William Tyler
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
William Tyler - Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal
- Well, my topic today is FDR Roosevelt and the New Deal. An alternative title might simply have been America in the 1930s. Now, as I reached the 1930s in the story of America, I’m reaching the period of history in which many people listening to this talk will have lived through. I know we’ve got people in their 90s and eventually all of us, whatever your age, it will be your life experience will enter. And whether you are American or British or Canadian, Australian, Israeli or whatever, we are in the modern age, the contemporary age. And that poses a particular problem to historians. Because people don’t necessarily remember the past accurately. Can I put that gently? We don’t always remember the sequence of events in the past, and we don’t always place them within a historical context. We lived through them. In fact, many of us have forgotten a lot of the political history that we have lived through. So it does present problems when someone says, “Oh, well I was actually present in the White House when JFK made that statement.” Well, that may be true. And if that is true, I’m open to people saying at the end of every talk. “Well, I was there, I was in number 10 Downing Street.” “I was in the White House.” “I remember talking to Henry Kissinger.” “I remember talking to Margaret Thatcher.” Now, that is all absolutely relevant, but also, it may be that you saw one tiny aspect of those people that I just mentioned. And the reality is a wider reality.
So what I will be trying to do is to put your life experience, as it were, into a historical context. If your remembrance is different than my story, then your remembrance is important because that is how history is written. If you say, “But I was there,” or, “X was a personal friend of mine and said very clearly what happened,” them, that is very, very helpful piece of information. So without more ado, let’s jump in to the story of FDR and the New Deal America in the 1930s. Franklin Roosevelt was the fifth cousin of the first Roosevelt president, Teddy Roosevelt. It’s rather a tenuous link, his fifth cousin. If I asked you all to name your fifth cousin, I reckon we’d be pushed to do it. On the other hand, Franklin’s wife, the redoubtable Eleanor Roosevelt was a niece of Teddy Roosevelt. So there are links within this family. I find it interesting as a non-American to see how there have been dynasties in Americans’ democratic history. Like the Kennedys, like the Roosevelts, for example. He was elected president defeating the incumbent president Herbert Hoover in 1932. Thus, he took office in 1933. As he entered, Franklin Roosevelt entered the White House in Berlin, Hitler entered the Chancery in the same year. Whilst in Britain in 1933, Churchill was in what he himself described as in the wilderness. And of course, in later talks, we shall come to look at the relationship of those three men during World War II. But near our home in Germany, America faced real problems. Following the financial crash of 1929, which we spoke about, I think last time. It faced what amounted to a decade of depression, the so-called Great Depression.
Which was not just an economic crisis, but also a social one too. A major catastrophe in the history of the United States. Roosevelt was elected in 1932 to deal with these problems besetting the states. We shall look during my talk at ways in which Roosevelt hoped to deal with both the economic and social consequences of the economic crisis that America faced in the 1930s. We’ve looked before, obviously we’ve looked in terms of the American Civil War at the question of the power of federal government versus the power of state governments. That’s the ongoing philosophical question if you like, in any federal state. Not just simply America, in any federal state, balancing the centre against the various parts. But this is not that. This is somewhat different and its difference is important. Some of you who are American may feel that this difference between central and regional or federal government is an issue for today. I leave you to argue that. But the next is an issue. And it’s an issue not just for the states, but an issue for all of us. And that is the question in democracies of whether you have big government, which is to say that the central government, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a federal state like America or a unified state like Britain, the central government exercises the power to control almost everything. In Britain, we have seen the decline of local government over the last 20 odd years and the rise of the central government. In terms of Western democracies as a whole, that rise of central government is said to have occurred because of the two world wars in which countries had to take. Really almost dictatorial powers to get through the war.
What is interesting in America’s case is this is the argument of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Should and can the central government that is the federal government interfere in the crisis, the economic and social crisis for America to make things better? Against that view is a view of small government. Small government which says, “Look, we don’t want the central government to interfere. We want small government. In other words, we want individual freedom.” Individual freedom is a bedrock of Western liberal democracy. It isn’t as simply an American concept. But in America, it does have a different flavour to it. The idea that individuals, what Herbert Hoover, the president of the beginning of the 1930s whom Roosevelt had defeated called rugged individualism. The concept of rugged individualism in the states means something. It has a longer DNA, if that makes sense. It has a longer history than it does elsewhere. And that history takes us back whenever we go in American history back to the 17th century, Puritans. It’s the bedrock. One of the forces of the bedrock of American beliefs is in individual freedom. And the challenge in the 1930s was to overcome the resistance to big government because only big government had the resources to deal with the crisis, which went from east coast to West Coast, from northern border to southern border. And that question of big government versus small government is an argument which we play out here in Britain, and it’s an argument played out in the states and in every democratic country in the world. Now, I thought I should give you a classic definition of both.
So you don’t think I’m sat here making all this up. In a dictionary big government, this is government perceived as excessively interventionist and intruding into all aspects of the lives of its citizens. Small government or alternatively called limited government is a principle and theory about government systems that have minimal intervention into the lives of the citizenry. And this tension is always there as is the tension in a federal state between the central government and the federal states, the tension between them. Now, tension is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a good thing. It only becomes a bad thing when it’s politicised. And you must say, whichever country you live in, whether you feel in your country, this argument between big government and limited government is becoming heavily political. Not just normal tensions of political debate, but something wider than that. The depressing years, the depression years of the 1930s weren’t of course simply an American problem. But as Greg Ward in the “The Rough Guide to the History of the USA” says this. He writes, “By the middle of the 1920s, the US was enough of an industrial powerhouse to be responsible for more than half the world’s output of manufactured goods. After leading the way into a new era of prosperity however, it suddenly found itself dragging the rest of the world down into economic collapse.” Because on the American capitalist society was failing, so it failed elsewhere.
