Final answer:
1937 was difficult for FDR due to a second Wall Street crash, rising unemployment, and opposition from the Supreme Court, critics, and the wealthy. FDR faced economic challenges and debates over policy response, ultimately adopting Keynesian deficit spending to aid recovery.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Troubles of 1937 for FDR
The year 1937 was a challenging one for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), marked by several events that tested his leadership. Initially, supporters of FDR believed that his New Deal policies had effectively ended the Great Depression.
However, this optimism was short-lived, as the fall of 1937 brought with it a wave of bad economic news, which included a dramatic Wall Street crash and a rise in unemployment figures to 18 percent. This signaled a reversal in the economic recovery that the United States had been experiencing.
In addition to the economic downturn, FDR also faced significant opposition from both inside and outside of the government. Critics included members of the Supreme Court, dissidents, demagogues, and those aligned with wealthy interests who were unsettled by his New Deal policies, particularly the Revenue Act of 1935 which introduced higher taxes.
Historians have debated the causes of the economic recession within the Depression, with some attributing it to fears of increased taxes, others to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, and Roosevelt himself blamed the pullback in federal spending on job relief programs. Eventually, FDR would adopt the Keynesian approach of deficit spending to stimulate the economy, which Congress supported through additional emergency relief in the spring of 1938.