George Creel (1876 - 1953), the nation's first and only official censor (1917 - 1918), knew FDR for twenty-five years, and in this wartime recollection he made FDR wish that the two had never met. This is the type of article Creel would never have allowed to be published twenty some years earlier because it sought to reduce confidence in the Commander-in-Chief. Yet, with the war in its eleventh month, Creel gave it to FDR with both barrels:
"Another aspect of the President's [youthful drive] is a love of the dramatic and spectacular. Since these effects depend largely on the element of surprise, he inclines to secretiveness...He believes what he wants to believe and sees what he wants to see. If the country is only 'ankle-deep' in war, it is because the White House has minimized bad news and overemphasized the good. Out of a defeat, he can pick the heroic exploit of a sailor or a soldier or an airman and turn it into victory...
In this article George Creel serves it up cold for FDR's NRA...
CLICK HERE to read primary source articles about the Great Depression...
CLICK HERE to read more criticism from FDR's loyal opposition...
An additional anti-New Deal editorial can be read here...and here
To read magazine articles about FDR, Click here.
Yet, regardless of the FDR's assorted blunders, the United States was still an enormously wealthy nation...
George Creel looked back on his roll as censor during W.W. I - click here to read his recollection.
