Quiz for Sources for America’s History, Chapter 23

Question

1. In his 1933 letter to Senator Simeon D. Fess (Document 23-1), outgoing president Herbert Hoover expressed considerable alarm over which of the following elements of Franklin Roosevelt’s plans for the future?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Correct. The answer is d. Hoover expressed considerable alarm over Roosevelt’s plan to engage in deficit spending to support legislation such as public works programs, loans to municipalities, and federal assumptions of mortgages. Hoover made clear that a balanced budget was a high priority during his administration, and he insisted that widespread fear about Roosevelt’s policies had precipitated a resurgent economic depression.
Incorrect. The answer is d. Hoover expressed considerable alarm over Roosevelt’s plan to engage in deficit spending to support legislation such as public works programs, loans to municipalities, and federal assumptions of mortgages. Hoover made clear that a balanced budget was a high priority during his administration, and he insisted that widespread fear about Roosevelt’s policies had precipitated a resurgent economic depression.

Question

2. In his March 1933 Inaugural Address (Document 23-2), newly elected Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt laid out his ideas about the causes of the Great Depression and his broad approach to ending it. Based on this address, Americans would likely have expected his approach to solving the economic crisis to include

A.
B.
C.
D.

Correct. The answer is c. Roosevelt’s speech prepared his listeners to expect the expansion of government regulation of businesses and banking and the creation of new programs that would help those Americans who were suffering as a result of the economic crisis.
Incorrect. The answer is c. Roosevelt’s speech prepared his listeners to expect the expansion of government regulation of businesses and banking and the creation of new programs that would help those Americans who were suffering as a result of the economic crisis.

Question

3. Senator Huey Long’s popular proposals for economic reform in the United States, as exemplified by his 1934 radio speech “Every Man a King” (Document 23-3), pushed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration to adopt which of the following pieces of legislation?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Correct. The answer is b. Huey Long’s popular proposals to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth in America pushed the Roosevelt administration to the left, leading it to adopt the Revenue Act of 1935, which proposed a substantial tax increase on corporate profits and higher income and estate taxes on the wealthy. It also responded to Long’s popularity by creating the Social Security Act of 1935, which created a national old-age pension, unemployment compensation, and a payment program for widowed mothers, the blind, the deaf, and the disabled.
Incorrect. The answer is b. Huey Long’s popular proposals to tax the rich and redistribute the wealth in America pushed the Roosevelt administration to the left, leading it to adopt the Revenue Act of 1935, which proposed a substantial tax increase on corporate profits and higher income and estate taxes on the wealthy. It also responded to Long’s popularity by creating the Social Security Act of 1935, which created a national old-age pension, unemployment compensation, and a payment program for widowed mothers, the blind, the deaf, and the disabled.

Question

4. The photograph of Works Progress Administration (WPA) participants at work in Michigan in 1939 (Document 23-4) provides evidence to support which of the following conclusions?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Correct. The answer is d. The Works Progress Administration was an innovative public works program that employed construction workers and others who built miles of road, thousands of bridges, and hundreds of buildings. The program also employed artists, writers, and intellectuals.
Incorrect. The answer is d. The Works Progress Administration was an innovative public works program that employed construction workers and others who built miles of road, thousands of bridges, and hundreds of buildings. The program also employed artists, writers, and intellectuals.

Question

5. Why, according to John L. Lewis (Document 23-5), were the major steel companies in the United States so firmly committed to opposing the unionization of steel workers?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Correct. The answer is a. John Lewis argued that the steel companies resisted unionization efforts because they wanted to maintain the old system of finance capitalism in which workers
Incorrect. The answer is a. John Lewis argued that the steel companies resisted unionization efforts because they wanted to maintain the old system of finance capitalism in which workers “serve[d] as indentured servants for a financial and economic dictatorship which would shamelessly exploit our natural resources and debase the soul and destroy the pride of a free people.” In other words, the steel companies wanted to retain their political and economic power and control every aspect of production, rather than giving workers a fair share of the profits and a say in the decisions that affected their work lives.

Question

6. According to Martha Gelhorn in Document 23-6, what was one of the main challenges that the government faced during the New Deal era?

A.
B.
C.
D.

Correct. The answer is d. Gelhorn does mention the lack of education as being a serious issue, but only in regard to the low wages that accompanied the lack of educational opportunities. She was more distressed by the lack of access to proper nutrition, healthcare, and birth control, which had resulted in “a serf class which seems to me to be in as bad a state of degeneration maybe, in this area, worse than the low class European who has learned self-protection through centuries of hardship.”
Incorrect. The answer is d. Gelhorn does mention the lack of education as being a serious issue, but only in regard to the low wages that accompanied the lack of educational opportunities. She was more distressed by the lack of access to proper nutrition, healthcare, and birth control, which had resulted in “a serf class which seems to me to be in as bad a state of degeneration maybe, in this area, worse than the low class European who has learned self-protection through centuries of hardship.”