Question

Analyze the arguments that were presented during the presidential election of 1932. Be sure to comment on how the candidates interpreted the Constitution differently from each other and how each defined the duties of government. Finally, speak to how events illustrated growing socioeconomic problems in America.

Answer 1

• In 1932, though, the key issue was the Great Depression, not Catholicism or prohibition, which gave Democrats a great opportunity to take the White House back from the Republicans.

• While FDR did not enter the Democratic convention in Chicago with the necessary two-thirds of the delegates, he managed to secure them after promising Garner the vice-presidential nomination

• Roosevelt's campaign for president was necessarily cautious. His opponent, President Herbert Hoover, was so unpopular that FDR's main strategy was not to commit any gaffes that might take the public's attention away from Hoover's inadequacies and the nation's troubles.

• FDR traveled around the country attacking Hoover and promising better days ahead, but often without referring to any specific programs or policies. Roosevelt was so genial—and his prescriptions for the country so bland—that some commentators questioned his capabilities and his grasp of the serious challenges confronting the United States.

• in the early 1930s were of decidedly mixed opinion about the possible presidential candidacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many leaders of the Democratic Party saw in Roosevelt an attractive mixture of experience (as governor of New York and as a former vice presidential candidate) and appeal (the Roosevelt name itself, which immediately associated FDR with his remote cousin, former President Theodore Roosevelt.)

• In the fall of 1929, the stock market crashed, factories slashed production, companies made deep cuts in jobs, salaries plummeted, and the nation seemed to be in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

• As the months wore on, wage earners grew desperate. Many didn't have enough money for food and rent, and more businesses contracted, producing further cuts in jobs and wages.

• By the end of his term, Hoover, a Republican, relented and tried to use the federal government to help those in need. But, by then, it seemed too late for limited measures, and his credibility was shattered

• To challenge him, the Democrats nominated New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a wealthy American aristocrat and fifth cousin of former President Theodore Roosevelt. His platform called for unemployment assistance, old-age insurance under state laws, legislation to protect labor, assistance for farmers, development of power plants, a repeal of Prohibition, and a balanced budget.

• It didn't take long for FDR to jettison one of his major campaign promises—to balance the budget

• His approach was pragmatic, designed to get results and rebuild hope for the future.

• FDR proceeded to win congressional approval for a wave of expensive social and economic programs.

• most powerful tools was the "fireside chat" on the radio in which he talked in a folksy, approachable way about the problems of the country and what he was doing about them.

• the economy would again stall and Roosevelt's opponents would slow his programs. He would be accused of overreaching and betraying the American values of self-reliance and free market capitalism. But the election of 1932 had changed America forever.

Socio economic problems

Poverty and homelessness

• government provided no unemployment insurance, lost jobs quickly translated into lost homes and extreme poverty

• In 1931, tent camps and shack towns began to appear

• Founded in mid 1931, the Unemployed Citizen's League demanded more funds and different kinds of programs for the unemployed and forced city officials to leave Hooverville alone.

The Economic Context —The Second Industrial Revolution

• America in the 1920s was a prosperous nation. Savings during the decade quadrupled

• By 1924, about eleven million families were homeowners. Automobiles, electricity, radio, and mass advertising became increasingly influential in the lives of average Americans

• Automobiles, once a luxury for rich Americans, now gave industrial workers and farmers much greater mobility

• By 1922, radios were common sources of news and entertainment for American families. With improvements in transportation and communication came increases in the mass advertising industry

The Political Response—Franklin D. Roosevelt and The New Deal

• By the time Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932, the traditional ideologies and institutions of the United States were in a state of upheaval.

• Americans who had grown up promoting the ideology of the “deserving and undeserving poor” and the stigma of poor relief were now standing in line for relief

• Private nonprofit organizations such as Community Chests, although valiant in their effort, were overwhelmed with requests, unable to meet the needs of their communities. State and local governments, ultimately responsible for their poor throughout American history, now looked for financial assistance.

The Role of Social Work in the New Deal

• By the beginning of the Great Depression, social work in the United States had experienced much growth and maturation as a professional discipline.

• prominent policy development roles, the New Deal created thousands of new “rank-and-file” jobs in social work

Critical Analysis: Business, the Great Depression, and the New Deal

• primary role that the private for-profit market plays in American social welfare, the Great Depression represented the greatest failure of the business sector in American history.

• massive economic collapse in the wake of the stock market crash in 1929, the federal government assumed a much larger role in promoting social welfare

• This new partnership among U.S. institutional sectors was quickly developed, at times, over the opposition of business leaders.

• many social reformers attacked the Social Security Act and other New Deal legislation for being too moderate, too sexist, and too racist.

Social Policy in Post-War America Economic Context: Automobiles, Suburbs, and Corporate Social Responsibility

• The late 1940s and the decade of the 1950s witnessed an increasingly strong U.S. economy. The victory of the United States and its Allies in World War II left the United States economy positioned for world leadership.

• The economic infrastructures of Europe, Japan, and the Soviet Union had suffered tremendous destruction during the war, while the United States’ economy, boosted by war production, recovered from the Great Depression.

• 1950s, the U.S. economy boomed, facilitated by federal government policies, especially in the automobile and housing industries

• The idea of business management as the trustee for society at large was increasingly stressed in the business sector. Business management became more responsive to multiple groups in its environment: stockholders, employees, retirees, consumers, government, and local communities