FDR, New Deals, and the Limits of Power 177nomic goal—to help the businesses wrecked by the depression rebuild, to get
factories re-opened and farms growing crops again, and thus put people back
to work. Reform was the most long-term goal, which involved figuring out
the causes of the depression and fixing the system so that an economic crash
of such size did not happen again. Various programs that we call “The New
Deal” then emerged from this overall sense of what America needed. And
even then, the New Deal was not a single program, but in fact included
various programs addressing various problems, and changing with some fre-
quency. Although FDR is still acclaimed as a liberal hero, his initial attempts,
his “First New Deal,” was oriented toward big business and conservative at its
core. Roosevelt’s first action, in fact, was to bail out the banking industry
[similar to what Barack Obama would do in 2009]. While some leftists were
calling on the president to “nationalize” the banks—that is have the govern-
ment take them over and run them—FDR never considered such a radical
measure. Instead he assigned Treasury Department officials with the task of
creating an assistance program for banks; the government would provide
funding for banks that were on precarious grounds to keep them open. He
FIGuRE 4-4 Police announce bank closure to crowd, 1933