by FDR
Throughout its existence the WPA was a lightning rod for criticism. As director of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and CWA, Hopkins, the former social worker, had been remarkably nonpartisan. But a national work relief program with an initial $4.8 billion budget inevitably fell victim to party politics. When Congress amended the Work Relief Bill to require senatorial confirmation for appointees earning more than $5,000, Hopkins realized his apolitical days were over. “They told me I had to be part non-political and part political. I found that was impossible, at least for me. I finally realized there was nothing for it but to be all political.”96 Republicans complained that the WPA was a gigantic patronage boondoggle operated for the benefit of the Democratic party.97 Critics on the left, led by The Nation, bellyached the WPA was a misguided attempt to aid America’s “crippled capitalist system” by forcing workers to settle for “depressed wages in a federal work gang.”98 Conservative southerners bridled at what they perceived to be the breakdown of white supremacy and a mixing of the races in various WPA programs. Hopkins, whom Joseph E. Davies once described as a combination of Saint Francis of Assisi and a racetrack tout, took the criticism as a badge of honor.99 “I haven’t a thing to apologize about,” he told an audience in Los Angeles. “If we have made mistakes we have made them in the interests of the people that were broke.”100
The two final accomplishments of the New Deal in 1935 were the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration and the passage of the Wagner Labor Relations Act. FDR established the REA by executive order on May 11, 1935.101 Nothing has done more to eliminate rural poverty than bringing electricity to the countryside. In 1935 only 11 percent of American farms had electricity; in Mississippi, less than 1 percent. Under REA, nonprofit rural cooperatives were organized to build power lines and distribute electricity, financed by long-term federal loans at low (3 percent) interest rates. In the South, power came primarily from the Tennessee Valley Authority. In the Northwest, from Bonneville and Grand Coulee; from Boulder (Hoover) Dam on the Colorado and Fort Peck on the Missouri. By the end of 1941, almost 50 percent of the nation’s farms had been electrified. World War II interrupted the construction of power lines for four years, but by the end of the 1940s there was virtually no farm without electricity.* Families that had lit their homes with coal oil lamps; families who had no washing machines, refrigerators, or vacuum cleaners; dairy farms that milked by hand—all now shared the growing prosperity of a modernizing America. With the possible exception of the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, no single action by the New Deal had a greater impact on daily life in the American countryside than rural electrification.102
FDR was the prime mover behind rural electrification. The Wagner Labor Relations Act, which recognized the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, owed its passage almost entirely to the unstinting efforts of Senator Robert Wagner of New York. In the early days of the New Deal, Roosevelt saw himself as a neutral arbiter between labor and management. He shied away from endorsing legislation that would enshrine collective bargaining and in fact had prevailed upon Wagner not to introduce his bill before the 1934 elections. But when the Seventy-fourth Congress convened, Wagner was quick off the mark pressing labor’s right to organize and the establishment of a National Labor Relations Board to guarantee it. Reflecting his German trade union heritage (Wagner’s father had been a printer in Wiesbaden), Wagner was one of the few Democrats who identified with the union movement. His long legislative career, in both Albany and Washington, had been dedicated to supporting labor’s cause. In the Senate he acquired a reputation as a peerless legislative craftsman, and unlike many other progressives he did not bloviate at the drop of a hat. Wagner played by the rules of the Senate club and was respected by his colleagues for it. By 1935 he was recognized as the Senate’s resident expert on labor matters. After lengthy hearings in March and April in which industry spokesmen lambasted the bill (even the columnist Walter Lippmann called it “one of the most reactionary measures of our time”), the Senate Labor Committee reported it unanimously on May 2.103 Two weeks later, after only two days of debate, the Senate added its approval 63–12, with four conservative Democrats and eight Republicans voting against. It was a remarkable achievement, for which Wagner deserved the credit.
Roosevelt still declined to take a stand. The act would be divisive, and FDR wanted to remain above the fray. Even the possibility of a veto could not be ruled out. “It seems almost inevitable that the Administration would have much to lose in public support” if the bill became law, Commerce secretary Daniel Roper told FDR on May 22.104 But the following week the Supreme Court struck down the NIRA and in the process gutted the nascent collective bargaining provisions contained in the act.105 The public outcry convinced FDR that the time for Wagner’s bill had come. He placed himself at the head of the parade, and the measure whipped through the House of Representatives without a roll call. It was signed into law on July 5, 1935.106
In November, FDR resumed his practice of spending Thanksgiving at Warm Springs. On the twenty-ninth he journeyed to Atlanta, where he was received at a massive homecoming rally at the Georgia Tech football stadium. Roosevelt was at his rhetorical best:
You cannot borrow your way out of debt, but you can invest your way into a sounder future.… Over three years ago, realizing that we were not doing a perfect thing but that we were doing a necessary thing, we appropriated money for direct relief. But just as quickly as possible we turned to the job of providing actual work for those in need.
I realize that gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs will discourse on the expenses of Government and the suffering that they are going through because their Government is spending money on work relief. Some of these same gentlemen tell me that a dole would be more economical than work relief. That is true. But the men who tell me that have, unfortunately, too little contact with the true America to realize that … most Americans want to give something for what they get. That something, which in this case is honest work, is the saving barrier between them and moral degradation. I propose to build that barrier high and keep it high.107
* “The cold fact is that on important matters we are seldom called upon for advice,” said Ickes. “We never discuss exhaustively any policy of government or question of political strategy. The President makes all of his own decisions and so far as the Cabinet is concerned, without taking counsel with a group of advisors.” 1 The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes 308 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953).
* Roosevelt was not a heavy drinker. Except on formal occasions he never drank wine with dinner and rarely had anything afterward. He enjoyed the social aspects of the “children’s hour” and spent most of his time mixing drinks for others. Usually he had only one, two at the most, drinks himself. John Gunther, a frequent guest at the “children’s hour,” complained that FDR used inferior Argentine vermouth and a substandard gin in his martinis, though it was rumored he stocked a better quality for favored guests. John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect 95 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).
* Mrs. Nesbitt was equally capricious in her role as chief housekeeper. One day preparing for the arrival of a Latin American head of state, presumably President Getúlio Vargas of Brazil, she told the staff, “Don’t bother to put the good linen sheets on the beds for these people.” Lillian Rogers Parks and Frances S. Leighton, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil 31–32 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981).
* Reporters accompanying FDR invariably datelined their dispatches “At Sea with President Roosevelt.” Charles Hurd, When the New Deal Was Young and Gay 154 (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965).
* The cryptic words of Article II that the president shall send and receive ambassadors provide the textual basis for the president’s recognition authority. “In every case the question of recognition was determined solely by the Executive,” wrote John Bassett Moore, the dean of international law scholars, after reciting an exhaustive survey o
f precedent. 3 International Law Digest 243–244 (1906). Also see Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996 (1979), pertaining to President Carter’s 1978 decision to withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China.
* The issue was not unlike the claim for the restitution of Tory property asserted by Great Britain after the American Revolution and dealt with in the Treaty of Paris of 1783 and the Jay Treaty of 1794.
† The “taking clause” of the Constitution, contained in the Fifth Amendment, provides: “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
* Justice Robert H. Jackson, then general counsel of the Treasury’s revenue arm, was in the Oval Office with FDR when he received a phone call from Donald Richberg of the NRA telling him of the Schechter decision. According to Jackson, “The conversation at the President’s end of the line ran something like this: ‘You mean it was unanimous against us? Where was old Isaiah?’ This was a favorite characterization of Justice Brandeis. He then asked, ‘What about Ben Cardozo?’ He then told us that the decision had gone against the government by all members of the Court. It was this feature that shocked him most.… We suggested to him that perhaps he had been relieved by the Court of a serious problem. He seemed inclined to agree with that view of it and I was somewhat surprised to read some days later of his [May 31, 1935] press conference remarks.” Robert H. Jackson, That Man: An Insider’s Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt 66, John Q. Barrett, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
* In World War II, General Lee performed with distinction as Eisenhower’s supply chief in Europe, although his high-handed style, combined with his religious ardor, led him to be dubbed (based on his JCH initials) “Jesus Christ Himself” Lee. The moniker was used freely by both Lee’s admirers and detractors, which makes his 1934 comments about Hopkins’s style all the more pertinent. For Lee, see Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life 181 (New York: Henry Holt, 1990).
† To head the Securities and Exchange Commission, FDR named Joseph P. Kennedy, an early supporter who had been disappointed he was passed over for the Treasury. When the press slammed the appointment because of Kennedy’s long record as a stock manipulator, Roosevelt beamed his delight. “Set a thief to catch a thief,” he grinned, effectively ending the discussion. Kenneth S. Davis, Invincible Summer: An Intimate Portrait of the Roosevelts Based on the Recollections of Marion Dickerman 128–129 (New York: Atheneum, 1974).
* Former Republican congressman Fiorello La Guardia had crossed party lines and was running for mayor of New York City as a Fusion candidate representing a coalition of disaffected Democrats, Republicans, reformers, and socialists.
* James Farley believed that Long might poll 6 million votes. “I always laughed Huey off,” he told Harold Ickes after Long’s assassination in 1935. “But I did not feel that way about him.” And then Farley reeled off the states FDR would have lost had Long run against him. 1 The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes 462.
* The only time prior to 1934 the party in power gained seats in the House during an off-year election was in 1902, when the Republicans, under TR, gained eleven seats. Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to U.S. Elections 928–929 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1975).
* The cabinet Committee on Economic Security was composed of Frances Perkins, chairman, Henry Wallace (Agriculture), Henry Morgenthau (Treasury), Attorney General Homer Cummings, and Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins.