And you would say, “Well, why is that important, William? This is old history, this is old hat. We’ve all emerged from that we’ve had crises since.” Well, the real problem is Britain suffered badly in the 1930s in much the same way as America. With hunger marches, with people being thrown out of their houses, all the things we know about. But the crunches that in Germany, Adolf Hitler was able to use this to bring himself to power. Between 1929, that is to say the Wall Street crash, and 1933, that is to say, when Roosevelt and Hitler both came to power, in Germany, unemployment increased by 232%, industrial production fell by 41%, and foreign trade fell by 61%, giving Hitler and his answer victory in the ballot in 1933. Never forget, Hitler obtained power, not through a coup d'etat because that had failed earlier in his career in Munich, but through the ballot box. Why? Because people wanted. People always wanted simplistic solutions. “Vote for me,” said Hitler “and I will deal with all of these problems.” Now, this is one of the issues of all democracies. Germany was a functioning democracy, give or take, under the republic. And so do not think that Canada, Australia, Israel, Britain, America are immune from populist dictatorial government. We only have to look at the case of Trump in America. I’m not suggesting Trump is fascist, that’s another debate. I’m suggesting that he’s populist with easy answers. He’s populist in terms of its answers and he’s populist in terms of the votes and the people that support him. And we are hearing on this side of the Atlantic concerns from Americans being expressed about the risk to democracy. In fact, Biden himself has talked about that in the last few days. We are not immune from this.
And although in Europe, we became increasingly aware during the decade of the threat posed by Nazism in Germany, we did very little about it until right at the end of a decade when it looked as though war would be inevitable. And when war came in September ‘39 in Britain, we weren’t that prepared. And of course France we know was unprepared. That’s again another story for another day about France. But Britain was not as fully prepared as it should have been. Now, America was distant from Europe. It was distant in geographical terms, but it was also distant in terms of its basic foreign policy, which had been since the revolution and independence. It was to be outside of Europe, to not get involved in European affairs. It was forced to intervene in 1917 in World War I. But like World War I, America did not come on board in 1939, not until 1942, after Pearl Harbour and the Japanese attack in December of '41. Now, that is not to say that America’s neutrality was neutrality in a formal classic definition of neutrality. America leaned increasingly towards support for Britain, not least in the establishment of Lend Lease. And Roosevelt was very… It said that Roosevelt was pro-British. Yes, I think that’s true, but he was far more anti-Nazi. And we will see that next time when we look at the opening years of the Second World War in Europe and Roosevelt’s dealing with that.
But it’s important to mention this when I’m talking about the Great Depression because for Europeans, increasingly, this cloud on the sky becomes darker and darker and lower and lower as we go through the 1930s. Whilst in America, they’re able, largely through the 1930s, to put it aside. And to put it aside because they’ve got this major problem facing them of the Great Depression and its social outcomes. I’m going to just, you know, I like telling you as much of the story as I can, but in an hour, I have to short circuit. This is a magazine, The History Collection in the United States. It’s extremely good, published in Britain. I’ll put up more on a book list shortly. “The aftermath of the great crash of Wall Street was incredible. A nation’s confidence was shattered.” Now that is important. America’s confidence, as a nation. Well, a nation is made up of individuals was shattered. “And its economy left in tatters, paving the way for the world’s worst financial crisis, the Great Depression. While Wall Street alone didn’t cause the Great Depression, it was certainly a violent expression of the growing malaise. The boom times were bound when and once that moment the tide turn came when there was a tacit acceptance that no one out there wanted to buy anymore and that you might not be able to sell to pay your debts. The lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans were brought crashing down. And its effects rippled out across the world.” Greg Ward, I quoted just now, add, so that we’re clear. “It’s hard to say exactly what triggered the Great Depression. The consequences seem out of proportion to any one specific cause. Possible factors include American overinvestment in the floundering economy of post-war Europe combined with high tariffs on imports that effectively precluded European recovery.
Conservative commentators at the time chose to interpret the kilometres Wall Street crash as a symptom of impending depression rather than a contributory cause. But the quasi superstitious faith in the stock market that preceded it shook all the characteristics of such classic speculative booms as Britain’s 18th century South Sea bubble had done.” I’ll leave it to economic historians and those of you who are listening who are economic historians or economists to comment further. To untangle, the direct causes or indirect causes as well of the Great Depression in America and separately in each individual European country are not simple and straightforward. So although in shorthand, we blame the Wall Street crash that is simply a symptom of a greater malaise. And maybe what I’ve just read indicates that bust follows, boom, boom follows bust. If you talk to people, politicians who’ve administered economic briefs in whatever Western democracy, they will tell you that in times of boom, they want to quiet things down for fear of the bust that comes. And I suppose that’s one of the things that we hopefully have learned, but there were so many external factors at the moment. We’re blaming in the way, well, we’re blaming in Britain the Ukraine war. We’re blaming the Israeli war and the difficulties in Arab, we’re blaming everybody. And sometimes, one thinks perhaps one should look closer at home at the causes of bust. Well, that’s a wider question.
