FDRs policies harmed the US economy and prolonged the depression.
The conventional wisdom to the contrary is just more evil commie lies.
Here's the truth:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Forgotten-Man-History-Depression/dp/0066211700
Amity Shales wasn't there to see it ... I was, and my family was no friend of "King Franklin the first."
Things I remember are ...
Young men coming to our door to sell things their mother's cooked -- things (like fried corn meal mush) that my mother started cooking herself.
A wood carving drunk in a gully across the road from our house.
Hobo jungles, especially near railroad tracks, all around the country.
People looking for work everywhere.
Public high schools (still in use today) being built as part of WPA (Works Progress Administration) p[rograms.
John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" quite vividly tells of those days.
Roosevelt, in many ways, deserved that shrine my neighbors had.