The Definitive FDR

by James Macgregor Burns

  As president of all the people Roosevelt tried to stay above the political and ideological battles that raged all around him. Insisting that he did not want to be drawn into controversy, he asked his supporters to take over the burden of answering attacks on the New Deal from the extreme right or left. He was forever acting as umpire between warring administrators or congressmen. When his advisers differed over policy he time and again ordered: “Put them in a room together, and tell them no lunch until they agree!” When Tugwell and Senator Copeland were at swords’ points over food and drug legislation, the President suggested that they battle it out together while he sat in and held the sponge. He told his agency chiefs that he was operating between the 15 per cent on the extreme left and the 15 per cent on the extreme right who were opposing him for political reasons or “from pure cussedness.” He insisted that he was going neither right nor left—just down the middle.

  The country enjoyed a brief era of good feelings, and presiding jauntily over the era was Roosevelt himself. While the New Deal came in for some sharp criticism, everybody, it seemed, loved the President. William Randolph Hearst was a guest at the White House. The Scripps-Howard newspapers lauded his New Deal. Pierre Du Pont and other businessmen wrote him friendly letters. Farm leaders rallied to the cause. “To us,” wrote Ed O’Neal of the American Farm Bureau Federation, “you are the Andrew Jackson of the Twentieth Century, championing the rights of the people.…” Father Coughlin defended him. William Green and other leaders of labor had little but words of praise for the man in the White House. Across the seas a man who seemed to love nobody had a good word for him. “I have sympathy with President Roosevelt,” remarked Adolf Hitler in mid-1933, “because he marches straight to his objective over Congress, over lobbies, over stubborn bureaucracies.”

  Some Democrats could not understand Roosevelt’s nonpartisan line. When one of them naävely suggested early in 1934 that the President come to a celebration for the Democratic party’s patron saint, the President gently rebuked him. He would take no part in Jefferson Day celebrations that year: “Our strongest plea to the country in this particular year of grace,” he said, “is that the recovery and reconstruction program is being accomplished by men and women of all parties—that I have repeatedly appealed to Republicans as much as to Democrats to do their part.” Much as he loved Jefferson, it would be better if “nonpartisan Jefferson dinners” should be held, with as many Republicans as Democrats on the banquet committees. He made no objection to a nationwide tribute to himself on the occasion of his birthday, in the interest of crippled children.

  Republican party leaders were perplexed too. During the first months they were content to mute their protests and to bask in the patriotic posture of “country before party.” But slowly the party emerged from its torpor. Its task was formidable at best. Republican leadership had been decimated in two national elections. Living almost in oblivion, Hoover was a scapegoat even for his own party, and the Republican leaders in Congress seemed pedestrian and heavy-footed next to the lustrous, fast-moving figure in the White House. By early 1934 they were trying hard to act as a real opposition party.

  A MASTER OF BOTH INSTRUMENTS, NOV. 18, 1934, Edwin Marcus, reprinted by permission of the New York Times

  But what were they to oppose? A cardinal aspect of Roosevelt’s nonpartisanship was his quarterbacking now on the right, now on the left, now down the center of the political field. As in the 1932 campaign, he did not leave an opening at either end of his line through which the Republicans could try to carry the ball. Indeed, the Grand Old Party itself tended to split into factions to the right and to the left of the President’s erratic middle-of-the-road course. Despite their minority position in the party, the progressive Republicans like Norris and McNary had the advantage of White House smiles and favors.

  A remarkable aspect of this situation was that Roosevelt continued in 1934 to take a more moderate and conservative stand on policy than did the majority of congressmen. On silver, on inflation, on mortgage refinancing, on labor, on spending, Congress was to the left of the President. In contrast with later periods, Roosevelt’s main job in 1933 and 1934 was not to prod Congress into action, but to ride the congressional whirlwind by disarming the extremists, by seeking unity among the blocs, and by using every presidential weapon of persuasion and power.

  AN ARTIST IN GOVERNMENT

  The classic test of greatness in the White House has been the chief executive’s capacity to lead Congress. Weak presidents have been those who had no program to offer, or whose proposals have been bled away in the endless twistings and windings of the legislative process. Strong presidents have been those who finessed or bulldozed their programs through Congress and wrote them into legislative history. By this classic test Roosevelt—during his first years in the White House—was a strong President who dominated Congress with a masterly show of leadership.

  If Roosevelt had ever stopped during these turbulent days to list his methods of dealing with Congress, the result might have looked something like this:

  Full use of constitutional powers, such as the veto

  Good timing

  Drafting of measures in the executive branch

  Almost constant pressure, adroitly applied

  Careful handling of patronage

  Face-to-face persuasiveness with legislative leaders

  Appeal to the people.

  But it would have been out of character for the President to catalogue his methods in such systematic fashion. He cheerfully played the legislative game by ear, now trying this device and now that, as the situation dictated.