All I want to put in your minds is Wall Street crash equals Great Depression is over simplistic. It’s the boom years of the '20s that left us in the bust years of the '30s. And not just in America, although it’s in America because it’s the biggest economy in the Western world that is affected most and affects others most. If I come on to other parts of the story, let me give you some indication of the scale of the problem in the states. And I’ll use this book again and just a short circuit. “Stores of all sorts closed as they struggled to find or pay for suppliers, warehouses emptied themselves of hardworking people since there were no contracts to pay for their wages. The extravagant clubs couldn’t find enough spenders to keep the doors open. And the butchers and barbers closed their shops for lack of customers. People lost their jobs, began eating frugally and infrequently and could no longer pay for the fuel to keep their cars running or the electricity to keep their kitchen gadget and bed warmers working.” This is a modern crop. We are very dependent now on the technology. We sort of shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, we don’t need to worry about that,” but how equipped are we today if the electricity failed? Maybe the electricity fails because of a climate change. We’ve got floods in Britain today.
Perhaps electricity fails because of that. So what does that mean? It means I can’t shave in the morning 'cause I use an electric razor. It means I can’t boil a kettle because I’m on electric and not gas. It means that heating doesn’t go on. It means a whole range of things I can’t cook. But it has all sorts of other consequences as well. If the government, any country wishes to tell us what we should do and what the crisis is, well we say turn on the telly, can’t turn on the television, it doesn’t work. Well have a look on the computer, it doesn’t work. There’s no electricity. Well go back to basics, put the radio on. But we’ve got a modern radio. And it isn’t reliant upon main’s electricity or batteries. Well, the government in Britain had actually suggested we should bring candles in and a battery radio at the very least we could do. It’s an interesting thought, we are so dependent. But it was here in the 1930s. But the problems of the modern world hit, people could not afford to put fuel in their cars. Many Americans were dependent on the car to get them to work or to use it for work and now it’s dead as a dodo. They also couldn’t work kicking gadget. Well, we can also survive that. Well, we are of an older generation. Think about your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Could they survive? What happens when they can’t use their iPhones and their iPads? Let me just finish this. “The ranks of the poor swell, the society slipped down a notch on mass and as the winter winds blew.” I like that phrase. Let me repeat this 'cause I think this is a really interesting phrase.
“Society slipped down a notch on mass.” Talking about America in the 1930s. Is that not a basic storyline for programmes on Netflix and Amazon and elsewhere about the apocalypse? And something has happened and we sent back to basics. Is that not what this means? Society slipped down a notch on that. All those science fiction, films and series are based upon society slipping down. Interesting that that phrase is used in terms of America in the 1930s and the Great Depression. I just finish my reading. “With unemployment, decimated purchasing power, no credit flowing through the economy, the Great Depression set in for the long haul. A whole of a decade.” One of the questions we must answer or I must answer on your behalf and you must question is what ended the Great Depression? Now it would be nice to think that it was the election of Roosevelt and his policy of the New Deal, which was an extraordinary policy, particularly in America, government intervention on a major scale, big government. But again, the emphasis in the liberty of the individual, the Puritan base of America. But did it work? That is the question. Did it actually work? Well, just to give you a flavour of that before I move on, unemployment statistics, whichever country, but in America we’re talking about. Unemployment statistics are unreliable. They’re not as reliable as they are today because different measurement techniques were used and the collection of them was not as good as today. But it looks as though, roughly speaking, in 1933, which most historians agree is the worst of the years of the Great Depression, the year Roosevelt came to office, unemployment reached something in the region of 25% in America.
It was still running at 19% in 1938, the year before war came to Europe. But when America entered the war, and two years into that war in 1944, unemployment had fallen to 1.2%. Nothing to do with Roosevelt, all to do with Hitler and Japan. So the truth of the matter is that although Roosevelt’s new deal worked, it only worked to some extent. What would’ve happened without World War II remains to some extent, uncertain. It would not have ended. That is to say unemployment and the depression as quickly as it did if it had not been for World War II. I don’t know how many of the men listening to me now, when you were young, a teenager and I’m a teenager in the late '50s and '60s. When my father was cross with me, a frequent, I might say, he would say, “We need a good war to sort people like you out.” And maybe some of you were told that as well. “You need a good war to sort, all that long hair, all this old music and we need a good war.” But the truth is, with the Great Depression, it was a war. Hardly a good war, but it was a war which ended it. Well, let me go back to the story that I was telling. This is just some figures from America, which I thought were worth sharing just for you to get a sort of grasp of the range of the problem. Here we are. “From 1929 to 1931, whilst in America, Hoover, Republican was the president, industrial production dropped by 33%. Wages fell, workers were sacked. Many Americans couldn’t afford to pay back bank loans and stopped depositing money. This forced many banks to close, which meant other people lost their savings completely. Banks would no longer give credit to customers. So many people didn’t have the money to buy consumer goods. The lack of demand caused businesses to close.
People lost their jobs.” It’s a domino effect. The whole economy is crashing down in the states. The whole thing is crashing down. “By 1933,” as I just said, “25% of the American workforce was unemployed. Many were out of work for years.” Severe poverty, severe poverty. Starvation, even. People thrown out of their houses couldn’t pay the rent, couldn’t pay the mortgage, began to set up shanty towns, which they caught with gesture towards the White House Hoovervilles after Herbert Hoover, the president whom Americans were increasingly losing confidence. If you are American, you may be able, after I’ve finished speaking, to tell us about your parents or grandparents who faced these problems during the Great Depression. But even if you aren’t American or Canadian or British, there are similar stories that can be told. We had a general strike in '29. We had hunger marches in the '30s. We had what could have led to a breakdown in society. And this was a great fear in the United States, a breakdown in society. Here is an account by an American journalist of the period writing for an American magazine in 1931. The magazine was called The New Republic, the author of that is of Hispanic descent and is a radical. But he describes a march, a hunger march on Washington D.C. “Up on the hill, cordons of cots are everywhere, making a fine showing in the late fall sunshine. There’s a considerable crowd standing around. It’s years since Washington has been interested in the opening of Congress. They’re roping off the root for the hunger marchers.
