The New Deal Winds Down 697economy. What amounted to a revolution in the lives
of wage earners had occurred. Aside from the obvious
changes—higher wages, shorter hours, paid vacations,
insurance of various kinds—unionization had meant
fair methods of settling disputes about work practices
and a measure of job security based on seniority for
tens of thousands of workers. The CIO in particular
had done much to increase the influence of labor in
politics and to bring blacks and other minorities into
the labor movement.
In 1937 a series of “sit-down strikes” broke out,
beginning at the General Motors plant in Flint,
Michigan. Striking workers barricaded themselves
inside the factories; when police and strikebreakers
tried to dislodge them, they drove them off with bar-
rages of soda bottles, tools, spare parts, and crockery.
The tolerant attitude of the Roosevelt administration
ensured the strikers against government intervention.
“It is illegal,” Roosevelt said of the General Motors
strike, “but shooting it out... [is not] the answer....
Why can’t those fellows in General Motors meet with
the committee of workers?” Fearful that all-out efforts
to clear their plants would result in the destruction of
expensive machinery, most employers capitulated to
the workers’ demands. All the automobile manufac-
turers but Henry Ford quickly came to terms with the
United Automobile Workers.
The major steel companies, led by U.S. Steel, rec-
ognized the CIO and granted higher wages and a
forty-hour week. The auto and steel unions alone
boasted more than 725,000 members by late 1937;
other CIO units conquered the rubber industry, the
electrical industry, the textile industry, and many more.
These gains and the aggressive way in which the
unions pursued their objectives gave many members
of the middle class second thoughts concerning the
justice of labor’s demands. Sit-down strikes, the disre-
gard of unions for the “rights” of nonunion workers,
and the violence that accompanied some strikes
seemed to many not merely unreasonable but also a
threat to social order. The enthusiasm of such people
for all reform cooled rapidly.
While the sit-down strikes and the Court fight
were going on, the New Deal suffered another heavy
blow. Business conditions had been gradually improv-
ing since 1933. Heartened by the trend, Roosevelt,
who had never fully grasped the importance of govern-
ment spending in stimulating recovery, cut back
sharply on the relief program in June 1937, with disas-
trous results. Between August and October the econ-
omy slipped downward like sand through a chute.
Stock prices plummeted; unemployment rose by 2 mil-
lion; industrial production slumped. This “Roosevelt
recession” further damaged the president’s reputation,
and for many months he aggravated the situation by
adopting an almost Hoover-like attitude. “Everything
will work out all right if we just sit tight and keep
quiet,” he actually said.
While the president hesitated, rival theorists
within his administration warred. The Keynesians, led
by WPA head Harry Hopkins, Marriner Eccles of the
Federal Reserve, and Secretary of the Interior Harold
Ickes, clamored for stepped-up government spend-
ing. The conservatives, led by Treasury Secretary
Henry Morgenthau Jr., advocated retrenchment.
Perhaps confused by the conflict, Roosevelt seemed
incapable of decisive action.
In April 1938 Roosevelt again committed himself
to heavy deficit spending. At his urging Congress
passed a $3.75 billion public works bill. Two major
pieces of legislation were also enacted at about this
time. A new AAA program (February 1938) set mar-
keting quotas and acreage limitations for growers of
staples like wheat, cotton, and tobacco and autho-
rized the Commodity Credit Corporation to lend
money to farmers on their surplus crops.
The second measure, the Fair Labor Standards
Act, abolished child labor and established a national
minimum wage of 40 cents an hour and a maximum
workweek of 40 hours, with time and a half for over-
time. Although the law failed to cover many of the
poorest-paid types of labor, its passage meant wage
increases for 750,000 workers. In later years many
more classes of workers were brought within its protec-
tion, and the minimum wage was repeatedly increased.
These measures further alienated conservatives
without dramatically improving economic conditions.
The resistance of many Democratic members of
Congress to additional economic and social “experi-
ments” hardened. As the 1938 elections approached,
Roosevelt decided to go to the voters in an effort to
strengthen party discipline and reenergize the New
Deal. He singled out a number of conservative
Democratic senators, notably Walter F. George of
Georgia, Millard F. Tydings of Maryland, and “Cotton
Ed” Smith of South Carolina, and tried to “purge”
them by backing other Democrats in the primaries.
The purge failed. Southern voters liked Roosevelt
but resented his interference in local politics. Smith
dodged the issue of liberalism by stressing the question
of white supremacy. Tydings emphasized Roosevelt’s
“invasion” of Maryland. In Georgia the president’s
enemies compared his campaign against George to
General Sherman’s march across the state during the
Civil War. All three senators were easily renominated
and then reelected in November. In the nation at large
the Republicans made important gains for the first
time since Roosevelt had taken office. The Democrats
maintained nominal control of both houses of
Congress, but the conservative coalition, while unable