Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency Begins Against Backdrop of The Great
Depression
https://preview.archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/browse/?cuecard=37318
General Information
Source:
Creator:
NBC News
John Hart
Resource Type:
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
1931-1933
01/24/1982
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video News Report
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
1982
00:05:40
Description
The crash of the American economy in 1929 had far-reaching consequences, as millions of people faced
economic hardship, home foreclosure and unemployment.
Keywords
Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt, Farmers, Unemployment, Foreclosure, Taxes, Income,
Unemployment Insurance, Shantytowns, Hoovervilles, Federal Loans, Banking System, FDIC, WPA,
Dole
Transcript
Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency Begins Against Backdrop of The Great Depression
President FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: The withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every
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side. Farmers find no markets for their products and the savings of many years of thousands of families
are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence and an
equally great number toil with little return.
JOHN HART reporting:
American farmers had lost two thirds of their income in The Great Depression. Now they were losing
their farms in mass foreclosures. On one day in April 1932 one fourth of the state of Mississippi was up
for auction.
AMIL LAUREX (South Dakota Farmer): At the low point corn went down to two cents a bushel, and that
had to be number two yellow corn shelled, livestock for two and a half cents a pound. Well this was
terrible.
HART: Amil Laurex witnessed a national farmers rebellion. In fact, in South Dakota he helped to lead it.
LAUREX: I saw foreclosures were they sold farmers out. For most farmers it was a question of paying
taxes and paying their bills and they couldn’t do it. By ‘32 there had been 34, 419 farm foreclosures in
South Dakota. Just think, that’s more than half of the farm population. One half of the farmers in the state
lose their homes and are evicted and foreclosed to dispossess, it seemed pretty hopeless and no sympathy
from government.
HART: In the towns and cities one third of the wage earners were unemployed. There wasn’t any
unemployment insurance, national income was cut by half.
RICHARD STROUT (Journalist): They were selling apples in the street these poor unfortunates; we all
remember that. What degradation it was, for five cents an apple, and they’d plead with you to buy an
apple.
ROBERT NATHAN (New Deal Economist): In 1931, 2, 3 in the real depression, there was no such thing
as unemployment compensation on the national scale, if you were out of work you were out of work. It
was an awful different picture than anybody can conceive of today. And it really was, the unemployed
were in dire, dire straights.
HART: For hundreds of thousands losing a job meant losing their homes in foreclosure and eviction. In
the first half of 1933 more than 1,000 homes were being foreclosed everyday. Many of the homeless and
jobless put up shanty towns and called them Hoovervilles, for Herbert Hoover, the depression president.
There were no federal loans for housing. By 1933 panic had ruptured the banking system. 5,000 banks
were broke; 9 million people lost their savings. There was no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
JAMES ROWE (FDR Administration Assistant): The banks were closed I couldn’t buy myself a dinner
and I thought it was the end of the world.
STROUT: Every bank in the country was closed, you came home and you said I couldn’t cash this check;
I went down to the bank the bank was closed. And no one knew what was going to happen. And there
were demigods in the land, who knew they had ideas of what to do, and if they had gone into effect we
would’ve had a species of revolution.
HART: Communists, thinking the country was ripe for revolution, lead a riot in New York City. Some
capitalists were afraid the system was too weak. A North Carolina congressman proposed dictatorship.
The noted journalist Henry Haslet suggested in Scribner’s magazine that Congress be replaced by a
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directorate of 12 men.
STROUT: This was just crazy, we had the factories, we had the people to work, we had the food, but we
couldn’t sell, there was something wrong. Something had to be done.
Unidentified Man: The people were desperate.
Pres. ROOSEVELT: This nation is asking for action, and action now.
JAMES ROOSEVELT (Son of FDR): If you remember the banks were about ready to fail and therefore
they were all closed. There was a financial panic that pretty much ripped the country. And therefore the
very first night that we went to work on the financial situation the cabinet sat in the White House
practically the whole night long. And I was there as a sort of an unofficial aide to my father, I remember it
very clearly the tenseness of the situation and the feeling that we must find the answers to what had to be
done to save the situation. Because part of the problem, if not the largest part of the problem, was
restoring faith and hope and dignity to individual Americans who were pretty near the panic button at that
time.
NATHAN: Roosevelt always said I will not have a dole in this country the British had a dole; they had
welfare. And Roosevelt always raised on any project, he said the if the people are going to get any money
from the government they are going to have to work for it.
HART: Three and a half million people worked for it in the WPA, the works progress administration. The
WPA built or improved 1,000 airports, 8,000 schools and hospitals and hired artists whose work survives.
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