flaja
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I don’t know if this the proper sub-board for this; it is more politics in theory than it is politics in current events.
To the left Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented as being the founding father of modern liberalism. To the right Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented as an arch socialist who was hell-bent on effecting the country’s demise. Neither presentation seems to be entirely true. We have all been lied to for the sake of politics. We have allowed today’s politics to color our perception of the past. But it is absolute folly to project the politics of today onto the history of the past; both get mangled in the process.
It is amazing and alarming how the times have changed. All in all there was practically no partisan bickering during the 1930s- certainly nothing comparable to what the country had known before or has experienced since. The United States had a kinder, gentler politics in the 1930s. Then, as opposed to now, the parties were willing and able to put the country’s interests ahead of their own.
The Republicans of the 1930s (unlike the libertarians that have controlled the party since the 1970s) came from a pro-active government tradition that saw Republican support for the Homestead laws and the creation of the public school systems in the South during Reconstruction as well as protective tariffs, government subsidies to the railroad industry, trust busting and the income tax. Republicans of the 1930s did not oppose the New Deal on philosophical grounds. They may have opposed Roosevelt’s tactics and their failure to achieve their objective, but Republicans generally supported their objective- ending the Great Depression.
At the same time the Democrats were equally tame. They were groping in the dark, looking for their core political philosophy after finding themselves the dominant party again after eight decades in which they had won only four presidential elections (Cleveland and Wilson twice each). Not since the Era of Good Feelings that followed the end of the War of 1812 had national political factions been so united in a common cause.
America’s political parties are no longer united, and their disunion has given contemporary American a false view of the past which threatens the prospects for their future.
I have studied history, mainly American history, for almost as long as I have known how to read- over 35 years. My bachelor’s degree in biology comes with 40 credit hours in history. In all of my schooling and all of my reading (until now) I have never been given an accurate picture of FDR. I was foolish enough to fall for the left’s wishful thinking and the right’s empty rhetoric.
But, I have been reading Walter E. Leuchtenburg’s Franklin D. Roosevelt and The New Deal, and I am seeing FDR in an entirely new light.
1. FDR had no pre-conceived agenda when he received the Democrat Party’s 1932 presidential nomination. The term “new deal” was just something that Roosevelt used on the spur of the moment during his acceptance speech at the 1932 Democrat National Convention. During the campaign FDR complained about Herbert Hoover’s relief and recovery spending- similar to what Roosevelt himself eventually accepted. The New Deal was a hodge-podge of under-developed ideas and policies that FDR and his Brain Trust advisors put together between Election Day 1932 and Inauguration Day 1933. The American People in 1932 (much as they did in 1992 and 2008) elected someone who did not have any concrete policy goals. The New Deal, as embodied by the first hundred days of the congressional session in 1933, was more a reaction to current events (the bank crisis for example) than it was a concerted plan from Roosevelt. All in all several of the programs we now most associate with Roosevelt’s New Deal (ones that still have socio-economic and political implications today- FHA, unemployment insurance and Social Security) came from liberals in Congress and not Roosevelt.
2. Unlike Republicans and Democrats of recent decades FDR was a deficit hawk. He was not interested in budget-busting federal spending even at the cost of prolonging the Great Depression. And for the most part the American People were in no mood for deficits either. In the midst of the One Hundred Days Congress that approved, with astonishing speed, FDR’s first round of New Deal relief, recovery and reform programs in 1933 came the Economy Bill- legislation deigned to reduce federal spending by cutting veterans’ benefits and salaries for federal employees. There is no mention of the Economy Bill in my advanced placement American History text, Bailey et al’s The American Pageant, and liberals excoriate Hoover for having General MacArthur drive the Bonus Army out of D.C. In liberal academia FDR can do no wrong while anyone named Reagan or Bush can do no right. In comparison to Reagan, both Bushs and the Republican-controlled Congress from 1995 to 2007 FDR and the Democrats of the 1930s are the conservatives ones.
3. FDR was not the friend of labor that the left supposes him to be. Roosevelt did not like labor unions. He saw unions as the source of labor unrest and he believed that labor unrest would prevent economic recovery. Ronald Reagan may have been a union buster, but FDR would have preferred that unions were not established in the first place. The National Recovery Administration that was designed to promote economic cooperation rather than competition among American industrialists gave labor no concrete role in the process.
4. FDR was opposed to spending the money necessary to stimulate the economy. He didn’t entirely understand or trust Keynesian theory whereby government spending is supposed to stimulate the economy. Pumping money into the building industry would have had trickle-down effects throughout the economy that could have ended the Depression, but FDR was never willing to spend enough money to do it. And with the WPA, CWA and PWA all having the same purpose and each with an administrator that was more often than at loggerheads with the administrators of the other agencies there was so much infighting within FDR’s administration that the small amount of money that he was willing to spend to stimulate the economy didn’t stand a chance of being effective. In the long run Ronald Reagan was more of a Keynesian that Roosevelt was even though Reagan was supposed to be the champion of supply-side economics. Between increased welfare spending and his defense buildup Reagan spent money to stimulate the economy that Roosevelt never would have considered.
5. FDR was opposed to welfare spending as much for philosophical reasons as budgetary reasons. He (correctly) thought government handouts would encourage people to be lazy and unwilling to accept whatever jobs that may be available. Direct government payments to individuals during FDR’s administration were a pittance compared to what they become under Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Slick, Bush II and now Obama. The so-called liberal FDR was more opposed to the welfare state than any of his so-called conservative successors have been.
With this new and better understanding of FDR I have to wonder why the country put up with him and kept re-electing him when it was obvious that he either wouldn’t support policies that might have ended the Depression or didn’t know enough about economics to know what policies to support.
