U.S. Presidents

8

Franklin D Roosevelt Franklin D Roosevelt

Diametrically opposite views have been expressed about the significance and contributions of New Deal The `New Deal is the name given to a series of actions taken by Franklin D . Roosevelt administration to take American people out of the depression prevailing in the country at that time , and o lead them to a new future . and other policies of President Franklin D . Roosevelt . On the one hand , there are scholars who hold that save for Washington 's first administration and the Civil War years

, no other comparable period had witnessed such changes in American life . For example M .J . Heale says

Franklin D . Roosevelt 's administration was a major watershed in American history . When he first took the oath of office on 1933 the United States was to a large extent a land of small-town values , minimal government and isolation from the affairs of the world . This was the traditional America presided over by Anglo-Saxon and protestant elites .By 1945 a new America has taken shape , one characterized by metropolitan values pervasive governmental bureaucracy , and world power pretensions . This was United States that would dominate the world for the second half of the twentieth century .Franklin D . Roosevelt , more than any other single person gave direction to this fundamental transformation of American political society (XI

On the other , its opponents contend that New Deal failed to attain its main objective viz . overcoming the depression . Relief , Recovery and Reforms were the three great aims of New Deal . Let 's examine whether administration of Franklin D . Roosevelt was successful in achieving its objective

Though the actions of FDR 's administration did not form a part of carefully planned scheme and were taken to deal with the immediate problems , yet of all actions were guided by three principles-relief recovery and reform . Relied implied that millions f American citizens who were in desperate needs of food and money had to be helped . Recovery meant that the country had to be taken out of depression . Reform implied that the glaring defects in the American society had to be set right to take the country forward . It may be noted hat chief objective of the New deal was not to destroy capitalism , but to preserve it by keeping a balance between different interests . Roosevelt explained the objective of the New Deal thus What we seek is balance in our economic system - balance between agriculture and industry and the balance between the wage earner , the employer and the consumer . Address to the Representatives of Industry on N .R .A . Codes on March 5th , 1934 . A close analysis of measures taken by FDR 's administration pertaining to each of these objectives will capacitate us o understand the New Deal in a better way

Relief measures included establishment of Federal Emergency Relief Administration (EFRA ) in 1933 to provide aid to fifteen million unemployed who were at the verge of starvation . EFRA made loans and outright gifts to the states and local authorities...