Pages Supreme Court. Roosevelt was given blank-check
Pages 770-799 of this textbook describe the years 1933 to 1939, around the time Steinbeck was writing The Grapes of Wrath. It began with the nomination of Herbert Hoover as the Republican candidate and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the Democratic candidate in the election of 1932. FDR won the election along with his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, who participated in politics herself. Americans were calling for a balanced budget and various social and economic reforms following the election. FDR promised to create the New Deal in order to help get America out of the Great Depression. From March 9th to June 16th of 1933, The Hundred Days Congress passed various laws to improve the country’s state with focus on relief, recovery, and reform. The President was also granted the power to create legislation in this process. FDR created programs giving him more authority but these powers were stripped away later by the Supreme Court. Roosevelt was given blank-check powers by Congress which granted him the legislative authority. New Deal legislation involved unemployment insurance, insurance for the elderly, minimum-wage regulations, natural resource conservation, and child labor restrictions. IN 1933, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act which allowed FDR to regulate banking transactions as well as foreign exchange. He was also able to reopen any banks that had collapsed. Congress also created the Federal Deposit INsurance Corporation via the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act. The FDIC was responsible for insuring bank deposits and ended bank failures across America. America was removed from the golden standard so only paper money transactions were allowed. He also created inflation to relieve those in debt and stimulate production. Jobs were created by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civil Works Administration, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Congress also created the Works Progress Administration to provide employment for projects. The AAA worked to reduce crop surplus and lower crop prices but establishing parity prices or paying farmers to reduce their crop harvests. The AAA was later deemed unconstitutional. Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 to reduce crops and pay farmers for planting soil-conserving crops in another attempt to make farmers farm less. Conservation payments continued with the Second Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. The Dust Bowl struck in 1933 in the Great Plains due to drought and over farming. To prevent fraud with the Federal Securities Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Various other programs and acts were created involving housing such as the Federal Housing Administration, the United States housing Authority, the Social Security Act of 1935, and so on. Labor unions were supported by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the National Labor Relations Board. In the end, FDR increased the national debt by spending a lot of money on New Deal programs and such. The federal government did increase in power but the Great Depression did not end as a result of the New Deal. There was a temporary relief but the depression continued until WWI.