5 million people to work, including women and African Americans. Meanwhile the WPA employed tens of thousands of actors, writers, musicians, and other artists, while focusing on smaller building projects, hiring mostly unskilled workers.
These projects, as described by an article in Popular Mechanics in Jan 2017 entitled, “When America's Infrastructure Saved Democracy”, were requests from local governments and had to be submitted for approval. The deal was that the federal government would pick up a big chunk of the projects tab, provided it was of public interest and employed a maximum number of people. As archivist Bill Creech explained, “The basic idea (was) to use local materials and as much of the out of work local workforce as possible'." The WPA hired 3.5 million people.
What did these Agencies do?
Americans built 7,488 new schools, 130 new hospitals, 11,428 road projects, 125,000 public buildings, including post offices, libraries, municipal buildings, 650,000 miles of highways and roads, parks, playgrounds, waterworks, sewage systems, public golf courses, military bases, fields, 1 million km of streets, canals, tunnels, telephone lines, they electrified the whole of rural America, built reservoirs, irrigation systems.
They constructed or improved 800 airports, universities, over 190 dams, 10,000 new bridges, and worked in schools serving 900 million hot lunches to hungry children and operated 1,500 nurseries.
[Rural Daycare Center-WPA]
Part 3--
The purpose of the New Deal was to lift up the dignity of the people. Roosevelt offered people hope, which for many at that time was all that was left. He gave the country back its purpose.
While President Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins planned and worked their magic in Washington to insure the whole country was mobilized, the great Eleanor Roosevelt became Roosevelt's eyes, ears and legs. Travelling the whole country, from inner cities to the southern former Confederate states, Eleanor Roosevelt organized to insure that women, American Indians, and especially African Americans were included as part of the labor force building the country.
Huge opposition came both from Wall Street, especially in the building of government funded, state run water and energy projects and changes in the Southern agricultural economy through the newly created Agricultural Adjustment Act. (AAA) The work done to support and protect tenant and sharecroppers families and their wages was one of the most ineffective part of the New Deal in part because Roosevelt had to finesse changes in the Southern states he needed for his reelection. Remember that the Democratic Convention of 1924 was dominated by the Ku Klux Klan.-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Democratic_National_Convention
Although this was the case then, the New Deal produced a political realignment making the Democratic Party, the majority party holding the White House 7 out of 9 presidential terms from 1933 to 1969. Much was to change for African Americans at the onset of WWII. (Part 2 of this series).
Providing
the energy to build the country and for the war mobilization.
The Tennessee Valley Authority-The TVA
With the establishment of the TVA Roosevelt moved to "uphold Progressive principles regarding public welfare which called for planning multipurpose development of the nation's water resources" [Origins of the TVA-Preston Hubbard].
The development of the Tennessee Valley would be for the good of the Nation, as would be the building of the Boulder Dam on the Colorado River, the Grand Coulee Dam and the Bonneville dam on the Columbia River, and the hundreds of locks and dams and the electrical power plants built during the New Deal.
Sixteen navigable locks and dams were built on the Tennessee River and
its tributaries encompassing the 7 states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia,
North Carolina, Mississippi and Virginia. The plan includes the development of
the whole region through massive flood control projects, and land erosion
abatement programs. The TVA brought in hundreds of agronomists to work with
farmers who could no longer sustain themselves or their families due to
continuous flooding of their lands. Contour farming techniques were taught
together with fertilizer use. TVA production of fertilizer came to be 24% of
all fertilizer produced in the U.S.
Massive reforestation of the area was begun. In the Copper Basin alone over 150 million trees were planted. Electricity was introduced throughout the rural communities. While only 3% of rural farmers in the region had electricity in 1933, by the onset of WW11 over 50 % had electricity. Malaria, thyroid and small pox were virtually eliminated.
Mobile libraries were established as were permanent libraries. Schools were built, town's were moved including churches, cemeteries and homes. Farmers were given new lands and families who worked on the TVA projects were allowed to eat breakfast and dinner for a few cents.
By 1935 ALCOA-The Aluminum Company of America, the largest aluminum
company in the world located in Knoxville Tennessee, was getting its
electricity from the TVA.
A 650 mile navigation canal was built, becoming the largest supplier of electricity in the country. The Norris Dam, on the Clinch River, alone employed over 200,000 over 20 yrs (1933-53).
Water transportation arteries were established from Western Virginia to
the Ohio River, connecting Eastern US to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of
Mexico.
In 1943, the United States army asked the TVA for help preparing the survey maps of enemy territories. Their first assignment was to map 30,000 square miles of Nazi occupied France. It is estimated that 70 million, TVA produced maps, were used for the Normandy invasion in June of 1944.
Today the TVA has 30 Dams or hydroelectric facilities, 8 coal power
plants,16 natural gas plants, 3 nuclear plants, 14 solar energy plants and 1
wind site.
