Seminar

Taylor Ziccarelli Period 1
Unit 10 Major Understandings 1. The following led the United States to enter WWI on the Allied Powers’ Side: * Allied Propaganda - Propaganda was a popular attempt to sway the public opinion in America just before its involvement. While German propaganda organizations such as the German Literary Defense Committee distributed over a million pamphlets during 1914 stressing their strength and will, Allied propaganda called on historical ties and exploited German atrocities, both real and alleged. In World War I, British propaganda took various forms, including pictures, literature and film. Britain also placed significant emphasis on atrocity propaganda as a way of mobilizing public opinion against Germany. In the beginning, the American public wanted neutrality, but over time, because of yellow journalism and British propaganda systems (even in NYC), almost everyone began to lean towards involvement siding with the Allies. * Submarine Warfare – in order to help level the playing field between Germany and Britain, Germany began using subs to target British ships. However, they began to kill Americans as a result. One example was the Lusitania in May 1915. 128 Americans were killed on this passenger ship, and the press used this to turn the public against Germany. Then in August of 1915, the Arabic was hit, killing 2 Americans. Wilson, president at the time, protests and Germany pledges to no longer use subs on passenger ships. However, Germany does not abide by their agreement because in March 1916, the Sussex, a passenger ship was hit. Wilson again protests and Germany creates the Sussex pledge, saying they’ll no longer have submarine attacks. This all pushes the American nation to look at Germany with contempt. * Trade and loans to Britain and France – In the middle of the nineteen-teens, the United States witnessed a recession. It was able to be ended with WW1 due to trade with these two nations. The trade among these nations increased 400%, while trade with Germany dropped to nothing. The Allies made America profitable. Also, in 1916, Britain and France could no longer afford supplies, so the United States allowed J.P. Morgan to loan $3 billion dollars to the Allied Powers, tying Americans to an Allied victory. This became a leading cause for our involvement in the War later on. * American bias towards Britain - In early 1917 Germany renounced restricted sub warfare and returned to "unrestricted" sub warfare. By now, American merchants were showing an unabashed bias toward Great Britain, and the British rightly feared renewed German sub attacks would cripple their trans-Atlantic supply lines. Great Britain actively courted the United States -- with its manpower and industrial might -- to enter the war as an ally. America had been so linked to Britain for so long, and took the same stance against Germany due to Propaganda, so readily sided with Britain when it finally did enter the War. * Zimmerman Telegram – Newspapers published an intercepted telegram, received from Britain intelligence, from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to his ambassador in Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance and promising that Mexico would be able to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. This infuriated Americans and due to the exposure that the media gave it, was a short-term cause for America to enter the War on the side of the Allies. They would not want Germany helping their rival neighbor.

2. America’s participation in the Great War greatly affected the home-front climate. Socially, there occurred an influx of women into the workforce, as most of the men had been conscripted to serve during the period of U.S. involvement. The social and economic upheaval of half of the population, as well as an overall sense of loss of innocence, contributed to the period of the twenties of as one of the "Lost Generation" of poets, writers, and artists emerging from the war experience, as well at the "Roaring Twenties" of the suffragist movement, Prohibition and subsequent increase in bootlegging and organized crime. The home front became a nation of working women and African –Americans, who not only worked in factories to produce goods needed for the war, but also cared for the sick and wounded men from the war, recruited men and also supported to war with bonds and boycotts. It caused everyone to ration everything. Most people would plant victory gardens and then buy goods in the store to send to troops. Everyone had stamp books which they could buy things in the store. There was a limit to everything. The Red Scare was also a result of Anti-German hysteria, and created several problems on the American home-front, leading to immigration restrictions and labor conflict.

