Brittany Rizzo
May 11, 2012
Hist. Final Exam Spring
1. The New Deal
After the crisis that happened during the Great Depression the public was looking for
their problems to be answered and believed Franklin D. Roosevelt would bring them out of the
slump that the whole economy was in. Franklin D. Roosevelt demolishes Herbert Hoover in the
1930 election that year and believes that his plan of the New Deal should go through state level
and produce the change that the United States was looking for. The New Deal was created to
solve this economic dilemma, Roosevelt was looking to lower things like crime rates, death rates
and unemployment along with anything else that could possibly work. The name New Deal
happened pretty ironically, FDR did not actually have any set program coming into his
presidency except change but he nonchalantly used the term “new deal” and it eventually stuck
with the public. The name in itself defines the intentions and direction they wanted to head in.
Roosevelt wanted something “New” to “Deal” to the public to bring them out of depression. Dr.
New Deal and his team of New Dealers could not decide whether this program was going to be a
recovery or a reform or possibly both. The New Deal turned more towards a reform movement
and this opened up a whole new type of politics, welfare politics, introduced by interest groups.
(Farmers, African Americans and even corporations.) The goals among the public and
government had begun to move in the same way and wanted the same change as everyone else.
In Roosevelt’s first hundred days in office he looked to lift the nation and this time
became to be known as the most radical experiment. FDR’s goals were simple he wanted to put
into act anything that would in the end produce some kind of positive result. Between March 9th
and June 16th Roosevelt had already tried eleven different acts. Roosevelt and his team that
started to become known as New Dealers shared a mutual goal, but the way in which they would
go about these problems differed from one politician to the next. This may have been because of
the fact FDR appointed people who normally did not get along. In doing this he believed it
would keep the government from coming to a complete halt, and was willing to try anything that
would work. And even if none of those worked it left Roosevelt with someone to blame if
anything did not work and he could avoid all blame together.
Failures of the New Deal were just as common as its successful acts that were regularly
being implied, changed or revised. One of the more unpopular acts that were put into place was
the Agriculture Adjustment Act. (AAA) Roosevelt and his team cut farming prices in half in
hopes to raise prices of products, they even went to the extent of paying farmers to not farm. But
this act was revised a number of times, it was changed so that farmers could only farm till their
quota was met or they could be fined. Other acts like the National Recovery Administration
(NRA) attempted to create codes of fair competition among different industries in an attempt to
reduce destructive competition. This act came in response to the Sherman Antitrust Act which
turned out to be the complete opposite when it came to fixing prices and turning the business
corporation into associationalism. But in the end both of these acts are dubbed as unconstitional
because they targeted the small business men or people lower than them.
By 1930 AAA, NRA and the New Deal all had become unpopular among the public but
did have the knowledge that these things kept them from completely falling. Even so FDR was
still popular among the people and demolished Landon in the 1936 election. The New Deal
slowly moved away from being a reform movement and moved more towards the direction of
creating a relief system for the people. FDR and his team did this through things like
entitlements for specific groups. And not to mention that the New Deal was still directionless
and by 1937 the New Deal was dead. While Roosevelt kept is popularity, he and his new deal
did not end the Great Depression. And in 1937-1938 yet another depression hit he people.
2. World War II
While the rest of the world was at war in Europe, the United States stayed out of it and
decided to not going into war. President Roosevelt did as the people wanted which was to stay
out of foreign war, which brought along FDR’s foreign policy. This brought along noninterventionist (isolationist) due to the mutual agreement of staying out of international
adventure. Roosevelt and congress enacted the Neutrality Acts in 1935-1937, in longing for
peace among the nations. The Neutrality Act was against selling weapons to aggressors or
victims in the war, they strictly stated they did not want to be involved. During the 1930’s
pacifism ran strong on college campuses and along came America’s first committee of Anti-War.
With the public staying strong in their interest to stay away from war, Roosevelt too went along
with this and followed whatever their opinion may be.
However after the United States witnessed what was happening in Nazi Germany their
opinions of staying out of war began to shift. Public opinion turned during Jewish oppression by
the Germans. Seeing this act by the Germans angered many Americans and they began to feel
the need to become involved and help the victims of this. In 1939, the once popular Neutrality
Act is erased and a new policy is implemented. The new act put into place went by the name of
Cash and Carry. It was simple, Cash and Carry states that they will only sell those who are a
victim. Taking a part in the international war now was becoming the trending thing in the States,
especially after Japan conquered Southeast Asia and the American’s became disgusted with their
behavior. In fact they viewed Japanese people as animals who needed to be put an end too.
They then banned the sale of scrap metal and petroleum to the resource-poor Japanese people.
By taking these critical resources away from Japan, it made war more likely to happen.
The mentality going into war with Japan for the United States was that they were the only
ones with enough power to overpower the Japanese imperialist. While on the Japanese side,
Admiral Yamamoto predicted they would only have one chance to beat the United States until
they would out industrialize them. December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States Pearl
Harbor. This could have been a very bad thing if the Japanese would have went further into war
during this time, but after this event all of America was ready to engage in war. A famous line
said by Franklin D. Roosevelt about the day Pearl Harbor was attacked was it is a “Date which
will live in infamy.” After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declares war on the United
States on December 11, 1941 in hopes that Japan would attack the Soviet Union. Although
Hitler planned for Japan to take on Soviet Union since Germany declared war on the U.S. Japan
in fact did not go into war with the Soviet Union and the U.S. mobilizes to go to war.
The Axis power had critical points during World War II that pushed them closer to a victory
against the Allied forces. The sea war between the two had become the longest part of the war.
While the United States were maneuvering merchant ships over to Allies the Germans would
continue to sink them one by one. This continued on for a while until “Black May” when Allies
brought in U-boats and began sinking up to 25% of German boats and this forced the Germans to
call off the sea war. Another critical point was the air war of Europe, this victory was crucial for
the Allie forces. United States began this by bombing industries by day and Britain would bomb
by night to instill fear among the people. This strategic bombing was ineffective and did not
actual slow down German production but it did kill off citizens and among those citizens were
German pilots. But it did mean no German pilots, no one to fly German planes and ultimately
lead to the U.S victory. And finally the third most critical point was the great land battlegrounds
of Stalingrad and Kursk. Stalingrad was the point in the war where the United States realized
that the Germans could not win this war after losing staggering numbers in battle.