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Line 3: − + − − − Shortly after his election FDR forced the Congress to scrap minimum wage and maximum hour legislation which the Senate had already passed. <ref>''The Roosevelt Myth''], John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 3., [http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/fdrmyth_Chapter_Three___The_Forgotten_De.htm ''The Forgotten Deprssion''].</ref> − In 1933 Italian Premier [[Benito Mussolini]] was a towering figure. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, <ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774563-4,00.html Axis (1936-1943)], ''[[TIME magazine]]'', Sep. 20, 1943,</ref> President of Columbia University and [[Nobel Prize for Peace]], said of [[fascism]], it is as a “form of government of the very first order of excellence”; and found it “safe to predict that just as Cromwell made modern England, so Mussolini would make modern Italy.” <ref>[http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/wright/1943/10/italy.htm What To Do With Italy?], John G. Wright, From Fourth International, Vol.4 No.10, October 1943, pp.308-311.</ref> Chariman [[Sol Bloom]] of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U. S. House of Representives, suggested Mussolini was a great man and had something the [[United States]] government might well look to for imitation. <ref>John T. Flynn, ''As We Go Marching'', Doubleday, 1944, p. 70.</ref> What they liked particularly was his [[corporative]] system. Mussolini organized each trade or industrial group or professional group into a state supervised trade association. He called it a corporative. <ref>[http://www.cmre.org/GeneSmileypresentation.pdf The New Deal and Corporatism], Prof. Emeritus Gene Smiley, Marquette University, Presented at the Committee for Monetary Research and Education,October 19, 2006,</ref> These corporatives operated under state supervision and provided economic planning of production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc. The National Recovery Act, or NRA as it came to be called, provided that a corporative system in America for each industry should be organized into a federally supervised trade association. It was not called a corporative. It was called a [[Code Authority]]. In [[Nazi]] Germany such government run planning authorities built on the Italian model were called [[industrial cartel]]s. This was the same as fascism. <ref>[http://www.rooseveltmyth.com/book/hbzfrm.htm ''The Roosevelt Myth''], John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 1, Ch. 5.</ref> These code authorities could regulate production, quantities, qualities, prices, distribution methods, etc., under the supervision of the NRA. Anti-trust laws forbade such organizations. Roosevelt had denounced Hoover for not enforcing these laws sufficiently. Now Roosevelt suspended the anti-trust laws and compelled men to combine.+ − − The NRA Act provided an appropriation of $3,300,000,000 which the President was given to be spent at his own discretion. He had a sum of money equal to what the government spent in the prvious ten years outside of discretionary spending. Roosevelt decided how it should be spent and where. If a congressman or senator needed an appropriation for his district, instead of introducing a bill in Congress, he went to Roosevelt to ask for it. All over the country, states, cities, counties, business organizations, institutions of all sorts wanted projects of all kinds. Instead of going to Congress they went to the President. − In the twenty-three months that NRA was on the Statute books, the average number of workers involved in strikes and lockouts and the number of days of [[idleness]] and lost productivity per month resulting were approximately four times as large as during the six months before NRA. − After NRA was declared unconstitutional, both the number of workers involved in industrial disputes and the number of days lost declined.<ref>Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor.</ref> − − This blank check legislation led to the subservience of Congress and the rise of bureaucracy. Under the Constitution, Congress alone can write laws. The executive branch only enforces the law. But Congress now began to pass laws that created large bureaus empowered to make [[regulation]]s or directives with a wide range of authority. Under these laws the executive bureau became a quasi-legislative body authorized by Congress to make regulations which had the effect of law. This practice grew until Washington was filled with a [[New Deal agencies|vast array of bureaus]] that were making laws, enforcing them and actually interpreting them through [[administrative law court]]s set up within the bureaus, abolishing on a large scale the [[separation of powers]] between executive, legislative and judicial processes. Line 36:
Line 27: − Garraty listed many other similarities between the New Deal and National Socialism. Like Roosevelt, Hitler prided himself on being a “pragmatist” in economic affairs, trying out one panacea after another. Through a multitude of new agencies and mountains of new regulations, both in Germany and America, owners and managers of enterprises found their freedom to make decisions sharply curtailed. − − The Nazis encouraged working-class mobility, through vocational training, the democratizing youth camps, and a myriad of youth organizations. They usually favored workers as against employers in industrial disputes and, in another parallel to the New Deal, supported higher agricultural prices. Both FDR and Hitler “tended to romanticize rural life and the virtues of an agricultural existence“ and harbored dreams of the rural resettlement of urban populations, which proved disappointing. Characteristically for the collectivist movements of the time, “enormous propaganda campaigns” were mounted in the United States, Germany, and Italy (as well, of course, as in Russia) to fire up enthusiasm for the government’s programs. − − It is no wonder, then, as Professor Garraty writes, that “during the first years of the New Deal the German press praised him [Roosevelt] and the New Deal to the skies. . . . Early New Deal policies seemed to the Nazis essentially like their own and the role of Roosevelt not very different from the Führer’s.” − + − − From 1932 to 1935 the volume of imports of crude foodstuffs increased 41% and of manufactured foodstuffs 49%. The volume of Agricultural exports from the United States declined. <ref>Publications of United States Department of Commerce.</ref> Line 128:
