Changing political environment 1933-45

National Recovery Administration

• Set up and enforced codes of practice for businesses, including setting working hours and a minimum wage

• Businesses could choose not to join the NRA → the public were encouraged to support businesses that displayed the NRA symbol of a blue eagle in their windows

Agricultural Adjustment Agency

• Regulated the major crops, such as wheat, cotton and milk

• Bought up surplus crops and subsidised farmers to grow less of crops that were being overproduced

Enlarging the presidency

• Hoover - three assistants and some secretaries

• Roosevelt - created Executive Office of the President, which had several departments to deal with administration

Opposition

During the 1940 presidential campaign, some opponents compared him to dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin

Roosevelt’s popularity

Elected for an unprecedented 4 terms

Roosevelt and the Supreme Court

• In 1937, the NRA and AAA were ruled as unconstitutional

• As a result, he proposed to add a new judge for every judge over 70 (6/9)

1941 Lend-Lease Act

• Congress wouldn’t approve Roosevelt’s overruling the Neutrality Acts to let Britain have the supplies on credit → theoretically lent Britain supplies, to be returned after the war

• By the end of the war, the value of lend-lease supplies was $51 billion

Destroyers-for-bases

Allowed Roosevelt to give Britain 50 naval destroyers in return for the use of bases in British-held countries

War economy

• Within a year of the outbreak of war, the USA had produced $47 billion worth of war goods

• Industry profits rose from $17 million in 1940 to $28 million in 1943

Human cost

Of 16 million who went to fight, 400,000 died and 600,000 were wounded or captured