This Week in History
June 2010
This article was originally published in the EIR Magazine’s Electronic Intelligence Weekly as part of an ongoing series on American history. We are reprinting these articles now to assist our readers in understanding of the American System of Economy.
June 10-16, 1933
 Franklin D. Roosevelt |
With this week's edition, we wrap up what is commonly known as the First Hundred Days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Administration, the intense emergency drive to turn our ship of state back toward the Constitutional principles of the general welfare on which it had been built.
As Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche underscored during the question period in his May 28, 2002 webcast, it was the driving force behind FDR's particular measures which made them work, in particular the drive of the President to reestablish the American Intellectual Tradition of Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Abraham Lincoln, with its conception of a republican government on behalf of the common good. Add to that FDR's courage, his force of character, and some technical skills, and the import of the First Hundred Days of feverish activity becomes clear. It's not in the details, but the directionality to save the nation.
That said, it is still useful to get an overview of what the President did in his first three months in office. He sent 15 messages to Congress, guided 15 major laws through Congress, delivered 10 speeches, constantly consulted with advisers and heads of state, and took personal responsibility for thousands of decisions in domestic and foreign policy. The result of his leadership, both in style and substance, uplifted the nation to a sense of confidence that it could rebuild its future.
When the Congress adjourned on June 15, the following landmark pieces of legislation had been enacted:
- March 9 — The Emergency Banking Act
- March 20 — The Economy Act
- March 31 — Civilian Conservation Corps established
- April 19 — The gold standard (British) abandoned
- May 12 — The Federal Emergency Relief Act
- May 12 — The Agricultural Adjustment Act passed, with an amendment permitting monetary expansion
- May 12 — The Emergency Farm Mortgage Act
- May 18 — The Tennessee Valley Authority Act
- May 27 — The Truth-in-Securities Act
- June 5 — The gold clause in public and private contracts abandoned
- June 13 — The Home Owners' Loan Act
- June 16 — The National Industrial Recovery Act
- June 16 — The Glass-Steagall Banking Act
- June 16 — The Farm Credit Act
- June 16 — The Railroad Coordination Act
Most of these pieces of legislation have been analyzed in this column over the past three months. Not all of them lasted, nor are they, in general, models per se. But it can be said that, without such a drive by a person with the character of FDR, the United States, which was devastated by mass unemployment and despair, would likely have gone the way of Germany, toward fascism.
Thus, it is with good reason that we look today toward a revival of the Roosevelt tradition in the U.S. Presidency, as the only hope for this country, and the world, to escape a worldwide fascism that will take all civilization down with it.
