The Great Depression of the 30s was a sudden and terrifying stock-market crash that

exposed crucial weaknesses in both American and global economies. Low prices from the over-
production of the Great War, the massive gap between the rich and poor, trade-crippling
barriers, more consumer goods than could be feasibly consumed, and a choked money supply
pinned the American people. With President Franklin Delano Roosevelt taking over after
President Hooverhis name and reputation ripped to shredsFDR promised his people a New
Deal to bring about much-needed hope. Despite being unable to end the Great Depression,
being heavily criticised, and even causing a small recession near the end of the New Deal, the
three Rs he focused on (relief, recovery, and reform) eased the Depression for the American
people and increased the federal governments influence within the economy.
The First New Deal from 1933 to 1934 saw FDR in his days as a fledgling president and
the introduction of his famous Hundred Days. FDR flexed his arm in a show of executive power
during these first days in office establishing New Deal agencies such as the CCC, FERA, AAA, and
the NRA. These new agencies were received with varying degrees of acceptance. As shown in
the Letter to Senator Robert Wagner, agencies such as the National Recovery Administration
created by the National Industrial Recovery Act which sought to boost the economy as a whole
were definitively opposed. The NRA was set in place to improve the ways companies treated
each other to stimulate industrial production and increase prices to reduce the surplus of
consumer goods. However, the letter expresses its worry that Washington is accelerating its
[sic] pace towards socialism and communism. Nearly every public state from Washington is
against stimulation of business which would in the end create employment. Not only were
FDRs New Deal programs creating paranoid accusations of socialism, but also an increased
resentment for increased federal influence in economics. Such repugnance towards the NIRA
and the governments increased role in the economy is reflected in Charles Evans Hughes
majority opinion in the case of Schechter v. United States (1935) in which he boldly declares that
workers wages have no direct relation to interstate commerce and that the authority of the
federal may not be pushed to such an extreme. The court itself finds that federal regulation of
the economy was hardly significant. Such a ruling indicates a legitimate threat to other New
Deal endeavours. Furthermore, FDRs usage of Keynesian economic theory which touted the
effectiveness of deficit spending to revive economies was rather ill-received by the end of the
First New Deal as evidenced by William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. in The Hand of Improvidence where
he criticised the New Deal programs as contradictory, assisted and retarded the recovery of
industrial activity, adding six billion dollars to the national debt, and accused the usage of
Keynesian economics as a plan of buying Utopia for cash. Garrisons criticism reflected a
sentiment regarding the outlandish and lack of pragmatism of the New Deal programs and the
ineffectiveness people perceived in the programs contradictory attempts at recovery.
Despite heavy criticisms, FDRs responses to the Great Depression also brought forth
great relief. FDRs handling of the banks by passing Emergency Banking Relief Act, Glass-Steagall
Reform Act, and holding fireside chats over the radio