Obama's Second Term Could Mark the Return of the Four Freedoms

Nov 21, 2012David Woolner

As part of our series "A Rooseveltian Second Term Agenda," a call to return to a foreign policy based in FDR's vision of shared peace and prosperity.

As part of our series "A Rooseveltian Second Term Agenda," a call to return to a foreign policy based in FDR's vision of shared peace and prosperity.

Even though we come from different places, we share common dreams: to choose our leaders; to live together in peace; to get an education and make a good living; to love our families and our communities. That’s why freedom is not an abstract idea; freedom is the very thing that makes human progress possible — not just at the ballot box, but in our daily lives.

One of our greatest Presidents in the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, understood this truth. He defined America’s cause as more than the right to cast a ballot. He understood democracy was not just voting. He called upon the world to embrace four fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. These four freedoms reinforce one another, and you cannot fully realize one without realizing them all.—Barack H. Obama, University of Yangon, November 19, 2012

In his historic visit to Burma, also referred to as Myanmar, President Obama spoke at length about the journey Burma is taking from dictatorship to democracy, a transition he said has the potential to inspire people the world over as “a test of whether a country can transition to a better place.”

President Obama made it clear that his journey to Burma—the first by an American president—was inspired in part by his own desire to encourage the people and government of Burma to press ahead with their democratic reforms so that the “flickers of progress” that the world has seen will not be extinguished. The president’s visit was also notable for his repeated insistence that America was a “Pacific nation,” whose “future was bound to those nations and peoples to our West.” But perhaps the most significant aspect of his speech was his decision to frame his remarks around a concept first articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt at one of the darkest moments of the Second World War—the need to build a world founded on four fundamental human freedoms.

At a moment when Adolf Hitler had proclaimed the onset of “a new order” in Nazi-occupied Europe, and when Japanese militarists had seized much of China and were poised to expand their grip on Southeast Asia, Franklin Roosevelt proposed “a greater conception,” a “moral order” that represented the very antithesis of the “tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.” FDR’s order was based on the idea that all people—“everywhere in the world”—deserved the right to enjoy freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom from want; and freedom from fear.

He articulated this vision in part because of the critical need to gain the support of the American people and Congress for the passage of the Lend-Lease Bill that was pending on Capitol Hill. But the enunciation of the Four Freedoms and initiation of Lend-Lease—which would make it possible for the United States to provide arms and munitions to Great Britain free of charge—was also inspired by a much deeper conviction: that the security of the United States was tied directly to the health and well-being of other nations.

For many Americans today, World War II and the Great Depression are two separate events. But for the generation that lived through these unparalleled crises, nothing could be farther from the truth. In their minds, and in the mind of Franklin Roosevelt, the two were inextricably linked. The Great Depression, after all, was not confined to the United States, but represented a worldwide economic crisis that helped inspire anti-democratic forces in both Europe and Asia—anti-democratic forces that helped give rise to the fascist movements in Germany and in Japan that would initiate the most destructive war in human history.

In light of this, Franklin Roosevelt remained convinced that the Second World War had economic causes. Moreover, as the war progressed, he became more and more convinced that America’s security was tied to the security of the rest of the world. As such, it was not enough for the United States to rely solely on the strength of its armed forces to provide for the nation’s safety; we also had to concern ourselves with the political, social, and economic health of other regions of the world since, as FDR put it in 1944, “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence”…and “people who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

It was this basic idea that inspired not only the Four Freedoms, but also the many institutions and practices that were put in place during and after the war to foster international cooperation and a more prosperous, healthy, and peaceful world. Many of these institutions and practices—like the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank. and multilateral trading regime—are with us still, so that much of the world we live in today is the world shaped by the vision of Franklin Roosevelt.

In recent years, however, we seem to have moved further and further away from this vision to a foreign policy that is dominated largely by the use of military force—no doubt inspired in part by the advent of modern technology, such as drone aircraft. This is unfortunate, for even though President Obama has shown willingness to use other means to pursue America’s interests abroad, his foreign policy to date has remained highly militarized.

His eloquent speech in Burma may indicate that he has decided to pursue a more progressive foreign policy agenda in his second term, one based on the recognition that the best means to keep America safe in the long term is to ensure that the hopes and aspirations of people the world over to enjoy freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear stand not, as Roosevelt said, as some “vision of a distant millennium,” but as “a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.”

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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The American People are Ready for Leadership in the Wake of Obama's Victory

Nov 7, 2012David Woolner

The election results could encourage the bipartisan cooperation we need to solve our country's greatest challenges.

The election results could encourage the bipartisan cooperation we need to solve our country's greatest challenges.

Today we re-consecrate our country to long-cherished ideals in a suddenly changed civilization. In every land there are always at work forces that drive men apart and forces that draw men together. In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down, as one people.—Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937

Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward. It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.—Barack Obama, 2012

With the 2012 election now over and President Obama returning to the White House, many Americans are asking themselves, will the next four years be any different? Or will we see more of the same gridlock, bickering, and obstructionism that so dominated the Washington political landscape of the past few years? Much will depend, of course, on the temper of the Congress, where the Republicans still hold a majority in the House of Representatives and where, despite their minority status in the Senate, Republicans can still use the filibuster to block or delay the president’s—and the country’s—agenda.

It was roughly two years ago that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell famously remarked that “the single most important thing” the Republican Party wanted to achieve “is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” But now that the Republicans have failed in this effort one would hope that the party leadership would be more willing to work with—rather than against—the president and his Democratic colleagues.

