Presidents & Legislation Presidents Who

Presidents & Legislation Presidents Who Excelled at Legislation: FDR and LBJ One important way to test the political skills of a U.S. president is to research - through history - that president's legislative record during difficult times.

How well did that president handle the challenges of working with Congress to create laws that solved problems? And how effective was that president in fixing mistakes that were caused by the president who served prior to his administration, or how effective was that president at finishing what the previous president left unfinished? The first case in point is that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the Great Depression.

According to author Richard Etulain, in his book, Beyond the Missouri: The Story of the American West, among the many people who suffered during the Great Depression were American farmers. A much higher percentage of Americans were earning a living by farming then there are today.

On page 322 Etulain mentions that farmers suffered from falling prices and were earning "less than half their 1929 income in 1933." The presence of Herbert Hoover in the White House at that time seemed to give people hope that the falling prices and economic hardship that had begun in 1929 would be handled; after all, Hoover was the first president elected from the western U.S.

But Hoover had this "incurable addition to individualism," Etulain explains; and that addiction caused him to believe that if you leave the economy alone, don't tinker with it, it will pull out of its downward plunge. As to the work that dug the U.S. out of the Great Depression, Etulain writes that unlike Hoover, FDR, the next president, was very willing to tinker with the economy, and he did just that. The economy of the American West (and elsewhere) responded to FDR's actions, which were called the New Deal.

Etulain states that the New Deal "grant and loan programs had a greater relative impact in the West than in any other part" of the U.S. (Etulain 323). Among the great ills that faced Americans because of the grim economic condition in the country was unemployment; the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration sent funds to states to give money to those without work.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) created jobs for laborers who were unemployed, but it wasn't just "make work" labor, it actually helped the nation build roads and bridges along with needed public buildings. The Public Works Administration (PWA) helped build dams and other reclamation projects; this served to create jobs and at the same time provide "less expensive electricity, flood control, and irrigation water for farmers" (Etulain 324).

The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and Grand Coulee and Bonneville Dams on the Columbia River, were extraordinarily helpful in many practical ways in the western U.S.

Whereas Hoover was unable to see the need to put the federal government's full power of assets to work for the citizens - his conservative background kept him from doing what needed to be done in an urgent way - FDR did see the need; and by using his office as a bully pulpit, and having "fireside chats" with the American people listening on their radios, he showed leadership.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put people to work clearing brush, building roads and trails, conserving forests and croplands, the author explains. Another president who was very effective when it came.