What caused the Great Depression? How did Franklin Roosevelt help to restore the economy?

[Michael]

Was he successful?

[animallover]

After the War, the demand for cotton and other farm products fell. People needed military supplies and industrial things not cotton. So the farmers went in debt. When they couldn't pay back the banks, the banks had no money to supply businesses and the stock market. So the banks failed and the stock market crashed in 1929. Roosevelt created the New Deal which proposed public work projects to improve the community, he passed the Social Security Act, created TVA, etc. His goal was to stimulate the economy but he caused our debt to grow to 4.4 billion...

[Bob]

The cause of the Great Depression was when the stock market crashed in September, 1929. FDR was not elected until 1932. After he became president he enacted a series of social aid bills (put together they were called the First New Deal). Many were struck down as being unconstitutional. Then In his second term he started the Second New Deal, one of the bills created jobs for the unemployed by building national highways like Route 66 (not freeways).
Many people though say FDR hardly helped bring us out of the Depression though since we never left it until we got involved in WWII. WWII created jobs for patriotic Americans because there was a spike in demand for metal, factory workers, soldiers, engineers, nurses, etc. Of course this sudden spike in demand also made us start a rationing system so we could have everything possible for the war.
So basically FDR helped, but what really gave us the push out of the Depression was the war.

[historiational]

The reasons for the Depression basically is that Wall Street was not regulated at all and they gambled with money they didn't have. When they lost their bets, the economy collapsed. FDR's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had proven unwilling to take any steps to deal with the crisis of the Great Depression, and unable to even put any solutions forward. Hoover's unwillingness to see that his conservative, hands-off approach to the economic crisis, when bold action was required, made his leadership appear weak and vacillating. These failings of Hoover played to FDR's strengths; Roosevelt's embrace of new ideas and bold initiatives were just what the country was looking for after years of the inaction and complacency of the Hoover administration.

1. FDR immediately took decisive action by proclaiming a Bank Holiday, effectively putting the brakes on the continuing collapse of banks, big and small, that were wiping out the peoples savings and livelihood. Hoover thought that government did not have the Constitutional authority or even the ability to do this.

2. FDR recognized that the system had major flaws, flaws that allowed the Stock Market Crash and bank failures, and immediately proposed and passed regulations to control and stabilize these markets. The Conservatives consider such actions undue interference in an ideal system that should be left alone to make its own adjustments.

3. FDR initiated public works programs to help the millions Americans that were in dire straits and stimulate the economy. Again, Hoover was, as all conservatives were and still are, ideologically opposed to such action.

4. FDR backed the Safety Net, composed of not only government programs to give the unemployed jobs, but relief programs to feed starving Americans, programs to help them keep their housing, and eventually Social Security to assist retired and disabled Americans. This had the effect of improving the moral and confidence of Americans, and went far to save Capitalism from its penchant for survival-of-the-fittest policies that were unmindful of practical, humanitarian considerations. These are all steps that the Conservatives opposed as unconstitutional.

5. FDR's view of history taught him that the Constitution is a living breathing instrument, capable of flexibility in times of changing circumstances. His Conservative opponents considered, and these folks still consider, the Constitution to be carved out in stone, believing that any adjustments or changes of any sort are contrary to the founder's intent, and thus, by definition, unconstitutional.

One need only examine the presidency of Federalist President, and Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson--the most often quoted source of the limited government backers--to see the merits of the constitutional flexibility theory. When Louisiana was offered to the US at a bargain price, Jefferson, while believing philosophically that its purchase by the government would be unconstitutional, nevertheless realized that it would double the size of the country, bring in vast areas for settlement and untold resources, and set the stage for the growth and prosperity of the nation. Abandoning the strictly Conservative view he himself championed, he made the purchase, and it is demonstrable that the subsequent success of the US that we now take for granted was the direct result.

FDR's bold initiatives likewise set the stage for the growth of American power to superpower status. Far from being an ideology, such a liberal, progressive approach to governance is enlightened pragmatism, as opposed to the stogy rigidity of Conservative ideology.

The Conservatives philosophy, both then and now, was and is fearful of anything smacking of socialism. Roosevelt was thought to be a 'traitor to his class' whose policies were going to destroy American free-enterprise and pave the way for Communism. They thought FDR's ideas anti-American and considered him not sufficiently intelligent or stable enough to deal with the usual economic cycle of periods of prosperity and decline, which in their view required a steady hand able to resist over-reacting to short-term difficulties, thereby rocking and perhaps capsizing the ship of state.

In the event, when FDR's policies began to turn things around, the Republicans found themselves unable to escape from their ideologically rigidity, choosing instead to consider all change a grave danger to The American Way. To this day, Right-wingers still claim that it was the War that ended the economy. They are wrong and playing politics. Of course, there is a time and place when Conservatism is not only desirable, but necessary, depending on conditions. But, during rapidly changing times, it is the exact opposite approach needed, and counter-productive.

History has shown that Progressive policies in a changing world, such as those taken by Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR, have made America the strongest country in the world, and should be cautiously adopted on a world-wide basis for its ability to foster growth and prosperity.