ABSTRACT
The Franklin Roosevelt administration was the first in American history that set about to rout a depression through direct governmental action—to rescue the federal government, the states, business and industry, agriculture, and the people from the economic prostration which menaced the whole of American society. In Roosevelt the voters had chosen the most crisis-minded public figure in American history, a man who thrived on crises, emergencies, dangers, perils, and panics. Taken as a whole, the dozen or so important, statutes enacted in the special session constitute the largest single instance of delegated power in American history. It is important to remember that, whatever has happened since 1933, this first batch of New Deal delegating statutes consisted of strictly emergency measures; both the President and Congress were in agreement that it was temporary power that was thus sweepingly delegated. In brief, the crisis government of 1933 was marked by an unprecedented breakdown of the constitutional barriers separating Congress and the President.
