The National Recovery Administration (NRA) 687(HOLC) to refinance mortgages and prevent foreclo-
sures. It passed the Federal Securities Act requiring
promoters to make public full financial information
about new stock issues and giving the Federal Trade
Commission the right to regulate such transactions.
FDR’s Inaugurationatwww.myhistorylab.comThe National Recovery Administration (NRA)
Problems of unemployment and industrial stagnation
had high priority during the hundred days. Congress
appropriated $500 million for relief of the needy, and it
created theCivilian Conservation Corps (CCC)to
provide jobs for men between the ages of eighteen and
twenty-five in reforestation and other conservation
projects. To stimulate industry, Congress passed one of
its most controversial measures, the National Industrial
Recovery Act (NIRA). Besides establishing the Public
Works Administration with authority to spend $3.3 bil-
lion, this law permitted manufacturers to draw up
industry-wide codes of “fair business practices.” Under
the law producers could agree to raise prices and limit
production without violating the antitrust laws. The
law gave workers the protection of minimum wage and
maximum hours regulations and guaranteed them the
right “to organize and bargain collectively through rep-
resentatives of their own choosing,” an immense stimu-
lus to the union movement.
WatchtheVideoThe NIRA was a variant on the idea of the corpo-
rate state. This concept envisaged a system of industry-
wide organizations of capitalists and workers (supervised
by the government) that would resolve conflicts inter-
nally, thereby avoiding wasteful economic competition
and dangerous social clashes. It was an outgrowth of the
trade association idea, although Hoover, who had sup-
ported voluntary associations, denounced it because of
its compulsory aspects. It was also similar to experiments
being carried out by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini
in Italy and by the Nazis in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. It
did not, of course, turn America into a fascist state, but
it did herald an increasing concentration of economic
power in the hands of interest groups, both industrial-
ists’ organizations and labor unions.
The act created a government agency, theNational
Recovery Administration (NRA), to supervise the
drafting and operation of the business codes. Drafting
posed difficult problems, first because each industry
insisted on tailoring the agreements to its special needs
and second because most manufacturers were unwilling
to accept all the provisions of Section 7a of the law,
which guaranteed workers the right to unionize and
bargain collectively. While thousands of employers
agreed to the pledge “We Do Our Part” in order to
receive the Blue Eagle symbol of NRA, many were
more interested in the monopolistic aspects of the act
than in boosting wages and encouraging unionization.
In practice, the largest manufacturers in each industry
drew up the codes.
The effects of the NIRA were
both more and less than the designers
of the system had intended. In a sense
it tried to accomplish the impossible—
to change the very nature of business
ethics and control the everyday activi-
ties of millions of individual enter-
prises. At the practical level, it did not
end the Depression. There was a brief
upturn in the spring of 1933, but the
expected revival of industry did not
take place; in nearly every case the
dominant producers in each industry
used their power to raise prices and
limit production rather than to hire
more workers and increase output.
Beginning with the cotton textile
code, however, the agreements suc-
ceeded in doing away with the cen-
turies-old problem of child labor in
industry. They established the princi-
ple of federal regulation of wages and
hours and led to the organization of
thousands of workers, even in indus-
tries where unions had seldom beenConstance King and Mae Chinn hang an NRA poster—including a Chinese translation—
encouraging shoppers to patronize businesses that adhered to the NRA guidelines.