224 a short history of the united states
This Congress also established the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission on June 6 , 1934 , to prevent price manipulation of stocks and
curb speculation and unfair practices in the securities market. The
Corporate Bankruptcy Act, passed on June 7 , attempted to assist in the
reorganization of corporations that could not meet their fi nancial obli-
gations. And the Federal Farm Mortgage Foreclosure Act extended
loans to farmers on favorable terms so as to prevent foreclosures.
In the midterm election of 1934, when traditionally the party in
power loses seats, the results came as a blow to the Republicans. They
had expected to increase their membership in Congress, but this time
they lost seats in both the House and the Senate. As one historian has
pointed out, never in its history had the Republican Party taken such a
loss. In the House they now had only 103 members, whereas the Demo-
crats had 322 and the Inde pendents 10. The situation in the Senate was
just as bad. The Democrats held 69 seats, the Republicans 25 , and In-
de pendents 2.
But an opposition to FDR’s policies had arisen in the country not
only among conservative businessmen who felt that he coddled labor
and was spending the country into bankruptcy but also among more
radical-thinking leftists. Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana, for ex-
ample, proposed to divide the wealth of the country and give every
family a guaranteed annual wage of $ 2 , 500. Father Charles E. Cough-
lin, a priest in Detroit who had a large radio audience, attacked Roo se-
velt as a tool of Wall Street, while Dr. Francis E. Townsend of
California demanded a $ 200 monthly pension for every person over
sixty years of age.
In his annual address to Congress, delivered on January 4 , 1935 ,
FDR jettisoned much of the First New Deal and outlined a program of
social reform that historians have called the Second New Deal. First
came a $ 5 billion work-relief program authorized by the Emergency
Relief Appropriation Act of April 8 , 1935 , which set up the Works
Progress Administration (WPA). Roo sevelt invited Harry Hopkins, a
leading advocate of the welfare state, to head this agency. Jobs were
created for professionals such as musicians, actors, writers, and histori-
ans as well as college students, clerks, secretaries, and other unem-
ployed workers. Over the next six years the WPA spent more than $ 11
billion and gave employment to millions of Americans.