Name __Example________

Date __01/01/2016____
Period __0_____________

Double Entry Journal: New Deal Critics
Read the Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History entry entitled New Deal: Reform or
Revolution?
Choose 5 quotes or ideas from the article to reflect on. Place these in the left-hand column.
Knowing what we have learned about the New Deal and Great Depression so far, what are your
thoughts on these critiques? Do you agree or disagree with them? Do they prompt any
questions or comments in your mind? Write down these thoughts in 1-2 complete sentences in
the right-hand column, next to the corresponding idea from the text.

Idea from the Text Reaction/Connection
Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger argued in the
The Age of Roosevelt (1957) that the New
Deal created a reformed capitalism. He
maintained that the power of businesses
had finally been constrained by the
regulation of public interests.
I would agree that the New Deal reformed
American capitalism, with the creation of
the SEC and the FDIC to regulate the stock
market and banks.
Leuchtenburg argued that New Deal
reforms were limited because of the
ideological and political opposition faced
by the Roosevelt administration.
FDR did face a lot of opposition, like from the
Four Horsemen of the Supreme Court, but he
also took steps to overcome opposition, like
with his court-packing plan.
Debate about the efficacy and impact of
the New Deal still continued at the end of
the twentieth century, almost 80 years later.
Conservatives continued to criticize the
Roosevelt administration programs for
controlling the economy too extensively.
I think there was a need for the government
to control more of the economy, since so
many of the problems of the Depression
were the result of shortcomings in the stock
market.
The first was that the New Deal legislation
raised federal spending and regulation to
the highest levels in U.S. history.
They may have been at the highest levels up
to that point, but arent they much higher
now? Is their continued growth to this point
because of the precedents set by the New
Deal, or would it have happened anyway?
The second was that New Deal reforms of
the national economy and society operated
within the confines of the political and
ideological realities of the capitalist system.
I think the problems that so many people
had with the New Deal and the fact that the
Supreme Court overturned some parts of it
disproves this way of thinking somewhat.