Archive Report
Archive Report
Expansion of Federal Business Activities During Depression
Federal efforts to combat the depression have expanded the business activities of the government, inevitably increasing the area of competition with private business. The freezing of bank assets in the spring of 1933 and the cautious policies pursued by bankers since that time have led the government to extend one type of credit after another until it now occupies a position of dominance in the field of finance. The development of water power projects to serve as “yardsticks” by which to measure the fairness of private utility rates, the launching of a vast social experiment in the Tennessee Valley, and the purchase and processing of surplus goods for distribution to the unemployed have embarked federal agencies upon widely ...