A Team of Rebels
EISENBACH, DAVID
A Team of Rebels Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America By Adam Cohen Penguin. 372 pp. $29.95. Reviewed by David Eisenbach Professor of...
...Progressives back then also feared that their guy had sold out...
...Eleanor Roosevelt noticed Churchill's frustration, no doubt in empathy, and explained to him that "when Franklin says 'yes> Yes> Yes' it doesn't mean he's agreeing, it just means he's listening...
...He welcomed a constant flow of bureaucrats, Congressmen, businessmen, and local pols, each brimming with ideas and requests...
...Thanks to Adam Cohen we are one step closer to understanding FDR and his New Deal...
...If they entertained him, FDR would engage in encouraging banter...
...Cohen argues that FDR's thoughts do not really matter...
...There is a madcap quality to his account of the first 100 days when mid-level aides took over major legislative initiatives "by virtue oftheir rapport with the President...
...Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson compared trying to pin down Roosevelt to "chasing a vagrant beam of sunshine around a vacant room...
...What separates Cohen, the assistant editorial page editor of the New York Times, from the pack is his unique take on how the revolution was carried out...
...Today’s progressives who are upset with President-elect Barack Obama’s appointments should know that FDR too filled his Cabinet with a “team of rivals” including three Republicans, and at the start of his Administration he pursued legislation that infuriated the Left wing of the Democratic Party...
...Many historians have made the same point...
...COHEN’S CONTENTION that the Hundred Days reordered the relationship between government and the American economy may seem obvious today...
...Was the New Deal a well thought-out plan or a bunch of ad hoc improvisations...
...Once again we are all New Dealers...
...He points out that during the 1932 campaign Roosevelt condemned Herbert Hoover for overseeing "the greatest spending Administration in peacetime in all our history...
...If the guests failed to grab his attention they lost, no matter how importantthe cause...
...So in the Hundred Days this assistant secretary of state spearheaded the New Deal banking initiative that overthrew America’s traditional laissez-faire stand and forever made the Federal government responsible for ensuring the stability of the nation’s banks...
...Just as art was never the same after Picasso, American economics could never return to the truly free market after Roosevelt...
...Look atthe story of Raymond Moley, a Columbia University professor who became the New Deal's point man on banking...
...FDR was simply being a good host and would soon be entertaining another guest with the opposite opinion...
...Somehow down the line "the boss" would arrive at a decision...
...But until a few months ago, the New Deal did not seem so current...
...In addition, his approach avoids the pitfall of trying to explain the mysterious FDR...
...Except for Hoover, our Presidents have not been businessmen at heart...
...But after the election Roosevelt appointed him to the relatively lowly position of assistant secretary of state...
...No one was better at this sleight of hand than FDR...
...His main economic adviser said that initially Roosevelt was as "frostily thrifty" as Calvin Coolidge...
...When Winston Churchill visited the White House to plot the defeat of the Axis, he found FDR always said "yes" to his suggestions...
...FDR's ear was open to a variety of people inside and outside of his Administration and party...
...and he had no problem simultaneously holding and advocating contradictory ideas...
...Most of those books try to answer the essential questions: Was the New Deal a revolution or a reform...
...He was not given a place in the West Wing because the President’s longtime champion, Louis M. Howe, was jealous of Moley’s influence and adamantly opposed his receiving a job in the White House...
...The Tennessee Valley Authority provided low-cost public power to one of the country’s poorest regions...
...When Bill Clinton proudly proclaimed, “the era of big government is over,” it was tempting to look at the New Deal and its big government legacy not as irreversible but as a series of temporary, and in some cases outdated, reforms...
...Reviewed by David Eisenbach Professor of political history, Columbia University...
...Moley’s story encapsulates the nature of the Roosevelt White House and the improvisational, informal, personality-driven, revolutionary New Deal...
...Churchill assumed the President was a pushover, but later found Roosevelt doing the exact opposite of what he had apparently agreed to...
...By concentrating on the roles of key Presidential appointees—Raymond Moley, Lewis W Douglas, Henry A. Wallace, Frances Perkins, and Harry L. Hopkins—Cohen demonstrates how these underlings shaped the legendary Hundred Days through "force of will and talent," and how they pushed the New Deal in directions FDR never anticipated...
