Greatness

In part we measure greatness in a president by the great events that occur in the president's time in office. Uneventful times offer few opportunities for a president to merit the description ‘great’. To be sure, a president can order some agency, call for some great action, say, put humans on the Moon or on Mars, or whip up enthusiasm for some great goal for society—eliminating poverty, curing cancer, or creating something like the interstate highway system or the networks that provide us information everywhere and all the time. Many of the issues that past presidents have faced are issues that America has had to deal with time and again—even now. And as we judge presidents—this is our responsibility as voters—we have to imagine, and we often do imagine, what we would do, or what we want our leaders to do, in a given set of circumstances.

Great wars and great economic calamities offer our elected representatives and many others awesome opportunities for distinguishing or disgracing themselves—winning great praise or suffering great disdain from those whose lives are affected for good or bad by the decisions of those in power. FDR came into office and had to deal with both the Great Depression and World War II. For a president, and for most of those who are affected, there are not many greater challenges than those.

Circumstances

Roosevelt got into office because he seemed to be the right man to deal with one of the worst times in American history. The longer that the administration of Herbert Hoover went on, the more the voters wanted to see a new chief executive in office. Most voters felt that Hoover had failed to meet their needs and that his continued leadership was unlikely to bring them better times. “The wealthiest 5% of the population garnered approximately a third of all personal income.” (Buhite and Levy, p. 3) In 1933, at the depth of the depression, the percentage of workers unemployed was 25.2%.
“Between 1929 and 1932 more than one hundred thousand American businesses failed ...” (Buhite and Levy, p. 5)

The stock market crash—the worst damage coming on a couple of Black Days in 1929, Black Thursday, October 24, and Black Tuesday, October 29—was not the sole cause of the Great Depression. The economy was on very shaky ground for quite awhile before this. Many investors looked to profit from stocks purchased with borrowed money. Those investors could profit from their speculation when the face value of the stocks rose. But when prices fell, investors who couldn't repay their loans, because they expected to repay those loans with the rise in stock prices, stood to lose whatever assets they had.

Banks, having invested heavily in stocks, were hurt severely when the value of those stocks plummeted. Many Americans lost confidence in our economic system. Building, spending, investing fell drastically. There were few shortages of goods for consumers. Many companies in their optimism had over-produced consumer goods. But deflation proved to be catastrophic: demand for products fell, then prices fell. When demand did not rebound, prices fell even further. Many companies when out of business, and so unemployment rose.

Aiming to protect some businesses in America, Congress passed the Tariff of 1930 (the Smoot-Hawley). This bumped up the prices for over 20,000 imported products. And this prompted Europe to retaliate with tariffs on American goods. The war with tariffs did more to hamper international trade than help the economy of any nation.

Mood

The stock market moves in part with the mood of investors. The nation as a whole, or the majority of its citizens, can be said to have some mood. The mood of the nation soared with the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR had a mandate to fix the ailing economy and bring relief to all suffering citizens. Many saw him as a savior. Kenneth Davis put it this way:

… the national mood, at this opening of one of the most fateful weeks in American history, had running through it a broad streak of messianic authoritarianism … a longing for the Leader, the Messiah in whom a passionate communal faith could be invested and who would take responsibility for everything, obviating the necessity for individual thought and decision. (Davis, p. 35)

In office FDR cemented the bonds he had forged with the American people. Roosevelt mastered radio as JFK was adept with TV and as Obama used social media to his advantage. Presidents can be especially effective—win supporters, rally the nation—when they master the dominant communication technology of the time.

Actions

To restore faith in the banks, the Emergency Banking Act required a “bank holiday” from March 6 to 15—a closure of the banks—during which the government would determine which were fit to reopen. Most banks passed the test. And with this reassurance, customers started making more deposits than withdrawals.

To bolster the strength of business, the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 1933 set a minimum wage, allowed labor groups to bargain collectively, and created the Public Works Administration (PWA).

To get people back to work, the New Deal created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It put some young unmarried men to work as volunteers to help develop natural resources on lands owned by various levels of government. And the Public Works Administration employed people to build highways, tunnels, bridges and dams, schools, hospitals and universities. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed over eight million people. It helped with the construction and revitalization of many parts of the infrastructure of the country.

