The New Deal: book review and historical analysis

FDR: The New Deal Years 1933-1937: A History, Kenneth S. Davis presents a meticulous account of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term. This book is the third volume in Davis' much-lauded biography series of the 32nd president.

In this volume, Davis focuses on Roosevelt's New Deal policies, providing a thorough analysis of how the president laid the foundations - often without his full comprehension -- of the American semi-welfare state.

Davis' core argument is that the New Deal Program, which Roosevelt cobbled together in fits and starts and amid stringent opposition, would eventually be recognized decades later as a necessary safety net for the unfortunate and the down and out.

To examine Roosevelt's achievements, Davis arranges the book into four sections that chronicle Roosevelt's term from his 1933 inauguration to the beginning of 1937. These sections take the reader chronologically through the president's first Hundred Days, late 1933 to 1934, the "second New Deal" and finally, Roosevelt's political success in 1936. These achievements, Davis notes, helped propel Roosevelt into "a decisive centrality in the historical process of America" (675).

To provide a better background of Roosevelt's domestic achievements, Davis intersperses his analysis with narrations of the political, economic and even technological climate of the 1930s. Roosevelt, Davis notes, took office at a time of massive domestic poverty. The stock market crash had ushered in the Great Depression. In the United States, farmers were losing land, workers were losing jobs and the elderly had no means to provide for their needs.

The mood of the general public was permeated with widespread despair and hopelessness.

Furthermore, much of Europe was descending into dictatorships, with the rise of Adolph Hitler's National Socialist Party in Germany and the fascist Benito Mussolini in Italy. It was thus a period where the domestic economy lay in shambles and democratic institutions abroad were being torn down.

Amid such a climate, Roosevelt then embarked on the "best kind of building - the building of great public projects for the benefit of the public and with the definite objective of building human happiness" (383-384).

Towards this, Roosevelt thus put together an umbrella program, a "New Deal" that would address the disjointed needs of displaced farmers, unemployed workers, create jobs for the young and provide security for the elderly.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of his New Deal, however, lay in the establishment of fiscal controls over financial institutions.

The institution of this program, Davis argues, was anything but smooth. First, Roosevelt was hampered by the lack of a firm grasp of economic principles. He thus had to manage a diverse band of intellectuals and advisers who did not always want to work together.

In this part of the book, Davis provides the reader with character sketches of the people behind the New Deal. These include accounts of Vice President Henry Wallace, who in Davis' book, is portrayed as a visionary who is prone to unsteadiness. Other personalities include Secretary of Commerce Harold L. Hopkins, the fiercely loyal Louis McHenry Howe and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

Roosevelt's weakness in economic theory was obvious to his group of advisors. Justice Wendell Holmes may well be speaking of the majority of the cabinet, when he characterized the president as "a second-class intellect."

For Davis, however, Roosevelt's strengths were twofold. First, he surrounded himself with talented intellectuals who could put his plan into fruition. Second, Davis observed how Roosevelt marshaled this diverse band together, using "a thin, steel-edged cruelty, a narrow and deeply-buried streak of sadism."

Davis does not paint Roosevelt as a starry-eyed idealist who wanted hoped the New Deal would save everyone from poverty. Instead, he is portrayed as a pragmatist, who realized that a European-style true welfare state was simply not viable in the United States at the time, noting that "the temper of the American people is not going to stand for payment of insurance benefits over long periods of time to people who do not work" (460).

In fact, Roosevelt also recognized the importance of the business sector, which protested the New Deal's fiscal reforms over financial institutions. When accused of being the working man's president, Roosevelt reminded critics that he was "the best friend the profit system ever had" (372).

Roosevelt, Davis believed, "derived great pleasure" from the exercise of political power and saw "the fun and excitement of politics as a game" (64-65). Thus, despite a surprising lack of prowess in economics and despite vociferous protests from influential business leaders, Roosevelt was able to effect lasting massive changes in the socioeconomic system of the United States.

Though mostly a chronicle of Roosevelt's major triumph, the book also discusses several of the president's significant failures. The most notable among these occurred in 1935, when the president refused to support the anti-lynching bill. For Roosevelt, the decision once again played into the balancing act he maintained as president. Though he expressed sympathy for the exploited blacks in the South, Roosevelt also acknowledged how he needed the support of the Southerners in the Senate. "If I come out for the anti-lynching bill now," he explained, "they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing."