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FDR and the Three R's: Relief, Recovery, Reform
President Roosevelt declared a national banking holiday as a prelude to opening the banks on a sounder basis. The Hundred Days Congress/Emergency Congress (March 9-June 16, 1933) passed a series laws to help improve the state of the country. This Congress also passed some of FDR's New Deal programs, which focused on: relief, recovery, reform. Short-range goals were relief and immediate recovery, and long-range goals were permanent recovery and reform. -
Secretary Hull's Reciprocal Trade Agreements
Congress passed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934, which was designed to lower the tariff. This act allowed the President to lower tariffs with a country if that country also lowered their tariffs. Secretary of State Hull succeeded in negotiating pacts with 21 countries by the end of 1939. -
Paying Farmers Not to Farm
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) attempted to reduce crop surpluses, which led to lower crop prices. The AAA established standard "parity prices" for basic commodities. The agency also paid farmers to not farm (to reduce their crop harvests).
The Supreme Court ruled the AAA unconstitutional in 1936, stating that its taxation programs were illegal. -
Appeasing Japan and Germany
In 1937, the Japanese invaded China. President Roosevelt refused to call this invasion a "war", so the neutrality legislation did not take effect. If he had called it a war, he would have cut off munition sales to the Chinese. A consequence of this, though, was that the Japanese could still buy war supplies from the United States.
FDR gave his Quarantine Speech in 1937, in which he proposed economic embargos against the aggressive dictators. The public opposed this -
Hitler's Belligerency and U.S. Neutrality
On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression treaty with Hitler. The Hitler-Stalin pact meant that Germany could make war on Poland and the Western democracies without fear of retaliation from the Soviet Union.
Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France, honoring their commitments to Poland, declared war on Germany; World War II had started.
Although Americans were strongly anti-Nazi, they wanted to stay out of the war. -
Fall of France
The months after the fall of Poland were known as the "phony war" because France and the U.K. were not really militiarily involved in the war, yet.
The Soviet Union took over Finland despite Congress loaning $30 million to Finland.
The phoney war ended in April-May 1940 when Hitler took over Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium. France fell in June 1940.