* FDR’s initial proposal, as recommended by his cabinet committee, included all categories. But in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Secretary Morgenthau broke ranks. Because of the difficulties the Treasury would encounter collecting payments, Morgenthau recommended that farm laborers, domestics, and firms with fewer than ten employees be excluded from coverage. “This was a blow,” Frances Perkins reported. “The matter had been discussed in the [Cabinet] Committee on Economic Security and universal coverage had been agreed upon almost from the outset.… The Ways and Means Committee members, impressed by the size of the project … nodded their heads to Secretary Morgenthau’s proposal of limitations. There was nothing for me to do but accept.” Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 297–298 (New York: Harper & Row, 1946).
* Despite their rivalry Ickes and Hopkins shared a genuine affection for each other. “Harry was an agreeable scoundrel when he wanted to be,” said Ickes, who described his liking for Hopkins as “the liking of a man who had grown up under Scotch-Presbyterian restraint for the happy-go-lucky type who can bet his last cent, even if it be a borrowed one, on a horse race.” The fact is, both men were pragmatists and shared a common goal. The tension between them may have forced each to excel and produce results beyond what they might have achieved otherwise. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 93 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948). Also see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal 347 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960).
* “I had great sympathy for Mr. Hopkins,” said Clay. “We knew what his task was. We felt that a public works program was not going to provide the necessary employment in itself, but Mr. Ickes did have a going organization and Mr. Hopkins did not. So we provided the basic elements of an organization for him, and a great many of the men we assigned to him became his lifelong friends.” Smith, Lucius D. Clay 63. (When Hopkins resigned as WPA director in December 1938 to become secretary of commerce, he was succeeded by Colonel Harrington.)
* I vividly recall how my mother’s relatives living in northern Chickasaw County, Mississippi, received electricity in the spring of 1941, while our farm in the southern part of the county did not obtain it until 1946.
SEVENTEEN
HUBRIS
I propose that hereafter, when a Judge reaches the age of seventy, a new and younger Judge shall be added to the Court automatically.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, MARCH 9, 1937
FDR KICKED OFF the 1936 campaign early. “We began the first of the year and never let up until the polls closed ten months later,” said Jim Farley.1 Roosevelt told Farley to organize a sponsorship committee of twelve prominent Americans. “I would like to have five clergymen. I think we should have a Catholic priest, a Baptist minister, an Episcopalian minister, a Presbyterian minister, and a rabbi.”
“What about the Methodists?” asked Farley.
“Well, we could leave out the Jews,” FDR replied. “No, there are more of them than there are Episcopalians. Take the Jews and leave out the Episcopalians.”2
Roosevelt saw the election as a referendum. “There is one issue in this campaign. It is myself, and the people must be either for me or against me.”3 In FDR’s eyes the outcome was never in doubt. “We will win easily,” he told his cabinet, “but we are going to make it a crusade.”4
Roosevelt had good reason for optimism. By almost any measure the economic surge since 1932 had been remarkable. National income had risen by more than 50 percent, 6 million new jobs had been created, and unemployment had dropped by more than a third. Of the 8 million still unemployed, more than 70 percent worked at least part of the year for the WPA or were enrolled in the CCC. Industrial production had doubled, stock prices were up 80 percent from their 1933 lows, farmers’ cash income—which had fallen below $4 billion in 1932—rose to almost $7 billion in 1935, and corporate profits, deep in negative territory when Roosevelt took office, had zoomed to nearly $6 billion.5
Statistics told only part of the story. The banking system had been rescued, depositors enjoyed a federal guarantee of their savings, most farm mortgages had been refinanced, and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation had bailed out more than 3 million debt-ridden home owners. Social Security, rural electrification, and the massive public works program now under way were changing the face of the nation. A Fortune magazine poll in June 1936 indicated that 53 percent of the nation thought the Depression was over and that 60 percent or more supported the president.6
On the political front, Roosevelt’s opponents were in disarray. With Huey Long’s a
ssassination in September 1935 (Long was forty-two years old), the Share Our Wealth movement imploded. The Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith, a rabble-rousing fundamentalist from Shreveport, had seized the reins and the mailing lists, but without the Kingfish the effort floundered. The remnants of Long’s political organization made peace with the administration—critics called it the Second Louisiana Purchase—and Smith was shunted into the rhetorical wilderness.7 Father Coughlin, for his part, appeared to be concentrating on congressional elections, and the Townsend forces had been undermined by passage of the Social Security Act. To the Democrats’ delight, Herbert Hoover had emerged from domestic exile, traveling widely around the country, seeking vindication for what he believed had been a singularly successful four years in the White House. Napoleon said that after the French Revolution the Bourbons had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The same might be said of Herbert Hoover. His message of retrenchment, the gold standard, and a balanced budget fell on deaf ears. Most Republican politicians shunned the former president’s embrace, certain it meant electoral defeat come November.
Roosevelt launched his campaign with a fighting State of the Union message on January 3. At Louis Howe’s urging, the president converted what is normally a request for legislation into an election keynote. “Let ’em have it,” said Howe. “They’ll lap it up.”8