3. The government sort of broke away from laissez-faire and began to control society a little bit more. First of all there was the War Industries Board, which centralized the control of the economy and prioritized supplies and production. It also placed orders for materials and supplies. There was also the Food Administration, promoting rationing and conservation, the planting of liberty gardens, and not using certain things such as sugar. There was the Fuel Administration, shutting down nonessential factories and instituted day light savings’ time. The National War Labor Board settled disputes between labor and management because strikes would only harm the vital production. Wages were increased while an 8-hour work day was enacted. The Selective Service Act set up the draft. The Committee on Public Information got the public behind the war effort. Headed by Creel, it established voluntary censorship, and promoted massive propaganda supporting the Allies. The Espionage Act set up a penalty for prison and fines if one interfered with the operation or success of the armed forces. The Sedition Act was an amendment to the Espionage Act, stating that it was a crime to utter, print, or publish any disloyal or abusive things about the United States. Two court cases also greatly affected the home-front. In Schenk v US, the court ruled that during wartime, our rights can be limited, and if what you say presents a danger, you are not allowed then to say it. In Debs v. US, it was centered on a 1918 speech saying that socialism was the answer. The speaker was sentenced for 10 years for violating the Espionage and Sedition Acts. The Supreme Court ruled that his speech was bad and was in violation of the acts, therefore harming the effectiveness of the American wartime effort. Both of these cases demonstrated the fact that our rights are not guaranteed during a time of war, and can be restricted if necessary. Overall the federal government played a much larger role in the US economy and in American life.

4. Wilson was often regarded as a hero for leading the delegation held in Versailles, and rightly so. Wilson outlined a brilliant plan to reshape the post war world in order to prevent wars like this one from ever happening again. For establishing and promoting the League of Nations, he was even awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. His role was important and key to introducing the League to the world, but his efforts, for the United States at least, were futile, since the Senate would not allow the United States to enter into the League of Nations. Many in Congress did not want our policy to be dictated by others and wanted sovereignty. Republicans feared the sacrifice of United States’ sovereignty because we’d be putting our foreign policy in the hands of an international group. When Wilson refused to compromise, the public opinion also began to back the Republicans, and a vote for the treaty failed three separate times. The United States didn’t sign the Treaty of Versailles, nor did it enter the League of Nation. We were the only country not to join and made a separate peace treaty with Germany. The United States was trying to pretend that it was still an isolationist country, but it really wasn’t, and the Senate should have realized that. It had entered into a World War and should have signed the Treaty of Versailles and joined the other nations in the League in order to promote peace and prevent future wars from happening. It was no longer an isolationist country, no matter what they wanted to think.

5. Three examples of isolationism in American politics in the 1920s: * Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 – This increased the duties on foreign manufactured goods by 25%. European nations were slow to recover from the war and had difficulty in repaying debts to the United States. Europe responded with high tariffs, which slowed international trade. * The United States did not join the League of Nations. The League of Nations was a peace-keeping organization created by President Wilson to prevent war after World War I, but many Americans did not want the U.S. to join. Three times the Senate voted it down, demonstrating how many people wanted the United States and its policy to be left out of foreign affairs. * The US closed the doors to immigration during the 1920's. Early on the US had excluded Chinese, Japanese, and other Asians, but later the US began to exclude even Europeans, particularly eastern and southern Europeans. Reasons for this included anti-European feelings after WWI; organized labor believed cheap immigrant labor forced down wages; railroads and basic industries were well developed by 1920's and industrialists no longer felt the need for masses of unskilled workers; more established Americans descended from northern Europe felt recent immigrants from eastern and southern Europe could never be truly American, and they also saw them as inferior; radical political movement and ideologies such as socialism, communism, and anarchism were viewed as European in origin and as potential threats to political stability in the United States. Quota Acts were enacted in 1921, 1924, and 1925, all increasing the limitation of immigration to the United States.

6. The Progressive movement during this time began to decline and die off, in the short run of it all. It was seen as an abnormal facet of society, thus America began to turn back to the era of the Gilded Age and big business that had occurred right before Progressives appeared. The decade after WWI, was very turbulent and was characterized by political reaction against the Progressivism that had preceded the War, as well as significant social changes and upheavals that made it a chaotic time period. The War had changed our outlook on things and was largely a cause for a decline in the liking of Progressivism. This time was part liberal, conservative, radical, and reactionary, all at the same time. Warren G. Harding, elected in 1921, invented the catch-phrase “a return to normalcy” describing the ceasing of the Progressive movement. It described his political philosophy and program which meant going back to a time period before Progressives and Great War were around, when business dominated society, which was also less complex at the time itself. The succeeding president, Calvin Coolidge, had a similar philosophy to Harding. He was devoted to laissez-faire and believed that the “chief business of the American people is business, showing his dislike for the Progressive movement and the predilection for big businesses and everything that came with them. The war weakened the Progressive Era’s powerful social-justice complex. While the war brought stricter regulation to the economy, which had always been a goal of the progressives, business interests began to once again dominate the regulatory agencies, and these agencies were quickly broken down after the war. The government pressed the radicals and antiwar dissenters, fracturing the fragile coalition of left-leaning progressives, women’s groups, trade unionists, socialists, and politicians that had supported the prewar reforms, ushering in a decade of reaction. The 1918 election was what signified this shift, as the Democrats lost both houses to a very conservative Republican Party. It would not be until the next decade when FDR’s New Deal, the memory of WWI, War Industries and War Labor Board, and the Bureau of War Risk would provide inspiration for the Progressives once again. Overall, in the short run, the Progressive Era was weakened during the 1920s because of the War. It was viewed as “abnormal” and the return to normalcy was the return to big business and what society had been before the War.

