FDR and the New Deal: 10 New Federal Agencies in First 100 Days

The Great Depression: Part 3 New Deal New York

PBS (2013)

Film Review

Part 3 is mainly about the collaboration between New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Roosevelt to end joblessness, hunger and starvation in Depression-era New York.

One of the first things FDR did following his 1933 inauguration was to close banks for four days (to end the bank runs responsible for an epidemic of bank failures) and pass a $2 billion emergency banking bill to pay off depositors who lost savings due to bank failures.

He also created 10 new agencies during his first 100 days to address the economic crisis caused by the Great Depression. The first three were the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which used federal money to put 250,000 jobless Americans to work restoring the national forests; the Federal Emergency Relief (FER) agency, which provided direct financial relief to the unemployed and their families; and the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which set profit and wage limits for businesses.

During the winter of 1933-34, FDR and La Guardia worked together to establish the Public Works Administration, a temporary jobs program that employed 1.5 million jobless Americans in infrastructure projects (building roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, etc). One-fifth of these new jobs went to New York, America’s largest city. Under the leadership of Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, New York’s black community organized to protest overt discrimination against black workers, especially by white-owned businesses in Harlem.

In 1935, the NRA, which was very unpopular with the business community was overturned by the Supreme Court and replaced with the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The latter banned racial discrimination, as well as creating numerous jobs for writers, actors and artists, as well as infrastructure projects.

One-seventh of WPA funding went to New York City.

This episode neglects to mention the attempted 1933 Wall Street-initiated coup against Roosevelt foiled by General Smedley Butler.

 

A Natural Solution to Drought

In the video below, Australian permaculture guru Geoff Lawton challenges the energy intensive system of water management employed in the southwestern US and California.

He gives the example of the canal off the Colorado River, which presently transports water 300 miles to Tucson. Increasing evaporation has made the water so saline that it’s useless for irrigation – except for golf courses. A sinking water table means massive energy is required to elevate the water prior to transporting it. In fact, providing water to Tucson is the single biggest consumer of electricity in the state of Arizona.

Lawton contrasts this energy intensive approach to water management with a system of swales* built in the Sonora Desert 80 years ago under the Works Project Administration (Roosevelt’s New Deal job creation program). After 80 years, the swales are full of lush grasslands and trees that have self-planted.

This low-energy design approach, which works with nature rather than against it, can be used to transform any desert region into productive food forests.

The video has been censored from YouTube, but you can see it at http://www.geofflawton.com/fe/73485-an-oasis-in-the-american-desert

In the second video Lawton takes viewers through a food forest he built, by constructing swales, in the Jordanian desert.

*A swale is an artificial ditch on contour used to slow and capture water runoff by spreading it horizontally across the landscape, thus facilitating runoff infiltration into the soil