FDR Before The New Deal

Franklin Roosevelt is usually introduced as the New Deal president, but we wanted to rewind the tape and look at the receipts. With Dr. Sean Beienberg joining us, we walk through FDR’s pre-1933 record and the political path that takes him from New York power circles into the 1932 nomination. The deeper we read, the clearer it becomes: the “standard story” omits a lot of inconvenient text.

We dig into Roosevelt’s 1929 to 1930 federalism and states’ rights speeches, including a radio address in which he argues that Washington has no authority over major parts of economic and social policy. Then we line up the 1932 Democratic Party platform with two campaign speeches that pull in opposite directions: the Commonwealth Club address, warning that finance is too powerful and calling for a new social contract, and the Pittsburgh budget speech, demanding major spending cuts and blasting centralized control. If you’ve ever wondered whether there was a clear voter mandate in 1932 for sweeping federal expansion, this is the primary source trail.

Finally, we turn to the First Inaugural Address and why “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” sits alongside talk of “money changers,” emergency governance, and war-like executive power. We close by teeing up what comes next: FDR’s communication style, radio, fireside chats, and the laws that still shape American life.

If you like history that treats speeches and party platforms as real evidence, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. Which FDR sounds more believable to you: the small-government campaigner or the crisis executive?

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Transcript

Welcome And Why FDR Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Welcome back to Civics in a year. Today we're starting to talk about my second favorite Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt. Actually, I guess he'd be my third because, or fourth, because Alice and Eleanor are in there and definitely Teddy. But we have Sean Bienberg with us today. And we're going to kind of do two episodes on this because Franklin Roosevelt, president for a long time. And we're going to talk about some of his speeches, but also how he utilized radio. There's going to be a lot in this next two episodes. So, Dr. Beyenberg, before we get started on FDR as president, what was he kind of talking about and writing about before he was elected president?

