Alyssa Skowronski
Final Exam
8am class
On October 29, 1929 the stock market crashed in the United States and a Great
Depression broke out. During this time President Herbert Hoover was in power and he tried to
make matters better. Hoover was a “do nothing” president and actually did too much and hurt
the economy. He also made two disastrous decisions, one being he demanded that businesses
would not freeze or hold wages and would also not hire new people. With that decision, it
actually hurt the people. The second decision he made was he refused to veto the SmootHawley Tariff Act. Later on when it was election time, Hoover ran against Roosevelt. Franklin D
Roosevelt won by a landslide during the election of 1932. FDR’s campaign casually used the
term “New Deal” and eventually it caught on and symbolized in his later reforms he performed.
During Roosevelt’s first hundred days, congress and FDR ratified several measures attempting
to lift the nation out of depression. Roosevelt’s New Deal also tried to attempt to improve
agricultural conditions and to address the nation’s industrial crisis. With everything that
Franklin D Roosevelt has been doing to try and help the country get better, he became known
as “Mr. New Deal”. Later on during his presidency, Roosevelt himself had no distinct vision as
to what the New Deal meant. Also he could not decide whether the New Deal was an attempt
to achieve economic recovery or a reform movement.
Throughout Franklin D Roosevelt first hundred days, he created multiple acts and one of
the major ones was known as the triple A. The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was to
implement a system for regulating farm production based on the notion that the less produced,
the higher the price thus the more the farmer benefited. The triple A actually developed a
system of paying farmers not to farm and subsidize the food prices. The farmers started to
destroy their crops and livestock slaughter to maintain prices. The Supreme Court did not
approve of the triple A because it gave too much power to the Executive Branch. So FDR made
a second triple A in 1938 but it was unpopular to the American people. After that act was
passed FDR created another act called the NRA (the National Recovery Act), which attempted
to create “codes of fair competition” among the American industries to reduce destructive
competition. With the NRA, they asked businesses to cooperate but it also encouraged them to
collide in fixing the market prices. The NRA claimed that is was good for both workers and
businesses because it attempted to set minimum wages and maximum weekly hours. Having
the AAA and NRA and even the entire New Deal proved that it was highly unpopular and it
faced significant political challenges. Franklin Roosevelt was being criticized by the right saying
that he went too far and from the left saying that he didn’t go far enough. As you can see, the
New Deal was a huge event that took place in American History.
The foreign policy of President Roosevelt and the Americans who opposed war in the
1930’s to the early 1940’s were worried about some of the events that were taking place in
Europe but after World War I, many people were unwilling to be drawn again into an
international adventure. The non-interventionist sentiment ran high, and they all wanted to
stay out of the war. A little later on, the United States passed the neutrality acts in 1935 – 1937
which symbolized longing for peace. Prohibition against the sale of weapons to belligerents
whether aggressor or victim. During the war in Europe in September of 1939, Congress lifted
the Neutrality Act and permitted cash-n-carry. Cash-n-carry meant that if you had the cash
than you can buy the weapons. In the 1930’s FDR was more concerned about domestic politics
than international affairs. Also, FDR rarely led the U.S. public opinion, because he usually
followed it.
The reasoning that the United States moved from a position of neutrality to noninterventionism to full out war was for many reasons. It started when the Neutrality act
become in progress and the U.S. did not want to be involved with the war that was going on.
Later on, they noticed that things were happening and they know they should be doing
something about it, but they just didn’t want to be a part of the war. Well when it went to full
out war, the Americans were starting to get attacked so they decided it was time for them to
get into war and fight. The Neutrality act was where they stated there was the Cash-n-Carry.
Congress passed this act in hope for the Americans to remove themselves from entering the
war in Europe. Americans agreed and did not want to enter this war. In the 1940’s, Germany
controlled the Northern and Western parts of Europe. Then the British prevented a German
invasion by winning the Ariel Battle of Britain. All because of Winston Churchill’s leadership
during the battle prevented Germany from winning. Germany then invaded the Soviet Union
on June 2, 1941. Congress realized what was going on and replaced the cash-n-carry; which
required Britain to pay for U.S. arms supplies with gold, with a policy of lend-lease. Lend-lease
extended virtually unlimited credit to nations fighting with the Germans and Japanese. Once
the U.S. began the lend-lease, Germans realized that the U.S. Neutrality Acts had now become
a “dead letter”. The events in the Europe and Pacific that drew the United States into conflict
with the Germans was during May of 1941 when the German U-boats began sinking the U.S.
merchant ships in the Atlantic Ocean. United States and Germany fought an Undeclared Naval
War in the North Atlantic. The conflict between the United States and Japan was when the
Japanese moved through Asia, Americans froze Japans assets in the U. S. and embargoed trade
with Japan. Japan then feared that it would be economically strangled by the U.S. embargo.
Admiral Yamamoto, leader of the Imperial Japanese Navy, predicted that if they could knock
out the American navy in 6 months then the Japanese could “run wild” in the Pacific. But if
they couldn’t defeat them in 6 months, then the Americans industrial might guarantee Japans
defeat. Japan destroyed the U.S. battleship fleets but not their aircraft carries. On that same
day, FDR announced they have been attacked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.