Franklin D. Roosevelt's Was Against Government Handouts And Socialism

Franklin D. Roosevelt was commonly referred to by his initials FDR. He was a Democrat president who rejected the idea of government handouts and fought against allowing Socialism to get a foothold in America. Yes, he was just the opposite of today's Democratic Party politicians.

FDR was against free government handouts so much so that he openly criticized "the dole," a term used at the time that means direct welfare payments without working for it. He believed getting money for nothing destroyed a person's work ethic and pride. He believed in "Work over Welfare." 

Instead of handing out free government cash to Americans, FDR created massive work programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). He wanted people to earn a paycheck. FDR saw direct relief as a temporary last resort during the Great Depression, not a permanent way of life.

FDR believed in the "Dignity of Work." In fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt championed the idea that there is a dignity of work that people can't find when they're simply getting handouts from the government. That's the number one reason that he favored job creation over direct welfare handouts during the Great Depression.

It's true. That's why FDR chose "Work Relief" over simple cash handouts because he believed labor preserved personal self-respect and individual worth. He absolutely rejected being on the "Dole" because he feared that pure welfare handouts would act like a narcotic and destroy a person's initiative. He felt that a person's pride much be preserved.

That's exactly why he argued that letting people earn a living through physical labor or creative effort meant allowing Americans to keep their self-respect intact instead of forcing them to rely on charity.

In fact, Franklin D. Roosevelt felt so strongly about rejecting "the dole," which was a term used back then to describe direct unearned cash handouts from the government, that he said he believed that it destroyed human dignity and created a cycle of permanent dependency. Roosevelt argued that direct cash handouts fractured the American work ethic. In a famous 1935 address to Congress, he outlined his moral opposition to unearned "income":

He said, "Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."

Instead, FDR championed work relief, ensuring that citizens earned their state assistance through public labor. To help bypass the dole, FDR created specialized New Deal agencies designed to provide temporary employment on public works projects. It was all in an effort to get the economy started again.

To do that, FDR created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in 1933. FERA initially distributed state grants. FDR quickly shifted its focus away from direct cash toward creating unskilled local government jobs because work was "psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed"

FDR then created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which replaced FERA in 1935. The CCC employed young men in environmental conservation, forestry, and park maintenance.

FDR also created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This program built massive infrastructure projects including roads, bridges, and schools. The WPA employed millions of Americans without relying on direct cash handouts. In fact, the WPA was such a massive agency, that it employed more than 8.5 million Americans. 

Of course, while most Americans of that time knew that WPA workers built public infrastructure like schools, roads, and bridges, some folks may not have known that the WPA also funded work for writers, historians, and artists. In fact, some monuments around the nation were build by the WPA during the Great Depression.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt also applied his anti-dole, anti-handouts, philosophy to Social Security when he designed the Social Security Act of 1935. This is seen by the way he insisted that retirement benefits be funded via worker payroll taxes rather than the general treasury.

According to historical records, FDR rejected a "pay-as-you-go" system because he felt unearned federal pensions would turn Social Security into an unsustainable government dole. He wanted workers to earn their retirement so that no future politician could legally strip away their benefits.

His belief that pure welfare handouts would act like a narcotic and destroy a person's initiative paid off as it benefited the worker and their community. In fact, paying wages put real money back into local communities and stimulated local economies and the broader market. To him, and many Americans, that was preferable than simply receiving handouts from the government.

So yes, FDR believed in the dignity of work. In fact, FDR expressed strong reservations about people being on welfare permanently. He believed that able-bodied Americans preferred earning their livelihood through productive labor.

FDR contended in the depths of the Great Depression that "The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief."

As for Socialism? Contrary to what Democrats today say, Social Security is not a Socialist program. In fact, FDR was against Socialism. FDR did not want Socialism in America. When he created the Social Security, he famously stated that his goal was to save the American Capitalist system -- not destroy it with a Socialist program.

Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed Social Security as a way to protect free-market Capitalism by easing economic insecurity. He did not see it as a step toward Socialism. In fact, FDR believed the Great Depression threatened the survival of American Capitalism. He saw extreme poverty among older adults as a major flaw in our free-market system. He designed the Social Security Act of 1935 to provide a safety net so free-market American Capitalism could survive.

FDR stated that government relief programs like Welfare, his recovery programs like the CCC and WPA, and his reform programs were tools to preserve the profit system -- not to replace it. He wanted to give workers basic protection against unemployment and old-age destitution. He believed that working class Americans would never surrender their personal freedoms to Socialism and Communism. He believe that working and earning a living, and not being a position to take temporary handouts from the government would prevent radical Leftist political movements from taking hold in America.

He actually viewed his New Deal as a practical path to get American back to work and combat state sponsored Socialism and Communism, and the unrest that comes with both of those evils. He viewed Socialism and Communism as authoritarian threats that stripped individual liberty. His aim was to neutralize them by eliminating the poverty that fueled their growth.

So don't let Socialists today attempt to re-write history. Don't let them tell you the opposite of what President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to do by putting Americans back to work.

FDR's New Deal was a deeply practical Capitalistic reform program designed to save the American economic system from collapsing into the extremism of Socialism and Communism. During the height of the Great Depression, with unemployment soaring past 20%. And yes, FDR recognized that widespread economic desperation was a breeding ground for social unrest.

He feared that if the federal government did not act decisively to get Americans back to work, citizens might turn to radical political alternatives like state-sponsored Socialism or Communism. So, instead of seeking to destroy American Capitalism, FDR argued that his New Deal was its savior.

By introducing federal jobs programs, stabilizing the banking sector, and establishing a social safety net, his administration aimed to fix the structural flaws of the free market so that authoritarian ideologies would lose their appeal. He did that because he knew that Socialism and Communism, and their totalitarian state control on the lives of those under such systems, would mean the end of our freedoms and nation as we know it.

Too bad Democrats today aren't more like FDR.

Tom Correa