A slight rabbit trail is needed for me to see the parallels that will converge in 1940 as another world war breaks out in Europe. Since I am slowly reading the book “Appeasement”, as I posted about last week, I decided I needed some background on the American front towards balancing what really happened in the months and years leading up to a big fight on a global scale.
I also posted yesterday about the rift between two US heroes, FDR and Charles Lindbergh, and remembered that at one time I read the book “The Roosevelt Myth” by John T. Flynn that I felt would fill in the gaps I had in making a good run on the real issues and decisions of the 1930s.
I have seen this time and again in my lifetime, a presidential candidate makes promises, only to break them time and again when in office. FDR was no exception to the rule as he set the tone for stretching the executive branch’s power, like his cousin Teddy Roosevelt did, to the max.
FDR, sworn in on 04MAR1933 had stated this just under a week later:
“For three long years,” he said, “the federal government has been on the road toward bankruptcy. For the fiscal year 1931 the deficit was $462,000,000 . . . For the fiscal year 1932 it was $2,472,000,000 . . . For the fiscal year 1933 it will probably exceed $1,200,000,000 . . . For the fiscal year 1934 based on appropriation bills passed by the last Congress and estimated revenues, the deficit will probably exceed $1,000,000,000 unless immediate action is taken.” Then he warned: “Too often . . . liberal governments have been wrecked on the rocks of loose fiscal policy. We must avoid this danger.”
Then the kicker:
He declared “the credit of the national government is imperiled.” And then he asserted: “The first step is to save it. Recovery defends on that” The first step was a measure to cut government payroll expenditures 25 per cent. The second step, incredible as it may sound, was to authorize a bill providing in effect for the biggest deficit of all—$3,300,000,000 ..
Ouch. Seriously?
.. [by JUN1933] The “spendthrift” Hoover [previous president Herbert Hoover] was in California at his Palo Alto home putting his own affairs in order, while the great Economizer who had denounced Hoover’s deficits had now produced in 100 days a deficit larger than Hoover had produced in two
years.
You cannot make this stuff up. The USA is still paying on that debt!
If we were to compare the character of Herbert Hoover and FDR, the events in last few weeks of Hoover’s lame-duck administration sums it up quite nicely:
.. In his [FDR’s] speech of acceptance of the nomination he talked about all sorts of problems, including the woes of Puerto Rico, but never mentioned the banks. In his discussion of the Democratic platform in his first radio address he ignored the banking question. He delivered a group of addresses on various specific problems—agriculture, labor, foreign policy—but none on the growing banking issue…
.. After his election when the fatalities among the banks became critical, he remained quite unmoved by it. There can be no doubt about this. Ray Moley, who was at his side through these days, has written that between February 18, when he got Hoover’s ominous warning, and March i, he could not discover how seriously Roosevelt was impressed with the seriousness of the crisis. With this in mind, let us return to the alarming letter which Hoover sent to Roosevelt. Hoover wrote that letter on February 17. He sent it by a Secret Service messenger who put it directly in Roosevelt’s hands on February 18. It was the morning of February 19 that Roosevelt went over to the Inner Circle dinner. And all that day he never showed it to anyone. He did not hand it to Moley until hours after he got it. Twelve days later Hoover had not yet received
even an acknowledgment of the letter. Then, on March 1, he got Roosevelt’s reply with this curious explanation. Roosevelt said he had written an answer over a week before but through some oversight of his secretary it had not been sent. When he did reply, twelve days later, he indicated there was nothing he could do…
This trait would be one of FDR’s strongest, outright lying. Is that a 20th century “add-on” for US presidents?
.. By February 19, gold withdrawals from banks increased from five to fifteen million dollars a day. In two weeks $114,000,000 of gold was taken from banks for export and another $150,000,000 was withdrawn to go into hiding.
