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President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt Assassinated in 1933

Discussion in 'What If - Other' started by brndirt1, Dec 2, 2008.

  1. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    Let's suppose that on February 15, 1933 when there was an attempted assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, it succeeded. A person in the crowd intervened and the bullet missed F.D.R., striking and critically wounding Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak (he later died). Remember that was the last time that March 4th was the beginning of the new term of the new President. The twentieth Amendment altered the date to January 20th, and that was why he was still President-elect in February of 1933.

    Roosevelt pushed his New Deal laws into place helping to alleviate economic problems in the U.S. and he became the American face of WWII. What if the assassination attempt had succeeded? Would similar types of New Deal legislation have passed? When war swept over Europe, do you think America would have followed a similar course as it did historically? Would lend lease still happen?

    So FDR dies, and Garner is elevated to the office. Garner on the other hand had run against FDR for the Democratic nomination in ’32 (did it again in 1940), Garner had taken the "veep" position as a compromise much like Johnson did later with JFK. But the two were never on the same page as per the "New Deal" later, nor on the subject of federal intervention in private business affairs although I believe Garner supported sending Federal Troops in to break-up labor strikes. If FDR was "out of the picture", and Garner was in the office, I doubt if he would have even begun to change anything with a proposal like the "New Deal" Of course he may have "seen the light" as the depression got worse and worse. If he didn’t, in the next election, Alf Landon might have garnered more than two states (Maine and Vermont) with FDR out of the picture, and Garner was the candidate from the Democratic ticket.

    Alf Landon had been a strong supporter and member of Teddy Roosevelt’s "Progressive Republicans", and was an admirer or Teddy’s distant cousin Franklin. He switched parties to the "Bull Moose" party when TR formed it, and denounced Taft as a buffoon. He had some hesitation in supporting FDR’s Social Security, but historically largely supported the "New Deal" policies of FDR. Most of what FDR proposed and implemented had been originally TR’s ideas, i.e. child labor restrictions, minimum wage levels, maximum work week hours, overtime pay, pensions for retired workers, medical care supplied by owners, worker’s compensation, and the rights to form unions to name a few. Landon was a TR. supporter, and probably had a hand in forming those policies even though they were never implemented during TR’s administration. So without FDR, and Garner perhaps NOT seen as effective in combating the ongoing depression, perhaps Landon would have defeated Garner in 1936 by trotting out the long shelved Teddy Roosevelt policies of a "Square Deal", which the "New Deal" so closely resembled. Possibly sans the Social Security Act as it exists though. Landon respected and admired this new Roosevelt as well as he had the TR version, and accepted much of the New Deal but objected that it was in some cases hostile to business and involved too much waste and inefficient duplication of oversight jurisdiction. I am not too sure where he stood on the farm policy of price control, but being from a farming state he may have easily followed a similar control and pricing concept as the "New Deal".

    Then Wendel Wilke, who was a lifelong Democrat until he switched parties in 1940 may have been the Democratic rather than Republican candidate in 1940, if he could have defeated J.N. Garner for the nomination. As a lawyer and then president of the Commonwealth and Southern Corp., a giant utility holding company which was literally driven out of business by the TVA, he may not have been a Republican candidate for president if FDR had been assassinated. In his campaign he endorsed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's foreign policy, such as selling war material to the allied powers and building up our military, but attacked the New Deal as wasteful and "socialist leaning". He toured the world as a Roosevelt supporter during the early years of the war. Later he wrote One World (1943), a best-selling plea for postwar international cooperation. So he would have undoubtedly seen the need for the UN post-war, since he saw it while the war was waging historically.

