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1932 › Norman Thomas (Socialist) › Federal responsibility for relief
A $5 billion federal appropriation for immediate relief of those in need
pledge_forwardspecific_pledgeparty_platformevidence B Relief, Welfare & Social Insurance⚡ The Great Depression similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Federal appropriation of $5,000,000,000 for immediate relief to supplement state and local appropriations.
Rationale
'A country that is rich enough to provide $2,000,000,000 to help a few thousand bankers ... can surely not be heard to plead poverty when it is asked to provide food and work for 8,000,000 jobless workers'; 'every citizen willing to work has the right to live.'
Evidence B: the platform text is archived only as contemporary newspaper OCR (Milwaukee Leader, the Socialist daily) and Levinson's New Leader summary, not the official platform document.
Statements (3)
We hold that every citizen will ing to work has the right to live: that in any enlightened community this right must be guaranteed by the government
Hillquit, national chairman, on the ticket's NBC broadcast.
A plank demanding a federal ap propriation of $5,000,000,000 for im mediate relief for those in need to supplement state and local appro priations was passed today, as the Socialist national convention con tinued its sessions for drafting a platform today.
The convention placed at the head of its national program federal appropriations of $5 billion for immediate unemployment relieve, and of another $5 billion for public works construction
Follow-through
not_applicable
Thomas received 2.2 percent of the vote; the Socialist program could not be tested in office. Federal relief on a large scale — FERA's $500 million grants, then the CWA and WPA — was enacted by Roosevelt, at roughly a tenth of the Socialist figure at first.
Enacted by others
| 1933-05-12 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | statute Federal Emergency Relief Act | source |
Other positions on this issue
- States' rights and business-led recovery — no federal intervention in relief — Albert C. Ritchie, 1932 directional_stance
- Federal leadership in distress relief — federal credit to states whose resources are exhausted — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 specific_pledge
- Relief through voluntary mobilization and local responsibility, with RFC loans to exhausted states — no federal dole — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
1932-thomas-five-billion-federal-relief · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed