What’s the Frequency? - New Deal narcissism and what FDR wrought.

National Review Online ^ | June 20, 2008 | An NRO Q&A with Amity Shlaes

[neverdem]

---

---

June 20, 2008, 0:00 p.m.

What’s the Frequency?
New Deal narcissism and what FDR wrought.

An NRO Q&A

The New Deal celebrates its 75th anniversary this week. National Review Online editor Kathryn Lopez checked in with New York Times bestselling author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Amity Shlaes, to mark the occasion.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: How are you celebrating the New Deal’s 75th?

Amity Shlaes: I’m participating in the Roosevelt Reading Festival at Hyde Park Saturday! One of the people I will see there is Nick Taylor, author of his own book, American Made, on the Works Progress Administration.

Anyone who hasn’t used the archive at Hyde Park: It’s fabulous. Cynthia Koch’s shop there is great. They have a virtual FDR calendar created out of multiple sources. So you can check how often FDR saw someone and when, down to what hour of the day. He almost never saw John Maynard Keynes.

The best object: FDR’s car. A mechanic in Dutchess County retrofitted it to accommodate his weak legs. But the mechanic also set up the car so it supplied him with cigarettes while he drove — lit cigarettes. So that is fun to see and I recommend a Hyde Park visit to even the most ferocious anti-Rooseveltians.


Lopez: What was the most enduring New Deal program?

Shlaes: Social Security, Social Security, Social Security.


Lopez: What did FDR do for radio as a medium?

Shlaes: Two things: The first is: He contributed enormously to its popularity. We all know about the Fireside Chats. What I didn’t know, at least until I did this research, was that the relationship was reciprocal. The medium worked hard to please FDR.

Columbia Broadcasting System published a memo for private distribution timed for the 1933 inaugural. Titled “We Think a Point has been Missed,” their doc argued that the claim that radio had made Roosevelt was misleading. On the contrary, said CBS. Roosevelt had made radio. Columbia thanked FDR for helping the medium win “public faith in its name” by using its “microphone to sell American sanity.”

As for the Academic Left, it wasn’t merely biased. It was beyond biased. On May 16, 1935, for example, a Columbia Teacher’s College prof “surveyed” tapes of 1,000 radio speakers to determine who had the best voice. Her criterion was pronunciation of words such as “government” and “capitalism.” She awarded FDR first prize out of all 1,000. (Father Coughlin, among her losers, lost because he had a “pulpit” voice that made him sound unnatural. Huey Long, she said, could be “ineffective and poor.”) The professor, Jane Zimmerman, said of FDR that “there is a sense of security in his voice.” The papers then reported Zimmerman’s findings as though they were objective and significant.

FDR’s radio is relevant to today for the following reason: These days there really is a salon. The salon says — right wingers can come in, but only if they are loud and mockable. Think of the right-winger on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck. When Michelle Obama came on the show, Elisabeth was wearing a top with only one shoulder. Hasselbeck is supposed to be representing conservatism, including social conservatism, but she’s dressed in a way that undermines her seriousness. That happens a lot.

That salon was created by FDR through the radio. The Columbia prof was right in one thing: He mastered his medium by understanding that performance skill mattered — he spoke in a low voice because he figured out that the mike was doing the work. His opponents by contrast shouted. So they seemed… unsalonworthy.

It’s not too Machiavellian to say that the Fairness Doctrine, which sprang up later, post-FDR, was Washington’s institutionalization of the exclusive salon.


Lopez: Was the FCC, created 74 years ago this month, a New Deal mouthpiece?

Shlaes: No. But there were many who were immediately concerned that through its licensing power it was advancing a political agenda. New York Herald Tribune editor Ogden Mills Reid called the radio “Spokesman of the New Deal.” The authority to revoke a license did indeed have a chilling effect. Remember: licenses were reviewed twice a year. That’s a frequency that all by itself generates anxiety.

By election year 1936 the media were speaking frequently about political abuse by the young FCC. At the American Newspaper Publishers Association, a spokesman noted that the FCC had “assumed dictatorial powers” generally, in a unanimous resolution the publishers condemned FCC for intervening in wire traffic. The publishers worried that the FCC was so mighty it might suppress print freedom along with that of radio freedom. Many Americans believed that Roosevelt’s critics, even the sane ones, were not getting sufficient airtime.

A Michigan man poles apart from Coughlin, Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, created a new kind of broadcast when, using a phonograph, he went through a Roosevelt speech with the audience, halting the player at various points to provide a rebuttal. But the power of the mock-debate format terrified CBS. The network blocked the scheduled program on many affiliates.