Certainly the American public would welcome such a move, and thanks to the recent behavior of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, we now have a precedent upon which such a bi-partisan spirit might be built. For most Americans, Republican Governor Christie’s willingness to “extend the hand of friendship” to the President and “to say ‘thank you sir,’ for providing good leadership in a crisis and for helping the people of New Jersey” was a long overdue antidote to the harsh negativity of today’s “political discourse.”

Moreover, the same might be said for Governor Cuomo, who, despite his status as New York’s governor and leading Democrat, took the highly unusual step of endorsing Republican State Senator Stephen Saland’s bid for re-election thanks to the latter’s decision to support the governor’s legislation legalizing same-sex marriage last year. Senator Saland’s decision to vote in favor of the bill, in what he said was a personal vote of conscience, was not popular among his party’s right wing. So the governor, in a move he said was motivated in part by his desire to counter “extremists on both sides of the aisle,” came out strongly in favor of Saland, much to the chagrin of the senator’s Democratic opponent. (The winner in that race has yet to be called at this time.)

Like Governor’s Christie’s willingness to work with President Obama to meet the crisis caused by Hurricane Sandy, Governor Cuomo’s willingness to work with Republican legislators in Albany has been enormously popular among the New York electorate, where he has consistently enjoyed an approval rating of roughly 70 percent. Given all of this, and given the extremely low regard most Americans hold for Congress, one would hope that these examples of bi-partisan cooperation might prove infectious and that our representatives in Congress might summon the courage to work together to meet the enormous challenges we face today.

Nearly 80 years ago, at a time when our nation faced an even graver economic crisis, Franklin Roosevelt reminded those who were concerned “with the problems of government and economics” to never forget that “devotion to the public good, unselfish service, never-ending consideration of human needs are in themselves conquering forces.”

We expect this sort of devotion in the face of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, but is it too much to expect the same “consideration of human needs” in the face of the economic disaster we are grappling with today? If government can and must play a major role in rebuilding areas ravaged by nature’s fury why shouldn’t the same government do more to help those American citizens ravaged by the scourge of unemployment?

Last night in his acceptance speech, President Obama echoed Roosevelt’s first inaugural when he noted that the American people “voted for action, not politics as usual.” While the Speaker of the Republican-controlled House, John Boehner, remarked that the election represented “a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs.”

After years of partisan gridlock, the American people are hungry for that elusive but all-important quality they expect from their elected officials and which was on rare display for a brief moment as a president and a governor from different parties came together in a moment of compassion for those suffering hardship through no fault of their own. That quality is called leadership. Let us hope that the moment has finally arrived when those we have placed in positions of power, both in the White House and in Congress, will now have the courage to exercise it.

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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FDR's Message to Obama and Romney: America's Strength Abroad Begins at Home

Oct 29, 2012David Woolner

FDR knew that America's willingness to fight inequality was more important than its ability to wage war.

Our strength is measured not only in terms of the might of our armaments. It is measured not only in terms of the horsepower of our machines.

The true measure of our strength lies deeply imbedded in the social and economic justice of the system in which we live.

FDR knew that America's willingness to fight inequality was more important than its ability to wage war.

Our strength is measured not only in terms of the might of our armaments. It is measured not only in terms of the horsepower of our machines.

The true measure of our strength lies deeply imbedded in the social and economic justice of the system in which we live.

For you can build ships and tanks and planes and guns galore; but they will not be enough. You must place behind them an invincible faith in the institutions which they have been built to defend. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938

In their recent debate on foreign policy, both President Obama and Governor Romney made a point of linking America’s security with the health of the U.S. economy. Governor Romney, for example, argued that the ability of the United States to promote “the principles of peace” abroad “begins with a strong economy here at home,” while President Obama said that thanks to our experiments with nation-building in places like Iraq, “we've neglected…developing our own economy, our own energy sectors, our own education system. And it's very hard for us to project leadership around the world when we're not doing what we need to do here.”

Both candidates are correct, of course, in pointing out that a healthy economy—and in Mr. Obama’s case, a healthy education system and energy sector—are critical to the overall strength of the nation and hence our ability to project American influence overseas. But as has been the case with so much of this campaign, neither man had much to say about another critical element of national health that also plays an important part in our foreign policy: the social health of the nation.

Roughly 70 years ago, when the United States was living in a far more dangerous world than we are living in today, Franklin Roosevelt argued that America’s place in the world was not merely dependent on our military and economic power, but also dependent on our ability to create a society where social and economic justice were paramount. For Roosevelt, this meant building a nation which, in “arming itself for defense has also the intelligence to save its human resources by giving them that confidence which comes from useful work,” which in “creating a great navy has also found the strength to build houses and begin to clear the slums of its cities and its countryside,” and which as “the industrial leader of the world has the humanity to know that the people of a free land need not suffer the disease of poverty and the dread of not being wanted.”

Indeed, in gazing out over a world where anti-democratic forces were on the march, Roosevelt also insisted that “unhappy events abroad” had “re-taught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.” The first truth was that “the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.”

For Roosevelt and the generation that lived through the Depression and war, these truths were very real, and as such the conviction that the health and strength of the nation were linked directly to its ability to deliver social and economic justice for all its people was regarded, not as a luxury, but as a critical component of national security.

And yet on the campaign trail today we hear very little about the vital need to address the same disturbing trends that FDR warned us about all those decades ago: the vast and growing unequal distribution of wealth among the American people, the dangers of the rise of “private power” to the exercise of democracy, the fact that in America today roughly one-third of our citizens have rejoined the ranks of the poor or near poor.