Line 112: − Unemployment increased 163% over the average of what it had been in 1930 by the third year of the New Deal. By contrast, recovery was well underway in Great Britain, with an increase of only 1.1%. −
drop lots of bad history
==Economic planning==
==Economic planning==
As the Depression set in, terms like “[[planned economy]]” and “national planning” became the watchwords of the day. <ref>[http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1468 ''FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy''], Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001. Retreived from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.</ref> They had been used by theoriticians for years and popularized by best-selling writers like George Soule and Stuart Chase, who lauded the Soviet Gosplan (central planning), asking plaintively, “Why should the Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?” The most prominent of the [[Brain Trust]]ers and the man often considered the chief ideologist of the “first New Deal” (roughly, 1933–34), was [[Rexford Guy Tugwell]]. Tugwell was a follower of the school of thought known as Institutional Economics, founded by the eccentric writer on economics, [[Thorstein Veblen]]. His official position was assistant secretary of agriculture, that is, second in command to [[Henry A. Wallace]], but his influence extended far beyond that. In 1927, Tugwell traveled to the Soviet Union and observed through scientific economic planning the Soviets were able to “carry out their industrial operations with a completely thought-out program.” “The future,” he announced, “is becoming visible in Russia.” Tugwell scorned the [[free market]] as anarchical, an uncoordinated muddle of hopelessly conflicting aims and purposes. It would have to be replaced by national planning, or technocracy, another shibboleth of the day, implying rule by the technical experts and managers, <ref>''The Managerial Revolution'', James Burnham, Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.</ref> like himself.
As the Depression set in, terms like “[[planned economy]]” and “national planning” became the watchwords of the day. <ref>[http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1468 ''FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy''], Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001. Retreived from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.</ref> They had been used by theoriticians for years and popularized by best-selling writers like George Soule and Stuart Chase, who lauded the Soviet Gosplan (central planning), asking plaintively, “Why should the Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?” The most prominent of the [[Brain Trust]]ers and the man often considered the chief ideologist of the “first New Deal” (roughly, 1933–34), was [[Rexford Guy Tugwell]]. Tugwell was a follower of the school of thought known as Institutional Economics, founded by the eccentric writer on economics, [[Thorstein Veblen]]. His official position was assistant secretary of agriculture, that is, second in command to [[Henry A. Wallace]], but his influence extended far beyond that.
==100 Days==
==100 Days==
Roosevelt gathered around himself a [[Brain Trust]], supposedly made up of the "best and the brightest" minds. How the Republic had survived for nearly a century and half without this new innovation was openly speculated. Why the previous [[Democratic]] President, [[Woodrow Wilson]], who remains the only PhD to have ever occupied the Presidency, didn't think of it, still remains a mystery.
Roosevelt gathered around himself a [[Brain Trust]], supposedly made up of the "best and the brightest" minds. How the Republic had survived for nearly a century and half without this new innovation was openly speculated. Why the previous [[Democratic]] President, [[Woodrow Wilson]], who remains the only PhD to have ever occupied the Presidency, didn't think of it, still remains a mystery.
In May 1933, the Thomas Amendment to the [[Agricultural Adjustment Act]] (AAA) was passed, giving the president the authority to increase the money supply by $3 billion in unbacked bills and to reduce the value of the gold dollar by up to half. In June, a supine Congress delivered to FDR the joint resolution he had requested, forbidding private debtors to fulfill their obligations in gold and relieving the government of its own sworn obligations. <ref>''The New Ordeal'', Freeman Tilden, The North American Review, v. 239, February 1935, p. 131-7.</ref>
In May 1933, the Thomas Amendment to the [[Agricultural Adjustment Act]] (AAA) was passed, giving the president the authority to increase the money supply by $3 billion in unbacked bills and to reduce the value of the gold dollar by up to half. In June, a supine Congress delivered to FDR the joint resolution he had requested, forbidding private debtors to fulfill their obligations in gold and relieving the government of its own sworn obligations. <ref>''The New Ordeal'', Freeman Tilden, The North American Review, v. 239, February 1935, p. 131-7.</ref>
==National Recovery Act==
==National Recovery Act==
The National Industrial Recovery Act, or NRA as it came to be called, provided that a corporative system in America for each industry should be organized into a federally approved trade association run by businessmen. These code authorities could regulate qualities, prices, distribution methods, etc., under the supervision of the NRA. Anti-trust laws forbade such organizations but they were effectively suspended.
