Roosevelt began office when America was scared and extremely panicked. A very famous passage by Arthur Schlesinger about the mood before FDR took office reads as follows:
It was now a matter of seeing whether a representative democracy could conquer economic collapse. It was a matter of staving off violence - even, some though - revolution.
Rather like incoming President Obama, FDR's first job was to try and stabilise a very instable economy. The day after his speech (March 5) he declared a bank holiday, closing the banks until stability could be regained.
He also got the "Emergency Banking Bill" through Congress very easily, and, the soundest banks reopened on March 12, and quickly regained stability.
Hoover had allowed two previous bank panics to continue uninterrupted, which had provoked economic disaster - and, understandably, Roosevelt's intervention hugely aided his reputation and popularity.
Roosevelt's "New Deal" next set about to provide money and relief for the poorest citizens, and to stabilise the nation's economy so that it could withstand panics again in the future. In his first 100 days, he submitted a huge number of bills to Congress, mainly aimed at providing relief to the poor, all of which passed.
These included the creation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
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