Tag Archives: Roosevelt

03/21/11

Old nine vs. New six

The title of this cartoon was “Furnish the Court…Assistant”, which was published on 2/6/37,by Elderman in Washington. This cartoon responded to the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, also known as Court packing plan. His purpose was to regulate the New Deal legislation that was ruled unconstitutional before. According to the plan, the President could nominate maximum of six Justices to the Supreme Court.

The six people on the top were the Justices that nominated by Roosevelt and those nine people were the old Justices. Those nine Justices looked serious and those six were not. I think the cartoonist tried to imply those six were just listen to President and support every decisions made by Roosevelt. So they were not taking thing serious.

03/21/11

Time to Stimulate the Economy

This image depicts Anti-New Deal sentiment. This cartoon accuses Roosevelt of spending beyond his means to deal with the Depression. The primary point of criticism of the New Deal is that it increased the deficit of the US government due to massive spending to bolster the economy. The Government ran large deficits (kind of like now after the Great Recession), which had to be financed by increased taxes and/or borrowing, leading to national debt reaching all-time highs. The government spending in 1916 was $697 million, while in 1935 the government spending was $9 billion. Which shows massive increase in Govt. expenditures.

03/20/11

NRA: Negroes Ruined Again

L. Rogers, Chicago Defender, 1934

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal created many controversies where some were optimistic about the new programs and others were left in doubt. One particular cartoon artist L. Rogers expressed his stance of the latter by publishing a series of political cartoon that direct towards anti-New Deal sentiments. As a prominent writer for a black Chicago newspaper he published the cartoon above, in 1934, conveying his discern of the first New Deal establishment, the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which was created to abolish corrupt business practices and to induce rights for workers by setting standards of minimum wage and maximum hours.

The cartoon above displays a joyful family where the father is telling his wife news about his company becoming a member of the NRA, and his presumptions about better wages and better hours. On the second half of the cartoon it shows that the father later learns that the company has cut his job and his fellow workers by exclusively hiring whites only. The factory discriminated blacks because they did not want to promote more black rights. The cartoon shows that white racists were using the New Deal as a way of furthering discrimination against the blacks. Lynching and wage discrimination were still very much prevalent in the 1930s, and eventually the NRA was even referred to as “Negroes Ruined Again.” L. Rogers created this cartoon to illustrate Roosevelt’s fail recognition of the blacks and his sentiments that the New Deal was only created to aid the whites.

03/20/11

New Deal:Reviving the Economy

Cartoon by C.K. Berryman on 1933

During the election of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was able to easily win the presidency because the incumbent, Herbert hoover was heavily disliked mainly for the occurrence of the Great Depression during his term as president. Once elected into office, FDR carried out a sequence of economic reforms and programs in order to resolve the issues that were caused by the depression. These chains of reforms were known as the “New Deal”

            During the first hundred days of Roosevelt’s administration, he launched numerous reforms in an effort to fix the economy such as creating new jobs for unemployed civilians and to improve the nation’s banking system by assuring the people that their saving’s will not be lost if the banks were to fail again. Those programs are what are being represented by the stockings hanging on the fire place in the political cartoon and the message being conveyed through this cartoon is that FDR is expecting these programs to turn the economy around even though the programs is having little effect on curing the depression.

03/18/11

Step by Step – The New Deal

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Step by Step
2/11/37
By Warren in the
Buffalo News

The response to Roosevelt’s judicial reorganiztion, or “court-packing,” plan was decidedly negative by everyone. Cartoonists expressed the congressional, judicial and public misgivings better than anyone. While often playfully criticizing the president for “agism,” the tone was at times serious and extreme, portraying FDR as a dictator intent on destroying American democracy. Editorial cartoons supportive of the president’s plan were rarely seen, most likely as rare as finding approving individuals outside his administration.

The author of this picture obviously felt that President Roosevelt, at the time, was on his way to Dictatorship with the way he was running the policies and government.

03/15/11

New Deal- The Trojan Horse

Throughout the history of United States, reforms and new policies have always encountered as invasion of rights by certain skeptics. Due to the political culture of America, politicians are very reserved about letting the federal government to become more powerful. This has remain true even during the Great Depression. Although the entire nation was desperate for solutions to their economics disparity, many citizens were still conscious of their political rights and freedom despite of their poverty.

