Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World

by Liaquat Ahamed

Over the next three months—the celebrated “first hundred days”—Roosevelt bombarded Congress and the country with new legislation. On March 20, Congress passed the Economy Act, which cut the salaries of public employees by 15 percent, slashed department budgets by 25 percent, and cut almost a billion dollars in public expenditures. At the end of March, it approved the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps to employ young men in flood control, fire prevention, and the building of fences, roads, and bridges in rural areas. In the middle of May came the Emergency Relief Act and that same day Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act, designed to push agricultural prices higher by controlling production and reducing acreage. The Tennessee Valley Authority was set up to build dams and construct public power plants. The National Industrial Recovery Act was passed in the middle of June to permit price fixing. It also authorized $3.5 billion in public works programs. The Glass-Steagall Act, also passed in the middle of June, divorced commercial and investment banking and guaranteed bank deposits up to a maximum of $2,500, while the Truth-in-Securities Act established disclosure provisions to govern the issue of new securities.