To help people save their farms and homes, the Homeowners' Loan Corporation refinanced mortgages.

To help develop one of the most challenged areas for the economy in the country, the Tennessee Valley Authority reactivated a hydroelectric power plant in the Tennessee River Valley. That facility then provided services to several states in the region.

To help senior citizens, the Social Security Act provided pensions, survivors' benefits, and unemployment insurance.

Opposition

These programs could not accomplish everything. They did not restore the nation to widespread, lasting prosperity. Former president Hoover criticized the New Deal for advocating policies that gave the state too much power over the direction of the economy. He likened that power to ‘tyranny’.

The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional several pieces of legislation coming out of the New Deal. The Court in 1935 declared the National Recovery Administration to be unconstitutional because that administration gave the president power over local commerce, and this went beyond the constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.

In response to the opposition by the judicial branch, FDR went on the attack. The Congress is supposed to determine the number of justices to sit on the Supreme Court. So the executive branch under FDR advanced the Bill to Reorganize the Judicial Branch of Government. This would enable FDR to appoint six additional justices. FDR wanted to transform the Supreme Court so that it would more readily serve his interest. His intention was tilting the balance of power in favor of the executive branch.

In support of his proposal, the president argued that the Court needed younger, more vigorous members to cope with the workload they had been unable to manage. Those arguments were convincingly debunked by the chief justice. And popular opinion, initially supportive, became overwhelmingly opposed to the plan. Opposition from pundits and columnists included charges that the country would be leaning toward fascism, that the chief executive could become in effect a dictator. In the end, the bill that would pack the Court in the president's favor was defeated. The Supreme Court nevertheless when on to support several pieces of legislation advanced in the New Deal. And the president eventually appointed eight justices to the Supreme Court.

Issues

Some major issues with which FDR had to grapple are still with us. One of those issues relates to the size of government—the number and complexity of the bureaucracies that are supposed to serve us. Another issue is the power of the government to control our lives—the degree to which government fosters or restricts the freedoms of citizens. Yet another issue is the relationship of the main branches of government, the relationships between and the relative powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Arguably, Franklin Roosevelt met the challenges of the Great Depression and World War II more or less to the satisfaction of the voters, for they elected him to the presidency four times.

While his policies and programs to end the depression reduced much or at least some of the pain that Americans suffered, and restored some of the faith in our economic system and the role of government as protector of the well-being of its citizens, what finally got us out of the rut was World War II. Nothing did more than war to bring America back to relative prosperity.

To this day, the reputation of FDR varies among those who consider his policies and the legislation he managed to get enacted. Some still idolize him—he still ranks high in the minds of many historians.

But some still revile his accomplishments; they feel that he turned the country in the wrong direction. Rugged individualism gave way to welfare. A limited government became the vast, sprawling bureaucracies that only grow larger and more entrenched. Taxation, the necessary driver of all government programs, increasingly burdens all citizens and stifles the growth of American enterprise.

Those are some of the views of FDR’s detractors. Throughout our history political philosophers and most of the rest of us believe that we need to strike a balance between the extremes of a government that overpowers us all and a government that does nothing to help its citizens flourish.

Many of the ideas that Americans grappled with in the debates that raged in the 1930s and beyond are still with us. To be sure, we do not have a Great Depression or a World War—yet. But we’ll always need to consider what the policies of our government will lead us toward. Whether we go to extremes or strike some balance in the matters we consider will certainly be one of the subjects that future historians will ponder.

________________________

References

Buhite, Russell D. and David W. Levy, eds. FDR’s Fireside Chats. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.

Davis, Kenneth S. FDR: The New Deal Years 1933-1937. New York: Random House, 1986.

Freedman, Russell. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Clarion Books, 1990.

Lamb, Brian, Susan Swain and C-SPAN. The Presidents: Noted Historians Rank America’s Best—and Worst—Executives. New York: Public Affairs, 2019.

Smith, Jean Edward. FDR. New York: Random House, 2007.