I chose only one major project out of dozens carried out. I will list others at the end together with a list of documentaries to watch.
Roosevelt wasn't finished.
Tens of thousands of teachers, artists, musicians, writers, sculptures, photographers and actors, were employed. Under the Federal Arts Project, sponsored by the WPA, over 10,000 unemployed musicians gave over 225,000 concerts throughout the country of all kinds of music. 250,000 works of art were created. 276 full length books were written and published. Over 100 community art centers were set up teaching practical arts, poster making and applied arts, photography, arts and crafts, stage set making and drama.
Documentaries were produced showing the progress of the New Deal construction projects .Photographers were sent out to document the crisis facing farmers, rural communities and the poor in the cities. Fine artists were sent around the country to paint murals depicting the American workers rebuilding the country. Murals were painted in schools, libraries, municipal building and post office throughout the country.
Part
4--
The Historical Records Survey
While the Historical Records Survey had as it official mission " the discovery, preservation, and listing if basic materials for research in the history of this the United States," it produced 628 columns of inventory, surveying federal archives which today can be accessed documenting the local life of the country. They employed historians, teachers, writers, librarians and other white collar unemployed who interviewed, steel workers, textile workers, iron workers, meat packers, retail store workers, ship yard workers, and farmers... but almost more importantly they interviewed former slaves still alive in 1936. These absolutely precious narratives are today a collection of 2,300 first person accounts of slavery throughout the country. There are over 600 black and white photographs of these story tellers. They are now on microfilm and can be found in the Library of Congress.
As promised I will list just some of the projects of the New Deal. A deal that Roosevelt made with the people of this country.
The TVA
The finishing of the Boulder
Dam
The Coulee Dam
The Bonneville Dam
Lincoln Tunnel NYC
Bankhead Tunnel, Mobile Alabama
Great Smokey National Park
Detroit Sewage Disposal Project
Tri-borough Bridge
Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway- 469
miles from Virginia to NC
Cape Cod Canal RR bridge
Overseas Highway connecting Key West
FL to mainland
New Orleans City Park
Pasadena Freeway
Washington Park zoo
San Antonio River Walk
Tomato Bowl Jacksonville TX
University of New Mexico
University of Washington
Boise State University
Restoring the Statue of Liberty
La Guardia-JFK Airport
Upper Mississippi locks and dams
Oldest airport-Houston Municipal.
Now a museum
Belfast Maine Airport
Allentown PA Airport
Erie PA Airport
Spokane WA Airport
Ocean City NJ Airport
Miami Municipal Airport
Anita Dam and Reservoir Pompey
Pillar Mt.
Bailey Dam Montpelier VT
Bankhead Lock and Dam AL
Bluestone Dam Hinton WV
Brown Country State Park Nashville
TN
Central Valley Project Northern CA
Thousands upon thousands of projects were built throughout the country...This is why we have the country we have.
There are some wonderful documentaries made showing the building of these projects. Most of these documentaries can be found on YouTube but I would start by first finding a movie about Franklin and Eleanor’s joint triumph over polio. Although he was an Oligarch and lived a life of frivolity, pleasure and entitlement, their combined mental and physical battle against polio is something that has to be understood in order to see how he was able to do what he did as President. He knew his enemy because he had been one of them. It was through his personal suffering, and being confronted with the suffering of others around him, that he was able to mobilize the empathy and compassion that enabled him to accomplish the greatest Economic Recovery in history, The movie is called “Warm Springs”
I will be presenting a second report on what FDR did that was unique and extraordinary in how he mobilized the US Economy for War production, beginning with “Lend Lease”, through the end of the War. I am aware that there were serious errors in judgment by him during this period, on Japanese Internment, his refusal to admit Jewish refugees, segregation in the military, and other poor pragmatic decisions made due to political pressure or ideological issues, which unfortunately are part of our history and remain on his record. These cannot be ignored, however, the purpose of these reports is to inform and educate the American People and the hopefully incoming Biden-Harris administration. Policy makers need to understand those things that FDR did right, that can function as a methodological model for solving the crisis of today, despite the changes in our society, culture, and technology that have occurred in the past 80 years.
Suggested viewing—
1. Warm Springs, the movie -- https://www.amazon.com/Warm-Springs-Kenneth-Branagh/dp/B00YJGX8P0
2. There is a 7 part documentary
called “The Great Depression” PBS on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNKKKWWQywFNZh4xL9Okf3xkZc0g0spND
3. “Boulder Dam 1937”. On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSMDPzd11ek
4. “Grand Coulee Dam: Man Made Marvel” on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU4qw9zYX9Y
5. “TVA at Work 1935”. On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idCwqXju7w0
6. Historic TVA Film : “This is TVA”
on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgFxtmiHQ2c
7. “Build for the People The Story
of TVA”. On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUkliKCok18
