by Studs Terkel
I thought I came out fairly well on it. I was due to go back two days later. The next morning I picked up the Washington Post, and here’s a front page story: “Baldwin Criticized by Roosevelt for Paying Poll Taxes.” Jesus. I knew something had gone wrong. Roosevelt was opposed to the poll tax.
But I knew a guy who was interested in the poll tax question and had entrée to the White House. I said, “Go see Steve Early 110 and get this message to the President. He’s completely misunderstanding what we’re doing.” He rushed down.
I was back on the stand. And, boy, Byrd was just beamin’! He had me locked. He started out: “Mr. Baldwin, I have a story in the Washington Post of yesterday morning saying Roosevelt is opposed to the things you are doing, paying poll taxes.” In the meantime, I’m filibustering—took forty minutes with another statement—hoping that guy would show up from the White House. I knew the President was calling a press conference at ten-thirty. I heard a rustle in the back of the room—the place was jammed. This was the hottest story in town. The guy rushed up with a little sheet of paper and handed it to me.
Byrd was really at it now—the President had criticized me and said that I must desist from this activity at once. So I cleared my throat (laughs), and I said: “Senator Byrd, I’ve just been advised that the President in his press conference, only thirty minutes ago, completely supported my position on poll taxes.” Well, my Senator from Virginia was the most miserable looking character you’ve ever seen. (Laughs.)
Oh, the harassment was constant. It was a colossal job, reorganizing the Resettlement Administration, getting all the agencies to mesh and run smoothly. I had a good staff. But I also knew, in order to save it, we had to have a pretty good people’s lobby.
We were under fire in Alabama. Senator Bankhead, Tallulah’s uncle, was pretty conservative, but he liked the agency and was quite friendly. He said, “We’re in real trouble in Alabama. I’ve got fifteen letters, all my supporters, sayin’ the Farm Security Administration should be abolished. Important men.” He looked at me and sort of smiled: “Beanie, what are you gonna do about it?” I said, “Give me two days.”
I called our regional director in Alabama and asked him to get all the county supervisors to call all their political friends and get some letters to Senator Bankhead. And I said, “I think you ought to get in at least three thousand letters. Have most of ‘em written in pencil. It don’t matter what they say, just from the people that we’re helpin’ ’em.”
About ten days went by and Senator Bankhead called me. (Laughs.) He had a little stack of letters, about so high, in opposition. And stacks of letters about this high. (Laughs.) He said, “For God’s sake, stop these letters. We’re safe.” (Laughs.)
Under Baldwin’s administration of the FSA, photographers were employed to take pictures, showing the plight of the rural poor. Among the people involved were Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn and Margaret Bourke-White. “I had to cover up a lot of this—even though we were payin’ ’em peanuts—because you know what a reactionary Congressman would say: ‘Here are these bastards wasting my money. Why are they sending people out to take photographs.’
“We ended up with over a hundred thousand of these photographs. Along about 1940, I had become the most controversial person in the Department of Agriculture. Congress was after me. Because of these projects and because I was a protégé of Tugwell. I knew we weren’t going to get by much longer. The only thing we wanted to do was to save these negatives… .
“Roy Stryker111 got in touch with Archibald MacLeish, who understood the importance of this. He agreed. So we moved all the films quietly into a safe storage space. When MacLeish became Librarian of Congress, we were able to get them in there, where they will always be.
“I think our most lasting contribution was this collection of photographs. I think it more effectively dramatized the plight of poor people than anything else done in thirty years. It was accidental. We just happened to hit on the medium… .”
Pare Lorentz’s two documentary films, The Plow That Broke The Plains and The River, were produced under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration. Again, controversy. “We couldn’t get into many movie houses at first. Finally we got into a lot of ’em.”
The Depression lessened, but it never really ended until the war. The New Deal was never enough. Looking back, it was a pretty conservative effort. Rex Tugwell once said to me, “Beanie, we were pikers.” I’d ask for $800 million, we’d get a couple of hundred million, and we thought we did pretty well. Today, with our war budget….
When Roosevelt’s death came, the New Deal was dead as far as I was concerned. I have nothing against Truman, but he simply wasn’t up to it. Morgenthau was forced out.112 Ickes was forced out. Wallace was fired. It was a whole new game of cards. At this point, my fascination with Government was gone.
James A. Farley
Postmaster General during Roosevelt’s first two Administrations. He had been F.D.R.’s campaign manager in the elections of 1932 and 1936.
In 1928, Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York by less than 30,000 votes. 113 In 1930, “I was chairman of the Democratic State Committee and conducted his campaign for re-election, and he carried the Governorship by 750,000 votes.”
On the wall, facing his desk, is a large portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt —youthful, vigorous.
He glances up at the photograph… .
IT BRINGS BACK the last discussion I had with him. I urged him not to run for the third term. I predicted he was in for rough going. The world was in a bad way. He’d break a tradition that shouldn’t be broken—that had existed from Washington’s time. And he wasn’t getting any younger. I predicted that he’d run for a fourth time. I just told him I thought that, if he won, he’d even run for a fifth time. I broke with him on the issue, of course.
