The Great Depression Effects on the Americans in the 1930s

Name
Professor
Course
22 February 2019
Economic Equality
The Great Depression had devastating effects on the Americans in the 1930s. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the New Deal reforms to mitigate these effects and reverse the trend of economic recession. In his speech when accepting the Democratic nominations for reelection, he defended New Deal reforms and spending program and linked political equality to economic equality. Roosevelt declared, “if the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place” (voices, 174).
The American Revolution was fought to win political freedom. Independence on July 4, 1776, wiped out political tyranny giving the business of governing into the hands of the average man (Voices 174). However, America experienced a lot of changes in the following century. A new civilization with a new set of problems was brought by the age of machinery of the telegraph and radio, mass distribution, steam electricity and railroads. Economic royalists established new dynasties built by concentrating control of material things. They used corporations, banks, and securities, new machinery of agriculture, labor, and capital turning them into royal service. There was no place left for small-businessmen and merchant to make a living out of the American system initiative and profit, taking away their freedom. The new industrial dictatorship allowed monopoly that limited opportunities throughout the nation, progressively restricting the field open for free business with private enterprise becoming a privileged enterprise, not free enterprise (Voices, 173).
Roosevelt blamed the Great Depression on economic inequality. A small group of people had almost complete control over other people’s prope...