Document – J. Frederick Essary, “The New Deal for Nearly Four Months” (July 1933)

***

More history has been made during these fifteen weeks than in any comparable peacetime period since Americans went into business for themselves on this continent. The legislation that has now been written into law, under the Roosevelt leadership, touches practically every interest in our national life. It touches some of them lightly and by indirection only. It touches others heavily and will leave a mark on them not to be erased for a generation, if at all.

Powers have been reposed in the Presidency that have made that office a virtual dictatorship. It may be looked upon both as a benevolent and a necessary dictatorship. Undoubtedly it is so looked upon in most quarters. It may not be irrevocable. But soften the phrasing as much as one may, the fact remains that the present governmental set-up amounts to temporary Executive absolutism.

These new Presidential powers, let it be recalled, extend not only to the fiscal functions of the Government—to budgetary economy, to control of gold, control of banking and to possible inflation. They extend as well to agriculture, to every branch of industry, to public works, to the railroads, to mortgaged homes and farms, to unemployment and to the relief of destitution.

Rather a large order, that!

Such sweeping powers for the most part were granted, only because of the acuteness of the crisis which came to a head on the very day Mr. Roosevelt took office. That day found the country in the throes of a bank depositors' panic. This panic eventually forced every banking house in the country to close, the sound and the unsound alike. It forced the commodity and securities exchanges to suspend. It caused the industrial structure of the nation to totter, and it brought on partial paralysis of the normal energies of the whole American people.

Nobody now living had ever witnessed anything like that. And instinctively we, the American people, turned to Washington for salvation. We turned there for the very good reason there was nowhere else to turn. We turned, moreover, to an untried man, just as did the people when they turned to Abraham Lincoln in 1861. We turned to an Executive who had just taken the oath, to one who had only lately concluded a campaign more marked by its amiability than by thunder and lightning, and to a man, incidentally, in whose soul the amount of iron was still an unknown quantity.

We did not have to wait long for action, however. That much is easy to remember. Untroubled by any need for additional legislation, the new President at once assumed what amounted to war powers. And assuming them, he moved with swiftness and decision to meet the emergency. On the night of March 5, twenty-four hours after his inauguration, he issued two proclamations. One of them declared a bank holiday for the nation and placed an embargo upon the withdrawal and export of gold. The other summoned Congress to meet in four days.

That was action, and action with a vengeance!

These proclamations, with their martial ring, served as a curtain-raiser for a series of dramatic steps by the Federal Government, steps that followed each other with bewildering rapidity until fourteen weeks later when Congress ended its extraordinary session (extraordinary in more senses than one), and the President packed his bags for a holiday at sea.

There are two dazzling highlights in the picture of this unparalleled period. One is Franklin D. Roosevelt the man; the other is this man's measures. Of course the two are inseparable, in a large sense. We can not think of the one, since March. . . .

***

The Literary Digest is published weekly by Funk & Wagnalls Company, Wilfred J. Funk, President; Robert J. Cuddihy, Vice-President and Treasurer; William Neisel, Secretary; 35460 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. London Office, 14 Salisbury Square. Printed in the U.S.A. Entered as second-class matter. March 24, 1896, at the Post-Office at New York, N.Y., under the act of March 3, 1379. Additional Entry at Chicago, Ill., and Columbus, O. Entered as second-class matter at the Post-Office Department, Ottawa, Canada. Volume 116, Number 1, Whole Number 2254. Subscription Price $4.00 per year.

TABLE OF CONTENTS ON PAGE 38

***

. . . 4, without thinking in terms of the other. But there is something in a personality that grips one's interest far more surely than does a policy, no matter how vital that policy may be.

Two Different Men

The mysterious way in which the President has performed his wonders, if that is the way to put it, has been something decidedly worth observing during the past four months. The way he made his campaign was an interesting thing, too. But Roosevelt the Candidate and Roosevelt the President are two different men. I assert as much, for I am well acquainted with both.