7. The following all lead to the Depression of 1929-1940: * Speculation and the stock market crash – During the 1920s wild speculation in the stock market had driven prices to unthinkable heights that had no correlation to the actual value of the companies receiving the investments. From 1921-1929, the Dow Jones went from 60 to 400 and stock market trading became America’s favorite pastime as investors made quick money. Investors mortgaged their homes and foolishly invested their life savings in hot stocks, often buying on margin with only a 10% down payment. To the average investor, stocks were a sure thing and most never even though a crash was possible. To them, the stock market was always on the rise. * Overproduction – as a result of excessive use of credit, people began to no longer buy new things. They were stuck paying off the old things. So, while manufacturers were still churning out their products, expecting the public to buy them at the rate they had been the past decade, the consumers were not in fact spending that money. Thus, the companies began to fall into the pit of overproduction and no public to buy these products. With the stock market crash and the fears of further economic woes, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing items. This then led to a reduction in the number of items produced and thus a reduction in the workforce. As people lost their jobs, they were unable to keep up with paying for items they had bought through installment plans and their items were repossessed. More and more inventory began to accumulate. The unemployment rate rose above 25% which meant, of course, even less spending to help alleviate the economic situation. * Maldistribution of income – Too few people controlled most of the wealth, leading to under-consumption by the consumer sector of the economy. The top 5% of the population ended up earning one-third of all the income in 1929. Such wealth concentrated in the hands of a few limits economic growth. The wealthy tended to save money that might have been put back into the economy if it were spread among the middle and lower classes. Middle class Americans had already stretched their debt capacities by purchasing automobiles and household appliances on installment plans. * The banking system of the 1920s – There were fundamental structural weaknesses in the American economic system. Banks operated without guarantees to their customers, creating a climate of panic when times got tough. Few regulations were placed on banks and they lent money to those who speculated recklessly in stocks. Agricultural prices had already been low during the 1920s, leaving farmers unable to spark any sort of recovery. When the Depression spread across the Atlantic, Europeans bought fewer American products, worsening the slide. Throughout the 1930s over 9,000 banks failed. Bank deposits were uninsured and thus as banks failed people simply lost their savings. Surviving banks, unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival, stopped being as willing to create new loans. This exacerbated the situation leading to less and less expenditures.

8. There were several immediate effects of the Great Depression. The GNP dropped from $104 billion to just $56 billion in four years. 20% of banks ended up closing, wiping out $10 million dollars in saving accounts. Unemployment reached about 25%, equal to 13 million people. Poverty and homelessness hit even harder than it had in the past. Consumer spending went from $16 billion down to one-third of a billion dollars. The depression also hit almost everyone mentally. President Herbert Hoover also started numerous programs, all of which failed to reverse the downturn. He was all too little, too late. He was opposed to direct federal relief for the unemployed and believed any help for them should come from private agencies or local government. In 1931 Hoover urged the major banks in the country to form a consortium known as the National Credit Corporation (NCC)/ By 1932, unemployment had reached 23.6%, and it peaked in early 1933 at 25%, drought persisted in the agricultural heartland, businesses and families defaulted on record numbers of loans,[83] and more than 5,000 banks had failed. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found themselves homeless, and began congregating in shanty towns - dubbed "Hoovervilles" - that began to appear across the country. There was a debt moratorium as well, since we told Britain and France that they didn’t have to pay us back in hopes that they’d buy American goods, but it backfired because of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff that Hoover implemented, raising the tariff 49%. The Depression greatly affected the entire world as well. Overall, the nation of America, as well as many of investors, were devastated and witnessed an overall state of despair, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness as their president failed to help them out.

