'Raw Deal': Historian makes waves with scathing look at Franklin D. Roosevelt

Los Angeles Times ^ | 02/12/2010 | Mark Z. Barabak

[wizkid]

Reporting from Dunwoody, Ga. — For more than half a century, biographers have treated Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Rushmore-like reverence, celebrating the nation's 32nd president as a colossus who eased the agony of the Great Depression and saved democracy from Nazi Germany.

Which never sat right with historian Burton Folsom Jr.

Growing up in Nebraska, Folsom remembers, his dad, a savings and loan executive, griped about high taxes and Roosevelt's voracious ambition. FDR was dead, but his legacy — deficit spending, an activist federal government, an expansive social safety net — lived on.

[Huck]

When you win the way FDR did, there were no critical swing states. He absolutely obliterated the GOP.

[Psalm 144]

We need to stop the Dems from taking our money and using it against us.

**************************

Either party. They are both corrupt machines, directed by a corrupt elite centered in a corrupt city. The Democrats are a quicker acting poison, but both of these big government, welfare state parties are toxic. They work together like gandydancers to preserve and extend their abusive powers at our expense.

[Ole Okie]

It was interesting that around 1936 about 45% of US adults viewed Roosevelt as a “dictator.”

I was alive and well then. Never heard the word "dictator" ascribed to Roosevelt by anybody. I question that finding.

I'm not defending the man. He laid the groundwork for the "pump priming" that has escalated into the present nightmarish national deficit and debt. But dictator? Nah.

[Siena Dreaming]

No it wasn't. He was running for a second term. That's hardly early

It was early if you consider how many terms he had.

I would be curious to know if he had those numbers later; my suspicion is he did not (though I would be open to be proven wrong, of course).

My suspicion is that the Democrats saw those numbers and pulled out all the stops in their propganda machine, never looking back.

[reagandemocrat]

This always shuts up leftists: FDR was a racist—see Executive Order 9066.

[Ditto]

1932 Election

1936 Election

1940 Election

1944 Election

[Huck]

Yup. Massive victories. Nixon’s 72 and Reagan’s 84 were FDR like. But only FDR did it 4 times. Yeah, he lost a few votes in his 3rd and 4th term, but they were still massive crushing victories that any candidate today would kill for.

[Siena Dreaming]

he was able to cause the depression that began in 1929, three years before he took office

Actually, a politician CAN cause economic mayham even before he takes office because investors can see what's coming.

The crash of '08 was due to the country foreseeing that McCain was losing and a socialist was about to take take the Presidency...I have no doubts about that.

3 years before? Well, I don't know...investors may have seen Roosevelt approaching on the horizon (he became Gov. of NYC one year before the crash...wouldn't be surpised if that was a large part of what made the crash inevitable)...or they may just have seen the spectre of a socialist army getting closer and closer.

[Huck]

It was early if you consider how many terms he had.

LOL. True. Which only underlines his electoral greatness.

[Traveler59]

A factor in these landslides was the iron grip over the media. Editors who tried to speak ‘Truth to Power’ found themselves in the bread lines. Today we have numerous media outlets that can and do find the truth.

[Huck]

That doesn’t explain it. Why only FDR? Why was he the only one to win so hugely?

[tentmaker]

It was interesting that around 1936 about 45% of US adults viewed Roosevelt as a “dictator.”

He was known as "The American Mussolini." Even among his admirers.

It's important to note that the words "fascism" and "dictator" did not have the same negative connotations then that they do now. Socialism was admired, but communism was considered a threat to modern civilization and particularly to property rights. Fascism was considered a good compromise that embraced the best parts of socialism (everybody working together in harmony) while avoiding the extremes of communism and allowing business to remain in private hands. The dictator was a strong leader who could make this work and save the country from communism. Mussolini was greatly admired by most Italians and many others at the time.

It was only after the war, when the death and destruction and the horrors of the holocaust were focused upon, that the words began to take on the negatives we associate with them today.

[ml/nj]

Takes a while to discover that the title of the book being discussed is New Deal or Raw Deal?

ML/NJ

[ml/nj]

Folsom, whose book is a tea party must-read, is no armchair analyst. He holds a doctorate in history, and he spent 10 years on research and compiled 40 pages of footnotes that, even critics say, attest to the depth of his research.

While I'm interested in what this guy Folsom might have brought to the table, and I never thought much of FDR's domestic policy, I really don't think the "Tea Party" cares much or at all about FDR. For me, it is all about Barack Hussein Obama and the out-of-control spenders that populate most of our legislatures. FDR is dead.

ML/NJ

[elcid1970]

Heck, the word “dictator” almost meant “reformer in a hurry”.

In the 1930’s there was the “Dodge Dictator” sedan. Dropped around 1937.

Remember when communists dubbed themselves “liberals in a hurry”?

The media was so protective of FDR’s image that few Americans even knew he was paralyzed by polio. BTW his cigarette holder was his proud trademark; it has long since vanished down the memory hole of political correctness in any recent statuary.

[Ohio Hermit]

He was known as “The American Mussolini.” Even among his admirers.

This wasn’t considered a bad thing in the ‘30s. Moussolini was highly regarded among the progressives. Cole Porter even lauded Il Duce in his hit “You’re the Top.” Can’t find that verse on line nowadays, though.

[sjmjax]

Obama will be much like FDR. In that, there is no hope of economic recovery until he is voted out of office.

Then for the next 100 years, the media and the Democrat Party will be claiming the economic recovery that followed is due to the "bold policies implimented on his watch and his strong, steadfast leadership".

[Dick Bachert]

My Grandfather had him figured out as well.

File this either under “What is past is prologue” or “Everything old is new again.”

This letter came to my attention many years after my grandfather went to his final reward. I am saddened that he never knew that some of us down-liners inherited his outrage gene. I am further saddened that he and I never had a chance to discuss these matters.

In the approximately once per generation economic excesses and insanity – almost always triggered by the existence of un-backed fiat paper “money” – a minority of citizens living through the madness grasp what’s going on. But only a small handful speak out about it.

I have been speaking out about it since my late friend Tupper Saussy introduced me to Roger Sherman.

I am proud that my grandfather was also one of those who spoke out.

Unfortunately, few have either the desire or capability to grasp the nexus of the problem let alone try to affect the necessary changes.

Yet we persist as the alternative is too grim to contemplate.

And if you don’t think YOU will not be impacted or – like Neal Boortz –think you can “outrun” what’s coming, that flapping sound you may hear are some very BIG buzzards coming home to roost — at YOUR house!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIo8FJJMps8

**************

Coshocton, Ohio
May 13, 1938

Mr. Uncle Sam
c/o Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Washington, D.C.

My Dear Uncle:

I am in receipt of a letter dated May 5th, from Mr. Morgenthau, which letter he signed as your Secretary of the Treasury. According to the dictionary, a Treasury is, among other things, a place in which stores of wealth are deposited, and as there does not seem to be any wealth in your Treasury, it would seem that he should have signed the letter as your Treasurer of the Deficit, as, according to the dictionary, a Treasurer is, among other things, an officer who receives the public money and disperses it and, as he has dispersed a great deal more money than he has received, he is in charge of a Deficit, instead of being in charge of the Treasury.

In his letter, he attempts to persuade me that I should lend you some money by buying Savings Bonds and he states that more than 1,260,000 people own more than $1,600,000,000 maturity value of these bonds, in addition to which, I understand that you owe about $36,000,000,000 on various other kinds of bonds and notes, and that you have a contingent liability of additional billions. In his letter, he states that the savings bonds mature in ten years from the date of issue, and that they may be redeemed for a stated amount at any time after sixty days from the date of issue. This all sounds very impressive, but when these bonds mature, or in case an effort is made to have them redeemed previous to maturity, I am wondering what you will exchange for them. Will it be food, clothing and housing, or will it be 59 cent dollars of some other much greater reduced value, which dollars, as was the case with the German Mark, under similar conditions, may be of value mainly as waste paper?

When considering an application for a loan, the reputation of the prospective borrower is generally considered to be of first importance, and to be real frank about it, your actions during the past five years have not been such as to inspire confidence in you, as in addition to spending in countless foolish ways, a great deal more than your income, you have not been absolutely honorable, truthful and reliable. After borrowing large sums of money upon the promise to repay it in gold, you decided not to do so. In addition, you took from your nieces and nephews all of the gold which we had and buried it in the hills of Kentucky. I am wondering if you think that by planting it, you can cause it to grow in value, or if, like whiskey, you think the quality of it will improve with age. You are also forcing your nieces and nephews to turn over to you large sums of money, which you have promised to save for us and to return to us when old age overtakes us. Instead of saving this money for us as promised, however, you have been spending it as fast as it is received, in what appears to be nothing more or less than a drunken joy-ride.

Even though one of your age and experience should realize that it does no good to prime a broken pump, especially after having tried it for several years without success, you continue to prime the business pump, and to kick and cuss it and work on it with a sledgehammer.

I addition to other things, the frequent use of a hypodermic has done you no good, and probably explains why you penalize and abuse your nieces and nephews who are thrifty and industrious, and reward those who are incompetent and lazy; why you killed five or six million little pigs, even though our political friends are always hungry for pork; and why you destroyed crops of cotton, wheat, corn, etc. to the advantage of producers in other nations.

Like any incompetent spendthrift who violates all the tried and tested laws of economics, there must be a day of reckoning for you at some time in the future, at which time you will find it impossible to pay your debts, or else you will be obliged to pay them in depreciated currency. In either event, it does not appear to be safe or wise to lend you any more money to be used by you in making whoopee and playing Santa Claus. In order to save you from yourself and to prevent the dissipation of what few assets you may have left, a guardian should be appointed for you but this will take time and probably cannot be accomplished previous to 1940.

Your distressed nephew,

Karl W. Bachert

[wizkid]

Thank heavens that even Democrats could not stomach Henry Wallace as FDR's running mate in '44. It took the uncovering of letters that he was writing to his Russian Spiritual Guru, Sergei Goglidze, with secret references to political affairs to do it. Even then, he still almost made the ticket.

Sometimes, I think am hallucinating when I learn these things but they actually happened. They are so stark raving crazy and so far removed from the propaganda that has been shoved in my face all throughout my life. It is the history that does not fit the establishment narrative that they do not bother to teach you or ever mention in their glowing FDR articles.

Just think of how close we came to having an agent of Stalin in the White House right at the close of WWII.

It only took them another 64 years to accomplish this neat feat.

Lord God, please save us all.

[I still care]

We have a copy of Willkie's "One World". He was as liberal as Roosevelt. Why would you vote for a liberal when you had one already, and you were in the middle of a major war?

He did have a great campaign photo though. I found these buttons while looking for it.