Anxious Decades by Michael E. Parrish

Author:Michael E. Parrish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

3

Launching the New Deal

The air suddenly changed, the wind blew through the corridors, a lot of old air blew out the windows. You suddenly felt, “By God, the air is fresh, it’s moving, life is resuming. ”

—RFC attorney Milton Katz

NADIR

After hearing Roosevelt deliver his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, the actress Lillian Gish said FDR seemed “to have been dipped in phosphorus,” so luminous were his words in contrast to the gray, blustery weather. The president’s firm, rich voice exuded resolution and confidence when he declared that “this great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.” The only thing Americans had to fear, he said, was fear itself, “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He would ask Congress, he told the crowd before the Capitol, for “broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were invaded by a foreign foe.”

It was a great address—more powerful in delivery than in substance, but even when heard a half century later it still retains its capacity to inspire an audience. Roosevelt knew, however, that the nation required more than eloquence and optimism. In the fourth winter of the Great Depression, America faced staggering problems, none greater than those stalking the nation’s banks on March 4.

Raymond Moley recalled one customer at his hometown bank in Ohio who told the teller: “If my money’s here, I don’t want it. If it’s not, I want it.” In the nation’s capital, where the potentates of the two major parties assembled for Roosevelt’s inauguration, hotels informed their guests that because of “unsettled banking conditions throughout the country, checks on out-of-town banks cannot be accepted.” Political power seemed to be about all Americans could transfer or exchange on March 4, 1933. “The bankers are descending on Washington. They seem utterly hopeless and defeated,” a visitor remarked to Justice Brandeis. “Well,” responded the old progressive, “aren’t they known as the Napoleons of finance?”

Credit, the lubricant of capitalism, had virtually dried up. In the week before Roosevelt’s inauguration, terrified Europeans withdrew nearly $1 billion in gold from New York City banks alone. Americans everywhere hoarded currency. Even as FDR took the oath of office, over five thousand banks were already closed, including all of those in New York and Illinois, which had been shut down earlier in the day by order of the states’ governors. A de facto banking holiday already existed throughout the United States when Roosevelt officially proclaimed one on March 6 and called Congress into special session a week later to deal with the financial crisis. That Congress, led as never before by the president, stayed in session for a hundred days. And when it left town, the relationship between Americans and their national government would never again be quite the same.

SAVING CAPITALISM

How FDR, his advisers, and Congress dealt with the banking crisis in 1933 prefigured much of the legislation of the Hundred Days and the controversies that have swirled around the New Deal ever since.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.