9. With the First New Deal, FDR was a pragmatist and did not have one set strategy at attacking the Depression. He was an experimenter and would use whatever worked as long as it helped. He wanted to provide immediate relief to those who were suffering, he wanted to get the economy going again, and wanted to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Each of the following was an attempt to combat the Depression: * The bank holiday – After a month-long run on American banks, Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed a Bank Holiday beginning March 6, 1933 that shut down the banking system. When banks reopened on March 13, 1933, depositors stood in line to return their hoarded cash. This paper traces the remarkable turnaround in the public's confidence to the Emergency Banking Act, passed by Congress on March 9, 1933. Roosevelt used the emergency currency provisions of the Act to prod the Federal Reserve to create de facto deposit insurance in the reopened banks. The contemporary press confirms that the public recognized the implicit guarantee, and as a result, believed the President's words in his first Fireside Chat on March 12, 1933, that the reopened banks would be safe. The public responded by returning more than half of their hoarded cash to the banks within two weeks and by bidding up stock prices on March 15, 1933, the first trading day after the Bank Holiday ended, by the largest ever one-day percentage price increase. The Bank Holiday and the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 reestablished the integrity of the payments system and demonstrated the power of credible regime-shifting policies. * Job Programs: CCC and WPA – The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. Robert Fechner was the head of the agency. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments. The CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men in relief families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States while at the same time implementing a general natural resource conservation program in every state and territory. Maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000; in nine years 2.5 million young men participated in the CCC, which provided them with shelter, clothing, and food, together with a small wage of $30 a month ($25 of which had to be sent home to their families). The American public made the CCC the most popular of all the New Deal programs. Principal benefits of an individual's enrollment in the CCC included improved physical condition, heightened morale, and increased employability. Of their pay of $30 a month, $25 went to their parents. Implicitly, the CCC also led to a greater public awareness and appreciation of the outdoors and the nation's natural resources; and the continued need for a carefully planned, comprehensive national program for the protection and development of natural resources. During the time of the CCC, volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide and upgraded most state parks, updated forest fire fighting methods, and built a network of service buildings and public roadways in remote areas. The CCC operated separate programs for veterans and Native Americans. The Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; WPA) was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unemployed people (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects,[1] including the construction of public buildings and roads. In much smaller but more famous projects the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects. Almost every community in the United States had a new park, bridge or school constructed by the agency. The WPA's initial appropriation in 1935 was for $4.9 billion (about 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP), and in total it spent $13.4 billion. At its peak in 1938, it provided paid jobs for three million unemployed men and women, as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration. * The NRA – The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was the primary New Deal agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices. The NRA was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and allowed industries to get together and write "codes of fair competition." The codes were intended to reduce "destructive competition" and to help workers by setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as minimum prices at which products could be sold. The NRA also had a two-year renewal charter and was set to expire in June 1935 if not renewed. In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared that the NRA law was unconstitutional, ruling that it infringed the separation of powers under the United States Constitution. The NRA quickly stopped operations, but many of its labor provisions reappeared in the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), passed later the same year. The long-term result was a surge in the growth and power of unions, which became a core of the New Deal Coalition that dominated national politics for the next three decades. * The AAA – The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era which restricted agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land and to kill off excess livestock. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus and therefore effectively raise the value of crops. The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies. The Agriculture Marketing Act, which established the Federal Farm Board in 1929, was seen as a strong precursor to this act

