# data[].attributes.headline
Gallup Vault: Gloomy Outlook During the Great Depression

# data[].attributes.subject
Gallup Vault: Gloomy Outlook During the Great Depression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ninety years ago this month, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed in an event commonly known as Black Tuesday. The events of Oct. 29, 1929, precipitated the worst economic downturn in U.S. history and a depression that would cloud the nation for a decade.

Gallup was founded in October 1935, right in the middle of the Great Depression, and many of its earliest questions asked Americans about employment, the economy and the government's role in reviving it.

In 1937, few Americans (15%) reported owning stocks or bonds listed on a stock exchange -- a much smaller percentage than is the case today -- perhaps because some were scared off by the events of 1929, but more likely because few Americans had money to invest.

Americans' predictions for the economy were decidedly gloomy in the 1930s. In 1936, two in three Americans (67%) believed that yet another depression was on the horizon, and an even greater 83% believed that poverty would never be "done away with" in the U.S.

Americans Resisted Blaming Presidents

Cities across the country became dotted with shantytowns, where unemployed, evicted and poverty-stricken people built makeshift huts for shelter. The shantytowns became known as "Hoovervilles" -- a dig at former President Herbert Hoover, whose presidency had barely begun when the stock market crash occurred and who received much of the blame from critics.

But most Americans in 1938 resisted labeling the economic crisis with Hoover's name -- two in three Americans said it wasn't fair to call the slump the "Hoover depression." A smaller majority (53%) rejected labeling it as the "Roosevelt recession/depression," as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal had gone into effect.

Roosevelt is largely credited with stabilizing the U.S. economy with his sprawling New Deal in the 1930s. But reviews of his approach were mixed at the time, as Americans' views on the government's newly enhanced role fluctuated. Six in 10 Americans in 1935 said the government's expenditures for relief and recovery were "too great." Yet in 1937, most Americans (54%) felt the government should repeat Roosevelt's spending policies if another depression struck. That same year, few Americans sought to do away with the Works Program Administration (21%).

Although exactly how the Great Depression ended is debatable, the economy rebounded in the 1940s as the U.S. fought in World War II. But the Depression had left its mark on Americans. In 1944, more than one in four (27%) reported that they or their head of household had struggled to find employment during the Depression -- and the vast majority of these respondents (72%) said they were out of work for a year or longer.
Read more from the Gallup Vault.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gallup Vault: Gloomy Outlook During the Great Depression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Ninety years ago this month, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed in an event commonly known as Black Tuesday. The events of Oct. 29, 1929, precipitated the worst economic downturn in U.S. history and a depression that would cloud the nation for a decade.

# data[].attributes.headline
CONFIDENCE: Disney does the Depression (Sort of)

# data[].attributes.subject
CONFIDENCE: Disney does the Depression (Sort of)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
CONFIDENCE - 1933 Cartoon, with Oswald the Rabbit and President Franklin Roosevelt

# data[].attributes.headline
THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT: Checks & Balances 

# data[].attributes.subject
THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT: Checks & Balances 

# data[].attributes.headline
1930s Americans Favored Big Government Spending 

# data[].attributes.subject
1930s Americans Favored Big Government Spending 

# data[].attributes.headline
"The Supreme Court Swings the Ax" Editorial from THE NATION (January 15, 1936)

# data[].attributes.subject
"The Supreme Court Swings the Ax" Editorial from THE NATION (January 15, 1936)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The Supreme Court Swings the Ax"
Editorial from THE NATION (January 15, 1936)

DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION

In the 1930s, the Supreme Court overturned several key pieces of President Roosevelt's popular New Deal legislation, on the grounds that the acts exceeded Congress' power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Here, THE NATION -- a liberal weekly publication -- reacts to the Court's invalidation of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Beginning in 1937, the Court changed course and began voting to uphold the New Deal legislation.

TRANSCRIPT

The nation's Lord High Executioners have again swung the ax. This time it is the Agricultural Adjustment Administration that has succumbed to the Supreme Court's kiss of death. Mr. Justice Roberts, speaking for the court in the Hoosac case, in an almost incredibly mechanical and legalistic opinion has ruled that the Administration's largely successful efforts to raise farm income are unconstitutional and must be undone. Five other justices join in this stern Catonian view of judicial duty. Three justices dissent. The Hoosac case now takes its place in the sequence of retreat to an archaic conception of a national government with cruelly limited powers in a time of crisis.