States’ Rights Roosevelt In 1930

The 1932 Platform That Shocks

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, so a little bit of bio on Roosevelt and then some kind of speeches or ideas that I think are worth flagging. So obviously he's a member of the Roosevelt family, which are sort of pretty powerful politically. He's like a fourth or fifth cousin of Theodore, as I recall. It's they're not close, close relatives, but they're close enough that they're bumping into one another at family gatherings, so to speak. He is in the state legislature for a few years and then becomes assistant secretary of the Navy under Wilson, basically while Wilson is president. And he will, as we'll come back to, revere Wilson as a political hero of his. Famously, then he, as we laughed about in the last podcast, he tries to recruit Hoover to run for president as a Democrat, as a fellow moderate progressive, which is what he sees him as. But he but he's thought it's sort of upwardly mobile. And then he famously gets stricken by polio and sort of politically withdraws. And then eventually Al Smith, who's the leader of the New York Democratic Party first, and then I would say arguably the leader of the National Democratic Party in the 1920s, sort of pulls him back into politics, which then also makes Roosevelt's later betrayal of Smith a little more a little more bracing. So Roosevelt in 29 and 30, he succeeds Smith as governor of New York. So Smith basically recruits him to take over for him after Smith's on his way out, or hoping to be president, actually, is what it is. Smith runs again in 28. Roosevelt gets elected governor of New York, which immediately launches him to being a very, very powerful contender for the presidential nomination in 32, because New York is generally regarded as at the very least a swing state, maybe even tilting Republican. So if you're able to basically win opposite party in what at this point is the biggest state by electoral votes, I mean, this is something that's easy for us to forget, right? Imagine if California was a swing state in our politics, like today. Everybody would just sit and pander to California, which is basically how New York is partly so powerful in the early 20th century. But Roosevelt as governor, and we we've alluded to some of these speeches before, is very keen on federalism. And he's very into this idea that, like I talk about of this progressive federalism. We've seen it with L Hugh Root, with Coolidge, with others that basically say the states should be pretty active in economic regulation, economic activity, but we don't want the feds, only want we don't want the feds touching this. And so Roosevelt gives a couple of speeches in 29 and 30 that are quite striking. One is an address to Conference of Governors, where he sounds, I don't know, I was gonna even Calvin Coolidge, incredibly strict on federalism, uh, including lamenting, and this always just makes me laugh every time I look at it, the expansive version of interstate commerce, which is not very, as he says it's stretched to the breaking point to cover regulatory powers desired by Washington. And I still to this day am not exactly clear what he's even talking about, since they're still interpreting the Congress clause quite narrowly, quite narrowly back then. But then in 1930, he gives and he gives various proclamations on the importance of federalism and states' rights. Uh, in 1930, he gives a very uh extensive radio address on it where he says, basically, other than the mistake of the 18th Amendment, which he curses and spits at, you know, we've always had this idea that morals is dealt with by the states, that the feds are that the feds shouldn't be doing very much, that protecting federalism and local government is the most important thing we can do. And then he goes on this long tirade about all the things that the federal government has no authority to regulate, including public utilities, banks, insurance, business, agriculture, education, social welfare, and a dozen other important features. Suffice to say, he will take a slightly different take a few years uh afterward. But it is quite striking that in 1930, which again is also during the Depression. So this isn't just like, oh, the depression changed everything. In fact, in 1930, he is lamenting that the federal government is overreaching. And so, yeah, he does. So if you're interested, I think we have this hosted on one of our civic literacy curriculum exercises. So maybe you can link to those speeches because people are always shocked by them. But those are quite interesting. So then he's running for president in 1932. His two rivals are his former mentor, Al Smith, who had been the win, who had run in 1928, and figures he will be quite because prohibition has become even more unpopular, that and Hoover's a Hoover is a wounded incumbent. So Smith obviously wants a second shot at it. And the Maryland governor, Albert Ritchie, who's probably the most fanatically states' rights person in the whole country. And Roosevelt basically is able to dominate the convention through various tactical means. And he gets a platform that's written in a way where he can muscle out both Smith and and he positions himself as a states' rights guy and muscles out both Smith and Richie. But then he gives his inaugural address, or not his inaugural address, excuse me, speech accepting the nomination in 32. And uh and that he he that's where we get the phrase the New Deal. So square deal had been Theodore Roosevelt's line, but New Deal is in the last paragraph uh of his 1932 acceptance speech. And he says, you know, in that one, it's pretty close to the platform, unsurprisingly. So he wants a little more financial regulation, again, specifically financial banks, credit, right? He wants to temporarily purchase ag surpluses and have public works, but otherwise, he's for cutting government spending. And in fact, the 1932 Democratic platform, if you look at it, yeah, he is. The 1932 Democratic platform, and we'll talk about this in a second more, but the the when we get to his speeches while he's campaigning, but the 1932 Democratic Platform actually basically says that the biggest problems are that the federal government is spending too much money and it needs to be drastically cut back and it's wasteful. And Hoover and his crew are so extravagant. The one thing that they say that like really needs to be expanded more is basically more infrastructure spending, since that is an enduring investment that also is a temporary it solves this temporary problem of unemployment while generating doesn't create extensive long-term debts, you know, or uh if you're bonding it, yes. But like it doesn't, it's not like an ongoing program that you have to continue funding. And it can be most immediately turned around, and it doesn't really expand federal power as much to just like loan more money to states for more um infrastructure. So so this is why in 1932 a lot of the newspapers say that FDR is the more conservative, the more cautious, the more pick whatever adjective you want. And Hoover is described as the radical in some of them, which is quite striking based on the way the historiograph. This is this is partly why when we did the rugged individualism one, I said, I don't really like that speech, because it's sort of one weird moment that sort of sits out of line with the rest of the politics of the depression.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

It's so interesting. I'm like looking through this Democratic Party platform of just like, you know, it's 1932, understanding where we are, and then also having the ability to know how it goes. It's such an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

There's no there's no there's no indication of a new deal. Nothing. Wow. It's an attack on prohibition and it's an attack on basically needing to shovel some more infrastructure money faster. And otherwise, it's an attack on Hoover as an extravagant big government waster. And a critique of the tariffs, and a critique of the tariffs.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

But also ultimate statehood for Puerto Rico. Like again, there's I I've never thought to read like platforms, party platforms in this. And it's it is so interesting to hear like people think that Roosevelt is this conservative. Again, we have the understanding of where it went to the city.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, yeah. Party platforms just as an aside or something. You've you've probably noticed that I keep insisting that we look at those as texts.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

And it's one of the things I assign in some of my classes. I know my colleague Aaron Kushner teaches a class on sort of political thought in America, and he looks at them too, because it does give you a sense of what people thought they were fighting about, which may or may not be what they end up fighting about, but it does also give you a sense of what the American people were sort of thought that they were getting at any given moment.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yes, which again, very interesting. So that kind of tells us, you know, a little bit about him before. Can we switch over to his first inaugural address?