10. The New Deal included both radical and conservative components that made it a movement that did not take on one specific title. On one hand, the New Deal was radical. It changed America in a most profound manner. Organized labor gained both respectability and power with government support. The quality of life in rural agricultural areas had been greatly enhanced through the AAA and REA. The expectations of racial minorities had been elevated by the rise of an activist government even though the New Deal had failed to make significant progress in the field of civil rights. The power of the federal government had been greatly increased state and local governments as the latter, under the economic pressures of the Depression, transferred more and more responsibility and power to Washington, D. C. The executive branch of the federal government grew more powerful as Congress and the judiciary gave the presidency primary responsibility for curing the economic collapse. The presidency has been the dominant branch of the federal government ever since. The New Deal also marked the commitment of the federal government to active, interventionary programs in the areas of social welfare, regulation of business, and management of the economy. The New Deal marked the death of laissez-faire capitalism in its purest form in the United States. Things such as the SSB and the SEC were created, in which federal welfare and government monitoring of the stock market respectively. These things had never been done before, marking the New Deal as radical. However, it could also be viewed as conservative. While it radically change the system of American government, and to a much lesser extent, the social order, in doing so, it did shore up the institutions already in place (capitalism and democracy) and prevent more radical changes from occurring. The old system was not working; it had to change and evolve to survive. The changes that were made were radical in comparison to what the system had been before, but not when compared to the other possibilities that existed. The liberal reforms of the New Deal did not transform the American system; they conserved and protected American corporate capitalism, occasionally by absorbing parts of threat ending programs. There was no significant redistribution of power in American society, only limited recognition of other organized groups, seldom of unorganized peoples. Neither the bolder programs advanced by New Dealers nor the final legislation greatly, extended the beneficence of government beyond the middle classes or drew upon the wealth of the few for the needs of the many. Designed to maintain the American system, liberal activity was directed toward essentially conservative goals. FDR implemented things like the NRA, which was a conservative attempt to preserve the status quo of the “return to normalcy” after the progressive movement, that is, a return to big business. Clearly, the New Deal could also be considered as conservative along with radical, and both titles describe the New Deal movement accurately.

11. In several ways the New Deal began the stage of state capitalism. This meant that it was following Keynesian economics, in which the overarching goal was to protect the consumer and have the government be a big player in the economy in order to keep it going. First, this required government regulation, which is exactly what Roosevelt did. He made the government take on a bigger role in society in order to protect the consumer and get the economy going again. This was apparent through enactments such as the NRA, the SEC, the FDIC, and a more active Federal Reserve. The second part of state capitalism was to create a welfare state, in order to have a safety net in the form of that welfare. People needed something to fall back on, especially for those who were disabled or unemployed. This was seen through enactments such as the SSB, the WPA, the PWA, and the CCC. The third part to state capitalism that the New Deal did was to create a mixed economy. In other words, the government needed to be a player in some industries, because many industries are better and run more successfully when they are government-owned and have government to guide them through it. This was seen through things like the TVA and the REA. The final part to state capitalism that the New Deal accomplished was the agricultural subsidies provided for famers. The country needs to be fed, plus, laissez-faire does not work with farmers. They can’t compete if they live under a laissez-faire government, because corn is corn. There is no difference from one farmer to the next. This idea was seen through things such as the AAA, in which direct subsidies were given to famers. Through all of these points, the New Deal largely initiated state capitalism.

12. Each of the following increased the power of the American labor movements:

* Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932) – This limited a judge’s act to impose an injunction (declaring a strike illegal). They could now only impose one if they deemed that a strike would turn violent. Imposing strict procedural limitations on issuing injunctions against strike activity, the act pointed the direction towards a more even-handed relationship between the judiciary and the nation's labor relations systems. Although it had few enforcement powers, the act was one of the first federal labor laws supporting organized labor and it marked a significant victory in labor reform. Its passage fostered a trend toward more favorable government labor policies. With passage of the act, the groundwork was laid for an even more important labor bill, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, called the Wagner Act. The Norris-LaGuardia Act marked a profound change in U.S. government oversight over labor relations. It was the most favorable legislation to date for a U.S. labor movement that had always had to fight for its very existence. * Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) – This gave the workers the right to unionize and also forced bargaining between employers and their workers. The Wagner Act continued the mission of reforming labor relations. It set out to regulate the nation's labor relations. It granted unions fundamental rights and powers, including the right of collective bargaining, defined unfair labor practices, and established penalties for violating them. The Wagner Act established the federal government as the regulator and ultimate arbiter of labor relations. The act overturned decades of court decisions that asserted that labor unions violated an employee's liberty of contract. The Wagner Act was one of the most dramatic legislative measures of the New Deal. Not only did the legislation indicate that the federal government was prepared to move against employers to enforce the rights of labor to unionize and to bargain collectively, but it imposed no reciprocal obligations on unions. * Formation of the CIO – This was known as the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The AFL had split into two, and the AFL began to contain only skilled workers while the CIO welcomed more unskilled workers. Since society and industry were becoming more mechanized, there was less skill needed for work. The formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) with the specific purpose of "organizing the unorganized" unskilled and semi-skilled workers in basic industry sparked an explosion in the size of the union movement. In spite of the high unemployment during the Great Depression, the union movement grew by more than 300 percent. In 1933 national union membership had fallen to less than three million. By 1941 it stood at over ten million. The CIO proved highly successful and within a few years had organized big steel, automobile, rubber, and other major industries. That exacerbated the schism within the AFL, which refused to accept the new unions because they looked down on both industrial workers and industrial unions as unskilled laborers.