In the first rôle he was famous for his beguiling smile, famous for his soft words, famous for his punchless speeches, famous for his tenderness to his opponent and famous far above all else for his incredible majority. The smile and the soft words are still a part of his armor, but they are about all there is about him now that is suggestive of campaign days. There is plenty of punch in what he says and does in his rôle as Chief Executive. No tenderness is wasted upon those who stand in his way. The oath of office seems suddenly to have transfigured him from a man of mere charm and buoyancy to one of dynamic aggressiveness.

Also Mr. Roosevelt has proved himself to be the most adroit master of practical politics we have had in the White House in a generation. That is rather a broad statement, but I think the results of the past few weeks amply justify it.

There were two all-important phases of his job, as Mr. Roosevelt conceived it. One was to keep the public on his side by keeping it informed of his aims; the other was to play ball with the leadership of Congress. To accomplish the first end, he played and played successfully for press support, on the one hand, and on the other, he resorted with great effect to the personal use of the radio.

It is far too soon to put Mr. Roosevelt down as a superman, a great statesman, a great statesman or a man of destiny. He still has a long way to go before achieving that eminence. But it is not too much to say that he has exhibited political sagacity and administrative efficiency to an astonishing degree. The results he has to his credit—and they are breath-taking when we try to comprehend them—can not all be charged to the "super-situation." There was the "hour," to be sure, but also there was the "man."

First to last in a session of Congress, the like of which none of us has ever seen, Mr. Roosevelt put through his program without one open break with the legislative branch. Such a break seemed imminent toward the end, upon the veterans compensation issue, after other issues a thousand times more important, moreover, had been disposed of. But a little compromise added to a great deal of firmness on the President's part, closed the breach and dissolved the rebellion.

The Roosevelt program with its fourteen major measures is now statutory law. That program smashed many of our cherished traditions, but none more ruthlessly than the American tradition of "rugged individualism." We are now moving along a new path of social control and planned economy, with the long arm of the Federal Government reaching out in a score of directions where before neither its strength nor its beneficence had been felt.

This central government of ours has now become the almoner to 12,000,000 unemployed and distressed people. It has become the guardian of middle-class investors, of the mortgaged-farm owner, of the mortgaged-home owner, of the bank depositor, and of the railway employee. It has become the partner of industry and of agriculture. And it has even become the friend of the beer maker and the beer drinker.

As a practical contribution to prosperity, the Government promises to expend $3,300,000,000 on public works. It has made an outright grant to the States of $500,000,000 to relieve the destitute, and it has agreed to subscribe a few hundred million more to the corporations which will undertake the refinancing of mortgages on farms and small homes. On top of that it will guarantee the interest on $2,000,000,000 of farm mortgage bonds and $2,000,000,000 home mortgage bonds.

The Government has gone even further. It proposes to make a gigantic experiment in the Tennessee Basin, an experiment in reforestation, soil restoration, navigation and water-power development. If the thing works, it may be given a trial in the basin of the upper Missouri, the valley of the Columbia River and wherever else there is a flood and drainage and soil erosion problem.

In order to make all these dreams come true, vast sums of money must be employed. Some of this money will be raised by increased taxation, but the most of it must be borrowed. In order to borrow, the Federal credit must be maintained through a balanced budget. Thus it is reasoned. And that is why economies in governmental operation are being enforced. These economies begin with the $350,000,000 in veterans compensation and extend to civil and military pay, to reduced departmental expenditures and to governmental reorganization. We once envisaged a saving of a billion dolars a year!

Endless pages might be written—even books—upon the legislative and executive activities of the past four months. How it will all work out, we do not know. All that we do know for a moral certainty is that the old formulas, plans, policies, programs and philosophies—the old conservatism, in a word—failed us and failed wretchedly in the depressed days of the past three years. If the New Deal wins, well and good. We will kiss the past good-by without a regret. If this Deal also fails, it can scarcely leave us any worse off than we were on March 4.

Review

1. 1. How does Essary characterize the actions of President Roosevelt in the first few months of his administration? What powers were granted to Roosevelt?

2. 2. What programs were enacted during the first few months of the New Deal? What was the Roosevelt administration trying to accomplish?

3. 3. What tone does Essary adopt in this editorial? Does he approve of Roosevelt’s efforts? Does he have any concerns about Roosevelt?