I felt very keenly about it. He just didn’t think anybody else was big enough to be President. And that’s not said unkindly. He did not like to give up power, let’s put it that way.
In 1936, I was more optimistic than he was. I predicted he’d carry every state but two: Maine and Vermont. I coined a slogan then: There used to be a phrase: “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” The day after election, at a press conference, I said, “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”
I went across the country for him in 1931, starting about June 18, if my memory serves me correctly. All by train. I was gone about twenty-odd nights, and I was on the train eighteen nights. When you’d get up in the morning, the sheets were covered with coal dust. It was hot, no air-conditioning. Pretty tough going.
As the train stopped for refueling, say, at Grand Island, Nebraska, or Pocatello, Idaho, I’d get off and walk around the station platform. I’d talk with the railroad men and the others. They didn’t know who I was. I’d ask them who they thought was the best man for the Democrats to nominate, and could he win, and so on.
I wrote Mr. Roosevelt a letter—I don’t know if it was from Portland or Seattle—in which I said that nearly every Governor I met was a candidate for Vice-President because they were sure he could win.
It’s one of those things. You go riding around town and talk to taxi drivers and other people, you can go into lunchrooms. The information is not always accurate, but the sentiment is obvious.
People wanted a change. Unemployment. And then, Prohibition. Arthur Brisbane, who was a great reporter for Hearst, supposedly a very astute newspaperman—and I’m sure he was—made this statement in the lobby of the Congress Hotel in Chicago: What difference does it make what plank the Democrats put in their platform? The Eighteenth Amendment won’t be repealed during the lifetime of any person attending this convention. This was in July of ‘32. It was repealed early in December of’33. Goes to show you how fast public opinion moves.
Mr. Roosevelt showed great leadership. He surrounded himself—one of the best men he had around him in those days was Ray Moley. I was sorry that relationship was broken. And it wasn’t Moley’s faul
t, see.
I felt those fellas around Roosevelt—he told me in 1940 that the people around the White House thought he was the only one who could win. I looked at him and said, “Mr. President, you know damn well that they want their jobs, and if you don’t run again, they won’t be around here the day after the inauguration.” I said: “Hull114 can make a better race than you can, because the third term won’t enter into it.” Hull was strong, according to the polls.
Very few Presidents have people around them who talk up to them. If they do, they’re not around very long. Moley talked up to him, and so did I, at cabinet meetings and otherwise.
I never knew about the court packing, until I read it in the paper. The Evening Telegram, that afternoon, the early edition. I wasn’t in Washington when he called the cabinet together. I didn’t happen to get down to the meeting. So I saw him a few days later. I said, “Why the hell’d you call that meeting without letting me know?” He said, “Well, I tried to get word to you, but it was understood you were in New York and I couldn’t reach you.” I said, “You probably figured I’d be against it.” And he said, “Not necessarily.” (Laughs.) It was a mistake. But I did make speeches in favor of the court bill, because I was a member of the Administration.
They say that Roosevelt in ’32 saved our society… .
He saved our free enterprise system, he saved the banks, he saved the insurance companies. There ain’t any doubt but what Roosevelt in those first hundred days … this was a tremendous job.
What do you think would have happened if he hadn’t been elected … if his New Deal legislation had not been enacted?
God only knows. I remember, during the inauguration period, you couldn’t get a check cashed in Washington. The hotels were afraid to cash a check, so many banks were failing. During the week of inauguration, Roosevelt closed all the banks and then gave orders to move as quickly as they could to open what were known to be definitely solvent banks. A quick survey. They didn’t lose any time.
If a Depression came on us today, would the attitude of people be different?
The attitude of people today is bad enough even though they’re gainfully employed. It’s difficult for me to understand the attitude of youth. I never went to college, but I’d proceed on the theory that if you’re not satisfied, resign and go to some other college. If I was a student at Columbia now, I wouldn’t be dissenting out around and causing a lot of trouble. I’d go to a college where I thought the conditions were ones under which I could labor and graduate and get the education I sought. That’s an old-fashioned idea, but that’s the way I feel.
What are your memories concerning Mrs. Roosevelt?
I had a very fine relationship with her. She sought my help on many occasions and I tried to help her. She was well-intentioned. Despite what may have been said to the contrary, she never interfered with my political activities at all. She’d ask me for my advice and pass on some suggestions, and I’d accept them or reject them. We never had any difficulties.
She really was very kindly disposed toward me. After I left the Government, friends of mine would see her, and she’d always say that Franklin—referring to him the way she did—didn’t handle my situation properly.
The only thing that annoyed her is what I had in my book.115 I quoted her as saying that President Roosevelt was ill at ease with a person who was not his social equal. Well, he was a snob. We’re all snobs. We’re all kinds of snobs, see. Unknowingly, he talked down to others. A lot of them resented it.
You see, he was raised in that kind of patrician society where they looked over their noses. He didn’t realize it. He never thanked me for anything I ever did for him. When he was. elected Governor, he wrote me. But after that, he never wrote me or thanked me for anything. And I did a lot of things. It never affected my relationship with him. I wouldn’t let it. Up to the third term, it was as fine a relationship as ever existed between two men. I was sorry it broke up that way.