No, instead what we hear is an endless stream of uninspiring messages about each candidate’s “plans” to create jobs, reduce the deficit, and “keep America strong.” But after living through four long years of the Great Recession and bearing witness to a society where 400 individuals now own more wealth that the bottom 150 million combined, the American people deserve more than mere platitudes. They want to hear their leaders articulate a vision for America that involves the creation of a better and more just society, a society that will inspire what Roosevelt called “the anguished common people of this earth.”

President Obama has offered hints of this in his call to move the country forward, but in the dangerous world that our parents and grandparents inhabited, Franklin Roosevelt went much further. In the final and anxious days of the 1940 election, for example, he reminded his fellow citizens that they were a generation living in “a tremendous moment of history,” where the “surge of events abroad” had led some to ask whether “the book of democracy” might “now to be closed and placed away upon the dusty shelves of time.” For Roosevelt the answer was clear and unequivocal:

All we have known of the glories of democracy—its freedom, its efficiency as a mode of living, its ability to meet the aspirations of the common man— all these are merely an introduction to the greater story of a more glorious future.

We Americans of today—all of us—we are characters in this living book of democracy.

But we are also its author. It falls upon us now to say whether the chapters that are to come will tell a story of retreat or a story of continued advance.

I believe that the American people will say: "Forward!"

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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The Obama-Biden Foreign Policy Mirrors FDR's: Prepare for Conflict, But Build Peace

Oct 12, 2012David Woolner

Unlike the modern-day GOP, FDR understood that securing peace required both massive military power and massive diplomacy.

The permanent security of America in the present crisis does not lie in armed force alone. What we face is a set of world-wide forces of disintegration—vicious, ruthless, destructive of all the moral, religious and political standards which mankind, after centuries of struggle, has come to cherish most…

Unlike the modern-day GOP, FDR understood that securing peace required both massive military power and massive diplomacy.

The permanent security of America in the present crisis does not lie in armed force alone. What we face is a set of world-wide forces of disintegration—vicious, ruthless, destructive of all the moral, religious and political standards which mankind, after centuries of struggle, has come to cherish most…

Overstatement, bitterness, vituperation, and the beating of drums have contributed mightily to ill-feeling and wars between nations. If these unnecessary and unpleasant actions are harmful in the international field, if they have hurt in other parts of the world, they are also harmful in the domestic scene. Peace among ourselves would seem to have some of the advantage of peace between us and other nations. In the long run history amply demonstrates that angry controversy surely wins less than calm discussion. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940

In the vice presidential debate between Vice President Biden and Congressman Ryan, the latter reiterated the now-familiar Romney campaign charge that the Obama administration has projected “weakness abroad,” and that as such the world has become “more chaotic and less safe.” In the Romney-Ryan view, it is critical that the United States exude strength at all times, and above all stop “apologizing” for America. The logic behind this view is based on the argument, put forward by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, that American weakness or even the perception of American weakness is provocative. Based on this analysis, it would seem that Governor Romney’s foreign policy has been reduced to the idea that the first responsibility of the president in foreign affairs is to turn Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim on its head by speaking loudly and carrying a big stick.

In essence, it is this idea—that the president needs to “get tough” with our enemies and adversaries—that has formed the core of the Romney-Ryan critique of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, whether it’s toward Iran over its nuclear ambitions or toward China over its trade policies.

But as any expert in the field of foreign policy will attest, securing America’s interests abroad involves far more than the mere projection of strength. It also involves a realistic understanding of the limits of military power and the ability to exercise restraint in times of high tension, the ability to understand and interpret other people’s histories and cultures, and most important of all, the ability to inspire in others the same respect for human rights and the rule of law that we aspire to here at home in our yet-to-be perfected democracy. At times—as much as Governor Romney or Congressman Ryan might not like to admit it—this involves a certain degree of humility and willingness to acknowledge our own shortcomings. Qualities that stem not from weakness but from strength, a deep and abiding faith and confidence in our ability as a people to learn from past mistakes and fashion a better democracy.

Seventy-plus years ago, in a world that in many respects was far more dangerous than our own, Franklin Roosevelt understood this. He knew better than anyone in the dark days of 1940-41 that there was an urgent need to build up America’s military capabilities, to render our nation second to none in armed strength. But he also knew that such a military buildup would be useless in the long run if people around the world did not believe that America’s cause was their cause, that what we were fighting for was not to establish an “American century” but rather to join with what he called “the anguished common people of this earth” in building a world where freedom would mean “the supremacy of human rights everywhere.” The United States, he believed, could play a unique role in this effort, not by virtue of our military or industrial power, but rather because of our willingness to lead not by force but by example. As he said in 1941,

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change—in a perpetual peaceful revolution—a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions—without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

To Roosevelt, then, even in a world ravaged by war, “the mere conquest of our enemies [was] not enough.” It was also critical that the United States do all it could “to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible.” As such, the American people had to face “the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships—the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together, in the same world, at peace.”

By reaching out to the world in Cairo, Indonesia, Moscow, and elsewhere, President Obama has shown that he understands the need “to cultivate the science of human relationships.” He has also made it eminently clear that he can be a ruthless adversary when dealing with the Taliban or the top leadership of al Qaeda. Based on the bluster and saber-rattling tendencies of Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan, however, it would appear that they still have much to learn about exercise of foreign policy. In this sense, Vice President Biden is surely correct when he says that “the President has led with a steady hand and clear vision” and that all of the “loose talk” the Romney-Ryan team seems to relish in risks “painting the United States into a dangerous corner.” After all, as the Vice President, also said, the “last thing” the American people want or need “is another ground war in the Middle East.”