They stop a taxi cab that is discovered to contain a small white-haired senator. He curses the cops out roundly and is hurriedly escorted under the porches.” The radical journalist is making the point between politicians, the white haired senator in this case, and the people. The white haired senator has obviously had a good meal, has a nice home to return to, and is driven to the Senate by a car. Whereas the hunger marchers can’t feed their own families and are desperate. He goes on to say, “There’s a big crowd in the square between the Capitol and the congressional library. On the huge ramps of the steps that lead to the central portico, the metropolitan police have placed some additional scattering, tastefully arranged groups of cots with rifles, riot guns, and the brand new tear gas pistol. People whisper machine gun nests.” Now when you get to this sort of stage, you have to think, revolution. You can draw your own conclusions about then and now and the attack that was taken on Congress after the last presidential election. That’s up to you to make the connection. I’m just telling you the history here and that is frightening. “The marches fill the broad semicircle in front of the capitol. Each group taking up its position in perfect order as if the show had been rehearsed.
The band, they got a band with them, playing 'Solidarity Forever.’ A newspaper woman next to me says, ‘That’s the tune of onward Christian soldiers.’ The band goes on playing, ‘The Red Flag,’ ‘Solidarity.’ Another tune variously identified by people in the crowd above the heads of the marches are banners with slogans. In the last war, we fought for the bosses. In the next war, we’ll fight for the workers. $150 cash, full pay for unemployment relief. We demand unemployed insurance. And I’ve written on my notes here. In short, things were taking a fairly big step towards revolution. Now throughout the western democratic world, in the ‘20s, and '30s, the fear was that revolution would come from the left, from communism following the Russian revolution of 1917. And this is not something that America, this is something we talked about, the red scare before. This is something that Americans were frightened about and continue to be frightened about right the way through into the Cold War. McCarthyism and so. But here it raises its fed. And I wanted just to share you this. "Political groups favouring more radical measures were known as Thunder on the Left, advocating policies such as nationalisation of public utilities and using empty factories to provide jobs for the unemployed.” Thunder from the Left. Now, the problem in the states as compared to say, a country like Britain. In Britain, we had a socialist party, definitely not a communist party, a centre left party of socialists, who, after World War II, did nationalise. So to us that, isn’t a threat, it’s a solution. But in America, such a view in the 1930s sounds as though it’s orchestrated from Moscow. So there is real concern in the states with the political elite that something must be done, something has to be done.
Now, Herbert Hoover is president in 1929 and is president through to the election and beyond two to 1933. And Hoover had a policy of government in a democracy, which is usually referred to as volunteerism. Volunteerism. And here is the definition, “Hoover proposed that volunteerism within the community was the best antidote for the poverty created by the Great Depression, as well as of a myriad of other social problems thrown up during the Great Depression. Hoover called on individuals, local charity organisations, churches, and local governments to work cooperatively to alleviate suffering and distribute relief.” “Rugged individualism,” he called it. I would call it “17th century American Puritanism.” “Get off your backside and do something for yourself.” Except that was no longer possible. And even even Hoover began to realise that that wasn’t possible, that something else would have to happen. And so even Hoover, who did not believe in big government of federal intervention, began, began a process of federal information. He didn’t believe it was desirable, but he came to believe it was necessary to some extent. But like freedom itself, you can’t have just a little bit of intervention. You either going to have to do it or don’t do it. There is no halfway measures. And that is really the fall down of Hoover. He couldn’t really address the desperation in much of American society. There needed to be a much greater intervention. Things got quite bad to be honest in America. And so I’ve got Overexcited and I’d thrown all my books everywhere. Nevermind.
This is just a small example of something that went disastrously wrong. “Hoover refused direct government intervention. Even when a severe drought saw near starvation conditions in the south between 1930 and '31. Congress in fact allowed only $47 million to alleviate distress there. And even that was in the form of loans, which had to be repaid.” Too little, too late. Too little, too late. And you have to pay it back. This is not big government stepping in to resolve problems. And people realise that. And as a consequence of the failure of Hoover to really grasp, I mean, to be fair to Hoover, no one had faced these problems before and he was doing the best, he really did. The leave in that Puritan belief in individual freedom. And he didn’t feel it was right for the federal government to intervene. Okay, I we get all of that. But this was a crisis that was running out of control. So it’s hardly surprising that when the presidential election came about in 1932, that Roosevelt, his democratic opponent, polled over 20% more votes than Hoover did. And Roosevelt went into the White House along with his promises of a new deal, a phrase that took off and which we all know today, a New Deal. And borrowing on Napoleonic history, they talked about the American press, for 100 days, the first 100 days. If your British who may remember that Hamel Wilson, when he came to power talked about 100 days. Politicians like to borrow and the media like to borrow. This is what Alan Axelrod, the Greek populist American historian has written about Hoover taking office. Sorry, when Roosevelt taking office from Hoover.