    So after looking into these men and their pasts and politics a little closer, here are my "suppositions" in this what-if scenario. John Nance Garner follows FDR into office, doesn’t slow down the depression nor figure out how to do so before the 1936 election. Alf Landon beats Garner in the 1936 election (instead of only getting two states), and begins to implement the old TR policies for worker’s protection and job security, but Social Security is not included in the program. Wendel Wilke stays a Democrat, since the TVA isn’t put into effect, and he defeats John Nance Garner for the Democratic nomination and runs against Landon in 1940. Hard to say which of these men would win that contest, but since the Republicans were largely "blamed" for the Depression itself, Landon (as a Republican) may NOT have won in 1936 either, but if Garner hadn't done any better perhaps Landon, the old "Bull Moose man" could have pulled off a win. If Landon won and his (TR's) revamped "Square Deal" programs were working, he may have won a second term in 1940.

    All three men, Garner, Landon, and Wilke were staunch Protestant Christians and were appalled at the Japanese treatment of the Chinese through the thirties. They were also rather strong Anglophiles as well, and equally concerned about the rise of Fascism/Nazism in Europe, and militant Communism in Eurasia. None of them were pacifists in the "America First" mode, and supported the military preparedness policies of FDR historically. Heck, even Jeanette Rankin (from my home state of Montana) who voted against war in both 1917 and 1941, supported and voted for every military spending bill that was put before Congress, both times. She voted against the declarations of the wars, not the support of and expansion of the military to protect America.


    I also wonder if John N. Gardner would have had any better luck with the "four horsemen" of the Supreme Court than FDR had historically. Or would he have just abandoned the entire concept of Federal intervention in wages, pensions, health benefits, and worker's compensation of the "New Deal"?

    The Justices George Sutherland, Pierce Butler, James C. McReynolds, and Willis Van Devanter opposed and struck down nearly every FDR "New Deal" law they could when brought before them by suits. They were hard and fast proponents of the "freedom of contract"; free trade/enterprise position which protected the businessmen rather than the workers right to negotiate for higher wages, pensions, or health benefits. (if they were willing to work for less, it wasn’t the federal government’s place to interfere with their decisions!)

    However most of the key players for the economic "New Deal" proposals were already in place, and would have continued on under John Nance Garner. Whether he would have implemented all of them in the same fashion is open to debate certainly, but all through the presidential campaign leading up to the November elections the "New Deal" had been promised and alluded to in general terms. FDR (painting in broad strokes), alluded to plans of relief and public works money, and governmental controls of the economic system without mentioning the Keynesian economic concepts. He wanted to develop a plan to cut agricultural over-production without bankrupting the farmers. He was in favor of public power distribution, conservation and unemployment insurance. The repeal of prohibition and stock exchange regulation were also big items on his platform. He (FDR) had won largely on those promises, and Garner couldn’t really risk not following through, could he? That would alienate James Farley, and Hull at the least, an cripple Garner’s influence in the Congress.

    Garner and Hull had served together in the House of Representatives, and Hull had already been tagged for Secretary of State by FDR. Hull had consistently tried to enlarge foreign trade and lower tariffs and claimed authorship of the federal income tax laws of 1913 and 1916. Even though he might not have admitted it he seems to have been strongly influenced by John M. Keynes and Rexford Tugwell and their economic approaches. After serving 11 terms in the House, he had a brief stint as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and even his successor James Farley was a follower of Keynes and Tugwell, and is considered one of the chief architects of the "New Deal" policies of economic control of the private sector. Rexford Tugwell wrote extensively about his belief that government economic planning could reduce the wastefulness of capitalism, and because of this was widely labeled a "Communist/Socialist" although that seems incorrect to myself. It would seem to me that Farley’s wishes were to contain/regulate, not eliminate private ownership and capitalism.

    Right or wrong the laisser-faire ("allow it to work") economics of the twenties was widely blamed for the eventual collapse of global economics in the Wall Street Crash, and the Great Depression of the thirties. The whole spiral toward depressed economies may have started right after WW1; when the US (as the most positive balance of trade state) lent money to Germany until 1929 (Dawes Plan) to control their hyperinflation and unemployment, so the German Weimar government could pay off France and Britain, who in turn could pay off the US for their own war loans!

    This developed into a "self-sustaining" cycle until someone wanted to "cash in" and take their profits out! No more laisser-faire free-for-all, and the American Federal Reserve Bank didn’t respond quick enough to halt the implosion. We were still on the gold standard (and remained there until Nixon), but private ownership of gold was still being honored which put gigantic demands on our reserve. No matter whom it was that came to the Oval office, the stage had been set for the "New Deal" even though it had yet to be implemented, and it may have been "tweaked" and "bent" a bit, but the thing was in the pipeline and simply couldn’t be ignored by the next man in line. Even the "America First" committee wasn’t exactly pro-Nazi or pacifists exactly, they were anti-foreign involvement and pro-self defense.

    I also believe that the American production capabilities still existed (in general), but were closed down and sitting idle. The owners couldn’t get bank loans, the workers were laid off to save costs, and the whole collapse just fed on itself like a cancer. They were easily converted to war production when needed, but they didn’t all have to be built from the ground up, with the exception of the Detroit Tank Arsenal Plant which was constructed in the single winter of 1940-'41, and started production before the plant was even finished! During World War II, the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant alone built a quarter of the 89,568 tanks (all sizes and models) produced in the U.S. overall. As for small arms and munitions, the Winchester, Remington, and Springfield Armory production lines had been slowed, but they existed and were only expanded upon as needed. So I don’t see a major loss of "output" in that area if called upon. The aircraft production facilities existed, but were also on "limited production", still the policies and production methods existed in all of the major aircraft groups, with the possible exception of the Brewster Aircraft Company. The rest of them simply lacked a market for their products.

    America had been a long-standing supporter of the China of Sun Yet-Sen (the Chinese George Washington), with his death in the early twenties, and the infighting between Chaing and Mao for power we Americans clearly supported Chaing rather than the Communist Mao. When the war-like actions began in China, it is questionable if all four Neutrality Acts of the thirties would have been instituted, but Fascist Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia/Ethiopia would have happened as it did historically (FDR or no) and perhaps the 1935 version would have started the whole cascade which eventually led to passage of Lend-Lease (or something like it) in 1941, the fifth policy change in five years as per exports of war material. The Neutrality Acts of 1937 (there were two this time) were passed in response to the Spanish Civil War, which would have probably happened (FDR or no).

    FDR, as a student of history himself, and a participant in the Versailles fiasco in 1919 as Woodrow Wilson’s assistant secretary of the Navy; clearly saw the flaws which allowed the Germans to feel that they had NOT been defeated militarily, but betrayed by internal policies and politics (Jewish bankers and Communists), the infamous but untrue concept of the "stab in the back". That time-frame is where FDR met and was impressed by George C. Marshall, General Pershing's aide BTW.

    FDR's announcement of the "unconditional surrender" policy of the allies certainly did catch Churchill off guard, but in this case I feel FDR saw more clearly than Churchill the need for the policy. It also assured the non-present Stalin that the western allies were in the battle for the "long haul" and wouldn’t cut a separate deal with either the European nor Asian Axis partners and leave he and his Soviet at peril of confronting the Axis on both ends of his nation.

    Forgot to add this part; urban legends still hold that Roosevelt surprised Churchill by the sudden announcement of "unconditional surrender", but an agreement to demand the same had actually been reached after many days of discussions within the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Combined Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the British Cabinet over days of conference and with both Roosevelt and Churchill’s knowledge, leading up to and during the Casablanca time-frame. With that statement, the British, and Americans hoped to reassure Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (who declined to appear) that the Western Allies would not seek a separate peace with Germany. Later when Sir Winston claimed "surprise", I believe it was the timing which caught him off guard, not the policy itself.

    If FDR was a "long gone Charlie", would the same policy be espoused at the Casablanca Conference? It would seem to depend on whom was in the office at the time. Landon may have wished for a more conciliatory conclusion, the prickly "Cactus Jack" Garner might have been even less "polite" than FDR, but Wendel Wilke might just as easily seen the same option as the others. He became a vocal supporter of FDR all through the war, and approved of all his foreign policies and war efforts. So it would seem that it depends on whom one projects into the position does it not?

    Those are my thoughts, flawed as they might be. What are those of the forum?
     
  2. JCFalkenbergIII

    JCFalkenbergIII Expert

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    LOL I think this more then meets the criteria Clint. :eek: :D
     
  3. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    There are so many variables that it's impossible to predict anything with any degree of certitude.

    One thing that would be probable, however, is that absent Roosevelt's misguided economic measures, it's likely that the US would have recovered from the Depression more rapidly.
     
  4. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    Explain this please "...absent Roosevelt's misguided economicn measures, it's likely the US would have recovered from the Depression more rapidly".

    The other question is what does that have to do with FDR being dead in 1933? Both the Depression was happening, and the next guy inline was Garner.
     
  5. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    There are a number of economists and historians who argue that Roosevelt's economic measures were more harmful than helpful. It's a fact that the US recovered from the Depression more slowly than many other countries, and only actually began recovery after the European countries began to rearm in preparation for WW II. It is noteworthy that in 1937-38, seven years after the beginning of the Depression, and four years after Roosevelt took office, unemployment in the US was rising, not falling, and a significant amount of US industrial capacity still stood idle.

    "In 1937 tragedy struck. The Supreme Court in a series of 5 to 4 decisions reversed its reasoning in the NRA case and upheld the Wagner Act as constitutional. The Act meant that business was now forced by law to 'negotiate' with politically privileged unions. Market wage rates would no longer be tolerated. The court's decision was immediately followed by an immense outbreak in union activity (some of it quite violent) resulting in a rapid rise in labor costs. The result was as predictable as it was tragic — unemployment leapt from 6.4 million in 1937 to 9.8 million in 1938."

    "
    He was one of America's most controversial leaders. Conservatives claimed that he undermined states' rights and individual liberty. Leftists found him timid and conventional in attacking the Depression. Others thought him devious and inconsistent and uninformed about economics. Some of these claims were well founded. Though Roosevelt labored hard to end the Depression, he had limited success. It was not until 1939 and 1940, with the onset of heavy defense spending before World War II, that prosperity returned."


    "
    After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.
    "Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

    In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933."

    Not everyone one believes the myth that the "New Deal" saved the country.

    See; FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression | Book Reviews | EH.Net

    Is Obama another Roosevelt and will 2009 be another 1937?

    GI -- World War II Commemoration

    Foreign Affairs - A Raw Deal - Charles W. Calomiris

    FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate / UCLA Newsroom

    What does this have to do with your "what-if" Roosevelt was assassinated as President-elect in 1933?

    Well I should think that is obvious. Roosevelt's death in 1933 would preclude his muddled economic recovery measures, which in turn, would have meant that the US would most likely have recovered from the Great Depression sooner. That would have meant a different, and possibly more effective foreign policy in the late 1930's with totally unpredictable results on the course of world history in the decades to follow.
     
  6. Carl W Schwamberger

    Carl W Schwamberger Ace

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    I wonder what Garners ideas and abilitys were? Difficult to predict, but I'd not bet on Garner lasting past 1940 election as President. Its also nearly impossible to guess who the Republican challengers to Garner would be in 1936 or 1940. I'd think a less charismatic Democrat would draw out stonger Republican challengers. Perhaps Democratic challengers as well.

    A worst scenario would be the sucess of the claimed coup plot of 1934. If that were to become reality it would have meant the effective end of democracy and the Consitiution in the US. I'd also guess the long term economic effects no better than under Roosevelts "communist" policys.
     
  7. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    I still think you are missing the point here DA.

    In the presidential election of 1932, Huey Long (from Garner's neighboring state) had supported the candidacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, believing him to be the only candidate that shared his philosophy for wealth redistribution. Long played a critical role in securing the Democratic nomination for FDR and campaigned for him in the Midwest. However, Huey broke with Roosevelt when the new president failed to embrace his programs.

    Huey considered FDR’s first New Deal reforms to be woefully inadequate (when they were presented) and threatened to run for president himself in 1936. To build grassroots support for his program, Long announced the formation of the Share Our Wealth Society in 1934, and he encouraged the public to write to him to learn more. Long’s message struck a chord with a public desperate for relief. By April 1935, his Senate office received an average of 60,000 letters a week.

    To organize a network of Share Our Wealth clubs around the country, Long enlisted the help of Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith, a charismatic minister from Shreveport with a gift for public speaking. Smith traveled the nation, drawing huge crowds in support of Long’s program, and by the end of 1934, the movement had three million members.

    It is wrong to believe that something wouldn’t be done, FDR or no. Roosevelt and Garner had been elected on the "vague" promise of something changing in the economic system. Whether the policies implemented by FDR were "failed, or muddied" has nothing to do with the original question I posed. Garner simply could NOT do NOTHING along those line, since those promises had overturned years of Republican control of D.C. And don’t neglect that with or without FDR and Garner there was another guy stirring up trouble for the money interests.

    This is the aforementioned Huey Long. He had been elected to the office of governor of Louisiana in 1928, and no matter any opinions of him today, he was proposing exactly what people (who elect politicians) wanted to hear.

    Economists and their theories aren’t read by many outside of the collegiate setting, and even then cannot seem to reach a consensus even among themselves. Huey Long believed that the Great Depression was the result of the tremendous disparity between the wealthy and the poor. He charged that the richest five percent of the population controlled 85 percent of the nation’s wealth. There just was not enough to go around with this unequal wealth distribution, and it was in 1934 Long made his opinions known.

    In Huey’s view, capitalism had run amuck and the vast majority of the population was suffering as a result of corporate greed. The nation was stuck in a vicious cycle in which people had no money to put into the economy, and jobs were drying up because there was no commerce. One in four breadwinners was out of work, and more than a million men roamed the country in search of work. Even if FDR had been dead in 1933, by the summer of 1935, there were more than 27,000 Share Our Wealth clubs with a membership of more than 7.5 million (these millions of voters cannot be dismissed). Loyal followers met every week to discuss Long’s ideas and spread the message. There were no dues, just fellowship and discussion, and membership was open to all races. White supremacists charged that Long was attempting to organize blacks to vote. Long countered that Share Our Wealth was meant to help all poor people, and black people were welcome to participate since they were the poorest people in the country, a radical inclusion for a deeply segregated society.

    Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth Proposal:

    Cap personal fortunes at $50 million (equivalent to about $750 million today)
    Limit annual income to one million dollars each (about $12 million today)
    Limit inheritances to five million dollars each (about $60 million today)
    Guarantee every family an annual income of $2,000 (or one-third the national average)
    Free college education and vocational training
    Old-age pensions for all persons over 60
    Veterans benefits and healthcare
    A 30 hour work week
    A four week vacation for every worker

    Much from:

    Huey Long's Programs - Share Our Wealth

    This populist disgust with the wealthy wasn’t an FDR concept, it was a response to the collapsing economics of Andrew Mellon in the previous Republican governments of the twenties. Whether or not FDR’s policies extended the Great Depression or not, something was going to happen in America as a result. There was also an entirely possible scenario in which Communism (or something like it) may have overthrown our elected representative government and it’s constitution.
     
  8. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    No, I'm not missing the point. I just disagree with the point you are trying to make.

    No matter how wonderful Huey Long's and Roosevelt's programs sound to you, socialism was not the answer to capitalism's problems. Long and Roosevelt's economic remedies for the Depression still served to extend rather than heal the Great Depression. Yes, it was a time of great tension in the country and millions of people wanted the government to redistribute the wealth of the country, but that wasn't going to happen short of a violent civil war. There were just as many people who opposed Long's ideas as there were supporting them. Long himself, was assassinated in 1935

    If Roosevelt had been assassinated in 1933, it's improbable that any of his New Deal policies would have been enacted in the form they took historically. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be some economic reform and public relief measures put in place, some were clearly necessary. But hopefully they would not take the path of Roosevelt's pro-labor, anti-capital legislation that did so much to cripple real recovery in the 1930's.

    Franklin Roosevelt was probably one of the ablest politicians ever to sit in the Whitehouse. He was a master of manipulation of both public opinion and government machination, he knew just what strings to pull to get his way, and exactly how far he could push his political luck. He was committed to his ideas for domestic reform and always seemed to be two steps ahead of his political enemies. There has been no other man in the Twentieth Century as capable of carrying through fundamental changes in American government, certainly not Garner or any other public figure in the 1930's. Yet for all his political ability, even Roosevelt was not able to force through all of the measures he deemed desirable. He encountered numerous challenges to his programs from Congress and the US Supreme Court, and was forced modify many of them. His attempt to pack the Supreme Court was symptomatic of this opposition and cost him a great deal of political support. Roosevelt even had many men in his own administration that doubted he was pursuing the correct course in many cases.

    So it's not too far-fetched to conclude that, in Roosevelt's absence, his counter-productive economic measures would have lacked the necessary support and would have failed to be guided through the hostile roadblocks his enemies were able to erect. In that case, the Depression would have most likely lasted only 4-5 years rather than the 7-8 of history. This would have far-reaching effects on US foreign policy in ways that are impossible to predict.

    In your original post, you asked several questions as to what was likely to happen if Roosevelt had been assassinated in 1933. I think most are impossible to answer because there are just too many variables, but I have studied the domestic politics of that period, and believe that only Roosevelt was capable of forcing through the controversial measures he espoused. I also think that these measures were wrong-headed and economically harmful to the country as a whole, causing the Depression to last much longer than it would have otherwise. I have cited authorities who agree with this position. Maybe you don't like the answers, and I'm sure you can cite authorities who disagree with me. But please don't tell me I am "missing the point" because you don't like my opinion.
     
  9. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    Okay, I see where you are/were going. I just wonder if the even more radical Huel Long direction might have been even less "helpful" in the long term to a representative and capitalist style of society. Clearly (as you say) "something" was going to happen, I simply don't think the American public had the patience to wait for any other remedy to take effect.

    I understand FDR's "New Deal" was likely at the core of the extension of the Great Depression, and it was only war production which truly pulled the US out of the doldrums. That would have come about, FDR or no and war production would have just as likely pulled our economy up by its bootstraps while we waited for another "remedy" to have taken effect. No matter what was in place (economically) during the thirties, it would be war production and needs of WW2 (food, clothing, ect.) that most likely have "done the deed" in the end.

    I don't "dislike" your answer exactly, I just think either FDR or no something was going to happen in the structure of economics. And the Adam Smith style of "hands off" self regulation of business and banking was not going to have either the time nor the respect to "get 'er done", that's all.
     
  10. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    I don't know. As I've indicated, there are just too many factors to predict what might have happened absent Roosevelt after 1933. Clearly, there was a need for some economic reform, but I think Roosevelt was the only man powerful enough and politically (if not economically) astute enough to force through the controversial measures that made up his "New Deal". I do know that the American public was not "united" behind any specific economic policy or program, including the socialistic measures espoused by Roosevelt and Long. There were all manner of factions and theories as to how best to encourage recovery, but no one group was dominant or held enough political power to dictate unalloyed solutions. History records that Roosevelt's programs were opposed by numerous interests both in and outside of the government, and both on economic and philosophic bases. Eeven a man as talented and determined as Roosevelt was not able to get all of his measures adopted. A man less politically able would not have been able to generate much impact on political and economic conditions in the United States.

    My own parents were young adults during that period and came from families that were working class, small business owners, and farmers. They certainly did not support the redistribute-the-wealth concepts of Long, and positively despised Roosevelt and his economic policies, especially after he attempted to get his way by packing the Supreme Court. I would say it's incorrect to claim that the American public was going to force the government to adopt either Long's or Roosevelt's ideas as official programs, or for that matter, any specific ideological/economic direction. I would argue rather, that the situation is pretty much as it is today; most people dislike the excesses that capitalists and businessmen have been indulging in, but still believe the basic capitalist system is fundamentally sound and just. Most would reject radical changes to the system since such changes, as did Roosevelt's, might actually substantially delay recovery or involve unacceptable political costs.
     

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