The Great Depression

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In its early years, Roosevelt’s New Deal was very successful. It added money to the economy and it helped people get what they needed. But it couldn’t end the Depression all together. Although the feeling of crisis went down, new demands arose, and some weren’t so easy to fulfill. Most businessmen tried to get Laissez-Fare back, and far left and right politicians and schemers emerged with the need to get more money and complaining about the pace of the recovery from the depression. Having to face these issues coming at him from all directions, President Roosevelt made new economic and social changes, bringing in another New Deal.  The Works Progress Administration, or WPA, was the main relief agency of the second New Deal. They said that they worked better than welfare.  From 1932 to 1938, there were many political debates over the policies toward social and economic reforms of the first and second New Deals. In a radio address in 1938, Roosevelt said this:

“Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations, not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership….Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat. We in America know that our democratic institutions can be preserved and made to work. But in order to preserve them we need…to prove that the practical operation of democratic government is equal to the task of protecting the security of the people..The people of America are in agreement in defending their liberties at any cost, and the first line of the defense lies in the protection of economic security.”

Before his second term was under way, Roosevelt’s domestic program was overshadowed by a growing threat. The countries of Germany, Japan and Italy were all beginning to look like they were countries run by dictators. Although not many American citizens noticed this, it was a serious threat. It was the dawn of another World War.

 To sum up all that I have said, the money we lost to the incident, all the unemployed people, how long the incident lasted, and the eve of the war about to begin all make the Great Depression the worst incident in American History. It began with simple signs that were ignored. Then Black Tuesday followed by the Panic of 1929. After that, the election of Roosevelt and the introduction of the New Deal. The Dust Bowl came up, and afterwards the second New Deal came to be. And the last occurrence, the beginning of World War Two.

 At president Herbert Hoover’s inauguration in March 1929, he assured Americans with these words: “I have no worries for the future of our country. It is bright with hope.”

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