Roosevelt asked [[Clarence Darrow]] to head up a national recovery review board. The Darrow Committee's report stated, "We have here a body not only perfectly equipped to exercise monopolistic control, but endowed with extraordinary powers incompatible with the ideals heretofore entertained in a free country. . . In proportion as the authority of government sanctions regulation by industrial combinations, the inevitable tendency is toward monopoly with the elimination of the small business ." <ref>Special and Supplementary Reports of Darrow
Roosevelt asked [[Clarence Darrow]] to head up a national recovery review board. The Darrow Committee's report stated, "We have here a body not only perfectly equipped to exercise monopolistic control, but endowed with extraordinary powers incompatible with the ideals heretofore entertained in a free country. . . In proportion as the authority of government sanctions regulation by industrial combinations, the inevitable tendency is toward monopoly with the elimination of the small business ." <ref>Special and Supplementary Reports of Darrow
Committee, appointed by the President, released May 20, 1934. [http://robsrealnews.com/revisedNEWDEAL8.htm]</ref>
Committee, appointed by the President, released May 20, 1934. [http://robsrealnews.com/revisedNEWDEAL8.htm]</ref>
Donald Richberg, former Counsel and later Administrator of NRA admitted candidly, "Yet step by step through the diabolical logic of events the NRA became the apparent exponent and protector of 'price fixing' - that hateful objective of that most hated ogre, a big business monopoly."<ref>Donald R. Richberg, ''The Rainbow'', Garden City : Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1936, pg. 31.</ref>
Donald Richberg, former Counsel and later Administrator of NRA admitted candidly, "Yet step by step through the diabolical logic of events the NRA became the apparent exponent and protector of 'price fixing' - that hateful objective of that most hated ogre, a big business monopoly."<ref>Donald R. Richberg, ''The Rainbow'', Garden City : Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1936, pg. 31.</ref>
==Civilian Conservation Corps==
==Civilian Conservation Corps==
In 1973, John A. Garraty published an important article on the CCC in the ''American Historical Review'' <ref>''The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression'', John A. Garraty, American Historical Review, Vol. 78, October 1973. </ref> Garraty was Gouverneur Morris Professor of American history at Columbia and later general editor of the ''American National Biography''. Yet, while a warm admirer of FDR, Garraty was compelled to note the striking similarities between the CCC and parallel programs set up by the Nazis for German youth. Both were essentially designed to keep young men out of the labor market. Roosevelt described work camps as a means for getting youth “off the city street corners,” Hitler as a way of keeping them from “rotting helplessly in the streets.” In both countries much was made of the beneficial social results of mixing thousands of young people from different walks of life in the camps. . . . Furthermore, both were organized on semi-military lines with the subsidiary purposes of improving the physical fitness of potential soldiers and stimulating public commitment to national service in an emergency.
In 1973, John A. Garraty published an important article on the CCC in the ''American Historical Review'' <ref>''The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression'', John A. Garraty, American Historical Review, Vol. 78, October 1973. </ref> Garraty was Gouverneur Morris Professor of American history at Columbia and later general editor of the ''American National Biography''. Yet, while a warm admirer of FDR, Garraty was compelled to note the striking similarities between the CCC and parallel programs set up by the Nazis for German youth. Both were essentially designed to keep young men out of the labor market. Roosevelt described work camps as a means for getting youth “off the city street corners,” Hitler as a way of keeping them from “rotting helplessly in the streets.” In both countries much was made of the beneficial social results of mixing thousands of young people from different walks of life in the camps. . . . Furthermore, both were organized on semi-military lines with the subsidiary purposes of improving the physical fitness of potential soldiers and stimulating public commitment to national service in an emergency.
==Works Progress Administration==
==Works Progress Administration==
The Works Progress Administration ([[WPA]]), like the Civil Works Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, established a system of work relief for the unemployed. It had a larger size and budget($5 billion at first) than previous efforts. Harry Hopkins, the director of the WPA, was responsible for the building and renovation of over 100,000 public buildings and the construction of 600 airports, more than 500,000 miles of roads, and over 100,000 bridges. The WPA was also well known for its flexibility. It employed not only construction workers but also artists and authors in what some call wasteful employment.
The Works Progress Administration ([[WPA]]), like the Civil Works Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps, established a system of work relief for the unemployed. It had a larger size and budget($5 billion at first) than previous efforts. Harry Hopkins, the director of the WPA, was responsible for the building and renovation of over 100,000 public buildings and the construction of 600 airports, more than 500,000 miles of roads, and over 100,000 bridges. The WPA was also well known for its flexibility. It employed not only construction workers but also artists and authors as well as operating separate sewing projects for women.
==Declining exports==
==Declining exports==
The following table gives the volume of imports in 1932 and 1935 for important agricultural products.
The following table gives the volume of imports in 1932 and 1935 for important agricultural products.
==Unemployment==
==Unemployment==
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