“When he decided to run for president, Roosevelt faced opponents who objected that he was neither intellectually nor detractors, pointed out physically fit for the White House.” Physically fit. He, remember, had polio as a child. That he was intellectually not up to it. God knows what commentators who made those comments about Roosevelt were to think about Trump today. I dread to think. FDR Roosevelt proved his opponent dead wrong. Having overcome the odds in his personal fight against polio, he set about proving himself capable of overcoming the odds in the national fight to lift America out of the Great Depression. He flew to Chicago to address the 1932 Democrat National Convention. And it was there for the first time that he pledged the American people a new deal, which he described as a federally funded, federally administered programme of relief and recovery. The big government inaction. It totally took the ground from under Hoover’s feet in the election. This is Roosevelt offering what all good politicians need to offer, hope. Hope for a better future, hope for a better future for you, for your children, for your grandchildren. Hope that things will improve. That’s a very difficult thing to do to sell hope. But Roosevelt did sell hope. You remember that in his inaugural, if you’re American and if you’re not American, in his inaugural address in 1933, Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The only thing we have fear is fear itself.
Roosevelt also made what became known as fireside talks on the radio. No politician had used the radio like that. He used the radio to directly communicate with people. Now, in a distant past of my life when I worked in Manchester, I used to do some bits of television, bits of radio. It was much easier for me to do radio. Why? Because I could imagine one person that I was speaking to. But that person listening also thinks you’re only talking to them. And the same is true with Zoom. If this was in a classroom and there’s a hundred of you, hundreds of you in the classroom, you’re lost. And I’m not speaking, how can I? I can’t look you in the eyes. But through Zoom, I can look you in the eyes, you can look me in the eyes, and it’s just two of us. And that’s what he managed to do. And through his, I think his voice was important that I think Churchill’s voice was important, that the timbre of their voices, not just the content, but he was the sort of person that people began to trust, believing he will do what he says he’ll do. Now that very few politicians managed to do that, but he did and get reelected on that basis. He did because not only did he talk positively, but he acted positively. Now, I’ve already indicated that his actions didn’t end up the Great Depression, but that doesn’t really matter. If you are a huge Roosevelt fan, you could say if Second World War hadn’t happened, Roosevelt would’ve eventually had solved the problem of the Great Depression and got America back to work. And I think I’d rather agree with you that he might have. It might’ve taken him longer than it actually took because of the war but I think he would’ve got there.
That is of course, as long as those who opposed big government didn’t vote him out of office. Let me read on. “When he accepted the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination, he declared, quote,” and this is Roosevelt speaking. “'I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.’” This is quite an extraordinary man in my view. It’s always very difficult talking about other countries politicians, when some of you lived through, if not in the 1930s, in the 1940s, Roosevelt’s presidential term. Maybe you are deeply Republican or were opposed to Roosevelt. Maybe you were deeply democratic and terribly pro. But from outside, and I know in Britain we are terribly pro-Roosevelt because of his actions to support us in Lend Lease and eventually to come into the war. But it seems to me that Roosevelt is a cut above. He embraced big government and he did so with a tremendous amount of opposition. So what did he do? Now I’m not going to go through everything that he did. Well, only very briefly, if you want to know what all the legislation was, it’s easy to look it up. But this opening paragraph of Alan Axelrod sets the scene. “Most of the actual legislation of Roosevelt’s first 100 days was aimed at providing immediate relief.” That’s what people were demanding. That’s what the hunger marches were demanding. Immediate relief.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was established to protect depositors from losing their savings in the event of bank failure. The measure did much to restore confidence in the nation’s portering banking system. The Federal Reserve Board, which regulated the nation’s money supply was strengthened. The Homeowners Loan Corporation was established to supply funds to help the League of Home owners avoid foreclosure on their mortgages. A federal security act reformed the regulation of stock offering and trading an effort to avert the kind of wild speculation that had brought about the crash in 1929. So there were big strides being made to underpin the infrastructure of the financial state of the United States for individuals by intervening and making money available. He introduced the Civilian Corporation Corps. Thousands of men who were out of work were put to work in projects on national forests, parks, and public lands. Now that has an importance wider than finding some people jobs. It is the first time… It’s the first time really, that in any western country we have government involvement with questions of the environment, which now dominate us. And Roosevelt was there 90 years ago saying, “We are going to work on national forest parks and public lands.” Axelrod said, “Perhaps the most single, most visible manifestation of the New Deal programme in agricultural form was the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built roads, great dams and hydroelectric parks in seven of the nation’s poorest states.”
Looking at infrastructure. In Britain, we’ve been talking about infrastructure and we’re appallingly bad at infrastructure in Britain and our infrastructure is still unacceptable in the 21st century. But so was the infrastructure unacceptable in 1930s America. And that is something that Rosa honed in on because not only could he improve the infrastructure, which in has a knock on effect to the economy, but he can employ people in creating this new infrastructure. And he does so in the poorest of the states. This is federal government money intervening in state problems of infrastructure to the benefit not just of the state, but actually of individual unemployed people in 1935, because it didn’t end, you see. It didn’t end with the first 100 days. It continues after the first 100 day. There are further reforms, right the way through. In 1935, there’s a Relief Appropriation Act. There’s a Rural Electrification Act, there’s a Revenue Act, there’s a Social Security Act, all of these things which America didn’t have. So not only is there looking to the future, as we now look back in hindsight, things like the environment, but there’s also catching up with European societies in terms of unemployment pay, in terms of old age pensions, in terms of social security in general. The things that in Britain had existed for 20 odd plus years. There’s also a realignment with unions, union reform, something that had happened in Britain back in the 19th century. Now that’s not saying Britain is better than America. Please don’t jump to that conclusion. What it’s saying is that America’s belief in the individual had overridden the involvement of central government.
