Nothing to Fear

by Adam Cohen

  11 Whiting, Final Statistical Report, p. iii; Doris Carothers, Chronology of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration: May 12, 1933, to December 31, 1935 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1937) p. 7; Singleton, The American Dole, pp. 112-13, 116; Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Manufactures, United States Senate, 72nd Congress, Second Session, on S. 5125, Pt. 1, January 3 to 17, 1933, p. 89, in Hopkins Papers, Box 42; Brock, Welfare, Democracy, and the New Deal, pp. 98, 175, 191-92; Williams, Federal Aid for Relief, p. 96; Folsom, America Before Welfare, p. 334.

  12 “Conference of Governors and State Relief Executives at the Mayflower Hotel,” Speeches and Articles, 1933-36, Hopkins Papers; “Federal Emergency Relief Administration,” Press Release, June 7, 1933, OF 444 FERA, FDR Library; Monthly Report of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, OF 444 FERA, FDR Library; FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 237-41; New York Times, 6/14/33; New York Times, 6/15/33.

  13 Whiting, Final Statistical Report, pp. 19-21, 59-73; Carothers, Chronology, pp. 13-15, 19-20; Memorandum to Governors and State Relief Administrators, August 19, 1933, Hopkins Papers, Box 22; Works Progress Administration, Washington, p. 1039; Schwartz, Civil Works Administration, p. 129; Hopkins, Spending to Save, pp. 126-27.

  14 Whiting, Final Statistical Report, pp. 19-20, 59-73; Carothers, Chronology, pp. 13-15; Brock, Welfare, Democracy, and the New Deal, p. 178; Schwartz, Civil Works Administration, p. 129; Hopkins, Spending to Save, pp. 126-27; Folsom, America Before Welfare, p. 239.

  15 Carothers, Chronology, pp. 3-4; Whiting, Final Statistical Report, pp. 8-9; “Address by Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief Administrator, Before the National Conference of Social Work at Detroit, Michigan,” June 17, 1933, Speeches, 1933-36, Hopkins Papers, Box 9; Frances Perkins, “The People Mattered,” Survey Midmonthly, February 1946; Schwartz, Civil Works Administration, p. 43; Bernstein, A Caring Society, p. 32.

  16 Schwartz, Civil Works Administration, pp. 129, 132-33; 135-39; Time, 2/19/34.

  17 Lowitt and Beasley, One Third of a Nation, pp. 19, 28-29, 62, 150; John F. Bauman and Thomas H. Coode, In the Eye of the Great Depression: New Deal Reporters and the Agony of the American People (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1988) pp. 17-16.

  18 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 53-54.

  19 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 187.

  20 Hopkins, Spending to Save, p. 107.; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, p. 55.

  21 Tugwell, Diary, p. 411; J. Hopkins, Sudden Hero, p. 163.

  22 Tugwell, Diary, p. 411; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, p. 55; Collier’s, 11/9/35; Whiting, Final Statistical Report, p. iii; Carter, New Dealers, pp. 181-84; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, p. 140.

  23 Walter Lippmann, “Today and Tomorrow,” New York Herald Tribune, 3/7/33; Kennedy, Banking Crisis, pp. 103-28, 209, 213; Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan (New York: Grove Press, 1990), p. 356; New York Times, 3/1/33.

  24 Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 240; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 316, 319; Smith, FDR, pp. 331-32; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 441-43; Kennedy, Banking Crisis, pp. 203-5, 208-9, 212-13; New York Times, 6/14/33; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, pp. 137, 139-40.

  25 Kennedy, Banking Crisis, pp. 214-17; Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, pp. 60- 61; New York Times, 6/25/33.

  26 Moley, First New Deal, p. 319; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 441-43, Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, pp. 240-42; Press Conference, April 12, 1933, Complete Presidential Press Conferences; Time, 6/5/33; Kennedy, Banking Crisis, p. 219; New York Times, 6/7/33; New York Times, 6/14/33, 6/25/1933.

  27 Moley, First New Deal, pp. 170, 316-17, 320; Friedman and Schwartz, Monetary History of the United States, p. 434; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 443-44; Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, p. 444; lckes, Diary, p. 50 ; New York Times, 6/25/33; Time, 6/5/33.

  28 Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 413-16; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 20-21, 45; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, pp. 222-29.

  29 Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 448-52; Browder and Smith, Independent, p. 98; New York Times, 6/1/33; New York Times, 6/13/33.

  30 Browder and Smith, Independent, p. 98; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 448-52; Moley, First New Deal, p. 206; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, pp. 250-55; New York Times, 6/11/33; New York Times, 6/13/33; Time, 6/26/33; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, pp. 164-65.

  31 FDR Papers, Vol. II, p. 154; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, pp. 5-6, 240; Browder and Smith, Independent, p. 98; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, pp. 452-53; New York Times, 6/16/33; New York Times, 6/13/33 Time, 6/26/33.

  32 FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 251-56.

  33 Smith, FDR, pp. 344-45; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 252; Leuchtenburg Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, pp. 65-69; Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295, U.S. 495 (1935); Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 331.

  34 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 208; FDR Papers, Vol. II, pp. 275-77.

  35 Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, p. 133; Nick Taylor, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work (New York: Bantam Books, 2008), pp. 523-24.

  36 FDR Papers, Vol. II, p. 256.

  EPILOGUE: “A LOT HAPPENED OUT OF THAT DETERMINATION OF A FEW PEOPLE, DIDN’T IT? ”

  1 Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 23; Time, 6/26/33.

  2 Moley, First New Deal, p. 336; Arthur Schlesinger, “Sources of the New Deal: Reflections on the Temper of a Time,” in Interpretations of American History, ed. Gerald N. Grob and George Athan Billias (New York: The Free Press, 1978), pp. 316-28; The New Republic, 6/28/33; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, p. 42.

  3 Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, p. 123; Badger, FDR, pp. 121-22.

  4 Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 194, 369-70; Smith, FDR, pp. 332 and n., 358; Time, 6/26/33; New York Times, 6/17/33.

  5 Wolfskill and Hudson, All but the People, pp. 1-152, 183, 192; F. Roosevelt, 192; On Our Way, pp. ix-x; Dudley, The Great Depression, p. 127; Time, 4/27/36; Time, 9/24/34; New York Times, 11/1/36.

  6 Wolfskill and Hudson, All but the People, pp. 119, 125; Dudley, The Great Depression, pp. 18-19; Time, 12/27/68, p. 277; Smith, FDR, pp. 370-74.

  7 Smith, FDR, p. 370; Time, 4/27/36; Rosen, Roosevelt, the Great Depression, pp. 156-57; Dudley, The Great Depression, p. 21; Walter Lippmann, Interpretations, 1933-1935 (New York: MacMillan, 1936), p. 249, quoted in McGovern, And a Time for Hope, p. 41; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, pp. 217, 289; “FDR & the Depression: The Big Debate,” The New York Review of Books, 11/8/2007; New York Times, 11/7/34.

  8 Rosenman, Presidential Style, pp. 340-41; Dudley, The Great Depression, pp. 18-19; Wecter, Age of the Great Depression, p. 73; Smith, FDR, p. 349; Alter, Defining Moment, p. 317.

  9 Brinkley, The End of Reform, pp. 23-30, 86-105, 268-71; Alan Brinkley, “New Deal Liberalism and the New Deal State,” in The New Deal, ed. David E. Hamilton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), pp. 53-81; Leighninger, Long-Range Public Investment, pp. 23-24; Smith, FDR, p. 453; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 7, p. 15; Anderson, The President’s Men, p. 23; Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, p. 134; Tugwell, The Democratic Roosevelt, p. 449; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, p. 455.

  10 Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 203; Smith, FDR, p. 340.

  11 Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 216-17, 221-23; New York Times, 7/9/33; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 474; Feis, 1933: Characters in Crisis, p. 101; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 230; Time, 4/17/33; Time, 5/8/33.

  12 Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 222-23, 230-31; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 259-61; Freidel, Launching the New Deal, p. 486; Lindley, Roosevelt Revolution, pp. 210-11, 215.

  13 Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss, p. 156; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 274-76; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 502-3; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 231-32; Tugwell, Democratic Roosevelt, pp.
237-38, 323; Carter, New Dealers, p. 326; Time, 9/4/33; New York Times, 8/28/33.

  14 Moley, Diary, 5/11/33, 5/12/33; Sargent, Roosevelt and the Hundred Days, p. 209; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 494; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, p. 75; New York Times, 2/23/33; New York Times, 3/8/34; New York Times, 11/8/34; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 508-9.

  15 Anderson, The President’s Men, p. 30; Time, 9/11/33; New York Times, 2/13/37; New York Times, 8/28/33; New York Times, 11/2/37; New York Times, 3/4/38; New York Times, 10/26/38.

  16 Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 9, 11, 172, 397; Tugwell, Democratic Roosevelt, p. 238; Time, 10/2/39; Raymond Moley, How to Keep Our Liberty (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952); New York Times, 9/20/39; New York Times, 10/24/40; New York Times, 6/18/65; Robert H. Jackson, That Man: An Insider’s Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 225.

  17 William Leuchtenberg, “Falling Out with F.D.R.,” Book Week, January 22, 1967; Time, 12/30/66; New York Times, 2/19/75.

  18 Tugwell, Democratic Roosevelt, p. 238; Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 388; Moley, After Seven Years, pp. 262-63.

  19 Ben S. Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 70, 78.

  20 Meeting Before the Special Board for Public Works, July 1, 1933, in Douglas Papers, Box 244; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 85, 101; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 284-85; Tugwell, Roosevelt’s Revolution, p. 8.

  21 FDR Public Papers, Vol. I, pp. 810-11; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 289-91; Julian Zelizer, “The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal: Fiscal Conservatism and the Roosevelt Administration, 1933-1938,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, June 2000, pp. 338-39; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 103, 108-9.

  22 Lewis Douglas, Memorandum for the President, December 30, 1933; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 289-91; Zelizer, “Forgotten Legacy,” pp. 338-39; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 103, 108-9.

  23 Letter of Lewis Douglas to James S. Douglas, March 2, 1934, Douglas Papers; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 110-11; Carter, New Dealers, p. 126-27; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries, p. 230; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 206-7; James F. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (New York: Harper, 1958), pp. 75-76; Time, 3/26/34, 9/10/34, 8/26/35; New York Times, 3/29/34.

  24 Letter of Lewis Douglas to John N. Garner of September 13, 1934, Douglas Papers, Box 238; Letter of Lewis Douglas to James Sargent, March 19, 1973, Douglas Papers, Box 119; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries, pp. 230-31; New York Times, 9/2/34.

  25 Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 5, pp. 25, 85-87; Letter of Lewis Douglas to James Sargent, March 19, 1973; Letter of Louis Douglas to Arthur Curlee, May 9, 1934, Douglas Papers, Box 238.

  26 Lewis W. Douglas, The Liberal Tradition: A Free People and a Free Economy (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1935) pp. xvi, ix, 90; Zelizer, “Forgotten Legacy,” pp. 338-41; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 119-20; New York Times, 7/28/35.

  27 Zelizer, “Forgotten Legacy,” p. 341; New York Times, 10/15/36; New York Times, 5/22/42; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 127-28, 130, 139, 152, 163-64, 173.

  28 Carter, New Dealers, p. 128; New York Times, 3/2/63; Browder and Smith, Independent, pp. 304, 306, 310, 362-63, 374.

  29 Carter, New Dealers, p. 75; Wallace, New Frontiers, pp. 173-75; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, p. 362; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 123; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 60-63.

  30 Wallace, New Frontiers, pp. 179-81; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 364-65; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 124; Reminiscences of Jerome Frank, 1960, CUOHRO, pp. 38, 116-17.

  31 Wallace, New Frontiers, pp. 174, Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 64-65; Moley, First New Deal, pp. 259-60.

  32 Peek and Crowther, Why Quit Our Own p. 11; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, pp. 155-56 ; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 357, 404-5; Reminiscences of Jerome Frank, 1960, CUOHRO, pp. 24-25, 74, 115, 179-80; Sternsher, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, p. 191; Saloutos, American Farmer and the New Deal, p. 52; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 57-58, Drew Pearson, “Unequal Benefits in the AAA Met Strong Objections,” Daily Mirror, 2/11/35, in Moley Papers, Box 94.

  33 Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, pp. 70-71; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 370-73; FDR Papers, Vol. II, p. 182; Moley, First New Deal, p. 260; Saloutos, American Farmer and the New Deal, p. 76.

  34 Letter of Henry Wallace to Raymond Moley, May 27, 1965, Moley Papers, Box 245, Folder 10; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 456-57, 460-63; Nourse et al. Three Years, pp. 18-19; Saloutos, American Farmer and the New Deal, p. 264; Schapsmeier and Schapsmeier, Henry A. Wallace, p. 243; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, pp. 157-61, 169-70, 178; Atlantic Monthly, August 1948; “Harvesting Poverty” editorial series, New York Times, 8/5/2003, 8/15/2003, 11/29/2003, 12/30/2003.

  35 Saloutos, American Farmer and the New Deal, pp. 255-56; Nourse et al., Three Years, pp. 420-48; Life, 9/2/40; McGovern, And a Time for Hope, p. 47.

  36 “Six Reasons to Kill Farm Subsidies and Trade Barriers,” Reason Magazine, February 2006; “The Unkept Promise,” New York Times, 12/30/2003; “The Enduring Political Illusion of Farm Subsidies,” San Francisco Chronicle, 8/18/2004.

  37 Smith, FDR, pp. 442, 461-63; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 474-81; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, pp. 226-27, 229. Los Angeles Times, 3/12/2000

  38 Smith, FDR, p. 447-49; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 474-81, 528-29, 535-36 ; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, pp. 255, 275, 323, 325, Los Angels Times, 3/12/2000.

