A Breakdown of the Second Bill Of Rights

Now that we have the historical background painted, let’s breakdown each right and understand what Roosevelt meant by each through his executive and legislative policies in the economic arena. Through his over a decade of being President, we attain an array of eclectic policies to better understand his core belief in each right of the ‘Second Bill of Rights’.

‘The right to a useful and remunerative job…’

Roosevelt believed that giving a person a ‘right to work’ would be better than giving cash, food, or material based welfare. In his mind, it would not create a ‘welfare state’ of unhealthy and/or destructive individual and societal outcomes that disincentives working and diminishes individual self-worth. Roosevelt wanted the government to establish a strong foundation for people to be able to work without fear of losing a means of basic income and self-worth to pursue happiness in life. Any such cash-based welfare benefits proposed by Roosevelt were strictly reserved to those he declared as ‘a result of accident, disease, or old age’.

Image Credit: Library of Congress.

On March 4th, 1933 Franklin Roosevelt won the Office of the Presidency and inherited an unemployment rate of 25%. Many Americans were devastated by farmers to industrial workers. There was no work available to the millions of Americans left unemployed. Roosevelt and his New Deal policies went to work to employ as many Americans as possible until the market recovered. Roosevelt believed strongly that this was not the fault of the American people. Moreover, the public consensus, after 1929, was not that these Americans were unwilling to work or were responsible for their unemployment. Roosevelt’s programs were designed to correct, manage, and prevent economic failures that were not the fault of the individual. The ‘right to a useful and remunerative job…’ was meant to mediate the negative economic downturns that are inevitable in a free market society. His belief was that people who are willing and able to work should be put to work by their government for the public good. He felt it unacceptable to let American people starve or die of curable or avoidable illnesses because of a political ideology.

“In the spring of 1933, hundreds of thousands of young men who had just an employment age found themselves in a tragic plight. Imbued with ambition and idealism, they sought a place in the world, but were denied it by an economic situation over which they had no control whatever… Their willingness to work was no help, for no opportunities to work could be found.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

One of the first unemployment relief programs created by President Roosevelt was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It put a vast amount of unemployed young men, vulnerable to committing crimes in economic hardships, from congested cities or deserted rural areas to work in public service work projects. Roosevelt intended to accomplish two goals with one policy initiative in the CCC program. Environmental issues such as forest fires and pollution were causing enormous damage to our national parks without preventative measures or proper maintenance. The government intervened to put young men to work for what Roosevelt stated was ‘healthful employment and sufficient wage so that their families might also be benefited by their employment.’

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. ” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

President Roosevelt supported, primarily, private industries to employ the American people. However, when private industry cannot hire a certain portion of the population, he believed that is was the government’s duty to step in and employ its citizens or subsidize financially for more private employment. The belief is that people with a willingness and ability to work should be able to rely on their government to provide employment, not handouts.

Image Credit: Library of Congress.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935 was another New Deal program to hire millions of Americans to different types of reconstruction projects to rebuild public roads, schools, and parks. In addition, the government hired artists in different types of art projects and murals around the country in beautification projects. At its peak, it employed over 3 million Americans that otherwise would not have been employed due to the Great Depression.

President Roosevelt’s economic philosophy of government employees of the American people during the depression was born from his beliefs that when desperate people are unable to work they will resort to other forms of government or anarchy. Roosevelt was a strong believer in democracy but understood it was a slow and compromising form of government and in danger of failure in times of chaos. He believed executive power must be used in the dire event of depression to quickly respond to a crisis, similar to its powers for acting swiftly in times of war as Commander in Chief. The right to employment was not intended to evolve the United States into a ‘welfare state’. It was Roosevelt’s belief and understanding that free markets are flawed. He thought pragmatically that government should try new methods to mitigate these flaws and give their public worth and a means to the path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation”

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)of 1938, created a minimum wage and maximum hour regulation. The idea that every citizen should have a right and the protection of the government for a decent wage that is sufficient to attain food, clothing, and recreation. Also, it guaranteed overtime pay and completely eliminated child labor in the United States. Issues of a livable wage and protection of child labor were of utmost importance to Roosevelt and his New Deal administration. The act improved labor rights by restricting child labor under the age of sixteen and to non-hazardous jobs for children under eighteen.

Image Credit: Library of Congress.

The FLSA was one of the final acts by Roosevelt’s Administration. However, there was strong opposition to the act by Republicans because they believed it was an unconstitutional intrusion into the free market. “The fact that $16 per week was not a living wage for even a small family did not prevent charges that the administration was coddling labor.” The FLSA gave 750,000 workers increases to livable wages in 1938. An added provision to the bill along with a minimum wage and maximum hours was time and a half for overtime pay. If an employee went over the maximum hour limit, the employer was required to pay his employee time and a half. On February 3, 1941, the Supreme Court validated the FLSA and was a major win for his administration.

“The right of every farmer to raise and sell his product at a return which will give him and his family a decent living”

During the Great Depression, rural poverty was one of the direst issues to resolve. The main objective of President Roosevelt’s Farm Security Act (FSA) of 1935 was to educate and assist farming communities to be better prepared to manage their farms during times of economic hardships, as well as to be able to self-sustain their farms for future generations.

Image Credit: Library of Congress.