The infection of fear was everywhere. Factories were closing. Unemployment was rising rapidly. Bank closings multiplied daily…It was now dawning on Hoover that he and Roosevelt were talking about two different things. Hoover was talking about saving the banks and the people’s savings in them. Roosevelt was thinking of the political advantage in a complete banking disaster under Hoover. Actually, on February 25, Hoover received a message from James Rand that Rexford Tugwell had said that the hanks would collapse in a couple of days and that is what they wanted…
FDR sacrificed other’s investments, American’s savings, for his own political expediency. If you want big, central government, you will have this immorality on a grand scale. The hope that the republic, the federated states and the three pillars of US government would somehow keep things in check totally failed in the 20th century, all because of an “emergency”. Between that and wars, leading nations can be pretty heady stuff, with plenty of money and plenty of power.
In a rare moment of clarity, Abraham Lincoln said:
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
In the middle of crisis, noble men weep, but political SOB’s laugh. But I digress:
.. The following day the situation grew worse. New York and Chicago banks were forced to pay out $110,000,000 in gold to foreigners and $20,000,000 to others, while another $20,000,000 was drained away from the interior banks. At this point the panic spread to the Federal Reserve Board officials. Bankers in New York and Chicago had been in practically continous session. Fatigue had done its work. Panic spread amongst them.
On the eve of FDR’s swearing in as president of the United States, he outright lies yet again:
That night Roosevelt’s quarters in the Mayflower were filled with callers. At 1130[PM] the telephone rang. It was Hoover. He told Roosevelt he was still willing, with his consent, to issue the proclamation against hoardings and withdrawals. He asked Roosevelt if he agreed with him there should be no closings. Roosevelt answered: Senator Glass is here. He does not think it is necessary to close the banks—my own opinion is that the governors of the states can take care of closings wherever necessary. I prefer that you issue no proclamation
of this nature. There the conversation ended. Roosevelt then told Glass that the Federal Reserve Board had urged Hoover to close the banks, that Hoover had refused saying most of the banks still open were solvent, and that he told Hoover Senator Glass agreed with him. Then Glass asked Roosevelt what he was going to do. To Glass’ amazement, he answered: “I am planning to close them, of course.” Glass asked him what his authority was and he replied: “The Enemy Trading Act”—the very act Hoover had referred to and on which Roosevelt had said he had no advice from Cummings as to its validity. Glass protested such an act would be unconstitutional and told him so in heated terms. “Nevertheless,” replied Roosevelt, ‘I’m going to issue a proclamation to close the banks.”
A political animal the likes the US had not seen since Abraham Lincoln. (Possibly with the exception of the pastor’s son, Woodrow Wilson)
Unbelievably, FDR was indeed an economic moron, who had no grand plan and had no clue how to reopen the banks. In the end:
.. To the great audience that listened to the [12MAR1933] fireside chat, the hero of the drama—the man whose genius had led the country safely through the crisis of the banks—was not any of the men who had wrestled with the problem, but the man who went on the radio and told of the plan he did not construct, in a speech he did not write.
So we have come full circle. Stupid masses elect a stupid man as their messiah, and they are fully in love with the leader of their democracy. Mod rule (i.e. democracy) is not a pretty sight.
For years and decades men and women all over this nation will have been convinced of the righteousness and noble nature of this man that led them through the Great Depression, including my own grandfather, a small land owner with 25 cows to milk, who saw FDR give hope to Americans, electric to their homes, and safety in fighting WWII. He defended FDR to his dying day!
The chart below says more accurately what really happened:
The hypocrisy was heavy in the air during the passing of the Congressional bill to reopen the banks when FDR shared:
.. The next day Roosevelt sent his now famous message to Congress deploring the disastrous extravagance of the Hoover administration, uttering many of those sentences about balancing the budget, the fatalities of government spending, etc., which were to be quoted against him so many times, and calling for powers to reduce salaries and government expenses. As one reads that message now it is difficult to believe that it could ever have been uttered by a man who
before he ended his regime would spend not merely more money than President Hoover, but more than all the other 31 Presidents put together—three times more, in fact, than all the Presidents from George Washington to Herbert Hoover.
Quite the negative legacy, once you are aware of the real story behind the narrative, the history books and the teachers that take those history books at face value. What can a person do but hope that this might help convince some people that collectivist governments (democracies, Marxism, Socialism and Communism) are a bad road to travel.
I will continue to read the book “The Roosevelt Myth” as that book starts to unpack the “New Deal” (all versions) as I dive back into the book “Appeasement”.
Stay tuned.
-SF1