Opposition to Roosevelt

Business Leaders:

They were unhappy about various aspects of the New Deal including:

• regulations on working conditions
• trade unions allowed to bargain collectively with employers on behalf of their members
• the huge cost of the welfare programmes (which came from taxes paid by Americans)

The States:

They were concerned about the New Deal because:

• measures such as the TVA cut right across the rights of individual states
• some states feared that the Federal Govenernment was becoming too powerful

Politicians:

• Republicans (not suprisingly) bitterly opposed the Democratic Roosevelt - They thought he was making the government too powerful and quashing the traditional reliance on self-help
• Even some conservative Democrats opposed him
• Some radicals in the USA, such as Huey Long, believed the New Deal did not go far enough

The Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court clashed with Roosevelt

• Its judges (mainly old and Republican) ruled that several of the New Deal measures were illegal
• Matters came to a head in 1937 when Roosevelt wanted to make some of his own supporters into Supreme Court judges. This plan failed, but afterwards Supreme Court opposition lessened