It is true that the decision might have been a good deal worse. The taxing power, the spending power, the delegation of powers, the Tenth Amendment were all urged upon the court as issues on the basis of which the AAA could be held invalid. Ostensibly Mr. Justice Roberts has rested his decision only on the last of these-the ground that Congress was trenching on the powers reserved to the states by the amendment. He argues that Congress is nowhere explicitly given power to regulate agriculture; that its attempt to do so in the Agricultural Adjustment Act is therefore unconstitutional; that any tax it may impose and any appropriation it may make as part of such a general regulatory scheme thereby become unconstitutional, regardless of what their validity might be outside such a scheme.

But such a summary does not convey the full import of the decision. After the crippling of the Congressional power over commerce through the Schechter decision, those who have wished to see the national power used for economic control have pinned all their hopes on the taxing and spending power of Congress under the "general-welfare" clause of the Constitution. The court did not dare through a frontal attack destroy this Congressional power. To do so would have been to run directly athwart the established law and usage of a century and would have constituted the most fatal decision since the Dred Scott case. Instead, the court has managed by indirection to cripple if not kill the Congressional taxing power. No use of the taxing power can henceforth be left constitutional under the general-welfare clause if it attempts Congressional regulation of agriculture or industry. And since that is the principal use to which it is now important to put the taxing power, the extent of the decision can readily be seen.

Intelligent people will fail to find any rational meaning in such an outcome. The common man, with his direct way of looking at governmental matters, will be unable to make any sense of it at all. The farmer will be dazed. The worker will know that a similar fate is in store for him. Three of the Supreme Court justices -- and those not by any means the least able or enlightened -- find that it not only makes no economic or governmental sense, but that it does not even make good constitutional law. In what is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant of recent dissenting opinions, Mr. Justice Stone subjects the majority reasoning to a merciless analysis in which its sophistry and confusion are completely exposed. The reader sees, if he is willing to look beyond rhetoric to reality, the naked class interest that ultimately dictated the decision. It is not so much that the court has grudged the farmers their benefits. It has been unwilling to see the method of taxation, with its attendant regulation, extended to industry and to labor relations. Mr. Justice Stone points out cogently that a power of appropriation that cannot set the conditions under which and the purposes for which the money will be spent is completely useless. With an admirable frankness he challenges the smug assumption of judicial power and judicial infallibility: He riddles Mr. Justice Roberts's protestations that the court is only interpreting the clear letter of the Constitution and is officially not cognizant of the effects of its decisions in nullifying the legislative will. He refers to "the mind accustomed to believe that it is the duty of the courts to sit in judgment on the wisdom of legislative action." "Courts," he continues, "are not the only agency of government that must be assumed to have capacity to govern."

Even while he was delivering his message to Congress, Mr. Roosevelt was speaking in the shadow of the court's power. Now the court proves definitely that it is the last bulwark of the vested interests. They have been displaced from the Legislative and have been outwitted by the Executive; they find their last refuge in the Judiciary. It is inconceivable that the good sense of a democracy will tolerate very much longer such a use of the judicial power. If Mr. Roosevelt has courage he will make the limitation of this power in declaring acts of Congress unconstitutional a major part of his campaign. If he has a long view of statesmanship he will make it part of a long-range effort to restore the basic decisions of a democracy to the legislative will of the people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Supreme Court . Capitalism and Conflict . Primary Sources | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The Supreme Court Swings the Ax" Editorial from THE NATION (January 15, 1936) DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION In the 1930s, the Supreme Court overturned several key pieces of President Roosevelt's popular New Deal legislation, on the grounds that the acts exceeded Congress' power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rise and Fall of the National Industrial Recovery Act

# data[].attributes.headline
Political Cartoon: "The Nation's Champion Recovery Producer"

# data[].attributes.subject
Political Cartoon: "The Nation's Champion Recovery Producer"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Political cartoon, "The Nation's Champion Recovery Producer"

# data[].attributes.headline
LeRoy Hankel – Participating in the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act)

# data[].attributes.subject
LeRoy Hankel – Participating in the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Most of them went [into the program]. There was just a few that wouldn't have anything to do with it. But, the majority of people, they all went into the program... There's a few that said, 'The government isn't going to tell me what to do.' There was a few of them. Now, I don't think there was too many. They didn't want the government to tell them what to do. That's the whole story. You had to abide by their rules. If you had to leave 10 acres out, they came out and measured it, and checked it, and checked you out."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LeRoy Hankel - Participating in the AAA, the Agricutural Adjustment Administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Most of them went [into the program]. There was just a few that wouldn't have anything to do with it. But, the majority of people, they all went into the program... There's a few that said, 'The government isn't going to tell me what to do.' There was a few of them.