To the left Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented as being the founding father of modern liberalism. To the right Franklin D. Roosevelt is presented as an arch socialist who was hell-bent on effecting the country’s demise. Neither presentation seems to be entirely true. We have all been lied to for the sake of politics. We have allowed today’s politics to color our perception of the past. But it is absolute folly to project the politics of today onto the history of the past; both get mangled in the process.
It is amazing and alarming how the times have changed. All in all there was practically no partisan bickering during the 1930s- certainly nothing comparable to what the country had known before or has experienced since. The United States had a kinder, gentler politics in the 1930s. Then, as opposed to now, the parties were willing and able to put the country’s interests ahead of their own.
The Republicans of the 1930s (unlike the libertarians that have controlled the party since the 1970s) came from a pro-active government tradition that saw Republican support for the Homestead laws and the creation of the public school systems in the South during Reconstruction as well as protective tariffs, government subsidies to the railroad industry, trust busting and the income tax. Republicans of the 1930s did not oppose the New Deal on philosophical grounds. They may have opposed Roosevelt’s tactics and their failure to achieve their objective, but Republicans generally supported their objective- ending the Great Depression.
At the same time the Democrats were equally tame. They were groping in the dark, looking for their core political philosophy after finding themselves the dominant party again after eight decades in which they had won only four presidential elections (Cleveland and Wilson twice each). Not since the Era of Good Feelings that followed the end of the War of 1812 had national political factions been so united in a common cause.
America’s political parties are no longer united, and their disunion has given contemporary American a false view of the past which threatens the prospects for their future.
I have studied history, mainly American history, for almost as long as I have known how to read- over 35 years. My bachelor’s degree in biology comes with 40 credit hours in history. In all of my schooling and all of my reading (until now) I have never been given an accurate picture of FDR. I was foolish enough to fall for the left’s wishful thinking and the right’s empty rhetoric.
But, I have been reading Walter E. Leuchtenburg’s Franklin D. Roosevelt and The New Deal, and I am seeing FDR in an entirely new light.
1. FDR had no pre-conceived agenda when he received the Democrat Party’s 1932 presidential nomination. The term “new deal” was just something that Roosevelt used on the spur of the moment during his acceptance speech at the 1932 Democrat National Convention. During the campaign FDR complained about Herbert Hoover’s relief and recovery spending- similar to what Roosevelt himself eventually accepted. The New Deal was a hodge-podge of under-developed ideas and policies that FDR and his Brain Trust advisors put together between Election Day 1932 and Inauguration Day 1933. The American People in 1932 (much as they did in 1992 and 2008) elected someone who did not have any concrete policy goals. The New Deal, as embodied by the first hundred days of the congressional session in 1933, was more a reaction to current events (the bank crisis for example) than it was a concerted plan from Roosevelt. All in all several of the programs we now most associate with Roosevelt’s New Deal (ones that still have socio-economic and political implications today- FHA, unemployment insurance and Social Security) came from liberals in Congress and not Roosevelt.
2. Unlike Republicans and Democrats of recent decades FDR was a deficit hawk. He was not interested in budget-busting federal spending even at the cost of prolonging the Great Depression. And for the most part the American People were in no mood for deficits either. In the midst of the One Hundred Days Congress that approved, with astonishing speed, FDR’s first round of New Deal relief, recovery and reform programs in 1933 came the Economy Bill- legislation deigned to reduce federal spending by cutting veterans’ benefits and salaries for federal employees. There is no mention of the Economy Bill in my advanced placement American History text, Bailey et al’s The American Pageant, and liberals excoriate Hoover for having General MacArthur drive the Bonus Army out of D.C. In liberal academia FDR can do no wrong while anyone named Reagan or Bush can do no right. In comparison to Reagan, both Bushs and the Republican-controlled Congress from 1995 to 2007 FDR and the Democrats of the 1930s are the conservatives ones.
3. FDR was not the friend of labor that the left supposes him to be. Roosevelt did not like labor unions. He saw unions as the source of labor unrest and he believed that labor unrest would prevent economic recovery. Ronald Reagan may have been a union buster, but FDR would have preferred that unions were not established in the first place. The National Recovery Administration that was designed to promote economic cooperation rather than competition among American industrialists gave labor no concrete role in the process.
4. FDR was opposed to spending the money necessary to stimulate the economy. He didn’t entirely understand or trust Keynesian theory whereby government spending is supposed to stimulate the economy. Pumping money into the building industry would have had trickle-down effects throughout the economy that could have ended the Depression, but FDR was never willing to spend enough money to do it. And with the WPA, CWA and PWA all having the same purpose and each with an administrator that was more often than at loggerheads with the administrators of the other agencies there was so much infighting within FDR’s administration that the small amount of money that he was willing to spend to stimulate the economy didn’t stand a chance of being effective. In the long run Ronald Reagan was more of a Keynesian that Roosevelt was even though Reagan was supposed to be the champion of supply-side economics. Between increased welfare spending and his defense buildup Reagan spent money to stimulate the economy that Roosevelt never would have considered.
5. FDR was opposed to welfare spending as much for philosophical reasons as budgetary reasons. He (correctly) thought government handouts would encourage people to be lazy and unwilling to accept whatever jobs that may be available. Direct government payments to individuals during FDR’s administration were a pittance compared to what they become under Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Slick, Bush II and now Obama. The so-called liberal FDR was more opposed to the welfare state than any of his so-called conservative successors have been.
With this new and better understanding of FDR I have to wonder why the country put up with him and kept re-electing him when it was obvious that he either wouldn’t support policies that might have ended the Depression or didn’t know enough about economics to know what policies to support.
