velt passed laws to protect stock market investors, helped finance troubled banks, and gave jobs to the young. He also assisted farmers in selling their crops at higher prices, gave aid to homeowners so that they could pay their mortgages provided affordable electricity to the poor who needed it the most, and stimulated the dying union and businesses. Roosevelt did in months what Hoover couldn't do in years. The new President way of doing things was definitely appealing to the American people. The true test on how well Roosevelt was doing came in 1934 when it was time for the congressional elections. The Democratic party gained twenty seats in the House and the Senate, and now held a majority in forty-one out of the forty-eight states. During the next three months, Roosevelt passed laws to create new jobs, shifted the relief effort from the federal government back to the states, and provided homes or loans to those who had lost their housing. He also helped the development of the unions, raised the taxes of the wealthy, and made Social Security become a reality. The President was convinced that the only way to provide a sufficient number of new jobs was if the government hired huge numbers of people to work for it. Roosevelt started the Work Progress Administration (WPA), an organization that made plans to build airports, hospitals, schools, parks, and highways, among other things. Approximately 8.5 million people were hired to work on more than 1.4 million projects. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had truly done what the American people so desperately needed. He helped save the United States from the worst and most devastating depression in the history of the nation. He had become a national hero, and grew to be so popular that he won the election of 1936 by an even greater majority than the previous one. When the United States entered World War II, unemployment nearly disappeared. Industries became busy again trying to keep up with th...
