RATHER THAN WONDER HOW CONSERVATIVES "STOLE POPULISM"...:

Revisiting the New Deal (Gary Scott Smith, May 11, 2008, Washington Times)

[R]oosevelt served as senior warden of the St. James Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, N.Y., the entire time he was president. Before each of his four Inaugurals and every year on the anniversary of his inauguration, Roosevelt held a special worship service at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington.

After his death, Eleanor declared that her husband always considered religion "an anchor and a source of strength and guidance." She added that he could not have made critical decisions as president "without faith in spiritual guidance."

Franklin Roosevelt repeatedly emphasized the importance of the Bible, prayer and Christian morality. He often urged Americans to pray, thanked others for praying for him and included prayers in his addresses. He lauded the Bible's "prevailing and persistent power" and insisted that Scripture played a major role in shaping the republic.

In numerous speeches and letters, Roosevelt urged Americans to work for spiritual renewal, promote social justice and strive to achieve a more abundant material and spiritual life. He considered himself to be God's agent, frequently asserted that God directed history, and insisted the United States would prosper only if its citizens sought divine guidance and followed biblical principles.

Ronald Isetti challenges the contention of other historians that the temper of the New Deal was secular and had little in common with the more religiously oriented Progressive Movement of the early 20th century. Many historians have ignored or downplayed the "moral and religious flavor and content" of the New Deal and have missed its continuity with the more liberal phase of social Christianity.

For all its secular spirit, the New Deal "was firmly anchored in the moral-religious tradition of earlier reform movements in American history." It was "highly moralistic, prophetic, and even biblical in its inspiration and tone." Mr. Isetti contends that Roosevelt strove to defend, maintain and advance a "regulatory Progressive state based in political liberalism and Christian humanitarianism, which for Roosevelt were pretty much the same."

Friend Perlstein and company would be better off considering why Progressivism was popular only from 1930 to 1942, with a brief renaissance thanks to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 11, 2008 7:26 AM