Commonwealth Club Versus Pittsburgh

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Before we jump to that, oh yes. Before we jump to that, I want so that's that's him getting the nomination. Okay. And then he gives two speeches that are both pretty famous while he's running. Okay. Um, that I want to just mention. One of them is really famous. One of them is at the time, one of them is probably covered a little more than the other, but one of them, the Commonwealth Club is one that I know shows up on lots of primary source documents and whatnot. So it's an address he gives in 1932, in which he says, effectively, the equality of opportunity is over, finance is too powerful, and therefore a fundamentally limited government is over, and the day of, quote, enlightened administration is come. And he praises Wilson. He keeps going back to Wilson. Wilson predicted all this, Wilson said all this. We just listened, right? Is basically. And so he keeps citing that, and he says, capital must be made to put to work for the public good with the new social contract. Uh, unsurprisingly, that speech freaks people out. It seems in tension with what he has more or less positioned himself as, as a sort of orthodox, limited government. It's inconsistent with the party platform, it's inconsistent with what he told people he was sort of going to do. Uh, and so he gets hammered for that one. And so then a few weeks later, in October, he goes to Pittsburgh and gives a speech on the budget. And this one is one that if you thought the 1932 platform is wild, it's like the 1932 platform magnified. Because he quotes both Al Smith and Calvin Coolidge to say how we need to, in fact, drastically decrease the federal government. They need to cut spending by at least 25%. And he decries the Hoover administration as quote, committed to the idea we ought to center control of everything in Washington. So this is why if you look at the histories of 1932 election, again, it's not just like sort of conservative retconning to say that it wasn't clear what you were voting for other than you didn't like Hoover and you didn't like Prohibition. But the idea that there was this like popular mandate in 32 for sweeping federal expansion of power is it's just doesn't seem like it's borne out by the documentary evidence. The listeners can't see this, but your face is like I like every time you know you mention a speech, I pull it up because I want to be able to link it.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

And I'm looking at this, and it actually, again, reminds me of a book I have by Gordon Lloyd, The Two Sides of Liberalism, where he's comparing Hoover and FDR. And on the front of it, I'm gonna grab it quick because I will never forget doing this with him, one of my very favorite scholars, so favorite, in fact, that I can pull it right off my library shelf because I know exactly where it is. But he the book talks about the debates, and he wrote in it, Liz, beware of the new world order. And it's because of the campaign speech in Pittsburgh where he's talking about like one of the lines is a very good thing. The terms of that contract are as old as the Republic and as new as the new economic order. And I remember having these conversations. This was September of 2015, where I like got to sit down and learn from him and having these conversations where he gives us, he gave us, Professor Lloyd gave us speeches and we had to talk about whose speech it was. And I remember being baffled by some of the things that FDR said because it was never stuff I learned about. Okay, sorry. Again, we're sidetracked now because it's so good.

