ABSTRACT
As the paralysis of banking and destruction of credit was the most critical problem of the moment, on March 9 an Emergency Banking Act passed both houses of Congress and received the President’s signature in less than nine hours. It had the effect of switching on the current that had stopped in 1930. An issue of 2 million $1,000 Federal Reserve notes enabled banks to reopen under Treasury licenses and surveillance and brought gold and deposits flowing back into circulation. In what a London journal called a ‘lurch into State socialism’. Congress enacted fourteen other major bills before the middle of June. The laws most directly important to city dwellers were the Federal Emergency Relief Act which set up
143 a national relief system; the act establishing a Civilian Conservation Corps to take jobless boys and young men from the city streets and put them to work on the public domain; the Home Owners’ Loan Act providing refinancing of home mortgages; an act guaranteeing bank deposits; and the National Industrial Recovery Act which called for a $3·3 billion public works programme and a system of industrial self-government and collective bargaining under federal supervision.
