Dreaming of Franklin D. Roosevelt

I feel fortunate that I have very vivid dreams. Over the course of my life, I have had several dreams with presidents in them. Once, I was helping Ronald Reagan from a car into one of our family’s favorite restaurants in Manhattan, Ye Waverly Inn in the Village (that’s Greenwich Village for non-New Yorkers). BTW, they have the best chicken pot pies! In another, my wife and I were meeting with Woodrow Wilson. I was some sort of cabinet secretary for Health and we were trying to convince the president to support funding for a new hospital project. I rode a roller coaster with George W. Bush (well, that one might be easier to interpret than the others). He was wearing a suit in the roller coaster, which obviously means this was some sort of non-recreational, business ride. Over the years, LBJ, Lincoln, Nixon, and Obama have made their appearances.

 

On Sunday night I had a dream with FDR. I was over tired when I finally went to bed and greatly aggravated because my car driver’s side window regulator (the doohickey that makes the windows go up and down) broke late that night. I had been watching the Ken Burns Roosevelt videos on Netflix that evening. In my dream I was sitting at table in a small apartment. The table cloth was checkered. There were no colors in this dream, it was more sepia toned. FDR was sitting next to me with that big smile and he made be a hero sandwich. Sliced it. Wrapped it. Gave it to me, saying “here is your sandwich.” I thanked him profusely. Put my arm around him, and promised that I would vote for something. Not sure if I pledged to vote for him in an election or if I was supposed to be a Congressman or not.   

A Thought on FDR's Polio

Still plugging away at Ken Burns's The Roosevelts.  Doris Kearns Goodwin pushed the idea

that polio made FDR more sympathetic to the troubles and concerns of other people, and hence more liberal. By extension, this line suggests that FDR's polio made the New Deal. She is not the first person to suggest this, of course, but I have always been a little suspicious of this assertion. Obviously, such a monumental event in an individual's life will affect their outlook. There is no doubt that FDR was a changed man, and that he shed some of the haughty arrogance that many detected in the younger FDR. It was humbling for athletic FDR to rely on others to help him in the toilet, to get dressed, and to move. He dragged himself across his bedroom floor. Yet, parts of his outlook did not change. He remained ebullient and optimistic, and hid his fears and negative feelings very deep.

On a political level, polio might have made him feel greater genuine empathy and sympathy for the problems of common people. However, he was very much a progressive before polio deprived him the use of his legs. As a politician, he craved popularity and the New Deal was nothing if not very popular with voters, as is clearly evident in his four elections. If anything moved FDR left it was public opinion and the desire to win votes. Social Security is a great case in point. FDR wanted to draw the support Dr. Townsend was building around his proposal. The Social Security Act that FDR signed was different in many ways from what we now know as Social Security. It covered far fewer people and was setup as a self funding program (demonstrating a fiscal conservatives that lurked in FDR). It is hard for me to see how the New Deal would have been very different, or that FDR would have not adopted old age insurance, if had not been afflicted by polio.

Some Recent Reads

William Thomas, Unsafe for Democracy: Word War I and the U.S. Justice Department's Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent.

This book was an eye opener. I always knew that the World War I Alien and Sedition Acts were major setbacks to civil liberties, but I did not realize how bad it was. Through a detailed examination of the records from the National Archives and other sources, Thomas demonstrates that the effect of the Justice Department's crack down on dissent far exceeded the number of indictments. Instead, agents preferred to threaten and cajole those suspected of disloyalty, often visiting them suspects at their homes or place of work. It seems a good portion of the disloyal statements were uttered by drunks (telling an agent you were drunk seemed to get you out of trouble). It was not just running down President Wilson or praising the Kaiser that could get one into trouble. Those who did not purchase war bonds or donate to the Red Cross were equally suspected of disloyalty.

Alan Crawford, Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson.

Twilight covers Jefferson's post-presidency. To me this book really bought him to life, demonstrating a human side that is often lost when discussing Jefferson the august author of the Declaration of Independence, first secretary of state, leader of the Democrat-Republicans, and third president of the United States. Here we see Jefferson the family man who wanted to protect his extended family, even though his benign efforts could back fire. Such as when his personality overshadowed those of his proud southern grandsons-in-law. They took refuge in the bottle and became abusive to their wives, Jefferson's grand daughters. One even mauled Jefferson's favorite grandson. In the final years Jefferson suffers many tragedies and his finances were a total mess. Finally, he continued to grapple with the issue of slavery, a problem he acknowledged but could never solve.

Jonathan Alter, Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.

I recently finished Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment, his account of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the famous 100 days that ran from March to June 1933. During this time FDR and Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Industrial Recovery Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, regulated corporate reporting, and took the United States effectively off the gold standard, among other things. Alter’s central argument is that this flurry of legislation changed America in two fundamental ways. First, it re-wrote the social contract, with the federal government now assuming responsibility for insuring economic and social welfare. Second, FDR dramatically transformed the role of the presidency. In addition to chief executive, the post-FDR presidents had to act as director of the national legislature as well as cheerleader. This last role has had an enormous impact on the performance and popularity of FDR’s successors.