Hoover Transition And FDR Flexibility

SPEAKER_00 14:07

That's right. And it but it also illustrates that F Roosevelt is not an ideologue. And he's not an ideologue, uh, for better or for worse. He is basically somebody who just throws stuff at the wall and sees what sticks. He's not in a way that like Wilson has an ideological set of commitments. Franklin Roosevelt does not. There's a great quote I want to say from uh I want to say Oliver Wendell Holmes that says basically he's got a second-rate intellect and a first-rate temperament, which is, you know, Holmes is somebody who a few years ago had said he was enthused about Coolidge because Coolidge wouldn't do much, but we don't want them doing much. So Holmes is very, very pithy. But yeah, this is one thing that Hoover actually gets really mad at. Hoover hates the fact that in the FDR, and the same thing happens in Britain, that the term liberal gets sort of inverted, how it's generally been used in political thought of like limited government uh to being sort of you know reform liberal. It's sort of reform liberal is the first stage where it's used and then and then becomes you know how we in the United States tend to use it to refer to a more expansive understanding of governmental power, where which is the same way that it is in Canada and briefly how it was in in Britain, you know, whereas like in Australia, the more I mean like libertarian is closer to how they would use it. But yeah, Hoover, Hoover like writes, he's like he's like a political theory professor where he's just like raging about the fact that this term has been co-opted almost as much as he is about the content itself.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

I'm so glad we're doing this, and I get to revisit this book and listeners, this might like irk you, but I am somebody in books who like I write in books, I'm like dog earing them. My books are very, very well loved. And now I'm gonna go back to this book because I mean, it it does like the speeches we're talking about here are in chapter two, but in this book too, there's a lot of like letters back and forth between Roosevelt and Hoover, and they're so fascinating. So I'm gonna add that to my deep dive list for the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Um, Hoover gets really mad because he basically asks Roosevelt for help with the transition, and Roosevelt doesn't want to do anything that will get him possibly responsible until he has complete power over it. And so he just basically tells Hoover to bug off. Yeah. So you can imagine that was a really awkward. There's pictures of the car ride of the two of them riding to the inauguration. Yep, there you go. Oh, you've got it on the cover there.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

I have it on the cover.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

You know, Hoover looks like a it's like looks like literally a hostage photo.

First Inaugural Fear And War Powers

SPEAKER_01 16:43

So again, these are the historical dramas, and I'm so glad that we have like letters back and forth, and this is why I too love primary sources. So we'll talk about like the car ride is super awkward. So Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address is 1933, March 4th. What is he talking about in this? Because again, in our next episode, we'll talk about kind of the second wave because Roosevelt has a very long and politically like war, like all of these things are going on during his presidency.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah. So the most famous line from that is from the first couple sentences, the fear itself line, right? That we have nothing to fear but fear itself. And what he means by that is he says effectively, Americans are capable of solving problems unless they paralyze themselves. So he basically says, like, we can we we can fix this unless we tell ourselves we can't. And then he sort of walks through, like most inaugural addresses, it's it's actually not that long. But he sort of walks through some of the themes that he had reiterated, that he'd revisited or that he'd flagged during the speech accepting the nomination. So basically what he says is, look, we don't have a horde of locusts or a natural disaster that's wrecking our economy. He says it's effectively businessmen, uh, whom he derides as quote money changers, right? A biblical allusion there. In his renomination speech in 1936, he will call them economic royalists. So those are kind of the most famous lines, again, along with New Deal coming from the from the last paragraph of the first nomination speech. So he walked through some of the themes, again, pretty similar to the acceptance speech of what he wants powers to do. But sort of the takeaway is that he says, effectively, we need to treat this as a war. We need to treat the Great Depression as a war. And Congress will need to give him uh massive executive powers equivalent to war fighting, which in effect they do, as we'll talk about with the we can talk about in the next one, or I guess in this one if you want. But but then he says, and this is quite interesting, he says, this can be done without much issue because the Constitution is, quote, so simple and impractical that it is always possible to meet needs without loss of essential form. Right. And so this is him sort of embracing a version of Wilson's kind of living constitutionalism argument to say, like, look, we just have to treat the constitution kind of flexibly and it'll let us do the things that we need, even without an amendment. And this is something that he will insist on later when his advisors will fight with him about arguing that he's trying to do things that exceed the powers of the federal constitution later. So those are sort of the, I think, the main themes. We can, you know, we can walk through the little policy prescriptions in detail, but it's basically we can fix these things if we don't stop ourselves. Businessmen are the enemies, and we will need to treat this like a war with massive executive power.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

And again, the depression is already going when he becomes president. So a lot like you can see that in this speech. And I it and it is like I'm looking at the camp or the first inaugural address. I mean, compared to his Commonwealth Club speech, like that speech is like I'm scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. But I think it would be interesting to look at the Democratic Party platform with this first inaugural address, like in the classroom, and and talk about like where we see pieces of you know the platform in his speech and vice versa, and and where they're not, because I'm sure he doesn't get to everything. And again, things change when you're in in the presidency.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

