# NRA we do our part **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 25, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911 "2005-10-25T23:36:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jeffr062](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f04885/32.png) [@Jeffr062](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeffr062)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911/1 "2005-10-25T23:36:12Z")
I collect stamps and recently bought a bunch of odds and ends. Included were a bunch of labels from the NRA (National Recovery Act). The NRA was part of FDR’s New Deal. I cant find an on line pic but it has NRA in red letters and underneath is an eagle clutching a gear and electric bolts and underneath that is the slogan “WE DO OUR PART” My question is, what does “we do our part” entail? It’s an odd slogan. Did you have to pay extra taxes or something? Drop a line if you can help clear this up. ``` Jeffro ``` ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911/2 "2005-10-25T23:50:13Z")
[Here’s an article on the NRA and the blue eagle](http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues99/may99/object_may99.html). ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911/3 "2005-10-25T23:51:19Z")
Here’s what I found. It’s not much, just an article from [American Heritage Magazine](http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1986/1/1986_1_24.shtml) about what we all should know > [@](#): > > 12 WE DO OUR PART > The motto of NRA, the New Deal National Recovery Administration, was used in conjunction with the famous Blue Eagle emblem to identify the products of companies that had adopted NRA codes of fair business practices. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911/4 "2005-10-26T02:51:43Z")
From the article cited by Anne Neville: > [@](#): > > [NRA Director General Johnson] persuaded FDR to approve a voluntary “blanket code” that businesses and industries could sign as an interim measure until individual codes could be negotiated and then signed by the President. The code would waive antitrust laws for any business that agreed to abolish child labor and institute a minimum wage of from $12 to $15 a week… > > To promote the NRA, Johnson decided he needed some kind of symbol “designed for visibility and uniqueness,” as he put it. The result was the image of a Blue Eagle patterned after the thunderbird ideogram used by the Navajo Indians. Any business that signed a blanket code was entitled to display the blue bird logo and its motto, “We Do Our Part,” with pride… [T]he Blue Eagle of the NRA seemed destined to become an enduring sign of the times. > > For a while, there was no escaping the bird. Towns all over the country got on the Blue Eagle bandwagon. A hundred thousand schoolchildren clustered on Boston Common and were led in an oath administered by Mayor James Michael Curley: “I promise as a good American citizen to do my part for the NRA. I will buy only where the Blue Eagle flies.” … In Philadelphia, citizens were soon cheering for a new professional football team whose name was inspired by the general’s icon… In Roanoke, North Carolina, “Shanghai Mickey” offered Blue Eagle tattoos for a mere 50 cents. In Atlantic City, beauty contestants had the Blue Eagle stamped on their thighs. > > Big Hollywood studios signed up, too. The Blue Eagle soon could be seen “at a theater near you,” not only in newsreels but sometimes even in the feature film itself. In the Warner Bros. musical Footlight Parade, starring singer Ruby Keeler, a chorus line using flash cards flips up a portrait of Roosevelt before marching into formation to create a huge NRA eagle… > > For a while it all seemed to work. By the beginning of September 1933, more than two million businesses had signed blanket codes and collected their Blue Eagles. In spite of all the hoopla, though, the NRA was in trouble, the butt of savage criticism from political conservatives and business people… > > [T]the NRA was still floundering when the Supreme Court stepped in. On May 27, 1935, it ruled that the code system was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the executive branch of the government, and the NRA, reduced to a shadow agency, soon vanished, taking the blue eagle with it. That decision was one of the things that turned people against the Supreme Court, and which gave Roosevelt the impression that the electorate wouldn’t mind if he packed it (He was wrong, of course). Arthur Schlesinger Jr’s analysis was that the program had already done what good it was capable of by mid 1935 anyway, but its being struck down created an impetus for Congress to act to pass progressive legislation. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911/5 "2005-10-26T09:50:21Z")
some years ago I saw a print of a Marx Bros. movie on TV late at night that still had the ‘NRA We Do Our Part’ logo at the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nra-we-do-our-part/327911/6 "2005-10-26T12:34:59Z")
In **Footlight Parade** , the sailors in Busby Berkeley “Shanghai Lil” number line up to form the NRA blue eagle on screen. It was a popular program, though ultimately declared unconstitutional.