President Franklin D. Roosevelt And The Great Depression

Americans today fear of a multi-billion dollar debt, especially since the new president, Donald Trump, has recently been elected. Sure, he may or may not help the economy, especially after his wall that he is supposedly going to make Mexico pay for, but it will not be as bad as it was in the late 1920’s, or, at least, most hope not. He may put us in a big deficit, but the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression was such a horrible decline in monetary value that it still sends shivers down the spines of many Americans today.
On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, hitting Wall Street hard and wiping
The population could not find jobs, and production had continued to drop lower and lower. Farmers couldn’t even afford to harvest their crops and were forced to leave them rotting in the fields while people elsewhere starved. The elected president of 1932, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, had an idea. By this time, states had ordered the last remaining banks to close and the U.S. treasury didn’t have enough money to pay all the government workers. Franklin D. Roosevelt emanated a strong feeling of calmness and optimism, famously declaring that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Roosevelt took immediate action to address the economy, first declaring a four-day “banking holiday” during which all banks were to be closed so that Congress could pass legislation and reopen banks deemed to be stable. He also began addressing the nation through his “fireside chats” over the radio, which in turn led towards restoring public confidence. During Roosevelt’s first 100 days of office, his administration had passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery. He also sought to reform the financial system, creating the FDIC to protect depositor’s accounts and the SEC to regulate and prevent abuse to the stock
One of the most well known conquest of legislature that Roosevelt led was the elimination of prohibition. This made it legal for Americans to once again buy and sell alcohol. He later signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act into law, enabling federal government to build dams along the Tennessee River which controlled flooding and generated inexpensive hydroelectric power for the people in the region. He also led congress to pass a bill that paid commodity farmers to leave their fields fallow in order to end agricultural surpluses and boost prices. Afterwards the National Industrial Recovery Act later guaranteed that workers were allowed to unionize and bargain for increased wages and better working conditions, and also suspend some anti-trust laws and establish a federally funded Public Works Administration. Roosevelt had also passed 12 major laws in his first 100 days of