The speech is definitely closer to the Commonwealth Club than it is to Pittsburgh, than it certainly is to Pittsburgh. I mean, uh I keep coming back to that one just because that speech is so underappreciated and so funny to me. But yeah, some of his advisors, a few months in act, they they go back and they look at the Pittsburgh speech and they say, Is are we even remotely close to this? Like, nope, this is Commonwealth Club.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

So they didn't have social media back then, so unless you were there, you'd think you didn't know. Is there anything within this first inaugural address? You know, and I like that you brought up the like that's the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, because I can like I can hear him saying this, like in his voice, that you think will be important for us to kind of set up our next episode where we're talking about, you know, more of his communication style and some of the laws that he passed that still you know affect us today.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

I mean, the the the theme of sort of the skepticism of of finance is a theme that we'll come back. You know, that's that's what the core of the first New Deal is. So the idea that there's a New Deal is not accurate. There's sort of two two phases of it. So I mean the the the fear itself is the most famous line, obviously, but yeah, he he does have a lot. One of the things he's very good at, and this will end up being a strength of his in the the fireside chat, is he has a sort of reassuring confidence that is effective. You know, you could argue this is platitudinous, but you can also envision this being you know inspirational to people, right? We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national community, national unity. So you know, that the people of the United States have not failed. They have registered this line, you know, based on what we've said, you can squint at or raise your eyebrow at. They have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action and ask for discipline and direction under leadership, made me the instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of that gift, I take it. And then the last line is you know, we ask for the humble blessing of God. May He protect each of us and guide me in the days to come. But really, The line about the money changers, I think, is useful because again, shows biblical illusion that we talked about is a theme that comes back up. Yeah. But it also shows the money changers are if you are somebody who is familiar with your biblical stuff, like these are folks who are like physically attacked by Jesus. And so he is setting up that he he will have good guys and bad guys in his his earlier. So like it's an early almost enemies list. So it's this mix of sort of reassurance, but also putting particularly the financial sector on notice that he's coming for them.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Which is very interesting. One of the things I have in my book highlighted that I know that we talked about with Professor Lloyd is kind of that, like toward the end, I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. Like that line I remember talking about how, you know, that gave people hope that was like somebody is going to do something about this. And I remember alluding to because one of my favorite presidential speeches, and we'll talk about it later, is Ronald Reagan's challenger speech because I can remember it, you know, remembering this, you know, bad thing happened, and the president is speaking, how it felt. And Professor Lloyd had said, this is kind of what this was, people, is it felt like somebody is recognizing what is happening and there's somebody in charge because they didn't feel like Hoover was doing that. And so that, like, I am prepared under my constitutional duty. Just again, these you know, inaugural addresses tend to be messages of hope and of optimism. And I don't know that this, you know, is any different.

What We Cover Next Time

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Yeah, I mean, it is striking because you you see him that in and of itself is a notable change that the expectation is like the president is in charge, right? That is itself like this is something where Hoover is again, Roosevelt's following from Hoover and not from Coolidge, right? Hoover, people might not have bought it, but Hoover had the idea that like he is the chief executive and that that is closer to a business executive than a sort of constitutional executive, right? I mean, the line that you alluded to that or you cited the constitutional duty, officially he just says, I'm recommending the measures, I'm recommending measures for Congress, right? Which explicitly says the president shall recommend that. But he is arguing that Congress should additionally invest him with massive power as necessary, which is again more of like a Theodore Roosevelt move. We talked about the different understandings of the presidency. So so yeah, we'll we'll we'll talk about that now with what the actual presidency of Roosevelt looks like uh for good and ill.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yes. Okay. I think we're good on this one because if we start the next one, this then this episode will be an hour long. So we kind of get the first part of Roosevelt. And our next episode, we're going to talk about the fireside chats, more of his communication style, not necessarily getting into specific ones, but then also things like the Social Security Act. So, Professor Beinberg, thank you.