New Deal

Melanie Rodriguez
Modern American History
The New Deal was an extreme change for the American population. After the Great Depression, many Americans were left without a hope. When Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the new deal during his campaign to become president, there was a mixture of responses and most of them were positive. Once Roosevelt became President, it was seen that The New Dealwasn’t necessarily what everyone hoped for. The New deal worried more about the fiancés and industry than actually aiding the less fortunate. Throughout the process of relief, recovery, and reform, president Roosevelt gained many opponents and critics to his style of recovering America as a nation. Important people such as Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, and Francis Townsend became the most popularanti-new deal voice that gathered thousands of followers and eventually became a huge influence around the second election for Roosevelt. Roosevelt was not very well liked for The New Deal, but he became a popular icon for his absolute optimism to take American forward and his works are still being seen today.
One thing that all these mentioned critics had in common was that they all cared forthe less fortunate. One of the most popular critics that Roosevelt received for his proposal was Huey Long. He was governor of Louisiana and later on became senator in Washington D.C. Long became well known for his care of the poor people. He created a plan that called “Share the Wealth” act and the act consisted of “outlawing personal incomes of more than $1 million and inheritances of more than$5 million.” In simpler terms, people that made over 1 million had to pay more taxes in order to spread the money to those in great necessity such as people without a job. The new deal in a sense di give millions of people new employment after the Great Depression but it didn’t cover those that were “under the radar”. For example the migrants that had to move because of the Dust Bowl to a whole newplace. Long’s plan seemed to captivate people’s attention and Long gained an immense amount of followers. When his plan was rejected by the senate, he decided to go and run for president as Roosevelt’s opponent. Although it seemed like a compromising plan, many opinions were thrown saying that “Long is promising more than he can deliver”. Long unfortunately didn’t get to run for president as hewas assassinated shortly after announcing his running for office.
Along side with Long was Father Charles Coughlin. In the beginning Coughlin was entirely supportive of the Roosevelt and the New Deal. Coughlin at that time had a radio station that had millions of listeners and through this station he would influence people and inform them about the new deal. When Roosevelt refused to make him aninfluence in his cabinet, Coughlin instantly turned against him and created the National Union for Social Justice to challenge Roosevelt in the upcoming election. Coughlin has always seen the flaws of the national banking system in the country. He wanted there to be a fair wage and with this he partnered up with Franklin Townsend.
Townsend also cared for the people that were being less takencare of. He didn’t agree with the fact that the new deal didn’t cover or help those that were over 65 year of age and living in misery. He proposed a plan called Old Age Revolving Pension and that would guarantee that anyone 65 or older would receive a pension of two hundred dollars but would have to spend it before the end of the month in order to equalize the economy. Among the opponents thatRoosevelt had, one of the most important that went against the New deal was the supreme court and how they ruled that The New Deal was unconstitutional. For example, the AAA act was “killed” because when helping farmers, they said it should be taken care by the state instead of the federal level. The Supreme Court started seeing that the New Deal was getting involved into state issues when they...