In the winter of 1938, when one of FDR’s anointed Brain Trusters made an off-the-cuff remark that the Federal Government would “take over industry” if the economy did not turn around, it must have alarmed many of the industry captains and sent the stock market to new lows. It also moved the eccentric Bernarr MacFadden (1868 – 1955) to put a fresh ribbon in his typewriter and have at it:
“The trouble with the present administration is its inability to learn from experience. It has the cocksure attitude of the inexperience theorist… During the first five months of Roosevelt’s first administration, before claptrap Socialist theories were introduced, the business of this country improved more than in any similar period throughout our entire history. Wheat increased in value from 55 cents a bushel to $1.17. Cotton increased from $6.39 a hundred pounds to $10.75. Steel production increased from 18 percent normal to 58 percent normal. The business barometer increased from 40 percent normal to 83 percent normal. Railroad stock increased from 39 percent normal to 86 percent normal. Public-utility stocks increased from 67 percent normal to more than 100 percent normal. But the upswing of business staggard and stopped for several months with the introduction of the NRA and various other Socialistic legislation.”
A similar editorial, critical of FDR, can be read here and here
– from Amazon:
