The Growth of American Government from the End of Reconstruction and the end of World War II

The New Deal era is often cited as the time when the federal government began to assume its modern form. It was a time of unprecedented government intervention and in many ways changed the way Americans viewed government. After the Stock Market Crash of 1929, it was clear that the government was going to take immediate action. Anthony Badger’s The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-1940 is an outstanding summary of some of the most difficult, yet important, years in American history.

Swift was the industrialist that pioneered vertical integration, a model where a company controls all aspect of production from raw materials to finished goods. The long production line created many job opportunities for people and a new group of workers, named blue collar emerged. Many firms copied Swift's idea and used predatory price to reinforce their market control. Such unfair business practices also appeared in Rockefeller’s firm, Standard Oil of Ohio (Document H). With the assistance of railroad companies, Rockefeller succeed rapidly. He used horizontal integration to expand his corporations. The predatory price became a strategy he used to drive his competitors into failure. As George Rice said, joining Rockefeller’s trust was his only choice. By 1900, the American economy was dominated by these large companies, which controlled most of resources of the country. Even though the emergence of these powerful business ended the chaos of market competition, the negative impact of their alliance with political officers was too severe to be neglected (Document D). In that period, the senate was not elected directly and was controlled by the trusts which had supreme political discourse due to monopolies of resources. Their unwise decision on approving the coinage act and joining the gold standard increased american’s animosity toward capitals,

In the late 1800s after the Civil War America had become one of the leading nations in Industry many new industries were popping up across the nation leading to heavy competition. As competition grew companies wanted to join together and help each other get rid of competition, but there was no way that these companies could trust each other. Due to this the trust was formed, “in a trust, stock owners of many competing companies give control of their stock to a committee, or group, of trustees.” (2) These trust could then lead to monopolies which gave control of an entire industry to one company, one company that was able to achieve a monopoly was the Standard Oil Company. The government should break up the Standard Oil Company monopoly because it could lead to unfair prices to the public overall.

In his inaugural address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the tone for the upcoming half century when he confidently said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. In response to the economic collapse of the Great Depression, a bold and highly experimental fleet of government bureaus and agencies known as Roosevelt’s Alphabet Soup were created to service the programs of the New Deal and to provide recovery to the American people. The New Deal was one of the most ambitious programs in American history, with implications and government programs that can still be seen to this day. Through its enactment of social reform and conservation programs, the New Deal mounted radical policies that gave the federal government unprecedented power in the nation’s economy and society, however, the New Deal did not bring America out of the Great Depression and could be considered conservative in the context of the era, ultimately saving capitalism from collapsing in America.

Amid the Great Depression, the role of the government altered enormously. Prior to the Depression hit, the government did close to nothing or nothing at all to assistance individuals monetarily. This was not seen as something the administration should do. With the Depression came an adjustment in this discernment. President Roosevelt's New Deal made government in charge of peopling from numerous points of view. These courses run from ensuring that they would not lose cash they had stored in banks (FDIC) to guaranteeing that they would have cash to live on after they resigned (Social Security). When all is said in done, the New Deal brought on another part for government, one in which the legislature did significantly more to help people monetarily.

For successful implementation of President Roosevelt’s economic policies, the understanding of federalism had to be redesigned. Since the founding of the country, factors such as industrialization and globalization had emerged. This created a need for greater control of the economy by the national government. The industrial nature of the economy at the time demanded greater control by the federal government over issues such as labor. Similarly, the globalization of trade necessitated control by the federal government as it had better links to the outside world. To get Americans back to work effectively, and the economy progressing, a new way for interaction between the state and national governments was required.

In the 1920’s, everything was going right for America’s economy. Unemployment was at a high and everyone was making money under Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding. Business was doing even better under Herbert Hoover, but then eventually the stock market crashed. The thing that all of these presidents had in common was that they practiced Laissez-Faire economics. However, when the economy went downhill under Herbert Hoover’s term, he continued to not intervene in any businesses and let the economy plummet. The government wanted everyone to have money, but the government in the 1930’s was more interested in helping people get it.

Rockefeller. They honestly state that as a petroleum refiner, Mr. Rockefeller forced his smaller competitors to sell out to him, or he forced them to shut down by undercutting their prices. To further their point, disapproving authors say this strategy decreased competition, because it enabled the capitalists to acquire new companies and form “trusts”, which in reality were monopolies. While their disapproval of such activities is apparent, the information the writers provide is a valuable part of history.

Despite Burton W. Folsom Jr.’s beliefs, Professor Roger Biles says that the New Deal utilized a minimal welfare state and economic stabilizers to steer away from another depression. He believes that very little of the New Deal was actually a new theory. Many of the policies put in place during the New Deal were actually ideas from previous Presidents and political leaders. For example, Woodrow Wilson’s farm credit acts sparked governmental aid to increase farmers’ income. This was not a brand new idea, yet Roosevelt gets quite a bit of credit for it. Whether the New Deal was new and fresh or not, it still failed to restore prosperity in America. However; Biles believes that the economic policies that failed in the 1930s have created many “stabilizers” to help avoid another similar depression.

In his first one hundred days, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, known as the New Deal. The New Deal was designed to use the federal government’s power to help revitalize the economy by ‘trying’ anything and everything, focusing on the unemployed, rural and city areas. The New Deal also marked the beginning of complex social programs and growing power of labor

The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 was passed to prohibit trusts, this was the first law passed by U.S. Congress to enforce this. This act was named after Senator John Sherman. Before this act was put into place, many other states had enforced laws very similar to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. These laws were not perfect though, the large corporations had the majority of the economic power. Congress was not pleased with this, thus making the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This act allowed Congress to regulate interstate commerce, outlawing monopolistic practices. If a person were to violate this act, he or she could be imprisoned for a year and fined five-thousand dollars. This law was successfully used to help Theodore Roosevelt during his campaign, “trust-busting”. Also, President Taft used the law to back himself up against the Standard Oil Trust and American Tobacco Company. The Standard Oil trust was when a board of nine trustees was set up to make all of the company decisions , allowing the company to run as a monopoly. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act allowed both presidents to dissolve the trusts that were creating problems. On the other hand, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act had many holes, it did not have exact wording, therefore allowing companies to still control the majority of the producing and still get away with it. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act had substantial success, but was put to rest and replaced with the Clayton Anti-Trust

At the beginning of the1900s these inequalities were remedied, somewhat by government action. Legislature to protect workers from unfair labor practices and to regulate private industries were enacted. Unfortunately World War I interrupted the attempts for progressive reform. The hyper-patriotism induced by the war was manipulated by employers for their own benefit, and enabled them to undo many of the progressive gains of the time. The events that had occurred late in the 1910s—mainly World War I- paved the way for the1920s, an era of a supposed return to “normalcy”. During this decade the flaws underlying in the laissez faire philosophy were exposed by the crash of 1929 and by escalation of economic recession to an economic depression. Lack of government intervention and regulation of the private sectors of the economy were the key causes of what has come to be known as the worst economic depression in

In today’s world, government intervention still divides the nation. We mainly witness this division during politics, with democrats and republicans. Government intervention increased immensely after the Great Depression. This is because of the fact that before the Great Depression, investors were freely using their money - buying and spending, without any regulations, leading to the stock market crash. During the recession process, in order to land the economy back to a stable path, presidents and other officials intervened to speed the process up. While some people believe that government intervention should not be allowed, others believe that government intervention is beneficial to the nation because it is able to put regulations among those who affect the economy. Government interventions have allowed many helpful programs for Americans such as welfare, trade programs, and tariff limitations. It also has placed a fairness on the economy, allowing an equivalence of prices for the products that we buy and use on a daily basis. Some different types of government intervention include subsidies, tax breaks, and inflation. During 1990-2002, government intervention became a giant part of the marketplace in the United States. An example of this is during Bill Clinton’s short-term presidency. Clinton enacted plans that helped increase the economy’s growth. Another example of this is during George W. Bush Jr’s presidency term. His main goal of helping the economy as well as the

Prior to the Great Depression, The United States’ government policies related to economics were based on a policy called laissez-faire. This French theory idealizes a smaller government role, arguing that the country functions more efficiently without government surveillance ("Laissez Faire Definition | Investopedia"). Popular in the 18th century around the globe, colonists opposed a large monarchical government, employing instead ideas of small government (“What Is Fiscal Policy?”). Although this policy was originally preferred by the colonists, it became an unrealistic policy in regards to the growing economy. Several conflicts were faced under Laissez-Faire, including the inability to dictate the economy and currency; factors that contributed

The economic role of government should be to focus on stability and to cut off spending. In the Great Depression in 1929, the main reason why it started was not only because of the stock market crash but the banks fault for a high demand of loans to buy consumer goods and paying off their houses. The consumer spending dropped and caused the slowing of productions and more jobs were lost leaving most people with no money and forced to live in the street begging for jobs to make ends meet. In our society most people worry about having a new car, having the newest technology, and having a beautiful house. Being able to have that, they spend their earnings and waste their money on things they don’t need. In the result of that,