The Great Depression, they had got over the… For America was in the Second world at First World War for only two years, less than two years. So it’s not, excuse me. In just over two years in the First World War was not enough to change the nature of American government as it did in Britain. But before we reached the Second World War, we have the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s view. Not only did Roosevelt have an opportunity during the Great Depression to redefine the role of federal government, but of course, it went on when the second World War came about. And Roosevelt’s still in charge. So as we look at the presidential office today, if you were writing me an essay about the changing role of the presidency, as you could in every country, we could write one on the changing role of the Prime Minister, I would take the story really from Churchill’s administration during World War II, but in America, you can take it from Roosevelt’s 1930s administration dealing with the question of Great Depression. As I said earlier, not everything worked. Not everything that Roosevelt did was an enormous success. Some of it was even counterproductive. But most of the things he did, did work, but were not sufficient in themselves to resolve the problems of the Great Depression.
For me, Roosevelt’s greatest triumph was giving hope and inspiration to people. This is what Churchill did for Britain in World War II. Politicians who can look at the far horizon and paint a picture. Not only at the far horizon, but in how we might get there, but not hide from people the toughness and the tough questions that have to be grasped. These are politicians who rise above the norm. And I think Roosevelt is one of those, and Churchill is certainly one of those. I didn’t know how to finish and I remembered this book, which is, The Great Depression and the New Deal" in the Oxford very short series written by an American, Eric Rauchway. R-A-U-C-H-W-A-Y. I hope that’s how he pronounces it. Who’s the professor of history in University of California. And I wanted to read two things to end with. The first thing is, well, for me, it’s a message for America and the rest of the liberal democracies today. He writes this. “Conservative, particularly southern Democrats like Congressman Martin Dies of Texas, began fretting publicly about communist influence in the New Deal. Diocese un-American Activities Committee began hearings in 1938 to investigate the influence of communism on unions and the New Deal broadly, including the Federal Theatre Project. In December, Harry Flanagan, the project’s director, went before the committee. When she mentioned Christopher Marlowe, who wrote "Doctor Faustus,” Congressman Joseph Stans asked her, “You’re quoting from this Marlowe. Is he a communist?”
She replied, “Put in the record please, that he was the greatest dramatist in the period of Shakespeare. Immediately preceding Shakespeare. The exchange illustrated the breadth of the gap between the culture the new dealers were promulgating,” under Roosevelt’s blessing and money. “The gap between the culture, the new dealers were promulgating and the culture in some regions of the country asked to appreciate it. By 1939, the Committee had helped end funding for the Federal Theatre Project and the conservatives in Congress turned their attention to other New Deal agencies. In the summer of 1939, they began looking into the National Labour Board. And conservative Democrats and Republicans voted together to defeat spending bills Roosevelt had proposed. Roosevelt doesn’t have it all his own way. There’s a kickback against the New Deal. And the word "communist” is used as a slur. This is McCarthyism before McCarthy. And I think we have to look in terms of that division in American society and indeed, in British and other societies. It’s very important that the elite, if we use that word, in society as a whole, not just a political elite, but a cultural elite doesn’t get totally and utterly separated from the rest of society. Enabling populous politicians to challenge progressive governments basically. History never gives you an answer, we know that.
But history can sometimes sound a warning and there is a warning in these stories. Roosevelt is not stupid. Roosevelt is well aware. By 1939, that war in Europe is inevitable. And Rauchway writes this, and on this I end ‘cause this is the end for the day and the link to next week. “In November, 1938, just months after the Fair Labour Standards Act passed, Roosevelt privately told his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, that the world slide into war might well benefit Americans generally and the Democrats politically. 'These foreign orders for armaments,’ said Roosevelt, ‘mean prosperity in this country, and we can’t elect a Democratic party unless we get prosperity.’ At the same time, Roosevelt began thinking about building up American military power as a deterrent to avoid having to negotiate with it. Despite losses in the 1938 Congressional elections, the Democratic Party remained in power, as he Roosevelt, for an unprecedented third term in 1940. And in a few years, he told reporters he no longer liked the term, "New Deal.” That Dr. New Deal had come to save the country for one set of ills, but now did it face new perils. His new partner was Doctor Win the War.“ Amazing that a man who in peacetime was, in my estimation, a great peacetime president, became in wartime, a great wartime president. The same sadly can’t be said of Churchill. As a peacetime prime minister, but in fairness to Churchill, he was beyond his sell by date when he came back to par in the early 1950s. I’m going to end there because I’m going to pick up the story where that last quotation began, 1938, the next time we meet, which is the same time, same place, and I guess there’s lots of people with lot. Oh yes, there are.
Q&A and Comments:
Thank you, Susan. And happy New Year to all of you. Thanks very much.
Warren. "Yet, when it comes to abortion in the USA, the small government Republicans want big government interference in the lives of the individual. Very hypocritical.” Now… Nothing is ever absolutely set in stone when it comes to political parties and their views. If you want me to comment on that, then the comment I would make, and many of you know, I went to an evangelical Christian public school, boarding school, private school, Americans would say, then I can say that hypocrisy appears to me to be a common thread in evangelical Christianity. It’s not something unusual. And I think that portrays, I’m not for one moment suggesting that Trump, for instance, is a religious man, but he uses religion and certain evangelical Christians, same as Roman Catholics, in their belief about the freedom of the individual, even when in the room gives a way to being anti-abortion.
David. “Having had polio and in a wheelchair, one could say that FDR was supposed to child for the present.” DEI ideology, that’s not a phrase I’m familiar with in Britain. But I guess you mean, I guess I interpret that to mean the poster child of the present, present belief that people who suffer from disability should have every possible chance in our world. I’m sure that’s what you mean. And yes, you could say he was supposed to, except that people didn’t know it. Many years ago, my wife and I were in the house where FDR star in Churchill sign the York agreement. Lucky you.
