Беликова Е.К., Саратовская Л.Б. - The United Kingdom and United States of America in Past and Present (1268141), страница 23
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The money crash unlashed a devastating depression.Between 1929 and 1933 the shock of the depression was felt in all areasof American life. Distress influenced such industries like coal, railroads,construction and textiles. By the end of 1931 nearly eight millionAmericans were out of work, but unlike unemployed British or Germanworkers in Europe they received no government unemployment pay.Millions spent hours shuffling slowly forward in “breadlines» where theyreceived free pieces of bread or bowls of soup, paid for by the moneycollected from those who could afford charity.By 1932 the situation became still harder. Thousand of banks and over100000 businesses had closed down. Industrial production had fallendown by half and wage payments by 60%. Twelve million people, oneout of every four of the country’s workers, were unemployed.
Thefactories were silent, shops and banks closed. With the number of peopleout of work rising day by day, farmers could not sell their produce. In89despair some of them banded together. Some paraded together with theworkers in angry demonstrations, demanding that President Hoover(1929-33) take strong action against depression. Hoover who stronglybelieved in market economy said that he could do two things to end theDepression: to balance the budget and to restore businessmen’sconfidence in the future.
Time and time again in the early 1930s Hoovertold people that recovery from the Depression was “just around thecorner”. But the factories remained closed and the breadlines grewlonger.A change took place with the election of Franklin D.Roosevelt aspresident in1933. Although Roosevelt was crippled by polio he wasenergetic and determined to care for the welfare of ordinary people.Roosevelt’s main idea was that the federal government should take thelead in the fight against the Depression. His program, which he calledThe New Deal 15 major, consisted of a number of legislative measures.At first Roosevelt took active steps to stabilize banking.
He also put rightagricultural production by paying subsidies to farmers and introduced asystem of regulated prices for corn, cotton, wheat, rice and diaryproducts. Believing that his most urgent task was to give employment tothe American people, he proposed a plan for public works and reliefpayments to the needed citizens. Roosevelt was especially anxious aboutthe young people.
The Civilian Conservation Corps found work for manyyoung people. Part-time employment was provided for students who wereinvited to build roads and construct hospitals and schools. Roosevelt’sNew deal program financed the painting of murals and the staging ofplays. Writers were paid to write guidebooks and regional ethnic. In 1935the Act was passed that granted workers the right to unionize and bargaincollectively. New trade unions were organized.During his first term Franklin Roosevelt did not manage to fightunemployment and solve some other tasks completely As a result of allhis measures unemployment dropped from 13 million people in 1933 to 9million in 1936, but there were still over four million jobless people inthe country and there was no real increase in the life of Afro-Americans,Indians and other minorities.
The nation was still plagued by underconsumption. Ultimately it was the Second World War that put theAmerican people back to work.The Second World War and the USA90When the Second World War broke out in 1939 F. Roosevelt, who hadbeen reelected for the second term, persuaded the USA Congress toapprove the first peacetime militaryconscription act in the USA history andlater to accept his Lend Lease Plan. TheUSA quickly became the main supplier ofweapons and other goods to the countriesfighting Hitler. y. American factoriesbegan working at full swing again.
Theunemployment practically ended.In 1941 after Japanese warplanes bombed, sank and badly damaged 8American battleships in American base Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), killingover 2000 men, the USA declared war against Germany and Japan. Theyjoined the countries of anti-Hitler coalition (The Soviet Union andBritain). The USA government organized the whole American economytowards winning the war.
“Old Dr. New Deal has to be replaced by Dr.Win-the-War”, said. Roosevelt. Controls on wages and prices wereplaced, and high income taxes were introduced. Gasoline and some foodswere rationed. Factories stopped producing consumer goods such as carsand washing machines, and started making tanks, bombers and other warsupplies. The USA war production became six times greater than themilitary output before the war.
The overall effect of the war was apositive one for the economy in general and the business community inparticular.In November 1942 Combined British and American forces landed inNorth Africa, defeating the German general Pommel’s Africa Corps.1943 they invaded Sicily, the mainland of Italy and months of bitterfighting freed Rome from German control.At Tehran conference (Iran, 1943) Stalin met Roosevelt and Churchillto coordinate their military plans with the Allied cross-channel invasion.In 1944 the Allied troops opened so-called The Second Front in Europeand after hard fighting occupied France and liberated Paris. In SeptemberAllied forces crossed Germany western border.
On the 25th of April theremarkable event took place – British and American soldiers metadvancing Soviet troops on the banks of the River Elbe in the middle ofGermany. In five days Hitler committed a suicide. German soldierseverywhere laid down their weapons and on the 5th of May 1945,Germany surrendered.91The final details of the war and plans for the postwar world werehammered out at the Yalta Conference in the Crimea in 1945.
Russia wasto become the guardian of the nations of Eastern Europe. DefeatedGermany was to be divided into four zones of military occupation, and aconference was to be convened in San Francisco on April 25 to create theUnited Nations Organization and formulate its Charter.Roosevelt left Yalta physically weak but pleased that he had broughtAllied unity. Nine weeks after Yalta conference he had a stroke and died.His Vice President Harry Truman came into office. Truman participatedwith Stalin and Churchill in the final meeting at Potsdam, from whichtwo declarations were issued. One of them confirmed the occupationzones in Germany and settled the reparation issue.The second was an unconditional surrender ultimatum to Japan.
In 1945American bombers made devastating raids on Japanese cities. In June theisland of Okinawa fell to the Americans. On August 6 an Americanbomber dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Afew days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city ofNagasaki.
Both cities were devastated and nearly 2000000 civilians werekilled. Even the scientists who had been working on the bomb wereshocked by the result. On August 14 the Japanese governmentsurrendered. The Second World War was over.The Cold War and the McCarthy Witch HuntThe Cold War was an ideological struggle between the Soviet Unionand the United States over control of the world. Americans was the onlynation in the world that the Second World War had made better off. Theirhomes had not been bombed or their land fought over like the homes andland of the Russian people.
Busy wartime factories had given them goodwages. Americans became the most prosperous people in the world. Butdespite economic prosperity during the years under president Truman(1945-53) and then president Eisenhower (1953-61) there was a constantanxiety in America and fear of the Russian influence on the afterwardworld. After two unpleasant surprises – the Soviet Union’s atomic bomband the creation of communist China – a wave of panic swept across theUSA. Due to the terrible propaganda some Americans started to seecommunist plots everywhere.
When in 1950 North Korea invaded SouthKorea their fears became even stronger. An ambitious and unscrupulouspolitician McCarthy tried to use these fears to win fame and power forhimself. He started the campaign that came into American history with92the name a “Witch Hunt” – a search for people he could blame forsupposed threats to the United States. For over five years, from early1950s till the mid 50s McCarthy launched the serial of “hearings”,accusing a lot of people – government officials, scientists, and famousentertainers – of secretly working for the Soviet Union.
He never gaveproofs, but Americans were so much frightened by the threat ofcommunism that many believed his accusations. They were afraid to givejobs or even to show friendship to anyone “suspected” in “Sovietsympathy”. In 1957 McCarthy died, but so-called McCarthyism didserious damage to the relations between the countries.In 1961 a new President John F. Kennedy was elected, the mostprogressive president since A.
Lincoln and F. Roosevelt. He was young,had a good education, energy and keen, quick wit. The unfulfilledpromise of Kennedy’s thousand days in office is nearly impossible tomeasure. He told American people that they were facing a “new frontier”with both opportunities and problems. He announced policy of fightingpoverty and giving civil rights to black people. He streamlined andpushed through the space program and new laws for pollution treatment,but his main merit was his foreign policy.When J. Kennedy came to the office, foreign problems were numerous.Soviet Union power was growing and relations between two superpowerswere as cold as ever.
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