Revisiting President Roosevelt’s success in countering: Great Depression of 1930s — II

Farm production in United States had increased dramatically thanks to mechanization, more potent insecticides and increased use of fertilizer.

In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability and pensions for old age.

In 1936, while campaigning for a second term, Roosevelt told a roaring crowd: “The forces of ‘organized money’ are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.”

A sharp recession had again hit the United States in 1937, reversing many of the gains in production and employment. This state of affairs had prolonged the effects of the Great Depression through the end of the decade. The countries affected by Great Depression included United States, Britain, Chile, Germany, Soviet Union, Chile, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Iceland, Thailand, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Australia, Latin America, Japan, India, Ireland, Netherlands and New Zealand etc.

In Canada, for example, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births.

Depression-era hardships had fueled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany, which was already in political turmoil.

Investors were nervous and withdrew their short-term money from Germany, as confidence spiraled downward.

A key German bank had lost 150 million marks in the first week of June 1931, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, June 19–20 of the same year. It was the German aggression that had actually led to World War II.

Recovery:

In most countries of the world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933.[11] In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933.

Despite Roosevelt’s best efforts, the Great Depression dragged on.

Workers grew more militant: In December 1936, for example, the United Auto Workers started a sit-down strike at a car plant in Michigan had lasted for 44 days to spread to some 150,000 autoworkers in 35 cities.

By 1937, to the dismay of most corporate leaders, some eight million workers had joined unions and were loudly demanding their rights.

In order to protect his projects from meddling of courts, President Roosevelt had come up with his infamous “Court-Packing Plan” in 1937. He had a plan to add enough liberal judges to the Court to neutralize the “obstructionist” conservatives.

But, as soon as the conservative arbiters caught wind of the plan, they started voting to uphold Roosevelt’s New Deal projects. The American GDP, however, returned to its upward trend in 1938.

Apart from the United States, many affected nations also took steps to counter the grave financial turmoil. For example, in Japan, the government launched a nationwide campaign to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives.

In Germany, the government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The advent of World War II had also helped many countries like Great Britain and United States to reduce joblessness, a research conducted by the US Library of Congress had concluded.

By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of British manpower, following the outbreak of World War II r in 1939 had ended unemployment in the United Kingdom.

When the United States entered into the war in 1941, it finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought the U.S. unemployment rate down below 10 per cent.

Research shows that American and European women had helped their leaders fight Great Depression to a great extent, although it was hard for them to deal with food and clothing and medical care with shrinking income levels. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12 per cent from 19.3 births per thousand populations in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935.

Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery. It did help in reducing unemployment. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the production output of American factories increased.