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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FDR's Debate Lesson for Obama: It's About Capturing Americans' Imaginations

Oct 4, 2012David Woolner

President Obama spent too much time picking apart the details of his opponent's plans instead of attacking the underlying philosophy as FDR did.

President Obama spent too much time picking apart the details of his opponent's plans instead of attacking the underlying philosophy as FDR did.

Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them—we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity—twelve long years of it.

Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job's being done. — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936

From the moment he took office in the New York State Senate until his death as president roughly 35 years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt relished the toss and tumult of the political arena. As he once told a reporter in the midst of his early struggle with New York’s Tammany Hall political machine, “there is nothing I love as much as a good fight” – and FDR was brilliant at it.

This passion for the art of politics—and for the basic principles that underpinned his political philosophy—served FDR extremely well over the course of his public life. In fact, few politicians in the 20th century, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, ever came close to FDR’s ability to master the nation’s political discourse.

What fueled FDR was his fundamental belief in the power of government to create a more just and equitable society, and his deep knowledge—from personal experience—of the forces of wealth and privilege that had little if any regard for the plight of millions upon millions of Americans who struggled day by day to provide for their families. FDR never forgot that it was these “malefactors of great wealth,” as his cousin TR labeled them, who brought the country to ruin in 1929, and he spent the better part of his presidency in battle against the forces that wanted to return the United States to the so-called Gilded Age of unfettered capitalism.

The American people understood this, in part because they had lived through the economic collapse that brought on the Great Depression, but also because of the clear and unequivocal message that FDR delivered time and time again about the nature of struggle between those who sought to exploit the free-market system for their own ends, and those who believed, as he did, that the only way to make capitalism work in the long run was to make sure that it provided a basic measure of economic security and opportunity to all Americans, not just those at the top.

It was this conviction that led the Roosevelt administration to initiate Social Security and unemployment insurance, to guarantee bank deposits through the FDIC, or to protect investors—both small and large—through the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The aim here was not to create “trickle-down government,” or a generation of dependents, as Governor Romney would have us believe, but rather to use government to ensure that the millions who toiled in the nation’s farms and factories might receive a decent wage and a small measure of economic security against what FDR called “the hazards and vicissitudes of life,” such as the loss of a job or poverty-ridden old age.

We now take many of these programs for granted, but in FDR’s day they aroused fierce opposition, particularly from the well-heeled conservative elite, who did everything they could to try to discredit both the president and his ideas. In their view, FDR’s philosophy of government was tantamount to socialism, an un-American attempt to subvert the Constitution and rob the nation of the individual initiative that stood at the core of its—and their—success.

But FDR would have none of this, and in a series of withering attacks on what he called “a generation of self-seekers” he implored the American people to join him in abandoning “our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.” Indeed, as he reminded the American people in the summer of 1936, it was critical that the nation reject a system of governance where “for too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality,” where “a small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor—other people's lives.”

For Roosevelt, the great issues of his day were not simply about whose “plan” might deliver more jobs for the American people, or provide a greater chance at reducing the deficit, but about the fundamental moral and economic structure of our society -- a society where government must remain determined “to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and [where] we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous.”

Like FDR in 1936, President Obama now faces the same sort of “powerful influences” that in Roosevelt’s words “strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.” But judging from last night’s debate, one would hardly know it. Instead of attacking the underlying philosophy behind Governor Romney’s call for the restoration of the types of policies that led to the Great Depression and the Great Recession—policies that in Romney’s words would rid the country of what he calls “the web of dependency” among the “47 percent”—the president spent too much time trying to explain the differences between the two men’s various “plans.” Given Governor Romney’s penchant for leaving out the details of his various proposals to reduce the deficit and grow the economy, perhaps this is understandable, but in doing so the president failed to capture the imagination of the American people.

This is unfortunate, for Governor Romney is correct when he says this election is about choosing very different paths for our nation. Will we embrace the type of society that was built in the New Deal? A country where the reforms of the 1930s helped the middle class flourish in the decades after World War II? Or will we embrace the philosophy of government that has become increasingly dominant in the past 30-plus years -- a philosophy of government where, as the Census Bureau recently reported, the average male worker is making the same hourly wage adjusted for inflation that he was making in 1978, while the average CEO’s pay over the same period has sextupled and the income of the people in the top 1 percent has grown by 600 percent?

For Roosevelt, the answer was obvious, and he was not afraid to state it “boldly and plainly.” As he said in his speech to the 1936 Democratic Convention:

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our government and of ourselves… It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle…

We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity…

Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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Romney's 47 Percent Remarks Reflect the Mentality FDR Fought Against

Sep 20, 2012David Woolner

Romney's comments may spark a widespread backlash against the kind of contempt for the poor that FDR once overcame.

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life…

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

Romney's comments may spark a widespread backlash against the kind of contempt for the poor that FDR once overcame.