...His book hits the shelves at a time when a Republican President is spending a trillion dollars bailing out the banking industry and a Democratic Presidentelect is pondering a trillion-dollar economic stimulus package that could rival any New Deal program to “prime the pump...
...In fact, he was so good at it that historians are still trying to catch up...
...By telling their pivotal yet underappreciated stories, Cohen details how they shepherded their ideas into the laws that defined the New Deal...
...Perhaps...
...All this in just 100 days...
...Better than most others, Cohen captures the boozy informality of the Roosevelt White House and the loosey-goosey nature of the New Deal...
...But that is rarely the case...
...The National Recovery Administration gave aid to captains of industry in exchange for minimum wages, maximum hours, the legal right to unionize, and a ban on child labor...
...In the process, he also helps unravel the enigma of Franklin Roosevelt...
...The real lines of authority and influence in the Roosevelt White House defied the organization chart...
...Nothing to Fear teaches us as well the danger of judging a President by his Cabinet...
...The Emergency Banking Act revamped the financial system and saved it from total collapse...
...coauthor, "The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy" Type Franklin D. Roosevelt into a keyword search on Amazon.com and 46,000 titles pop up...
...That is the way he worked...
...He supported the 1932Democratic Party platform pledge to slash the budget by 25 per cent and his first legislative initiatives were cost-cutting measures...
...jumped off the gold standard so the President could battle inflation...
...Unlike FDR, those aides had strong ideological commitments and equally as important for the historian, paper trails...
...They are feelers and improvisers...
...Adam Cohen's Nothing to Fear convincingly argues that FDR was neither a rebel nor a conservative...
...Since the Department of State then operated out of the Old Executive Office Building, just steps away from the White House, FDR figured his main economic adviser would be close enough to run over when summoned, but not so close as to upset Howe...
...I think of FDR as the consummate cocktail party host— serving martinis, telling stories, listening affably, always careful never to make anyone uncomfortable...
...But the author illustrates in great detail that the President's economic views had less impact on the ultimate direction of the New Deal than the views of a few Leftof-Center subordinates...
...Would it be fair to add twisted and dysfunctional...
...Moley played a pivotal role in FDR's Brain Trust, a collection of Columbia professors who regularly traveled up the Hudson to Hyde Park to tutor the illinformed New York governor on everything from banking to agriculture...
...Over the previous two decades, Presidents from both dominant parties tried to discard key parts of it, most notably banking regulations...
...But in the long run FDR’s revolutionary record speaks for itself, and every day seems to be speaking louder and louder...
...Was FDR a rebel or a shrewd conservative...
...The nation’s first Federal relief program supported the unemployed, while the Civilian Conservation Corps put 250,000 to work planting and reclaiming the land...
...During the 1932 campaign Moley was FDR’s “professional confidant and alter ego,” writing his speeches and becoming his chief policy guru...
...He promised to balance the budget with "a stern and unremitting policy of living within ourincome...
...Cohen further reminds us how revolutionary the Hundred Days were...
...Americans like to think a well-run Presidency is comparable to an efficient corporation with clear lines of authority...
...The Truth in Securities Act regulated stock market transactions for the first time...
...And the U.S...
...he did not write much down...
...It brought to mind something a prominent New Dealer said: "The most important things that happened in those days were over cocktails...
...The Farm Credit Administration got the government heavily involved in regulating agriculture and rescued thousands of farmers from foreclosure...
...The near collapse of our underregulated banking system was a consequence of our politicians’ attempts to ignore that reality...
...The New Deal, however, did indeed permanently transform the relationship between government and the free market...
...Guests might leave thinking they had sold him, but they would be wrong...
...A high bar was set for every subsequent President...
...Historians of the era tend to focus on the President, high-ranking White House officials, or Senators...
...Historians have trouble with Roosevelt for three interrelated reasons: He was temperamentally resistant to any ideological commitment...
...Nothing to Fear shows that this misses the mark...
...He was a pragmatic improviser whose New Deal had conservative elements but, in the end was a revolution...
...By the time they get to the White House they have a knack for managing chaos and making it look like a plan...
Vol. 91 • November 2008 • No. 6