Joe Marcus
An economist, he had worked in the New Deal days on a Harry Hopkins project: a study of the effect of technology on re-employment opportunities … “in other words, why the stickiness of unemployment.
“In ‘39, you still had over ten million unemployed, out of a labor supply of forty million. You’re talking about twenty-five percent of the population. In ’36, there were fifteen million unemployed, if not more. Industrial production came back to the ‘29 level around ’37, just for a few months. Then it slid off into the Depression again.
“The New Deal starts wondering about problems. Maybe it’s monopoly, maybe it’s technology. That’s the work I got involved in.”
I THINK it was-‘31 or ’32. I was attending the City College of New York. Most were students whose parents were workers or small businessmen hit by the Depression. In the public speaking class, I was called upon to talk about unemployment insurance. I was attacked by most of the students … this was Socialism. I was shocked by their vehemence. If I remember, the American Federation of Labor at its national convention voted it down. The idea of social security was very advanced. Those who were really hungry wanted something. But the intellectuals, the students, the bureaucratic elements—to them it was a horrible thought. It was something subversive. At first.
But they learned quickly. It was a shock to them. When Roosevelt came out with the ideas, it was not a clearly thought-out program. There was much improvisation. What you had was a deep-seated emotional feeling as far as the people were concerned. A willingness to change society, just out of outrage, out of need. I think they would have accepted even more radical ideas.
Roosevelt was reflecting the temper of the time—the emotional more than the intellectual. It wasn’t merely a question of the king bestowing favors. The pressure from below was a reality. It was not a concentrated campaign effort. There was no organization with a program that commanded the majority of the people. This was part of the political strangeness of our society. The actions below were very revolutionary. Yet some of the ideas of the people, generally, were very backward.
I graduated college in ‘35. I went down to Washington and started to work in the spring of ’36. The New Deal was a young man’s world. Young people, if they showed any ability, got an opportunity. I was a kid, twenty-two or twenty-three. In a few months I was made head of the department. We had a meeting with hot shots: What’s to be done? I pointed out some problems: let’s define what we’re looking for. They immediately had me take over. I had to set up the organization and hire seventy-five people. Given a chance as a youngster to try out ideas, I learned a fantastic amount. The challenge itself was great.
It was the idea of being asked big questions. The technical problems were small. These you had to solve by yourself. But the context was broad: Where was society going? Your statistical questions became questions of full employment. You were not prepared for it in school. If you wanted new answers, you needed a new kind of people. This is what was exciting.
Ordinarily, I might have had a job at the university, marking papers or helping a professor. All of a sudden, I’m doing original research and asking basic questions about how our society works. What makes a Depression? What makes for pulling out of it? Once you start thinking in these terms, you’re in a different ball game.
The climate was exciting. You were part of a society that was on the move. You were involved in something that could make a difference. Laws could be changed. So could the conditions of people.
The idea of being involved close to the center of political life was unthinkable, just two or three years before all this happened. Unthinkable for someone like me, of lower middle-class, close to ghetto, Jewish life. Suddenly you were a significant member of society. It was not the kind of closed society you had lived in before.
You weren’t in the situation kids are in today, where you’re confronted with a consensus of hopelessness … unless you just break things up. You were really part of something, changes could be made. Bringing immediate resu
lts to people who were starving. You could do something about it: that was the most important thing. This you felt.
A feeling that if you had something to say, it would get to the top. As I look back now, memoranda I had written reached the White House, one way or another. The biggest thrill of my life was hearing a speech of Roosevelt’s, using a selection from a memorandum I had written.
Everybody was searching for ideas. A lot of guys were opportunists, some were crackpots. But there was a search, a sense of values … that would make a difference in the lives of people.
We weren’t thinking of remaking society. That wasn’t it. I didn’t buy this dream stuff. What was happening was a complete change in social attitudes at the central government level. The question was: How can you do it within this system? People working in all the New Deal agencies were dominated by this spirit.
There was the old government bureaucracy that could not administer the new programs. Roosevelt, who was criticized for being a bad administrator, made a great deal of sense out of this. There were weaknesses, but the point is if you wanted to get jobs for people in a hurry, as in WPA, you had to find new people with the spirit, with the drive.
At one stage, Harry Hopkins met with his staff, a lot of people, in a huge auditorium. He explained they’d have to work day and night to get this particular job done. He asked for volunteers, who would start off tonight and work straight through. Practically everybody in the auditorium raised their hands. Youth and fervor.
Normally, administrative people were much older. But even the young of the old bureaucracy were stodgy. They came to work, left their jobs when the day was over, went out for their lunches…. Frankly, they didn’t work very hard and knocked off whenever they could. What right-wingers say about Government employees was very true in many cases.
The New Dealers were different. I’m not only talking about policy people. I’m talking about the clerks, who felt what they were doing was important. You didn’t take time out for lunch because of a job that had to be done. You had a sandwich on the desk. Their job made sense…. Of course, I’m romanticizing somewhat, but there was still this difference.