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life…

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937

Mitt Romney’s callous remarks about the 47 percent of Americans who “pay no income tax,” are “dependent on government,” see themselves as “victims,” and will never “take personal responsibility… for their lives,” have been seized upon by both conservative and liberal commentators as the strongest indication yet that Romney is out of touch with the American people. They have also proved to be something of an embarrassment for fellow members of his party who are running for office. In Massachusetts, for example, U.S. Senator Scott Brown told the Boston Globe that Romney’s remarks did not represent the way Brown viewed the world. “As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.” Similar sentiments were echoed by a number of other Republican candidates, like Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, who told Politico that as the son of an auto mechanic and a school cook—with five brothers and sisters—he did not "view the world the same way” Romney does. In New Mexico, meanwhile, Republican Governor Susana Martinez responded by noting that her state had “a lot of people that are at the poverty level…but they count as much as anybody else.”

Romney’s remarks have also sparked a good deal of interest in just who the 47 percent are and what this figure means. Ironically, the net result this furor may be to inject a more elevated discussion into the nation’s political discourse about one of the most important issues facing the country: the alarming rise in the number of Americans who have joined the ranks of the poor.

According to official statistics just released by the Census Bureau, the number of Americans living in poverty reached 48.5 million people in 2011, the highest number in 53 years. And while the percentage of Americans living in poverty finally appears to be falling from its high last year of 15.9 percent, it is important to remember that the number of “near poor”—those individuals and families who struggle with incomes just above the poverty line—has topped 51 million. That means the total number of Americans living below or just above the poverty line now stands at just under 100 million—roughly one-third of the population.

Given these statistics, and the growing number of Americans who have retired and are living off of Social Security (which the retirees have paid for through payroll taxes), is it any wonder that approximately 47 percent of the American populace pays no federal income tax? Of course we should not forget that most of these individuals do pay payroll taxes as well as state and local taxes, not to mention sales taxes, which are in place in 45 states.

A far more important question is how it is that the richest country in the world now finds itself with roughly one-third of its population living in such dire economic circumstances. According to Mr. Romney, these 100 million Americans are stuck in or near poverty because they have refused to take “personal responsibility and care for their own lives.” As such, they are quite happy to live on government handouts, firm in their belief that they are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”

Quite apart from the debate over health care, one would have thought that access to food and shelter is not something that a civilized society in the 21st century would deny its most vulnerable citizens—and when pressed Mr. Romney has backed away a bit from such an extreme stance. But the undeniable disdain in his comments for “those people” whom he has characterized as freeloaders who regard themselves as “victims” has sparked a strong negative reaction, even, as noted, from many members of his own party.

This is welcome news, for it may portend the first glimmer of hope that the winner-take-all, you’re on your-own philosophy of the extreme right is being undermined by a far more compassionate and realistic view of how a modern society is supposed to function; a society where we can all agree that government has a responsibility to provide the average citizen with a basic level of economic security and equal access to economic opportunity. This would include policies that ensure that all Americans have equal access to education and affordable health care and where the focus of the debate about the size and role of government would center how best to use government—not eliminate it—in our fight to eradicate poverty.

Seventy years ago, in the midst of an even worse economic crisis, Franklin Roosevelt faced a number of critics who characterized the world in a manner that was quite similar to Governor Romney’s. “You know their reasoning,” FDR said. “They say that in the competition of life for the good things of life; ‘Some are successful because they have better brains or are more efficient; the wise, the swift and' the strong are able to outstrip their fellowmen. That is nature itself, and it is just too bad if some get left behind.’” But, he went on:

It is that attitude which leads such people to give little thought to the one-third of our population which I have described as being ill-fed, ill-clad and ill-housed. They say, "I am not my brother's keeper"—and they "pass by on the other side." Most of them are honest people. Most of them consider themselves excellent citizens.

But this nation will never permanently get on the road to recovery if we leave the methods and the processes of recovery to those who owned the Government of the United States from 1921 to 1933.

In Roosevelt’s day, those who “owned the Government” from 1921 to 1933 promoted the same type of laissez-faire policies that Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan embrace and which contributed to the economic collapse President Obama inherited in 2009. By the mid-1930s, however, most Americans found themselves in agreement with FDR’s comment that “we have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.” They also concurred with his view that “out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays.”

Perhaps Mr. Romney has done us all a favor, for his apparent indifference to the plight of “those people” who make up the 47 percent of the American population has forced a good many of his fellow Republicans to admit that government does have a role to play in ensuring we live in a decent society. They may not agree with the Democrats on how just how large a role government should play, but their tacit acknowledgement that government can and must be part of the solution to the nation’s problems is a welcome change from the ceaseless and vacuous claim of the far right that government stands at the root of all our problems.

Who knows; in the long run, it may even lead to the moderation of the Republican Party, something which all Americans, even the 47 percent, would welcome with open arms. 

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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Katyn Documents Recall the Harsh Realities of War, But “New Evidence” is Not New

Sep 13, 2012David Woolner

Lack of research has led the press to treat documents that have been public for 40 years as breaking news.

Lack of research has led the press to treat documents that have been public for 40 years as breaking news.

Earlier this week, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) released over a thousand pages of documents relating to one of the most horrific events of the Second World War: the massacre of thousands of Polish military officers and other leading Polish elites by the Soviet Secret Police in May and June 1940. The victims—who today are estimated to number just under 22,000—were captured by the Red Army in the fall of 1939, when the Soviet Union, under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, invaded eastern Poland just weeks after the Nazi war machine launched the attack on Poland that initiated the Second World War. The Poles were secretly murdered on the order of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Politburo in a brutal effort to eliminate any opposition to Soviet rule.

According to widespread press reports, the recently released documents provide “new evidence” that Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—who only learned of the crime after the mass graves containing the bodies of the murdered Poles were found by the Germans in April of 1943—“hushed up” Soviet guilt for the crime out of fear that revealing the truth would damage their delicate wartime relationship with Joseph Stalin.