  He experimented even with a policy of hands off for a short period. Late in March 1934 the President ostentatiously left Washington for two weeks of deep-sea fishing off the Bahamas. White House pressure was relaxed. Soon Congress was looking like a schoolroom of disorderly boys with the master gone. A wrangle broke out among Democrats over regulation of stock exchanges. Over one hundred representatives, breaking away from their leaders, lined up in favor of a mortgage refinancing bill so inflationary that Roosevelt sent word to Garner and Rayburn from his yacht to tell Congress “if this type of wild legislation passed the responsibility for wrecking recovery will be squarely on the Congress, and I will not hesitate to say so to the nation in plain language.” Garner said that in thirty years he had never seen the House in such abject turmoil.

  The hands-off experiment was a dismal failure. Welcomed by a group of congressmen on his return Roosevelt remarked pointedly that he had learned some lessons from the barracuda and sharks. He added with a smile, “I am a tough guy.”

  The presidential reins were tightened, but the President never got really tough. He depended mainly on conferences with congressional leaders to put across his program. He even denied that there was such a thing as “must legislation.”

  “The word ‘must’ is a terrible word,” he told reporters. “I would not use ‘must’ to Congress. I never have, have I?” he finished amid laughter.

  His formal constitutional powers in legislation Roosevelt exploited to the hilt. Reviving Wilson’s practice, he delivered his reports on the state of the union to Congress in person. He outlined general proposals in well-timed messages, and he followed these up by detailed legislative proposals drafted in the executive departments and introduced by friendly congressmen. Individual legislators were drawn into the executive policy-making process not as representatives of Congress nor of their constituencies, but as members of the administration. The President met frequently with congressional leaders and committee chairmen, and occasionally with other members of Congress. In practice he fashioned a kind of “master-ministry” of bureaucrats and congressmen with Roosevelt at the top.

  The President could say no, too. During his first two years he used his veto powers to a far greater extent than the average of all the previous presidents. Many of the vetoed bills involved special legislation, which Roosevelt had his assistants scrutinize carefully. More
important than the veto was the President’s threat to use it. Again and again he sent word through congressional leaders that he would turn down a pending bill unless it was changed. On one occasion in 1934, when Congress passed an immigration bill that seemed to Roosevelt filled with inequities, he simply proposed that the two Houses pass a concurrent resolution of recall—otherwise he would veto the bill. Only once did the Seventy-third Congress override Roosevelt; this occasion followed a legislative revolt against the President’s economy program.

  Roosevelt played the patronage game tirelessly and adroitly. Major appointments were allotted on the basis of lists the President drew up of “our friends” in various states; an opponent he carefully designated simply as “not with me.” Routine jobs he turned over to Farley. Thousands of applicants besieged Farley in his office and hotel until the Postmaster General had to sneak back and forth to his office as if he were dodging a sheriff’s writ. Farley flouted custom by openly accepting and systematizing patronage procedures. When his outer office became packed, he calmly went about the room followed by a stenographer taking the name of each person and the kind of job he wanted. Only because the new emergency agencies were hiring employees outside the classified civil service (about a hundred thousand such jobs by July 1934) was Farley able to take care of the host of deserving Democrats.

  Congressmen wanted jobs too, and the President saw that they got them. When a delegation of Democratic representatives complained to him about the treatment they had got on patronage from departments, he promptly asked the cabinet to be as helpful as possible with congressmen on this matter. The President was shrewd enough, however, to postpone job distribution during the first session long enough to apply the test of administration support, with the result, it was said, that “his relations with Congress were to the end of the session tinged with a shade of expectancy which is the best part of young love.”

  Roosevelt was not above back-alley horse trades. In the spring of 1934 Senator “Cotton Ed” Smith of South Carolina pigeonholed the Chief Executive’s nomination of Tugwell as Under Secretary of Agriculture. But Smith also badly wanted a United States marshal-ship for a henchman who had a good reputation except for a slight case of homicide. So Roosevelt made the deal, and greeted an astonished Tugwell with the cheery remark: “You will never know any more about it, I hope; but today I traded you for a couple of murderers!”

  Roosevelt often fell back on his own charm and resourcefulness in dealing with congressmen. Ickes watched in admiration one day as the President handled a ticklish problem of patronage. Senate Majority Leader Robinson was insisting on the appointment as commissioner of Indian affairs of a man whom Ickes felt to be totally disqualified. When an ugly row seemed in the offing, the President had the two antagonists to tea. First he established a friendly atmosphere by discussing with Robinson a number of pending bills that the President and Senator both favored. Then he let Robinson and Ickes briefly make their cases about the appointment. Before an argument could develop, the President turned the subject back to general policies. When dinner was announced, Roosevelt said pleasantly to Robinson, “Well, Joe, you see what I am up against.…” Robinson replied that there was nothing further he could say, and left. Even so, the President waited a day or two, and then sent in the name of another man.

