flationary measure hurt purchasing power. FDR concluded his early program by securing legalization of beer of 3.2% alcoholic content by weight. By the end of 1933, ratification of the 21st Amendment to the U. S. Constitution had ended prohibition altogether. A series of measures took the nation off the gold standard, thereby offering some assistance to debtors and exporters. He also got Congress to appropriate $500 million in federal relief grants to states and local agencies. Harry Hopkins, who headed the newly created Federal Emergency Relief Administration, quickly spent the money. By early 1935 he had supervised the outlay of $1.5 billion more in direct grants, and in work relief under the Civil Works Administration (CWA) of 1933-1934.The early New Deal also sponsored reform measures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) came primarily from congressional initiative. By insuring deposits, it helped to prevent ruinous runs on banks. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), created in 1934, made a cautious beginning toward regulation of the stock exchanges. Roosevelt worked successfully for three significant acts passed in 1935. One, a relief appropriation, led to creation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA disbursed some $11 billion in work relief to as many as 3.2 million Americans a month between 1935 and 1942. The second measure, the Wagner Act, set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which effectively guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with management. In part because of the Wagner Act, in part because of overdue militance by spokesmen for industrial unionism, the labor movement swelled in the 1930's and 1940's. The third reform was social security. The law provided for federal payment of old-age pensions and for federal-state cooperation in support of unemployment compensation and relief of the needy blind, of the disabled, and of dependent childre...