This basic assessment of what happened in the spring of 1943 is correct. Both Roosevelt and Churchill were most anxious to avoid doing anything at that moment—when the Allies had yet to launch a Second Front in Europe—that might lead to a breakdown in the critical wartime alliance with the Soviets. It is also true that by the summer of 1943, the widespread initial suspicion that the Nazis had committed the atrocity and were merely using it as a propaganda tool against the Allies had given way to the view that the Soviets may indeed have been guilty of the crime. It is with respect to the latter point that the release of the documents provides the most important “new evidence.” Here, the fact that two American POWs who were taken to the site of the graves by the Nazis were able to send coded messages back to U.S. military intelligence in the summer of 1943 is significant. For their report that the Nazi allegations in their opinion were “substantially correct” provides additional evidence that the U.S. government was in possession of credible information about Soviet guilt within a few months of the discovery of the massacre.

But the notion that this represents a major “new discovery” bolstered by other “new evidence” that the NARA release has provided is something of an exaggeration. Many recent press accounts, for example, report that the released documents include “secret” communications between Churchill and Roosevelt which show the determination of the two leaders not to let the charges of Soviet guilt by the Nazis and by the Polish government-in-exile disrupt the wartime alliance with Stalin. The implication is that this is new information, but the wartime communication between Churchill and Roosevelt was declassified in 1972, and has been freely available to scholars at the FDR Presidential Library ever since. It has also been published, most notably in Warren F. Kimball’s Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence, which first came out in 1984.

Moreover, the specific exchanges between Roosevelt and Stalin that the press has reported as “new” have also been available for decades. Like the Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence, these documents were also declassified and released at the FDR Presidential Library in 1972, and some of them were available much earlier. The April 26 exchange between FDR and Stalin, for example, was first published in 1963 as part of the widely used State Department series Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers. Most significant, however, is the claim by the BBC and other news outlets that “among the new evidence” is a report written by Owen O’Malley, the British Ambassador to the Polish-government-in-exile, which Churchill sent to Roosevelt on August 13, 1943. In this report, O’Malley notes “there is now available a good deal of negative evidence, the cumulative effect of which is to throw serious doubt on Russian disclaimers of responsibility for the massacre.” Again, the implication is that this is a major new revelation that changes our understanding of this tragic episode, when in fact this document, like others just mentioned, has been available at the FDR library since the early 1970s and is also published in Kimball’s Complete Correspondence.

What is unsettling here is the unfiltered and unsophisticated manner in which serious news organizations reported this story. It appears that the wartime files released by the National Archives in Washington contain a good deal of duplicate information that is held in the FDR Presidential Library, which is also part of the National Archives and Records Administration. This is not unusual, as it is often the case that government documents can be found in a number of different locations. It is also true that the discovery of the coded messages sent by the American POWs adds a significant new piece of evidence to the history of what became known as the “Katyn Massacre.” But the release of this new evidence does not change our fundamental understanding of the wartime aspects of this horrific story, and most of what the press has reported as “new”—at least with respect to the wartime records—has been available and written about for roughly 40 years. Had the press done its homework, or possessed a greater understanding of the Second World War, a more accurate description of what the release of these documents tells us would have emerged, and along with it, a deeper appreciation for the harsh realities faced by those—like the Polish people—caught up in the cruel vagaries of total war.

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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A New “Century of the Common Man”: Bringing Freedom From Want Back to Foreign Policy

Sep 4, 2012David Woolner

Foreign policy shouldn't forget the important role of economic development.

Foreign policy shouldn't forget the important role of economic development.

The people, in their millennial and revolutionary march toward manifesting here on earth the dignity that is in every human soul, hold as their credo the Four Freedoms enunciated by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress on January 6, 1941. These Four Freedoms are the very core of the revolution for which the United Nations have taken their stand. We who live in the United States may think there is nothing very revolutionary about freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom from the fear of secret police. But when we begin to think about the significance of freedom from want for the average man, then we know that the revolution of the past 150 years has not been completed, either here in the United States or in any other nation in the world. We know that this revolution cannot stop until freedom from want has actually been attained.

…Some have spoken of the "American Century:" I say that the century on which we are entering—the century which will come out of this war—can be and must be the century of the common man. – Henry A. Wallace, 1942

In his recent address to the American Legion, and in numerous other pronouncements he has made about U.S. foreign policy, Mitt Romney has called for the establishment of “an American Century.” In such a century, he argues, America must have “the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world” in part because “without American leadership, without clarity of American purpose and resolve, the world becomes a far more dangerous place, and liberty and prosperity would surely be among the first casualties.”

The notion of the establishment of an “American Century” is not new. Such sentiments have been around since the establishment of the Republic, but the phrase itself gained common currency during World War II when Henry Luce, the founder, publisher, and editor of Time, Life, and Fortune Magazine, published a widely read and somewhat controversial article under the same title in February 1941.

To Luce, the American century meant “a sharing with all people” the U.S. Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and Constitution. He also insisted that the U.S. must share “our magnificent industrial products [and] technical skills.” He had little doubt that the world would accept American leadership because, unlike 19th century England and other imperialist powers, American prestige was based on the world community’s faith in “the good intentions” and “ultimate strength and intelligence of the American people.”

