Governor of New York

During two terms as Governor of New York (1929-1933), Roosevelt established a reputation as a reforming politician in the Theodore Roosevelt tradition and as a supporter of the impoverished upstate farmers. His greatest struggle aimed at providing cheaper electricity for the rural consumer. As the Great Depression deepened, he assembled the "Brain Trust", a group of faculty members from Columbia University, to formulate with him a comprehensive programme for resolving the economic collapse that had begun in 1929. In 1932, Roosevelt won the party's presidential nomination, then easily defeated Hoover in the national election.

Roosevelt as President

The Effort to Restore Prosperity

His first three months in office, known as the Hundred Days, were marked by innovative legislation originating in the executive branch. In a period of massive unemployment (25 per cent of the work force), a collapsed stock market, thousands of bank closings, and agricultural prices that had fallen below the cost of production, Congress, at Roosevelt's request, passed a series of emergency measures calculated to provide liquidity for banking institutions and relief for the individual and to prevent business bankruptcy. In addition to relief measures, the New Deal aimed at long-range economic solutions to problems stemming from World War I. The farm depression, a result of overproduction, had begun in 1921 and sent millions to the cities during the 1920s; Roosevelt regarded it as the root cause of the economic collapse of the late 1920s. He responded with a broad agricultural programme framed by the Agricultural Adjustment Acts of 1933 and 1938. This legislation introduced production controls for certain basic commodities in order to create a balance between supply and demand. The programme included construction of dams to produce hydroelectric power and construction of hospitals and schools. New industries attracted by low-cost electricity and labour diversified the southern economy and benefited an impoverished area.

The New Deal Coalition

Many legal acts were adopted within the New Deal Programme, such as :
· National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA, 1933)
· strict securities-issue and stock exchange regulation (enforced by the new Securities and Exchange Commission)
· Social Security Act
· Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
They were accepted differently by business community and workers, blacks and urban minorities.