ey belonged to the Democratic party. More immigrants were eligible to vote nationally in the 1930s than in the 1920s, and they did vote. A Republican Congress was supplanted with a Democrat one, and workers everywhere believed they were responsible (Cohen, 258). With a new president at the helm, ethnic workers were provided with federal relief programs that had once been given to them by their community (Cohen, 268). The center piece of the relief was Roosevelts New Deal.While Lizabeth Cohen portrayed the New Deal as successful, it should be noted that Barton Bernstein claimed otherwise. Roosevelts National Recovery Administration proffered legislation for minimum wages, maximum hours, and workers rights in order to form unions (Bernstein, 268, 3). The NRA legislation appeared extremely beneficial to workers on the face of it. Bernstien, however, believed the legislation did not supply workers with many advantages (Bernstein, 269, 2). According to Bernstein, the NRA favored businesses so much that it reaffirmed and consolidated their power at a time when the public was critical of industrialists and financiers (Bernstein, 269, 3). The New Deal aided the upper and middle class, but it provided tangential benefits to the lower class (Bernstein, 282, 1). Finally, unemployment was still over seven million in 1937; by 1939, it was nine million (Bernstein, 278, 1).Cohen took a different view of the New Deal. Jobs were created as a form of relief at first, but by 1935 the federal government was a permanent job provider (Cohen, 278). With the Republicans soundly defeated by Democrats in 1934, Congress started passing legislation that clearly favored workers. The National Labor Relations Act fully institutionalized the governments commitment to workers rights (Cohen, 302). The new National Labor Relations Board had the power to protect workers from being fired for joining unions.Bernstein thought the New Deal was inconsequential to the lower cla...