It is important to remember that Luce’s call for the establishment of an “American Century” was inspired in part by his backing of FDR’s call for greater U.S. support for the British struggle against the Nazis, especially through the establishment of the program known as Lend-Lease, which was passed by Congress a few weeks after his article was published. It is also important to remember that in doing so, Luce had joined FDR and other internationalists in trying to kill off American isolationism (or what perhaps may be more accurately defined as a policy of non-intervention) once and for all.

Viewed in this light, Luce’s call for the establishment of an American Century renders his but one voice in a growing chorus calling for greater U.S. participation—and leadership—in the mid-20th century struggle against the twin evils of fascism in Europe and militarism in Asia. But Luce’s emphasis on the promotion of “an American Century,” with its implicit suggestion that the United States should impose its values on the world, made some of his contemporaries uncomfortable, and to a certain extent distinguished his vision of American leadership from those of FDR and other key members of the Roosevelt administration.

In sharp contrast to Luce, for example, FDR’s vice president, Henry A. Wallace, in what is widely regarded as one of the most important speeches to come out of the war, called not for the establishment of an American century, but rather for the establishment of “the century of the common man.” His was a century where “no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations,” where “older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization,” and where there “must be neither military nor economic imperialism.”

Wallace also insisted that “when the time of peace comes, the citizen will again have a duty, the supreme duty of sacrificing the lesser interest for the greater interest of the general welfare.” For, like FDR, Wallace firmly believed that above all else the Second World War was caused in large part by the global economic crisis that brought on the Great Depression and the concomitant rise of fascism. It is for this reason that both he and President Roosevelt placed such a great emphasis on the need to rid the world of poverty and despair. Viewed from this perspective, FDR’s call for “freedom from want” and Wallace’s call for “the century of the common man” take on a much greater meaning and weight than Luce’s call for the establishment of the “American Century.” To promote American values and institutions was not enough. To truly make the United States secure—even at a time when the United States possessed unparalleled military power—the American people and government would have to concern themselves with the basic health and well-being of all peoples, “everywhere in the world.”

Unfortunately, since the onset of the “War on Terror,” U.S. foreign policy has largely turned away from this emphasis on humanitarian assistance and instead become increasingly militarized. As a result, we have de-emphasized the role of international development and adherence to the rule of law in our foreign policy and in the process have placed an enormous burden on America’s armed forces, who are now expected to not only engage in combat, but also to engage in nation-building—a task traditionally carried out under the auspices of the State Department.

Moreover, thanks to our relentless drive toward what historian Andrew Bacevich has called our “mindless pursuit of military supremacy,” we have neglected developing a more nuanced and sophisticated approach to the international challenges America faces in the world today. This emphasis on the pursuit of military—as opposed to “soft “—power has in many respects reduced our influence on world events and ironically rendered the United States something of a bystander in the drive for human rights and democracy in Egypt and other parts of the Arab world.

This is unfortunate, for after 10 years of engagement in the “war on terror,” strong evidence has emerged showing that one of the root causes of contemporary terrorism remains economic deprivation. Equally important, the same empirical data suggests that the widespread use of military force as the primary instrument in the American struggle against terrorism has given the most at-risk populations a greater motivation toward terrorist acts—the same economically deprived populations that would benefit substantially from an increase in U.S. foreign aid.

Yet the use of foreign aid in the execution of American foreign policy is rarely mentioned by either political party (one suspects because of the widespread misconception that approximately 25 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, when the actual figure is less than 1 percent). Instead, we hear endless calls for the maintenance and expansion of American military power, based on the idea that “when America is strong,” as Mr. Romney says, “the world is safer.”

Both Franklin Roosevelt and Henry Wallace would surely agree with this statement. But they also understood that the development of military power and the promotion of freedom abroad are not enough to render the United State secure. As FDR observed in his Second Bill of Rights speech, the long years of depression and war brought us to “a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. ‘Necessitous men are not free men.’ People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

Surely the same thing could be said today about the social and economic conditions that have helped give rise to the religious and political extremism that stands at the root of our struggle against terrorism. If this indeed is the case, should we not be placing a greater emphasis on the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of education, and the need to foster economic self-reliance in the execution of U.S. foreign policy? Instead of promoting an “American Century,” wouldn’t it be better to promote the “century of the common man”?

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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Middle Class Decline is a National Emergency. Where's Our FDR?

Aug 23, 2012David Woolner

In the 1930s, the president and Congress responded to the economic crisis with immediate action. Why haven't today's policymakers done the same?

In the 1930s, the president and Congress responded to the economic crisis with immediate action. Why haven't today's policymakers done the same?

Sometimes I get bored sitting in Washington hearing certain people talk and talk about all that Government ought not to do— people who got all they wanted from Government back in the days when the financial institutions and the railroads were being bailed out in 1933, bailed out by the Government. It is refreshing to go out through the country and feel the common wisdom that the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

They want the financial budget balanced. But they want the human budget balanced as well. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, October 1937

A recent study by the Pew Research Center has confirmed what millions of Americans have realized for some time now: that the middle class has endured its worst decade since World War II. With declining home values, falling wages, and skyrocketing higher education costs, the median wealth for the middle class fell by 28 percent over the past decade, while the wealth of higher income families rose slightly. The same sad story holds true for middle class incomes, as government data now shows that we have finally managed to break the half-century-long streak that saw inflation-adjusted family income rise in every decade between 1950 and 2000, but not in the decade ending in 2010. Thanks to these and other economic trends, the overall size of the American middle class has also shrunk, down to just 51 percent of the population as compared to 61 percent of the population four decades ago.