# data[].attributes.headline
FDR's Message to Congress Suggesting the Tennessee Valley Authority 

# data[].attributes.subject
FDR's Message to Congress Suggesting the Tennessee Valley Authority 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"If we are successful here we can march on, step by step; in a like development of other great natural territorial units within our borders."

Message to Congress Suggesting the Tennessee Valley Authority
April 10, 1933

To the Congress:

The continued idleness of a great national investment in the Tennessee Valley leads me to ask the Congress for legislation necessary to enlist this project in the service of the people.

It is clear that the Muscle Shoals development is but a small part of the potential public usefulness of the entire Tennessee River. Such use, if envisioned in its entirety, transcends mere power development; it enters the wide fields of flood control, soil erosion, afforestation, elimination from agricultural use of marginal lands, and distribution and diversification of industry. In short, this power development of war days leads logically to national planning for a complete river watershed involving many States and the future lives and welfare of millions. It touches and gives life to all forms of human concerns.

I, therefore, suggest to the Congress legislation to create a Tennessee Valley Authority, a corporation clothed with the power of Government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise. It should be charged with the broadest duty of planning for the proper use, conservation and development of the natural resources of the Tennessee River drainage basin and its adjoining territory for the general social and economic welfare of the Nation. This Authority should also be clothed with the necessary power to carry these plans into effect. Its duty should be the rehabilitation of the Muscle Shoals development and the coordination of it with the wider plan.

Many hard lessons have taught us the human waste that results from lack of planning. Here and there a few wise cities and counties have looked ahead and planned. But our Nation has "just grown." It is time to extend planning to a wider field, in this instance comprehending in one great project many States directly concerned with the basin of one of our greatest rivers.

This in a true sense is a return to the spirit and vision of the pioneer. If we are successful here we can march on, step by step; in a like development of other great natural territorial units within our borders.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
franklin d. roosevelt library & museum
library

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum - Our Documents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"If we are successful here we can march on, step by step; in a like development of other great natural territorial units within our borders." Message to Congress Suggesting the Tennessee Valley Authority April 10, 1933 To the Congress: The continued idleness of a great national investment in the Tennessee Valley leads me to ask the Congress for legislation necessary to enlist this project in the service of the people.

# data[].attributes.headline
Excerpt from "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck (1939)

# data[].attributes.subject
Excerpt from "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck (1939)

# data[].attributes.headline
A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States

# data[].attributes.subject
A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Facts of the case

Under the National Industrial Recovery Act, Congress allowed the President to regulate certain industries by distributing authority to develop codes of conduct among business groups and boards in those industries. The Act did not provide standards for the President or the business groups in implementing its objectives. When Schechter Poultry Corp. was indicted for violating a business code governing the poultry industry in New York City, it argued that the law was an unconstitutional violation of the non-delegation doctrine.

Question

Did Congress unconstitutionally delegate legislative power to the President by giving him power to regulate certain industries without also providing guiding standards?

Conclusion

Unanimous decision for Schechter
majority opinion by Charles E. Hughes

The National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to the president

In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Hughes, the unanimous Court held that the Act was "without precedent" and was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. The President cannot be allowed to have unbridled control to make whatever laws he believes to be necessary to achieve a certain goal. The law did not establish rules or standards to evaluate industrial activity, meaning Congress failed to provide the necessary guidelines for the implementation of this functionally legislative process.

Justice Cardozo wrote a concurring opinion, which was joined by Justice Stone.

Cite this page

"A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States." Oyez, www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/295us495. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Under the National Industrial Recovery Act, Congress allowed the President to regulate certain industries by distributing authority to develop codes of conduct among business groups and boards in those industries. The Act did not provide standards for the President or the business groups in implementing its objectives. When Schechter Poultry Corp.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I live on a park bench.
You, Park Avenue.
Hell of a distance
Between us two.

I beg a dime for dinner-
You got a butler and maid.
But I'm wakin' up!
Say, ain't you afraid

That I might, just maybe,
In a year or two,
Move on over
To Park Avenue?

Topic(s) of this poem: poverty

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Park Bench Poem by Langston Hughes - Poem Hunter

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I live on a park bench. You, Park Avenue. Hell of a distance Between us two. I beg a dime for dinner- You got a butler and maid. But I'm wakin' up! Say, ain't you afraid That I might, just maybe, In a year or two, Move on over To Park Avenue?

# data[].attributes.headline
Please Help Us Mr. President: Black Americans Write to FDR

# data[].attributes.subject
Please Help Us Mr. President: Black Americans Write to FDR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Please Help Us Mr. President": Black Americans Write to FDR

Although Franklin D. Roosevelt never endorsed anti-lynching legislation and condoned discrimination against blacks in federally funded relief programs, he still won the hearts and the votes of many African. Yet this support and even veneration for Roosevelt did not blind black Americans to the continuing discrimination that they faced. Indeed, the two views were often combined when they wrote letters to the president asking him to do something about discrimination that they confronted in their daily lives. Three letters are included here from the thousands that poured in to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt from black Americans during the 1930s.

[Note: These letters are rendered as in originals without corrections of spelling errors]

Reidsville. Ga Oct 19th 1935

Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt.

President of U. S.

Washington D. C.

Dear Mr. President

Would you please direct the people in charge of the releaf work in Georgia to issue the provisions + other supplies to our suffering colored people. I am sorry to worrie you with this Mr. President but hard as it is to believe the releaf officials here are using up most every thing that you send for them self + their friends. they give out the releaf supplies here on Wednesday of this week and give us black folks, each one, nothing but a few cans of pickle meet and to white folks they give blankets, bolts of cloth and things like that. I dont want to take to mutch of your time Mr president but will give you just one example of how the releaf is work down here the witto Nancy Hendrics own lands, stock holder in the Bank in this town and she is being supplied with Blankets cloth and gets a supply of cans goods regular this is only one case but I could tell you many.

Please help us mr President because we cant help our self and we know you is the president and a good Christian man we is praying for you. Yours truly cant sign my name Mr President they will beat me up and run me away from here and this is my home

[Anonymous]

May 1936

Hattiesburg Miss

Mr Presedent Sir We are starving in Hattiesburg we poor White's + Negros too i wish you could See the poor hungry an naket half clad's at the relief office an is turned away With tears in their eysw Mississippi is made her own laws an dont treat her destuted as her Pres. has laid the plans for us to live if the legislators would do as our good Pres. has Said What few days we have here we could be happy in our last old days both old white + Colard

Cencerely looking for our old age pension's an will thank you they has made us Sighn for $ 3 00 [three dollars] a Month Cant live at that

[Anonymous]

Vicksburg Miss

9-22-35

President Theo. D. Rosevelt. U.S.A.

Gentlemen: I think you Should [sic] invistigate this matter your Self. The way they are treating the Darkies here is A Shame. They wont give them food nor Cloths nor Work to do When they Ask for Any thing they drive them away as they were dogs. They wont even let them talk to the head man here. you Aught to See that Some men get this job that will give this Relief to whom it was Sent here for. you can prevent all brutle treatment of the Darkies here if you will. And its more than 200 Darkies in groups Standing on the Road each day. begging for food and Cloths. And the Relief working women. They tell them there is no job for them to hunt. And the Head men of the Office will help them to drive the Poor darkies as they were dogs. And I gets in My care and Rides from one end of the County to the other to See how the Darkies are treated. All of the Darkies in the Flooded District are in a Suffering condition I know Personally. And please Invistigate The Matter at once. The Darkies in Flooded District are not able to pay they Taxes and they wont let them make enough to pay them. And I Judge the Relief Workers are taking all of the Poor Darkies Money and buying fine Cars.

[Anonymous]

Source: Federal Emergency Relief Administration Central Files and New Subject Files, National Archives, as published in Robert S. McElvaine (ed.) Down and Out in the Great Depression. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983): 83. 88, 90.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"Please Help Us Mr. President": Black Americans Write to FDR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although Franklin D. Roosevelt never endorsed anti-lynching legislation and condoned discrimination against blacks in federally funded relief programs, he still won the hearts and the votes of many African. Yet this support and even veneration for Roosevelt did not blind black Americans to the continuing discrimination that they faced.

# data[].attributes.body
An excerpt from an interview with Ossie Davis recalling New Deal programs in the African American community

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Transcription:

INTERVIEWER: Now about the Depression itself, what was it, when Franklin Roosevelt came to power, when he became president, and it was a New Deal, was that something that black folks in your community felt, I mean was it, was there something different about, how was it different than what had gone on before with Roosevelt? Did it, was there a sense that this was a different time now, something had changed and was it something that felt hopeful or, did it, did Roosevelt have any impact on your family's life or your community's life?

