American Apocalypse by Matthew Avery Sutton

Author:Matthew Avery Sutton [Sutton, Matthew Avery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780674048362
Published: 2014-08-21T03:26:39+00:00

8

C H R I S T ’ S D E A L V E R S U S T H E N E W D E A L

The president had a problem. During the summer of 1935, a politi cal operative working for Franklin Delano Roo se velt traveled the country hoping to gauge levels of support for the administration. The Demo crats wanted to be prepared for the 1936 presidential campaign.

The operative’s August report contained such important conclusions that FDR’s secretary insisted that the president read it personally. “In my opinion,” the operative explained in the memorandum, “the strongest opposition to Mr. Roosevelt— in 1936— would come, not from the economic reactionaries, but from the religious reactionaries (if you can separate the two). . . . The opposition of what one can call the evangelical churches is growing steadily more bitter and open.”1

The operative was exactly right. Fundamentalists interpreted Franklin Roo se velt’s eff orts to expand the power of the federal government and his internationalist inclinations in the context of their end- times expectations. Against the background of Hitler’s persecution of Jews, Mussolini’s restoration of the Roman Empire, Stalin’s institutionaliza-tion of state atheism, and the global economic depression, the faithful believed that the Roo se velt presidency was marking the start of the countdown to Armageddon in the United States. The president’s will

Christ’s Deal versus the New Deal 233

for power and global sensibilities seemed to augur the po liti cal philosophy of the coming Antichrist. Troubled by what they were witnessing at home and abroad, white radical evangelicals began to view their president and his administration not as God’s emissaries on earth but as tools of the dev il. For the faithful living in the 1930s, to support Roose velt was to support the Antichrist.

On the eve of the stock market crash, most Americans had little sense that the economy was crumbling beneath them. The nation seemed strong, the automobile industry was booming, new homes were pop-ping up all over the country, and middle- class consumers had plenty of money to spend on the latest goods, from vacuum cleaners to refrigerators to radio sets. But within a couple of years, the economy had totally imploded. Unemployment skyrocketed, prices for agricultural goods plummeted, fi nancial institutions collapsed, corporations laid off unprece dented numbers of workers, and banks foreclosed on record numbers of home mortgages. The American people were suff ering. Hoboes took to the rails in search of work; others built makeshift residences out of scrap materials in vacant lots derisively dubbed Hoovervilles in honor of the president. Some Americans took to the streets as well, demanding more action on the part of the federal government.

As the nation readied for the 1932 presidential campaign, fundamentalists prepared for action. The incumbent, Herbert Hoover, ran for reelection on the Republican ticket. Demo crats nominated Franklin Delano Roo se velt. The wealthy scion of an elite New York family, Roo se velt had succeeded Al Smith as governor of New York. A

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