One might assume that these alarming statistics—and the fact that the U.S. unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for more than three years—would lead to something like a crisis atmosphere in Washington, a recognition that this is no ordinary economic downturn, but a great national emergency made all the more worrisome by the onset of the worst drought in more than 50 years. But instead of acting, members of the House and Senate have elected to go on their usual five-week summer recess, confirming in the minds of most Americans that the principal blame for their current troubles and for the decline of the middle class lies with Congress.

Roughly three-quarters of a century ago, in similar circumstances, the reactions of both the public and the government was exactly the opposite. From the day he assumed office, FDR identified the collapse of the U.S. economy as an unprecedented national emergency, not unlike the onset of war, that must be countered by “action and action now.” Indeed, his first move as president was to call Congress back into an “emergency session” that launched the most productive period in U.S. legislative history—15 major pieces of legislation in 100 days, including such “emergency” measures as the 1933 Banking Act, the Glass-Steagall Act, and the Truth in Securities Act, all of which helped provide the regulatory structure needed for the U.S. banking and financial sector to thrive for decades to come.

But FDR’s characterization of the economic crisis as an emergency did not end there. He would continue to describe the nation’s woes in the 1930s as a “national emergency” and would continue to demand the cooperation of Congress in meeting both the short-term and long-term challenges that the nation faced as it climbed its way out of the Great Depression. It was this spirit to act—in both parties—that gave us the major provisions of the New Deal and that laid the basis for that remarkable 50-year period of expansion of the middle class that may now have sadly come to an end.

Given the level of inactivity on Capitol Hill, it would appear that the steady and sharp decline in the size and economic wherewithal of the American middle class does not represent a crisis to the members of Congress. But for the millions of Americans out of work or underemployed, the millions of Americans who now face the very real prospect that they will not be able to attain the same level of economic prosperity as their parents, this is no garden-variety recession. It is a deep structural decline that may forever change the way they and their children lead their lives.

In short, we remain in the midst of a very real national emergency that demands the same sort of response taken by the president and Congress more than three-quarters of a century ago: “action and action now.” Until Congress recognizes, this, however, one suspects that little will change, except that the long, steady decline of the American middle class and American way of life will continue.

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

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The Return of the "Hear-Nothing, See-Nothing, Do-Nothing" Congress

Aug 2, 2012David Woolner

As the 112th Congress prepares to go on recess, its record pales in comparison to what the 74th Congress achieved in the 1930s.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away... Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936

As the 112th Congress prepares to go on recess, its record pales in comparison to what the 74th Congress achieved in the 1930s.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away... Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936

A number of recent articles have pointed out that by most measures, the 112th Congress is not merely the most unpopular Congress in history; it is also the least productive. As both the New York Times and the Washington Post have pointed out of late, this Congress would much rather engage in political posturing and ideological brinkmanship than in passing laws that address the current economic crisis.

What a contrast the 112th Congress represents when its record is placed against the 74th, the Congress that was in session at the close of FDR’s first term. It was the 74th Congress that was largely responsible for what historians call the Second New Deal. This included the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, which provided the funding needed to establish the Works Progress Administration (WPA) that would provide millions of Americans with skilled jobs building the nation’s economic infrastructure; the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, which encouraged farmers to preserve one of our nation’s most precious resources, our topsoil, in the midst of one of the worst droughts in history; the Rural Electrification Act, which provided jobs to thousands and “wired” the country by bringing the benefits of electric power to millions of rural Americans; the Public Utility Act, which was designed to reduce the cost of electric power by regulating the utility industry and forcing the break-up of large-scale power monopolies; the National Labor Relations Act, which enshrined the right of workers to form unions and engage in collective bargaining and established the National Labor Relations Board, which helps us settle labor disputes to this day; and finally, the Social Security Act, which gave us not only Social Security but also unemployment insurance.

What many Americans may not be aware of is the long-term impact that these congressional acts have had on future generations. As I pointed out last week, the drought we are experiencing today would no doubt be much worse, and may have even resulted in the rise of a new Dust Bowl, had Congress and the government not moved so aggressively in the 1930s to reduce soil erosion and plant millions of trees. The jobs provided by the WPA helped preserve the critical skills of our workforce and vastly expanded the infrastructure needed to grow the U.S. economy. When the Rural Electrification Act was passed, roughly 90 percent of all the farms in the United States were without power; by the end of the New Deal that number was cut to 10 percent. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act had a profound impact on the level of union membership and wages in the years to come and helped establish the post-war middle class. And it boggles the mind to think of where we might be today, in the midst of the current economic crisis, had we not had Social Security or unemployment insurance. It is also important to remember that many of these acts were initiated by members of Congress in response to the crisis the country faced in the 1930s and that each of these laws received significant support from members of both political parties.

As we approach the 77th anniversary of the passage of the Social Security Act on August 14, perhaps instead of going on recess, the members of Congress should call themselves back into session. With the economy sputtering and millions of Americans still suffering the agony of unemployment, why not take a chance and pass President Obama’s jobs bill, or at the very least establish the long-term funding needed to rebuild and expand our nation’s crumbling economic infrastructure?

After all, more than three-quarters of a century ago while running for office in the midst of a similar crisis, Franklin Roosevelt was bold enough to recognize that in the face of such an economic calamity the country was ready to try “bold, persistent experimentation.” That it was perfectly acceptable to “take a method and try it: if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all try something” for the “millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are in easy reach.”

David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute. He is currently writing a book entitled Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and the Search for Anglo-American Cooperation, 1933-1938.

 

Congress image via Shutterstock.com.

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