February 18, 2004
A FAILED PRESIDENCY (OR 4):
Are the Revisionists Right About FDR? (Alonzo Hamby, 2/16/04, History News Network)
At home, FDR quite simply failed to end the Depression. After numerous ups and downs, the American economy in the summer of 1939 was barely above its level of November, 1932. The New Deal's relief programs never provided for more than half the unemployed at any one time. Its first industrial recovery program, the National Recovery Administration, was a crashing failure. Roosevelt 's subsequent resort to a polarizing politics of class conflict probably did him political good but surely got in the way of economic revival. His delight in the exercise of power–and occasional grabs for more of it (most notoriously, the plan to pack the Supreme Court)–made plausible unfounded accusations that he wanted to be a dictator.We all know that Hitler's Germany , utilizing loathsome totalitarian mechanisms, achieved full employment by the last half of 1935. It is less well understood that the conservative British National Government of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain brought its people out of the Depression at about the same time, that its much-debunked dole paid a minimal benefit to every unemployed Briton, and that it maintained a vigorous agenda of social programs.
At a time when the world's democracies sorely needed a common front, Roosevelt failed to provide leadership. His most fateful decision, after first raising hopes of constructive American engagement, was to scuttle the World Economic Conference of 1933. He thus sent every nation on its own in dealing with an international economic problem that cried out for an international solution. An embittered Neville Chamberlain four and a half years later wrote privately, “It is always best & safest to count on nothing from the Americans except words.” At no time before the war did FDR make a sustained, consistent effort to lead the democracies at a time when fascism and militarism were on the march. [...]
He would be a greater war manager than depression fighter, but here also not without his missteps, especially his optimism about the possibilities of postwar cooperation with Josef Stalin. And his wartime achievement was made possible only by Winston Churchill's bulldog leadership of Britain during the eighteen months between the fall of France and Pearl Harbor .
So, other than lengthening the Depression and biffing the war, he was terrific. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 18, 2004 11:49 PM
Conrad Black's biography of FDR provides some balance. But I wouldn't recommend it if you're a confirmed FDR despiser.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at February 19, 2004 1:35 AMNot that there's anything wrong with that - for the court-packing attempt alone, there's plenty to despise in FDR.
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at February 19, 2004 10:43 AMExcept that he saved American democracy at a time when the choice was, in the words of Fr Coughlin, "between Fascism and Communism."
Comparing America's economy to Britain and Germany is also something of a misnomer because their situations weren't identical. America was far worse off than Britain so it's no surprise that Britain recovered first. It had to do with the nature of the stock market speculation and bank collapses before FDR assumed power.
And as for Germany, the Nazis promoted its recovery by basically eating their own capital base. Putting people in the military, confiscating Jewish wealth, and putting it into non-productive military assets isn't a way to structure long term growth. The weakening German economy is one reason Hitler was willing to risk war in 1939 instead of waiting for 1942 like his generals wanted.
It's also particularly ludicrous to state FDR failed to provide leadership to the free world. American leadership was scuttered after Woodrow Wilson had a stroke, and not resumed by Harding, Coolidge, or Hoover. Britain and France could never coordinate common policy against Hitler despite that they had the men, planes, and tanks and location to do it. FDR was pretty consistent in his rebukes of Hitler, but the Nazis knew they could ignore them because America was isolationist.
Monday morning quarterbacking is fairly easy to do. Leading the nation from the depths of the Great Depression in 1933 to preeminent world power by 1945 was much harder.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at February 19, 2004 12:03 PMChris:
How about Sunday morning quarterbacking? Our grandpartents voted against him 16 times.
Posted by: oj at February 19, 2004 12:21 PMIf England provided a minimal dole to all, what was Orwell doing in The Spike?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at February 19, 2004 2:21 PMYou're right, Harry. I don't recall a single reference to the Dole in DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON, only a joyless cycle as Britain's tramps move from Salvation Army teas (not even a full meal) to door-to-door handouts to the Spike, which they couldn't visit more than six times a month. Orwell is justly bitter about the immense pointless labor the tramps have to endure, with little chance of escape. At least if they had the Dole they could have planted roots in some town, with better chance of finding work than they did on their endless march.
The second half of THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER includes a discussion of the Dole, in which Orwell is mostly critical. The Means Test standards are unreasonably low, with many families dodging the system; the food allowances are meager, but editorials complain about TOO MUCH money being spent, and so on. He sees whole families unemployed, large neighborhoods without work - poignant and depressing. The WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps might have been lambasted as make-work, but they seem more substantive than what Britain had to offer.
Posted by: John Barrett, Jr. at February 19, 2004 11:11 PMWhy the New Dealers pre-war attraction to Mussolini's fascism and Bolshevik collectevism? Could it be that the seduction of the elite with social engineering and the top down planned society was FDR's program as well? The court packing scheme implies that it was. Father Coughlin was a silly man but his sentiments regarding the decisions to be made and the choices faced by 20th century America regarding fascism or communism were, to some degree, the sentiments of the elites who were attracted to the New Deal. Obviously they were wrong. The "New Deal" was an attempt to find a compromise between the two evils wrought by 19th century "scientism". The USA is still trying to overcome the effects of the experiment.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at February 20, 2004 9:32 AMThe problem is that the anti-FDR people today still believe the dishonest propaganda of the anti-FDR people of 1932.
For example, that WPA was make-work.
In fact (this is in Sherwood's "Roosevelt and Hopkins"), FDR did regard WPA as make-work. Hopkins explained to him that the government should buy not just shovels but machines.
Each laborer would be more productive, and orders for machinery would cause private employers to call workers to the assembly line.
Thereby America got paved roads, dams, some fairly elegant public buildings and so forth that an army of men with shovels could not have given.
It also got some recovery of industrial plant, though the crazy policies of Hoover had done so much damage that recovery was not full.
The alternative offered here -- to allow "market forces" to drive down business capitalization so that leaner, meaner and more competitive businesses would emerge, thus ending the Great Depression earlier, ignores the fact that the stock market had lost 84% of its pre-Crash value while Roosevelt was still governor of New York.
How much more liquidation could there have been?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at February 20, 2004 2:45 PM