OSSIE DAVIS: Yeah, Roosevelt did have a tremendous impact, and the New Deal, on the life of my family and the community, but not at the very beginning. Politics was something that took place up North. The Depression, even the crash of the stock market, that was Wall Street, and Wall Street was where evil people lived who made money at the expense of other people. The White South and the Black South both looked upon the crash almost as a kind of punishment to the people up there. It was only later when the New Deal began to articulate programs, number one, food was sent into the communities, welfare was sent into the communities, but then they began to institute other kinds of programs. I remember going to classes conducted by people who taught in stores, or in churches, in various other places, sometimes at night, as a part of the New Deal. I remember script. My family didn't particularly, I don't think Mama ever was on welfare in the sense that we had to go and get the script and stuff like that. We relied, as we always had, on the extended family for food. And since we were sort of in an agricultural situation, you know, always there were members of the family who would plant and there would be collard greens, and mustards, and okra, and tomatoes, and beans, and you could go into the woods and catch something, or kill a chicken or whatever. So we were never, except on one occasion, [[object Object]] close to absolute poverty and starvation. I do remember [[object Object]] on one occasion, Mama was at the bottom of her resources and she cooked a pot of greens and a pot of grits. Now in the South grits and greens do not go together. Grits for breakfast and stuff like that, but greens for the dinner time and with the peas, and the rice, and the meat, you know it's a whole other thing, but that's all Mama had to offer her children. And we were visited by one of Daddy's sisters, who was a bit above the family in social level, and she particularly looked down on the mixture of greens and grits, but [[object Object]] she sat at the table and even as she talked against it, she consumed all the grits and the greens [[object Object]], which left us for the moment without resources. But, the government programs, you know, were there, and not only did they provide a service that was needed, but they put into positions of authority and power, black folks. There were black farm agents who went out and worked with the farmers, and black teachers, people who got these little jobs and who did service the community, oh yes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An excerpt from an interview with Ossie Davis recalling New Deal programs in the African American community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.

# data[].attributes.headline
REIGN OF SOCIALISM FEARED BY TAFT- NYT Times Article 

# data[].attributes.subject
REIGN OF SOCIALISM FEARED BY TAFT- NYT Times Article 

# data[].attributes.headline
Father Coughlin speaks against the Federal Reserve

# data[].attributes.subject
Father Coughlin speaks against the Federal Reserve

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Father Coughlin speaks against the Federal Reserve

# data[].attributes.headline
FDR Address on AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT 

# data[].attributes.subject
FDR Address on AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT 

# data[].attributes.body
Read just the first two pages

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The United States presidential election of 1936 was the most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States in terms of electoral votes. In terms of the popular vote, it was the third biggest victory since the election of 1820, which was not seriously contested. The election took place as the Great Depression entered its eighth year. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt was still working to push the provisions of his New Deal economic policy through Congress and the courts. However, the New Deal policies he had already enacted, such as Social Security and unemployment benefits, had proven to be highly popular with most Americans. Roosevelt's Republican opponent was Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, a political moderate.

Although some political pundits predicted a close race, Roosevelt went on to win the greatest electoral landslide since the beginning of the current two-party system in the 1850s, carrying all but 8 electoral votes. Roosevelt carried every state except Maine and Vermont.

20th Amendment ratified in this cycle: Inauguration day moves from March 4th to January 20th

Issues of the Day: Great Depression (New Deal), Repeal of Prohibition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The United States presidential election of 1936 was the most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States in terms of electoral votes. In terms of the popular vote, it was the third biggest victory since the election of 1820, which was not seriously contested.

# data[].attributes.body
the first source relates to know in time you can see the diagram and how each branch checks each other and there no one with higher power  - gianfranco

# data[].attributes.body
we can still say that people now still want what people back then wanted when it comes to government spending like healthcare and now with covid people want this more than ever
- gianfranco

# data[].attributes.body
Now in days the

# data[].attributes.body
Now in days the economic political spectrum is pretty accurate when it comes to each party's beliefs.  republicans still believe in low taxes just like democrats believe in worker rights. These political philosophies are still around today with both partys
- gianfranco

# data[].attributes.body
We see how there are two political policies with FDR and Hoover. Hoover was very pro lazie - faire unlike when fdr came president he was more hands on and felt that the government should have been more involved.  - gianfranco

# data[].attributes.body
its relevant because till this day we have checks and balances