  39 Frances Perkins, “Address at the Summer School of Social Progress, Wellesley College, on the Objectives of the National Industrial Recovery Act,” July 8, 1933, Box 46, Perkins Papers, Box 46; David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 516-17; Lord, Wallaces of Iowa, pp. 555, 579-82; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 426; Tugwell, Roosevelt’s Revolution, p. 208; New York Times, 10/6/33.

  40 Time, 11/15/48; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, pp. 467-68, 481-82, 493; McCullough, Truman, pp. 645-46.

  41 Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, pp. 512-14; New York Times, 5/22/60; New York Times, 11/19/65.

  42 Leighninger, Long-Range Public Investment, pp. 38-39, 86 ; 1934 Annual Report of the Department of Labor, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 4, Folder 3; Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 306; McGovern, And a Time for Hope, p. 49.

  43 Annual Report of the Department of Labor, 1934, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 4; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 210; Annual Report of the Secretary of Labor, June 30, 1934, Perkins Papers, Box 85; Bar-ton J. Bernstein, “The Conservative Achievements of New Deal Reform,” in The New Deal: Critical Issues, ed. Otis Graham (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), p. 24; Congressional Research Service, “Union Membership Trends in the United States,” August 31, 2004; Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 306.

  44 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp.278-81; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p.307; Martin, Madam Secretary , pp. 341-43; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, pp. 224-25; Eliot, Recollections, p. 92.

  45 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 286-97; Schlesinger, Coming of the New Deal, p. 304; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 247-48; “The Social Security Bill: 25 Years After,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1960 ; Eliot, Recollections, p. 111.

  46 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 300-301; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 355-56.

  47 Ibid., pp. 382-86; Huthmacher, Senator Robert F. Wagner, pp. 190-98; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, pp. 290-91; McGovern, And a Time for Hope, p. 204.

  48 Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, pp. 162 n., 262-63; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 378-80, 387-95; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, pp. 297 n., 344-45; Mohr, That Woman, pp. 248-49, New York Times, 6/19/33.

  49 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 316-19; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 407-17, 437; Reminiscences of Frances Perkins, 1961, CUOHRO, Pt. 6, pp. 371-542; Tugwell, Democratic Roosevelt, p. 450; Smith, FDR, p. 472; Reminiscences of Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., 1959, CUOHRO, p. 189; Ellsworth Barnard, Wendell Willkie (Amherst: University of Massachuse
tts Press, 1971), p. 249.

  50 Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 375; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 448-51.

  51 Life, 7/9/45; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, p. 393; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 459-63.

  52 Jerry Kluttz and Herbert Asbury, “The Woman Nobody Knows,” Collier’s, 8/5/44.

  53 Ruth Backes, Interview with Gerard Dennis Reilly, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 12, Folder 13; Neufeld Diary and Interview with Maurice Neufeld; Ruth Backes, Interviews with Susanna Coggeshall, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 12, Folder 7; Tomlin Coggeshall Interview; Letter of Frances Perkins to Susanna Coggeshall, August 1, 1951, Perkins Papers, Box 118B; Ruth Backes, Interview with Allan Bloom.

  54 Ruth Backes, Interview with Gerard Dennis Reilly, Ruth Backes Papers, Box 12, Folder 13; Neufeld, Diary; Martin, Madam Secretary, pp. 476-80; Ruth Backes, Interview with Allan Bloom.

  55 Breiseth, “The Frances Perkins I Knew”; New York Times, 5/22/60; New York Times, 5/15/65; Martin, Madam Secretary, p. 475.

  56 Breiseth, “The Frances Perkins I Knew”; Neufeld Diary.

  57 Breiseth, “The Frances Perkins I Knew.”

  58 Ibid.

  59 Ibid.; Neufeld Diary.

  60 J. Hopkins, Sudden Hero, p. 165.

  61 Jonathan Mitchell, “Alms-Giver: Harry L. Hopkins,” The New Republic, 4/10/35; Harry Hopkins, “The War on Distress,” Today, 12/16/33; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, pp. 58-59; J. Hopkins, Sudden Hero, pp. 169-70; Tugwell, Diary, p. 411; New York Times, 5/2/65, p. 68; Hopkins, Spending to Save, p. 117; Reminiscences of Jerome Frank, 1960, CUOHRO, pp. 36-37. Badger, The New Deal, pp. 203-4.

  62 The New Republic, 4/10/35; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, pp. 76-79; J. Hopkins, Sudden Hero, pp. 186-88; McGovern, And a Time for Hope, p. 49.

  63 Taylor, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, pp. 2, 524; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, p. 111; Charles, Minister of Relief, p. 235; New York Times, 1/30/46; New York Times, 5/2/65.

  64 Forum and Century, December 1937; Leighninger, Long-Range Public Investment, pp. 49, 64; McJimsey, Ally of the Poor, pp. 89-90; New York Times, 1/30/46.