The FSA program gave loans to poor families in an effort to relieve them during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. The program made it possible for family farmers to keep their farmland during the Great Depression and future depressions. By accepting the government loan, American farmers were required to be educated on different techniques to keep track of their finances — helping to manage their smallholding to make a decent profit during difficult economic times.

Along with assisting farmers, FSA had a media program to document farm life in the United States. This part of the program existed from 1935–1944, and employed writers and photographers to show the stories of rural America to the greater American public. It powerfully displayed the severity of the depression in rural America.

The struggling mother of a migrant family at a temporary camp in California during the Great Depression. Dorothea Lange/FSA/Getty.

“The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad”

Roosevelt enacted the Monopoly Inquiry Act on June 16th, 1938 to reform the private sectors tyrannical monopolies. President Roosevelt did not believe that the private sector financial power should be in the hands of a limited elite. The actions of these few had produced much of the economic problems that caused the Great Depression in 1929, in Roosevelt’s opinion. However, unlike Theodore Roosevelt, he decided not to have another ‘trust-busting’ campaign on big business. He opted for a comprehensive study of monopoly to be made by the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Securities Exchange Commission. Instead, Roosevelt decided for an in-depth study of the effects of monopolies on the overall economy to show the public the consequences of unfettered monopolies.

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace-business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We now know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob…” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Pragmatically, Roosevelt aided big business by the Emergency Banking Act (EBA) and the Economy Act (EA). It helped to restore confidence in the market place and was known as the ‘First New Deal’. This period was from 1933 to 1935, following the ‘First New Deal’ was the ‘Second New Deal’ that focused more on labor rights. The EBA allowed the government to assist bankrupted financial institutions and allow them to reopen once stabilized, instead of allowing them to dissolve. It was supported by both the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The EA attempted to cut the federal deficit and reduce the size of the federal workforce. It was meant to stabilize the markets, at the beginning of the depression, in the hopes the market would start to garner momentum.

“The right of every family to a decent home”

The New Deal programs that President Roosevelt implemented in order to aid the American housing market failures were the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Each New Deal program listed had its specific policy area within the housing that tried to improve housing for Americans.

The TVA attempted to improve living conditions by employing Americans to build dams on the Tennessee River in order to generate electricity for the poorest regions of the United States. It gave more families electricity and enabled them to enter into the 20th century for the first time. The HOLC aimed to help Americans who could not pay their mortgage rates from banks and allowed homeowners to pay the government at a more affordable rate so that they could keep their homes. A year later in 1934, President Roosevelt enacted the FHA, which was part of the National Housing Act. It attempted to incentivize banks to lend money and it increased home ownership throughout the United States.

This was a clear belief of Roosevelt’s that the government’s role was to help balance the country to a fairer and more economically just society in order to have the ability to be a true meritocracy. Programs that helped lower-income families acquire and maintain homes increased stability and potential for the future accumulation of wealth.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health”

Source: FDR Presidential Library.

During his administration, there wasn’t sufficient momentum for pursuing public health care coverage for the vast majority of Americans. Although, the Social Security Act (SSA) became the foundation and inspiration for programs like Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s and, the part, the Affordable Care Act.

The United States, in the 1930s & throughout most of its history, lacked basic health care for the majority of Americans, especially in poor rural and urban areas around the country. And this economic right went further than politics for Roosevelt. His own battle with polio, in 1921, gave him great empathy for the uncontrollable misfortunes of maintaining good health. In his private life, Roosevelt opened Warm Springs for polio-stricken children and adults to rehabilitate and build a support system.

“Once you’ve spent two years trying to wiggle one toe, everything is in proportion.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The right to adequate protection from economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment”

On August 14th, 1935 President Roosevelt became the first President to construct a federal program to assist the elderly in America. The SSA was designed to protect older Americans from the economic fears that come with old age, as well as sickness, accidents, and unexpected unemployment. The main objective of the program was to assist aging Americans when old age had made them unable to participate in the workforce.

“No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

The SSA was one of President Roosevelt’s greatest accomplishments of his New Deal policies. As well, it opened up more jobs for younger Americans who were looking for work and it created an ‘economic structure of vastly greater soundness.’ In the House of Representatives, 81 out of 96 representatives voted yes to pass the SSA. In the Senate, 16 out of 21 Republicans voted in support of the act giving it solid bipartisan support throughout the United States.

“The right to a good education”

Roosevelt’ speeches and literature put great emphasis on public education. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) included educational classes for adults and provided vocational education training for the unemployed. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (SRA) or G.I. bill of 1944 provided millions of returning WWII veterans with benefits that included educational opportunities in higher education.

Image Credit: Library of Congress.

Roosevelt’s belief was that the foundation of democracy was the education of the general public. He believed that to have a great and powerful democracy, there must be educational opportunities and stable institutions available to all Americans no matter their socio-economic status, race, religion, or gender.

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education. It has been well said that no system of government gives so much to the individual or exacts so much as a democracy. Upon our educational system must largely depend the perpetuity of those institutions upon which our freedom and our security rest. To prepare each citizen to choose wisely and to enable him to choose freely are paramount functions of the schools in a democracy.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Roosevelt supported a broad range of educational opportunities. His belief that every American should have a right to be educated is an essential tenet of his ‘Second Bill of Rights’.