On March 4, 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as President of the United States during the worst economic depression in the history of the nation. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in duringthe worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The similarities don’t end there. Both are Democrats, young, energetic wordsmiths, who have won overwhelming electoral victories. Both have been referred to as “transformational” presidents. In anticipation of Obama’s inauguration PW spoke with Adam Cohen of the New York Times about his new book, Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America (Penguin Press).
When you started writing Nothing to Fear years ago did you have any idea that there would be a politician named Barack Obama and there would be such close similarities between the beginnings of the Roosevelt and Obama administrations?
Not at all. I started work on the book midway through the Bush administration. Conservatives were talking bluntly about trying to undo the New Deal. A revisionist account of the New Deal was also emerging, which argued that it did little to fight the Depression or help its victims. I wanted to go back to the early days of the New Deal to look at how and why it was begun, with an eye toward burnishing its reputation a bit. It has been remarkable watching as events have caught up to the story I was telling. The week Lehman Brothers failed, I could see that the parallels were becoming incredibly strong. The economy may not have been as bad as it was when Roosevelt took office—25 percent unemployment, and the stock market down between 80 and 90 percent from its highs. But it was clear that the new president would be facing a serious economic crisis Then, when Obama was elected, the similarities became even more pronounced. We had a president-elect who, like Roosevelt, was promising to take an activist approach to the hard times, using the tools at his disposal to try to fix the economy and help those who were hurting. Obama was also expressly talking about Roosevelt and the 100 Days as models. So, the timing has been quite fortuitous. But after writing a book about Mayor Richard J. Daley and the making of modern Chicago at a time when there was little interest in urban affairs, and a book on the history of eBay that came out after the Internet bubble burst, I figure I’m entitled to a well-timed book.
I was very surprised that given the amount of time until his inauguration, FDR seemed to making things up on the run (i.e., the Bank Holiday). Just how much freelancing, policy-wise, did FDR do?
Quite a lot. In the summer of 1932, at the Democratic National Convention, FDR promised a New Deal—but he said little about what he meant by it. At his inauguration, he vowed “action, and action now,” but again he was vague on the details. The truth was, he did not know the details. FDR was a great improviser—and a great pragmatist. He was open to any good idea that would work. His plan for saving the banks was largely developed by Treasury Department officials left over from the Hoover administration. When he needed an emergency farm relief program, he asked his Agriculture Secretary, Henry Wallace, o convene a meeting of the nation’s farm leaders, and find out what kind of relief program they wanted. FDR’s improvisational style meant that the people around him had a tremendous amount of influence—the proposals they brought to him had a good chance of being implemented. That’s one reason I decided to focus my book on five members of his inner circle. The advice they gave him really mattered.
In 1933 there was almost four months until FDR’s inauguration on March 4. Congress later changed Inauguration Day to January 20. Considering the situation we’re in today, do you think Inauguration Day should be moved up again, say to January 1?
The “interregnum,” as it’s called, between election and inauguration is shorter now than it was in 1932-33. Even so, it still does feel long. After the 2008 election, the nation immediately began looking to Obama for leadership, but he was not yet in a position to lead, since he was not president. Realistically, I don’t see the Constitution being amended any time soon to push inauguration day forward. But in a perfect world, it would make more sense to shorten the interregnum.
Just how good a blueprint is FDR’s First 100 Days for Barack Obama?
In many ways, it is an excellent blueprint. The most important quality of the 100 Days is that Roosevelt kept his promise of “action, and action now.” In a short period of time, he got an enormous amount done. He created the nation’s first federal welfare program, to get relief money out to people who needed it desperately. He enacted two major public works programs: the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put 250,000 young people to work in the nation’s forests, and a $3.3 billion program that employed people in a wide variety of projects. He also got an agricultural relief program through Congress, which saved the farm economy. On the other hand, the 100 Days had its problems. There was a lack of advance planning, and a lack of consistency. Roosevelt began the 100 Days committed to balancing the budget, and one of the first bills he pushed through Congress was the Economy Act, which cut federal spending by 25 percent. That commitment to fiscal conservatism was a distraction. It was only over time that the important bills, including the relief and public works legislation, emerged. Obama would be better off deciding during the interregnum what he wants to accomplish, so he can hit the ground running.
FDR’s message to Obama might be: steer clear of the present administration. But Obama seems to have gone against this advice in some policy matters. Just how close has Obama been to FDR on cooperating with the outgoing administration?
FDR was reluctant to work with Hoover. He did not want to be seen as in league with such an unpopular incumbent. He was also appropriately wary of Hoover’s desire to see that things were done on his terms during the interregnum. The down side of the delay, however, was that conditions got worse during the interregnum, and valuable time was lost in fighting the Depression. Obama is right to be working with Bush on important matters like the automobile industry bailout—it is simply too risky to wait until after the inauguration to begin fighting the economic crisis. But importantly, Obama seems to be making sure that things are being done on his terms. He does not seem to be letting President Bush impose policies on him that he does not agree with.
It seems that FDR came into office as a fiscal conservative and quickly (with the help of the likes of Perkins, Hopkins and Wallace) became more liberal by the day. Why do you think that was so?
FDR was a fiscal conservative by nature. He just believed in thrift and balancing budgets. To Roosevelt, governments were like families—and he believed both had an obligation to live within heir means. At the same time, Roosevelt was compassionate and had a strong sympathy for the Depression’s victims. When he had to choose between fiscal conservatism and caring for the destitute, he abandoned his balanced-budget sympathies. The liberal members of his inner circle—Frances Perkins, Henry Wallace, and Harry Hopkins—played a critical role in helping Roosevelt to make this decision. Perkins, in particular, engaged in a tug-of-war over Roosevelt with Lewis Douglas, Roosevelt’s conservative budget director. Douglas believed heavy spending on social programs would destroy the country. Perkins believed the administration had a moral duty to begin spending to help the needy. At the beginning of the 100 Days, Douglas had more influence with Roosevelt. By the end, Perkins and the other liberals had won him over.
FDR was a big picture man. Bring him an idea. If he liked it, he would adopt it. The big picture worked well for FDR. Was there ever a time when he started to micromanage to his disadvantage?
Roosevelt was generally good at choosing among ideas that were brought to him. Sam Rayburn, the Texas Democrat who later became House Speaker, said Roosevelt was “the best jury to listen and decide that I ever saw.” Still, Roosevelt had a few strongly held ideas that were not helpful to the New Deal effort. One was his stand on deposit insurance—he hated it. He kept insisting that it would force strong banks to bail out weak ones. As a result, when Congress was debating banking reform during the 100 Days, Roosevelt threatened to veto the bill if it included deposit insurance. Members of Congress felt strongly that deposit insurance was needed—and they stood their ground. It was a good thing, too. As a result of their firm stand, we ended up with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has been critical to preventing bank runs and keeping the banking system safe.
Anything you’d like to add?
One of the key misconceptions about the 100 Days, in my view, is that Roosevelt was largely responsible for it. Roosevelt was a remarkable leader, a great communicator, and a shrewd politician. But when it came to actual policies, his inner circle were the driving force. A main point of my book is that Perkins, Wallace, and Hopkins were in many ways as important as Roosevelt to launching the New Deal, and deserve a good deal of the credit—something history has generally denied them. Perkins, in particular, was a remarkable driving force behind public works, relief, minimum wage and maximum hours laws, the ban on child labor, and Social Security—in other words, the heart of the New Deal. There’s a lesson in this for the men and women Obama is bringing into the top echelons of his administration. They have an obligation to fight hard for what they believe in.
