After President Roosevelt’s death in 1945 his first vice-president, John Nance Garner (1868 – 1967), recalled that there were numerous times when he attempted to explain to the President how exactly the economy worked – and each lesson was met with blank stares. This would come as no surprise to any of FDR’s critics, who were legion. In this 1934 editorial, Hearst columnist George Sokolsky (1893 – 1962) serves it up cold for President Roosevelt and his Brain Trust, reminding them of all their assorted failings –
It is necessary to state Mr Roosevelt’s failures succinctly:
• He could not and did not put ten million men back to work;
• He was unable to to liquefy the frozen assets of the United States, so that capital became available for industry, trade and commerce;
• He was unable to reduce expenditures for relief;
• He was unable to stimulate the use of capital goods, particularly iron and steel, building supplies and electrical equipment;
• He was unable to find a procedure for adjusting the relations between capital and labor which had become maladjusted during the Depression;
• He was unable to devise a program for protecting the farmer against maladjusted price relationship between farm products and manufactured goods;
• He was unable to stimulate foreign trade.
Sokolsky wrapped up his column stating that by the Fall of 1934 the conservative opposition to the New Deal, although unorganized and lacking leadership, was rapidly growing.
Much of what is discussed in this article pertains to the legislation that was passed during FDR’s first 100 days.
CLICK HERE to read additional 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
Click here to read an H.L Mencken column in which he trashed FDR’s “Brain Trust”…
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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…