Q: Shelly. “Mussolini came to power before the ‘29 crash. He greatly influenced Hitler. How does Mussolini fit into the question of small versus big government?”
A: Oh, goodness, Shelly, you always ask me very difficult questions. He fell into big government. He introduced lots of infrastructures schemes like railway building, like draining the marshes in Italy. So he is a big government person.
Janna, sorry. “There’s your problem. Underlying in the crash, and you’re assume depression was greed, borrow on credit quite what might lead to increased wealth.” Sorry, oversimplification, but there’s only an hour. Oh, hi. That’s a… That’s a kick below the belt. Nevermind. Well, that would lead, let me take the question very seriously. It’s a wider question on the nature of capitalism and capitalist societies and the balance is against greed and in a liberal democracy for there to be a balance. And you are right. There was greed and it led to that.
Ann says, “South Africans can tell you all about electricity failing and water also.”
Marion. “In South Africa, we used to know electricity. It’s called local shedding. Traffic lights out, no appliances and no lifts in buildings, and we’ve just had to adapt and survive.”
Leonard. Absolutely right, Leonard. “A wonderful invention has proved useful in path failures to wind up radio, no batteries required.” Absolutely right. You’re a very eccentric man, the man that invented it. But you’re absolutely right. I did have one at one time, but I don’t anymore. Maybe I should get one.
Ellen. “In South Africa, we are well used to function without electricity as we have regular load shedding.”
Yes, Jana. “Regarding radio and the loss of electricity, even recently, Grundig was producing radios whose power could be generated by a hand crank.” Yup, that’s true.
Bernice, “My uncle, who was very left wing, always preached America needed a war to get out of the Great Depression.” Well, yeah, I mean, I think older generations in the past always said that.
Jacqueline. “Remember the song of the Depression Time, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime”?
Q: David. “How much did crime in the underground economy grow during the Depression?”
A: Well, yes it did. Yes, it did. That’s true.
Monique. “I’d like to recommend a book, the "The Plot to Seize the White House” by Jules Archer.“ Not a book I’ve read, "Published in 1973.”
Monique and Danny. “There was an assassination at him FBI in Chicago where the mayor of Chicago was killed round '33 there was an attempt.”
Q: “Are you suggesting that communist revolutions would’ve occurred in the western world if World War II hadn’t erupted?”
A: No, I’m not suggesting that. What I’m suggesting is that if the World War II hadn’t come, Roosevelt’s New Deal would’ve worked. That would not have introduced communism. It would’ve strengthened democracy. In Britain, likewise, if the war had not come, we would have moved forward and we would be roughly in the same… Well, we’d have been far better off in Britain because of the expenditure of the war. I’m not suggesting that communism would’ve come. In Britain, communism was dead as a live issue. It’s fascism that was a live issue. For us in America, there’s no way that communism is going to take power in America. And if I gave that impression, I gave the wrong impression. My mother grew up in, I’m not even Shelly, going to pronounce the name of the town, grew up in Wisconsin. Sometime between '35 and '36, her parents took out a mortgage on their small house so they could send money to relatives in Poland for a dowry and a gravestone. They were afraid they might not be able to pay the bank back. That’s how they knew their relatives were killed in the Holocaust. If the relatives could contact them for money, they certainly would’ve contacted them after World War II to sponsor them.
Oh, dear George. Olga. Sorry, Olga.
Q: “Why did social not take a hold in the USA?”
A: That is a really deep and difficult question to answer. It’s one of those really big questions. There are a lot of answers to that question. One of the first answers is that if you take British socialism, which is the nearest, we can get to what American socialism might have been because of the nature of the history of the two countries. If we take British socialism, then the things that they have when in power introduced are not so dissimilar from things introduced by the Democratic Party in the States. And no one is causing the Democratic Party to be a socialist. The word had always in America had communist, and because it’s because of the immigrants from the former the Russian Empire in the States that were so fearful of communism, that I think the answer is that socialism meant communism in the states, whereas socialism in Britain didn’t. Socialism in Britain was actually based in the non-conformist chapels like nepotism and baptism. That’s where our came from. It isn’t out of marks. It’s a different basis. But I suppose the answer is that in the democracies, if you compare them and that this would be a big exercise to do, I think you would find that many things that we would associate in Britain with the left wing nevertheless have happened in the States.
I suppose the obvious one that hasn’t is the British National Health Service, which at the moment I have to say to non-Britains and the Britains as well, is in complete chaos and disaster. It doesn’t mean to say the American is better, because I think many Americans would say it wasn’t. But there are European examples in Germany and France, which are considerably better than Britain’s and contemporary debt in the States. But if we take that aside in many other ways, we have gone shoulder to shoulder with decades between either Britain did it first or America did it, but I think that has to be the real answer to the question, and I don’t think anybody setting up a socialist party in the States would ever be elected. What happens is the left of the Democratic Party, in power, has done all sorts of very positive things, and you’ll all tell me that Americans, so that’s not true.
Monique and Danny. “My paternal grandparents, lost nearly everything in the Great Depression. The business went under in '29, and the house was taken in '32. They went from riches to rags, never fully recovered.” That’s exactly the appalling American story.
“It was the reason that underlay my father and his next older brother enlisting in the Army in 1940. They saw World War II coming. During the '30s, they’d taken any job available, so to have food from themselves, their parents and siblings.” Monique and Danny. That short paragraph you’ve typed for me is a complete analysis, if you like, or a complete description maybe is a better word. Complete description of the Great Depression in the States. It says everything.
Oh, people are saying that FDR had polio when he was adult. I’m sorry if I misled you on that.
“In 1994,” says Mark, “I was doing business in Mexico when the peso was devalue. Many of my customers couldn’t pay their invoices. This mirrored the '29 crash. The aftermath was brutal for most Mexicans and their suppliers, but several people took advantage and purchased businesses for a sum similar to Putin’s Thieves. I think I could teach a course on depression and the New Deal. FDR and selling hope really helped, I don’t believe was the actual reason for solving the Great Depression.” No, what was solved, it was World War II. His radio broadcast Roosevelt were called Fireside Chats. I said talks, and I knew perfectly well as Fireside Chat that that was just me misspeaking. The Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration says, put many people to work. The WPA works, progress administration put artists and writers to were. The WPA Guide to New York is a great example and still being sold today. The Tennessee Valley Authority says Monique and Danny was modelled on the New York State Power Authority, which was an earlier FDR creation.
David, have you answered Joe? I can’t read what you’ve said. But Joe, as all federal schemes through Congress, but that’s why sometimes, he couldn’t fund them because Congress wouldn’t provide the money. There’s no secret about what, he did it. Oh, Francine, I bless you. I wanted someone to give an alternative view.
“Roosevelt’s star faded to me when I read about the influence of his advisors and cabinet against immigration, particularly Eastern Europeans escaping from war, continuing the immigration policies of the '20s and earlier. I regret his hesitancy on aiding England early in the war. Englishman shouldn’t have had to beg for help. I think we’re in the same position now. Politicians not been looking back to recent history.” I’ll talk about why the FDR would’ve supported Britain earlier, but felt that, I mean, he had to go through Congress and he didn’t think he would divide American opinion if he did, and they were waiting. Some American historian say that really FDR, not FDR, but Congress was waiting to see the outcome of the Battle of Britain. When Britain won the Battle of Britain in 1940, then America was able to give support, but they thought Britain would be dead and buried as France was in a matter of weeks. And if you think about it, how could America have launched an invasion of Britain across the Atlantic? It simply couldn’t have done. I’ll talk about that next time.
Q: “Could these promises be made today view a press scrutiny?”
A: Joe, that’s a brilliant question, and maybe the answer is no. And maybe the answer is no, because the press would say, “Well, you can’t do that, Mr. President. It’s not going to work.”
Marcia, you’re right. “The first great environmental US president was Teddy Roosevelt with the National Park scheme.” Yeah, I’d buy that. And somebody else has put the same thing down. Francine makes a very good point. “The anti-intellectual attitude, as well as the attitude that is due to envy ignorance or lack of education hasn’t changed. It will never change.” Well, those of us who spent our lives in education have to continue to believe that education is the key. We have to believe that.
Max. “For Travellers, FDR libraries home and his wife’s home are wonderful sites to visit in upstate New York. Informed and dedicated guides.” Oh, wish I could go.
Q: Rochelle. “Do you think that Roosevelt’s greatest failure was the night entry to Jews fleeing Hitler? Think of the prosperity day in their descend sort of added to the country.”
A: The brief answer is yes. The longer answer is that he’s bound, he’s bound by public opinion. Whoops. He’s bound by public opinion and by law, he’s bound by Congress. He can’t do simply everything he wants to do even. Yes, he can’t do everything he wants to do, is I think the answer to that. Hang on. I got excited. I’ve got to find where I was. Estra leads to answer her question.
Oh, Paula, thank you. D, mean, diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s not an acronym we use in Britain, but it sounds to me a very useful one. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Thank you. Paula, I love learning things from people who come saying they’re students, but who know more than I do. And that’s one of the glories of adult education. I didn’t know that. Thank you for educating me. I think that’s rather good.
Stuart says, “Interesting. There was a socialist party in US, correct? Which tried to make it clear it wasn’t communist. Its Presidential candidates, Norman Thomas a minister who wore three-piece suits. He ran a number of times president, but later said that most of his radical ideas in the early years have been adopted by FDR by 1940.” Thank you, Stuart for that, because that underlines what I was trying to say.
Monty, thanks very much. Diversity, is that not what the first person said? I’ve lost that now. Diversity, equity and inclusion. Oh, yes, sorry. It was an auto correction then, yes. Everyone said the same. Diversity, equity, inclusion. Thank you very much indeed.
“My dad,” says Nina, “was a New York assemblyman, New York State assemblyman during the FDR New Deal era and fought to repeal the teacher’s loyalty oath.”
Monty. “If you live in South Africa, you only suffering load shedding, count your blessings.” Nina. “It was repealed, but cost my dad his seat because of a smear campaign by Hearst News.”
Bernice. “Roosevelt believed in eugenics. The real mensch was Eleanor who helped Varian Fry bring Jews to America.” Eleanor is an extraordinary interesting person. A very, very interesting person. Michael says, oh, hello, Michael.
Michael says, “The progressive wing of the present democratic party is socialist.”
Martin. Hello, Martin. “FDR was able upon new bill by abolishing prohibition.” Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s also, I didn’t say that and I should have done Martin, you’re quite right. I don’t know how you keep listening to me, Martin and Michael and others who’ve heard me speak so many times. No, Martin, that is absolutely correct and it was an outcome of prohibition as well as the normal way of getting money.
Wow. I think that probably brings us to an end. I don’t know about you. I’m quite exhausted now. Thank you so much for listening and we will move into the beginning of the war in Europe and the response of FDR and the American government and the American people to that war. Thank very much.