858 ★ CHAPTER 21 The New Deal
health. Its per capita income stood at half that of the rest of the nation. Also in
1938, a new generation of homegrown radicals—southern New Dealers, black
activists, labor leaders, communists, even a few elected officials—founded the
Southern Conference for Human Welfare to work for unionization, unemploy-
ment relief, and racial justice.
Until the late 1930s, prominent southern Democrats had been strong
supporters of the New Deal, while at the same time working to shape legisla-
tion to allow for the local administration of relief and the exclusion of most
black workers. Now, southern business and political leaders feared that con-
tinuing federal intervention in their region would encourage unionization
and upset race relations. Roosevelt concluded that the enactment of future
New Deal measures required a liberalization of the southern Democratic
Party. In 1938, he tried to persuade the region’s voters to replace conservative
congressmen with ones who would support his policies. The South’s small
electorate dealt him a stinging rebuke. In the North, where the economic
downturn, the “Court-packing” plan, and the upsurge of CIO militancy
alarmed many middle-class voters, Republicans increased their congressio-
nal representation.
A period of political stalemate followed the congressional election of 1938.
For many years, a conservative coalition of southern Democrats and northern
Republicans dominated Congress. Further reform initiatives became almost
impossible, and Congress moved to abolish existing ones, beginning with the
Federal Theater Project, which had alarmed conservatives because of the pres-
ence of radicals and homosexuals on its payroll. Congress repealed an earlier
tax on corporate profits and rejected a proposed program of national medical
insurance. The administration, moreover, increasingly focused its attention on
the storm gathering in Europe. Even before December 1941, when the United
States entered World War II, “Dr. Win the War,” as Roosevelt put it, had replaced
“Dr. New Deal.”
The New Deal in American History
Given the scope of the economic calamity it tried to counter, the New Deal
seems in many ways quite limited. Compared to later European welfare states,
Social Security remained restricted in scope and modest in cost. The New Deal
failed to address the problem of racial inequality, which in some ways it actu-
ally worsened.
Yet even as the New Deal receded, its substantial accomplishments
remained. It greatly expanded the federal government’s role in the American
economy and made it an independent force in relations between industry and
labor. The government influenced what farmers could and could not plant,