It all led to modern radio as we knew it in the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties — bland. Along with the voice of the bigot Father Coughlin, many relevant radio voices were suppressed by Hoover’s regime and then Roosevelt’s. Jurisprudential confirmation of FCC power was supplied by the Supreme Court decision in 1943 in which Felix Frankfurter wrote that the FCC was no mere traffic cop: “the act does not restrict the commission merely to supervision of the traffic. It puts upon the commission the burden of determining the composition of that traffic.”



Lopez: What would FDR do today about the Fairness Doctrine today?

Shlaes: FDR would view Fairness Doctrine reinstatement as an important political goal. But he wouldn’t be battling publicly for reinstatement in an election year. He was too clever to wage controversial battles pre-November. From 1935, he knew he wanted to pack the Supreme Court, but he didn’t make that goal large and public until 1937.

At this point in the political cycle FDR would be having off the record meetings with Apple about the Iphone to talk about the Doctrine, playlists, and podcasts. He would have his hands all over SIRIUS and the internet to ensure the Doctrine applied in those newer technological arenas. FDR had a wonderful way of figuring out where growth was going to happen in future and then competing effectively to capture a share of that growth for the public sector.


Lopez: How deeply did the Civilian Conservation Corps change the face of America?

Shlaes: CCC workers planted three billion trees. As summer comes, many Americans think of the CCC. The CCC operated 28 camps alone in Maine, where I go in the summer. A new CCC would not be the end of the world if it just meant clearing brush and laying park paths. But somehow you get the impression a new CCC would not be like that.


Lopez: What else was going on legislatively?

Shlaes: FDR was just finishing off his Hundred Days in June, 1933. Deposit insurance has its 75th anniversary this month. The FDIC is celebrating that. I’m wondering how many readers noticed that recent legislation expanded that insurance on bank accounts to $250,000 from the old $100,000.


Lopez: What was the best thing to come out of the New Deal?

Shlaes: Three things:

A) The SEC. It made our markets transparent and so pulled in foreign capital.

B) A sense of national community. But we could have had that without all the perverse policy.

C) A culture of freer trade in the White House. Cordell Hull of Tennessee led Roosevelt on a 15 year journey on trade. The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 compensated for some of the errors FDR had made the year before when he trashed an international conference in London.


Lopez: Does Barack Obama sound like someone who appreciates the New Deal’s shortcomings?

Shlaes: Hardly. The New Deal exists principally on an emotional plane for Obama. To him the New Deal is something you play like a song, to make you or your constituents feel better. Let me be clear: It’s too early to judge Obama on economics. But he does seem unaware of the economic consequences of government expansion that happens under the New Deal name.

Politicians generally act as if there is no cost to reconnecting with voters by building new New Deals. But the whole exercise of writing law out of New Deal nostalgia is a form of national narcissism. Call it New Deal narcissism.

We could afford to burnish our social contracts if there were no competition from abroad. But there is.


Lopez: Does John McCain appreciate the New Deal shortcomings?

Shlaes: If he thinks about FDR at all ...

TR is the president who goes with McCain, not FDR. McCain likes strong defense, and he’s viscerally suspicious of big companies. So he’s more a Square Deal guy than a New Deal guy. Nonetheless any President has to deal with the New Deal legacy. As John Marini of the University of Nevada said in a great speech for Hillsdale College, it’s time to choose between Reagan and Roosevelt. Reagan himself didn’t have to choose, because he had time on his side. We don’t — entitlements have to reform now. McCain shown he has guts to cut by talking about taboo topics such as reindexing Social Security to make it solvent.


Lopez: If you could write “a call to arms” for the next president, what would it be?

Shlaes: Palecons, be proud!

Or: Property rights, property rights, property rights.


Lopez: What would The Forgotten Man want us to never forget as we mark this anniversary?

Shlaes: That New Deal nostalgia is expensive. Too expensive for younger Americans to afford.

[iowamark]

Amity Shlaes is a great writer and speaker.

[x]

So that is fun to see and I recommend a Hyde Park visit to even the most ferocious anti-Rooseveltians.

The house is actually pretty dull, with some really ugly paintings. But the museum (separate admission so I didn't go) may be pretty good. Don't forget to see the Vanderbilt mansion next door.

[RKV]

I studied history and economics as a young skull full of mush undergrad in the 70s. The historians ignored the economic evidence of the Depression’s causes (which had just been published by Milton Friedman) because they LOVED big government. Hell, big gov employed lots of academics, that’s one reason they loved it. The economists on the other hand had the evidence in front of them and couldn’t be so ignorant. It was a bit of a challenge not to confront the historians with the plain economics of the New Deal. Raise the price of labor with taxes (such as social security) and guess what, less labor will be demanded! Raising the price of labor in the middle of a depression is suicidal. Ditto for increasing the cost of government regulations. I’m glad that a critical relook of the New Deal is finally being addressed on a public scale. The professional economists knew it all along - just couldn’t speak up given the climate of political correctness in the ivory towers of academia. Reality check - the New Deal was a Bad Deal for much of America.

[ozzymandus]

The New Deal was the beginning of the end of this country. When people figured out that they could vote for the person who promised them the most free money, the RATS began to seize permanent power.

[9YearLurker]

I took several economics classes as an undergrad in the late ‘70s. Two things I remember:

- Being taught emphatically that stagflation was the new, inevitable and irreversible state of the modern economy; and

- As each professor recounted with pride, that the entire economics department was Marxist.

[johnny7]

“And on the seventh day... FDR rested at Campobello.”

[neverdem]

LOL!

[lag along]

In her forgotten man, she points out that when the politicians decide what to do to help part of the public - the forgotten man is the citizen who has to pay for it.

[NormsRevenge]

FDR’s Legacy?

75 years of socialism and what do you get?

A New Deal, hell!

Try a Raw Deal ... another day older and deeper in debt for the working man... and a welfare state mind-set.

Entitlements will destroy this nation as quick as another round of shamnesty.. in both cases, it may well be just a matter of time... or so I hear.

[higgmeister]

Bump for a multitude of perceivings.

My Dad helped cut Giant Redwood Timber in a Three "C" camp in California.

The son of an Alabama sharecropper (cotton) that spent a few formative depression years in Winkleman, Arizona along the Gila River.

My dad definitely lived his life in stages.

[combat_boots]

The Great White Father instituted taxation and modified socialist policies that my parents loathed until the days they died. The safety net approach to take care of citizens who will not work cripples the people struggling to get ahead, and shakles all of us to a sweeping national ‘ethic’ that foresakes independence in almost every area of our lives.

[neverdem]

Is Offshore Drilling the Next Gun Control?

Putting Obama and the Dems on the Defensive

Orson Scott Card: Obama's Real Religion [Environmentalism] Nailed it. My only complaint is that the author seems to believe that peak oil is near.

From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks neverdem, good modern history topic. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[higgmeister]

The New Deal was the beginning of the end of this country.

She is right to say that Obama equates with FDR and McCain equates with TR but think back. The "Square Deal" started the beginning of the end.

Progressive Republicans Theodore Roosevelt and W. H. Taft brought:
Governmental control of corporations and "Trust-busting"
Siding with strikers in the 1902 coal strike
Minimum wage
Mandatory 40 hour work week
Pure, Food and Drug Act
Federal Reserve Act
Government involvement in conservation of Natural Resources, requiring corporate interests to be balanced with nature
16th Amendment - Income Tax - Feb 1913
17th Amendment - Direct Election of Senators - May 1913 [begun before Taft's term ended]
Recognition of Labor Unions to go on strike and collective bargain

FDR didn't start American Socialism. He simply put his own spin to something his cousin started.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Mygirlsmom]

I was going thru some old letters to a great-uncle who was in the service during WWII. This poem was included in one of the letters - an oldie but goodie, usually credited to "anonymous"

Rejected

A stranger stood at the Gates of hell
And the Devil himself answered the bell.
He looked him over from head to toe
And said: My friend, I'd like to know
What you have done in the line of sin
To entitle you to come within?

Then Franklin D, with his usual guile
Stepped forth with his toothy smile and said:

"When I took charge in '33
A nations faith was mine," said he
"I promised them this and I promised them that
And I calmed them down with a fireside chat.
I spent their money in fishing trips
And fished from the decks of their battleships.

I gave them jobs in the WPA
Then raised their taxes and took it away.
I raised their wages and closed their shops
I killed their pigs and buried their crops
I double-crossed both old and young
And still the folks my praises sung.

I brought back beer, and what do you think?
I taxed it so high they couldn't drink.
I furnished 'em money with Government loans
When they missed a payment I took their homes.

When I wanted to punish the folks, you know
I'd put my wife on the radio.
I paid them to let their farms lie still
And imported foodstuffs from Brazil.
I curtailed crops when I felt real mean
And shipped in crops from the Argentine.

When they started to worry, stew and fret
I got them to chant the alphabet
With the AAA and the NLB
The WPA and the CCC.
With these many units I got their goats
And still I crammed it down their throats.
My workers worked with the speed of snails
While the taxpayers chewed their fingernails.

When the organization needed dough
I closed their plants with the CIO.
I ruined jobs, I ruined health
And I put the screws on the rich man's wealth.

And some who couldn't stand the gaff
Would call on me and how I'd laugh.
When they got too strong on certain things
I'd pack and head for "Ole Warm Springs."
I ruined their country, their homes and then
I placed the blame on "Nine Old Men."

Now Franklin talked both long and loud
And the devil stood and his head he bowed.
At last he said: "Lets make it clear
You'll have to move, you can't stay here
For once you mingle with this mob,
I'll have to find myself a job."