  Roosevelt was a genius at placating his bickering lieutenants. Ickes was a chronic grumbler, staying after cabinet sessions to pour out his troubles. Sometimes harassed officials, feeling that their chief had forgotten them, used the threat of resigning as a means of getting their way—or, at the least, of getting attention from the White House. The President bore these pinpricks with marvelous good humor. But he knew how to teach a lesson too. Once when he heard that an important administrator was about to resign he telephoned him: “I have just had some bad news, Don. Secretary Hull is threatening to resign. He is very angry because I don’t agree with him that we ought to remove the Ambassador to Kamchatka and make him third secretary to the Embassy at Svodia.” Quickly catching on, the official agreed that his threat to resign was very foolish indeed.

  Roosevelt’s way with the press also showed his mastery of the art of government. He made so much news and maintained such a friendly attitude toward the newspapermen covering the White House that he quickly and easily won their sympathy. The newspapermen were especially pleased that the President had reinstituted the press conference, thus enabling them to question him directly. No one knew better than Roosevelt, however, that the press conference was a two-edged sword: he could use it to gain a better press, but the reporters could also use it to trip him. Much depended on knowing when not to answer a question.

  One day, while instructing his agency chiefs on public relations, Roosevelt told them how he had handled an awkward query. A reporter had asked him to comment on a statement by Ambassador Bingham in London urging closer relations between the United States and Britain. If he had done the natural thing of backing up Bingham, the newspapers would have made headlines of the President’s statement, with likely ill effect on naval conversations then under way with Japan. If he had said “no comment,” he would have sounded critical of Bingham’s statement. So he simply said he had not seen it—although in fact he had.

  Roosevelt used his most tactical weapons for dealing with Congress. “The coming session will be comparatively easy to handle,” Roosevelt wrote to Colonel House in December 1933, “though it may not be noiseless.” The President did not make the near-perfect score in this session that he had the year before, but he got through most of his program and staved off bills he disliked. To Hull’s infinite satisfaction Congress passed the Reciprocal Tariff Act as an emergency measure to stimulate foreign trade without disturbing any “sound” or “important” American interest, as the President put it. The Gold Reserve Act was passed in virtually the form Roosevelt had asked; he hailed it as a decisive step by which the government took firmly in its own hands control of the gold value of the dollar. Farm benefits were extended to growers of cotton, tobacco, and other commodities. The President’s requests for stock exchange regulation and for two billions in bonds for refinancing farm mortgages were converted into legislation.

  IT LOOKS AS THOUGH AT LAST WE MIGHT HAVE A VAMP-PROOF PRESIDENT, June 6, 1933, John T. McCutcheon, Chicago Tribune

  WASHING BEHIND THE EARS WON’T BE ENOUGH, March 26, 1933, Tom Carlisle, Washington Star

  On other issues, however, the outcome was different. Roosevelt had to negotiate with the silver bloc for weeks before reaching a bargain under which the Treasury would purchase heavy amounts of silver and thus shore up the domestic silver market. On a clear-cut sectional issue, the St. Lawrence Waterway Treaty, the President met defeat, with Democratic senators from states supposedly hurt by the waterway voting against the treaty and killing it. And both chambers by sweeping majorities overrode a presidential veto of an appropriations bill that would have restored part of Roosevelt’s pay cut for government employees.

  When Congress could not interfere, Roosevelt acted with decision. Constitutionally the President had exclusive power to grant or withhold recognition of foreign governments. On November 17, 1933, Roosevelt announced the resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. This action came after lengthy haggling over terms. Moscow promised to refrain from abetting revolutionary activity against the American political or social order, and to protect the right of free religious worship of Americans in Russia. Rosy plans were laid for expansion of trade between the two nations. Although some of the President’s friends (and his mother) opposed recognition, the action seemed to be well received by most Americans, including many businessmen and Republicans.

  Many measures passed by Congress granted sweeping powers to the President. By the close of the Seventy-third Congress he held unprecedented controls over a peacetime American economy. Yet Roosevelt did not seek all the power he got. In several instances Congress granted him wide discretion, simply because the factions on C
apitol Hill split wide open on thorny political matters and could agree only on leaving final decision with the White House. This was true of farm relief, the NRA, and the tariff. Power, it is said, goes to the power-seeking, but in these cases it was also the temper of the times and the divisions in Congress that enlarged presidential power.

  The Roosevelt technique with Congress dazzled the country; but there were misgivings. One of those who was not enchanted was a keen student of national politics at Harvard named E. Pendleton Herring. Analyzing the first two sessions of Roosevelt’s Congress, Herring noted the extent to which presidential control had rested on unsteady bases such as patronage, government funds and favors, the co-operation of congressional leaders, and the crisis psychology of the people. Even so, Herring noted, the administration could do little more than “keep order in the bread-line that reached into the Treasury.” The more powerfully organized groups got much of what they wanted; the weaker groups, such as labor and consumers, did not do so well. The President had shown himself as an astute politician rather than a crusader. Responsible executive leadership seemed weak in the face of organized minorities.

  “Can the presidential system,” asked Herring, “continue as a game of touch and go between the Chief Executive and congressional blocs played by procedural dodges and with bread and circuses for forfeits?”