New Deal Opposition
Criticism of FDR's Recovery Program in the 1930s
The overall success of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal is still hotly debated. Many of the “alphabet agencies” that were intended to be temporary solutions are still functioning and with success. Others ended either during the First and Second New Deal or with the coming of World War II. Roosevelt was, among other things, a pragmatist who rejected the boom and bust cycle mentality of previous administrations. As Hugh Johnson, head of the NRA stated, “Roosevelt was “the man who started more creations than were ever begun since Genesis…” Yet the New Deal faced significant opposition.
Opposition to the New Deal
FDR’s New Deal represented immediate solutions to the despair and paranoia gripping the nation in 1933. Since the 1929 stock market crash, unemployment had risen from under 2% to almost 12% at the time Roosevelt was inaugurated. Unemployment would plummet back to under 2% as the U.S. entered World War II in 1942. The New Deal produced some recovery as unemployment fell to about 7% just before the recession of 1938, peaking at over 8% before again declining.
Many Americans, however, argued that the New Deal was a Pandora’s box of troubles that violated the Constitution and sought to impose socialism, although socialist leaders like Norman Thomas believed that FDR was not doing enough, complaining that the New Deal was “trying to cure tuberculosis with cough drops.”
Initial supporters like the “radio priest” Father Charles E. Coughlin turned on Roosevelt over deficit spending and the Federal Reserve. Louisiana’s “Kingfish” Huey Long challenged Roosevelt, promoting his “Share the Wealth” program that would have restricted how much the wealthy could earn and impose high taxes on those with the greatest incomes.
Communists assailed the New Deal as “social fascism” and called FDR a dictator. At the other end, business leaders, believing they had been made the scapegoat for the nation’s ills, wanted a return to the old economic order, believing that the market would correct itself without the meddling of direct government interference.
The Republican Party and the Supreme Court
The Republican Party had suffered near catastrophically as a result of the 1932 and 1936 elections. For the Republicans, New Deal programs and policies represented dangerous experimentation that would result in high government spending, increased taxes, and a significant growth in bureaucracy that would end in top heavy federal centralization. Republican leaders like former President Hoover and Idaho Senator William Borah firmly believed that New Deal experimentation would actually deepen the effects of the Depression and hold back recovery that they felt was already underway.
The Supreme Court, with its conservative majority through 1936, invalidated several of Roosevelt’s programs instituted during the First New Deal. In 1935, significantly, the court in a unanimous decision declared the National Recovery Act unconstitutional in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp., et al. v. United States. The court in a 5-4 decision also invalidated a railroad pension law in 1935 and in a 6-3, 1936 decision, struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
In the 1936 Tipaldo decision, the high court struck down a New York state minimum wage law. In the face of all opposition to the New Deal, the Supreme Court seemed to be Roosevelt’s bitterest foe, forcing him to consider reforming the court through “court packing.” Ultimately, however, by 1937, the court began to approve New Deal measures and as conservative members left the court, FDR was able to appoint members to what would become the “Roosevelt Court.”
Opposition to the New Deal, coming from many disparate individuals and groups, never dampened Roosevelt’s resolve. It is a testament to his leadership during one of the darkest periods in U.S. history that he was able to overcome the often rancorous and vocal opposition, ultimately leading the nation into full recovery.
Sources:
John Franklin Carter, The New Dealers (Simon and Schuster, 1934).
Albert Fried, FDR and his Enemies (Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press, 1999).
George Wolfskill, “New Deal Critics: Did They Miss the Point,” Essays on the New Deal (University of Texas Press, 1969).
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (Harper, 1980) available on-line.
The copyright of the article New Deal Opposition in American History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish New Deal Opposition in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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