The Ghosts Of '38

Investors .com ^ | November 4, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff

[Kaslin]

Politics: After their rout Tuesday in key state elections, Democrats would be wise to take a lesson from history. No, we're not talking 1994, when the GOP took back Congress after two years of Clinton. We're talking 1938.

That little-remembered year during the depths of the Great Depression was one of the most edifying in electoral history. With FDR in the White House, and still very popular, a rogue Congress with radical ideas embarked on a series of legislative initiatives that helped push a recovering economy back into depression.

The result: Democrats lost 80 seats in the 1938 election, after gaining seats in 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936.

How did this happen? As Amity Shlaes notes in her history of the Depression, "The Forgotten Man," Roosevelt believed less competition and high wages would heal the economy. Aided by Congress, he went about engineering those two things with a vengeance, trebling the size of the federal government in less than a decade.

At the time, such drastic action may have seemed warranted. Within three years of the 1929 crash, GDP had fallen nearly a third and a fourth of the U.S. work force was idle. Even so, the economy appeared to stabilize in 1934 and 1935, and in 1936, Democrats won landslides in both Congress and the presidency.

What happened next is a tale of overreach and hubris — one that holds lessons for today's Democrats.

[Kaslin]

[EGPWS]

As Amity Shlaes notes in her history of the Depression, "The Forgotten Man," Roosevelt believed less competition and high wages would heal the economy. Aided by Congress, he went about engineering those two things with a vengeance, trebling the size of the federal government in less than a decade.

Amity Shales brings the man out in me just with her speak! : )

Roosevelt could have learned a thing or two if she were around in his time.

[Fiji Hill]

One of the big winners of 1938 was Robert A. Taft. After winning a Senate seat fromj Ohio, he would take a leading role in revitalizing the nearly moribund Senate GOP.

[Charlemagne on the Fox]

One of the big winners of 1938 was Robert A. Taft. After winning a Senate seat fromj Ohio, he would take a leading role in revitalizing the nearly moribund Senate GOP.

My grandfather was a Taft man who was bitterly disappointed that he never got the Presidential nomination. Sad to see how Taft's name has been sullied by his grandson.