New Deal | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The New Deal refers to the domestic reform program that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pursued from 1933–1941. Given that the New Deal coincided with the rise of the Axis powers and the coming of the Second World War, military issues had a key bearing on the President's reforms.

President Roosevelt took office in March 1933, less than two years after the Japanese conquest of the Chinese province of Manchuria. During the Manchurian crisis, the Hoover administration considered a naval demonstration, but soon learned that the United States Navy would not prove a credible deterrent to the Japanese. Accordingly, and with economic recovery definitely in mind, President Roosevelt allocated nearly $240 million in Public Works Administration (PWA) relief money for naval construction in 1933. The following year, the President's support proved critical in securing congressional approval for the 1934 Vinson-Trammel Act that appropriated money for a sustained naval expansion program through 1942.

Over the next two years, the Navy's General Board and the State Department worked to block the Japanese bid for naval parity at the 1936 London Conference. With its bid rejected, Japan refused to renew treaty limitations, thus freeing the Roosevelt Administration to pursue further fleet funding. In May 1938, with the economy still staggering from a sharp drop the previous year (the so-called Roosevelt Recession), Congress approved a second Vinson Act, which authorized the construction of some seventy additional warships. With the fall of France in June 1940, naval construction became a top priority and Congress approved the construction of additional combat ships totaling 1,325,000 tons.

While the navy enjoyed sustained growth after 1933, the army did not. In part, isolationist sentiment, which reached its height in the mid-1930s, prevented increased funding for the army, as did the nation's long-standing anti-peacetime-army ideology. By 1939, however, with the Sino-Japanese war in its second year and Europe poised on the precipice of war, the President secured over $500 million in appropriations for the Army. Congress, meanwhile, approved money for the new Civilian Pilot Training Program in order to increase the number of skilled aviators. Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, Roosevelt approved a modest increase in manpower for both the regular army and the National Guard. Between May and October 1940, as Germany struck west, brought France to its knees, and prepared for an invasion of England, the President secured some $17 billion for the armed forces. The army gained $8 billion, enough money to equip over 1.2 million men by October 1941. In May 1940 alone, Congress appropriated enough money to build a staggering 50,000 warplanes a year. In September 1940, Congress also passed the first peacetime draft in American history, thus paving the way for a vast expansion in military manpower. As the world crisis deepened during 1941, Congress appropriated an additional $26 billion for the army.

Working behind the scenes, New Deal internationalists also strove to bolster the nation for war. Prodded by internationalists such as the State Department's Herbert Feis, the Director of the Reconstruction Finance

Corporation (RFC) Jesse Jones established a string of RFC funded agencies to coordinate the stockpiling of strategic raw materials. These companies, which included the Metals, Petroleum, and Rubber Reserve Company, stockpiled vast amounts of critical raw materials for the nation's war effort while, in effect, preclusively purchasing critical commodities in advance of the Axis. Another RFC subsidiary, the Defense Plant Corporation, oversaw the refurbishment or construction of some 2,300 defense plants.

While the RFC played a major role in preparing the nation for war, other New Deal agencies played parts as well. The PWA, for example, in addition to its role in naval expansion, played a critical role in aiding the Army Air Corps. The PWA funded the purchase of over 100 warplanes and the construction of some 50 military airfields. The Tennessee Valley Authority, meanwhile, supported the war effort through the creation of additional hydroelectric facilities to serve the needs of the aluminum industry and the nuclear facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

By 1942 full-scale mobilization and war succeeded in doing what the New Deal could not, and the Great Depression at long last came to an end. With the economy flourishing, New Deal recovery programs gradually expired. In 1942 Congress terminated funding for the Civilian Conservation Corps and in 1943 Congress terminated the Works Progress Administration.

The New Deal is mainly known for its efforts to end the Depression and for its programs, such as Social Security. Besides economic recovery and social reform, Roosevelt also used the New Deal to lay the foundation of re-armament at a time when most Americans opposed spending money on weapons and becoming involved in foreign conflicts. Under the banner of putting people back to work, Roosevelt had strengthened the navy and expanded the army. The outbreak of World War II and the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor found America ready to move from a peacetime to a wartime economy. Thus, the New Deal created legacies that, along with the lessons of World War II and the Cold War, have helped to shape American society—the necessity of military preparedness and the creation of what President Dwight Eisenhower would later call "The Military-Industrial Complex."

Civilian Conservation Corps (Ccc); Roosevelt, Eleanor; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano.

Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Leuchtenburg, William E. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

Paterson, Thomas G., Clifford, Gary J., and Hagan, Kenneth G. American Foreign Relations, Vol. 2: A History Since 1895. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Center for Military History. "Mobilization: The US Army in World War II, Fiftieth Anniversary." Available from <http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/docu ments/mobpam.htm>.

Public Broadcasting Service. "Brother Can You Spare a Billion?" Available from <http://www.pbs.org/jessejones/j esse_ww2_2.htm>.

"TVA Goes to War." Available from <http://www.tva.com/heritage/war /index.htm>.

Sidney L. Pash

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