13. During the years of 1935 and 1938, the Roosevelt administration changed their platform and their strategies. The main reason for the creation of the Second New Deal was the opposition and negative responses that came to because of the First New Deal. Opposition came from all sides. The liberals said he didn’t go far enough for employment, minorities, the elderly, and the disabled. The conservatives believed he went too far and had too much power, did too much spending, and regulated the economy too much. They believed he was destroying capitalism and even compared him to Hitler. Then there were also 3 main people who spoke out against him. These people included Father Charles Coughlin, who argued that FDR didn’t go far enough. He wanted to nationalize the banked and utilities and have an inflated currency. Another person was Dr. Francis Townsend, who wanted a 2% sales tax to provide the elderly with a monthly income of $200 dollars. The third person was Huey Long who wanted to give every family $5000 a year, basically creating a free middle class income. This would be done by taxing the rich 100% on any income over a million per year. They would “soak the rich” so to speak. So, Roosevelt answered all of these critics, except for conservatives, when he created things such as the Resettlement Act, in which aid was provided to sharecroppers (who were mainly black), the Social Securities Bureau, and the Revenue Act, in which all incomes over a million were taxed at the rate of 75%, plus there was a tax on what people made on the stock market. All of this change could have also been a response in order to create a New Deal coalition for the upcoming election in 1936. Since the economy had improved, and he’d provided help for the blacks, for cities, for the unemployed, and for the elderly, Roosevelt won in a landslide. He could’ve wanted to appear like he was doing more and more for society in order for him to be reelected this time around as well.

14. Several of the New Deal programs eventually died out, but the two that were most importantly unsuccessful were those that were declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. This included the AAA and the NRA. In US v. Butler, the Court argued that the government cannot redistribute wealth from one to another because it violates people’s natural right to property, plus there was no due process. The government was going to tax the processors, take that money, and give it to the farmers, therefore making it illegal. Thus, the AAA was struck down. In Schector Poultry Corporation v. US, Poultry was bypassing the Meat Inspection Act, so the NRA stepped in and the Supreme Court argued that the NRA had no right to, since Poultry was only performing intrastate trade, not interstate trade. They declared the NRA then unconstitutional because government cannot regulate interstate trade, and thus the NRA was struck down as well. These acts were found unconstitutional and were thus unsuccessful components of the New Deal. The CWA ended in 1934 in large part due to opposition to its cost. Some also had long-term impacts on American Society. Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency at the darkest hour of the Great Depression, pledging to restore prosperity through expansive government intervention in the economy. While Roosevelt's New Deal did not, in fact, end the Great Depression, it did permanently alter American society and create many of the structures that sustained prosperity following World War II. Government would get involved in the economy, government would provide a safety net, and government had responsibility for stimulating economy. The Civilian Conservation Corps was created to combat unemployment. This work relief program had the desired effect and provided jobs for many Americans during the Great Depression. The CCC was responsible for building many public works and created structures and trails in parks across the nation. The Home Owner's Loan Corporation was created to assist in the refinancing of homes. The housing crisis created a great many foreclosures, and Franklin Roosevelt hoped this new agency would stem the tide. In fact, between 1933 and 1935 one million people received long term loans through the agency that saved their homes from foreclosure. The Social Security Act was designed to combat the widespread poverty among senior citizens. The government program provided income to retired wage earners. The program has become one of the most popular government programs and is funded by current wage earners and their employers. The Tennessee Valley Authority was established to develop the economy in the Tennessee Valley region which had been hit extremely hard by the Great Depression. The TVA was and is a federally owned corporation that works in this region to this day. It is the largest public provider of electricity in the United States. It also set up the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) so that investors' money was guaranteed safe in banks that were members (most of which today are). Also, there was the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which set guidelines for the stock market to prevent speculation like that that led to the Great Depression. In many ways, the New Deal also created programs which had long-lasting and huge impacts on society.