The political cartoon above has demonstrated this idea perfectly. When Franklin Roosevelt proposed his New Deal as the solution to the Great Depression to the Congress, certain politicians have viewed the reform as an invasion to the Congress. The cartoonist believed that the New Deal was making an attempt to obtain more power than it should by taking advantage of the economic disaster. The cartoon is referring to the policies that expands the power of the federal government, such as the establishment of Civilian Conservation Corps (CVC) and Public-Works Projects (PWA). Those two policies have hired many civilians for the constructions of parks, roads, bridges, and other public buildings, and critics complained that these policies are gaining control of the citizens by creating employment opportunities. Certain critics also considered such policies as a step toward socialism and communism. They believed that such economic policies are Trojan horses that would transform our capitalistic nation to socialistic/communistic country.

03/15/11

Deal Me In

I am not sure when this cartoon was published, but it looks pretty old. It was published in the Pittsburgh Press. This cartoon took a play on the word ‘Deal.’ In this cartoon we see a poker hand of 4 Aces and a King. In poker that is 4 of a kind, a great hand. I think the author is praising the New Deal. He is saying that it is really great, just like the poker hand. The title says “It IS a New Deal,” probably referring to a “new hand” after the Great Depression. This hand is a winner, showing how the author praises the New Deal.

As we see the hand comprises of Protection of Gold, Bank Holiday, Budget Message, Inaugural Address, and Bank Legislation. In Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address he mentioned how he was going to dethrone all the bad bankers, and how he was going to help fix the mess we were in. In 1933 Roosevelt closed all the banks for 3 days. He did this in order to allow certified reviewers to check them. He wanted to make sure banks were running smoothly, and also wanted all his laws to pass. He also did not want everybody rushing to take out their money, and so he closed the banks. He also go rid of the gold standard, a change that still exists today. There were many more components to the New Deal, but this author focuses on the first few. He is in favor of the New Deal, but not all of America was aboard the same ship.

02/28/11

Muckrakers

In the Progressive era, there were a group of writers known commonly known as the muckrakers.  This group wrote public articles adressing the problems in American society.  They were very succesful at hat they did, as many rules and prohibitions changed because Americans realized how wrong American society was and that we needed a change.  The picture above depicts Joseph Pultzier, who was a Hungarian Immigrant and took over “The New York World” and transformed it into a place to bash the problems in American society

02/28/11

McKinley’s Last Show

President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901 but did not pass away until September 14, 1901. He was shot twice, one causing minor damage while the other pierced through his abdomen, pancreas, kidney and stomach. Only one of the bullets were taken out because the other couldn’t be found. Shortly after McKinley was shot, it look liked his health was improving and would live, but he ultimately didn’t make it. McKinley’s assassinations led to Roosevelt to succeed him

02/26/11

A different kind of President

Theodore Roosevelt is a very important person during the progressive era. being Elected twice as president, he has different approach towards the economy. He was known as the “trustbuster” because he enforced the government to take more regulation in the ecomony rather than no control at all. He pushed for many legislative laws to pass such as the Hepburn Act that give the ICC power to examine railroads’ records. That enabled less monopolistic domination to exist. He not only helped in economy but also established the Pure Food and Drug Act to  ensure federal food inspection.  He was also a conservationalist because he pushed for protection of the environment. He was a very typical progressive because he is the man stands for change.

02/23/11

Regulating Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt changed the way Americans lived during the Progressive Era. He created more government regulation, and looked out for the good of the common person. Under him, Congress passes the Hepburn Act, which allowed the ICC to inspect railroad rates and regulate prices. In addition the Pure Food and Drug Act, as well as the Meat Inspection Act, were both passed that year. These laws helped check the quality and labeling of food and drugs. The Meat Inspection Act was passed because of unsanitary slaughterhouses, and the selling of spoiled meat. The idea of such government regulation was a new idea in America. Roosevelt helped the average citizen by making sure there was some level of fairness in business, but he did charge a high tax, which did not sit well with most Americans.