In Honor of Franklin Roosevelt’s Birthday, Jan. 30, 1882
By Nancy Spannaus
Jan. 29, 2025—Speaking to GOP lawmakers on Jan. 27, President Donald Trump boasted of having replaced the political coalition built by President Franklin D. Roosevelt close to 100 years ago. While the recent vote totals don’t quite vindicate that statement,[1] it is undeniable that the dominant political orientation in Washington, D.C. has shifted dramatically away from the principles and policies of the FDR administrations. And that is true of much of the Democratic Party, not just the Republicans.
Is that a problem? You bet it is. Because it’s by abandoning FDR’s approach to using the powers of the Federal government to secure our economic prosperity, and promoting cooperative relations with other nations to the same end, that we have created the basis for the real problems which President Trump accurately harps on.
Is our landscape filled with small towns, devastated by the shutdown of factories which have gone overseas? Are our inner cities often overwhelmed by the homeless and poor, who can’t find jobs that pay enough to afford a place to live? Are our schools collapsing, and too often obsessed with getting the children to “feel good,” rather than inspiring and challenging students to master skills? Can millions of average citizens not afford adequate health care, a decent home, and even basic groceries due to inflation?
The answer is yes, and these are only a sampling of the sad realities of our economy today, despite the recent moves toward “reshoring” industry and providing funds for infrastructure. And the most recent American model for actually solving these problems was in the administration of Franklin Roosevelt. Let’s summarize it briefly. (A search for FDR on this site will provide you with a much more comprehensive picture of his achievements.)
What FDR Accomplished
FDR began his administration in 1933 by asserting sovereign control over a financial system which had been taken over by the “economic royalists,” and had put personal profit-seeking above the general welfare of the nation. He took the United States off the gold standard (which was draining U.S. capital to England), instituted controls against speculation, and established regulations for the stock market. As he put it, the government had to act to protect the people from the depredations of the private financial predators.
Second, FDR launched programs of mass employment, oriented to building necessary infrastructure in both the cities and the countryside, and developing skills among the nation’s youth, as well as providing income for the unemployed.
Third, FDR used federal power, funds, and credit to launch major infrastructure projects, especially in the area of electricity production and flood control. These included, but were not limited to, the Hoover Dam, the Triborough Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the network of dams in the region of the Tennessee Valley Authority. These dramatically improved the living standards and productivity of the nation by providing electric power, especially in rural areas.
Fourth, faced with the refusal of the major banks to invest in the economy, FDR used the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) as a kind of national bank, which provided low-interest credit to agencies which prevented foreclosures, and to the modern industries that were needed to win World War II.[2]
Fifth, FDR established programs to provide a safety net for the elderly, poor, and disabled through the Social Security Administration.
Altogether, these programs were intended, as FDR wrote in a 1938 introduction to his public papers, to be
a modern expression of ideals set forth … in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States – “a more perfect union, justice domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
But we were not to be content with merely hoping for these ideals. We were to use the instrumentalities and powers of Government actively to fight for them.
As a result of these investments, protections, and regulation of the economy, the United States was not only able to come through the Depression and win the Second World War, but to emerge as the most productive nation in the world. Standards of living rose, despite wartime rationing. And the United States was in a position to play the crucial role in breaking up the remaining Empires, and in aiding the development of other nations, including former colonies.
In reality, much of the infrastructure which was built due to FDR’s programs – nearly 90 years ago – is what the U.S. economy depends upon today!
The Anti-FDR Turn
FDR always faced substantial opposition, of course, much of it orchestrated from the Wall Street powerhouse JP Morgan. But his ability to communicate directly to a population which knew it had been saved from the depths of the depression by his policies — not to mention the patriotic spirit which surged once the U.S. had been attacked at Pearl Harbor — maintained his popularity. Upon his death in April 1945, however, the tide began to turn quickly.
Wall Street bankers, in league with British imperial ideologues, launched an aggressive campaign to label FDR’s measures “socialism.” While their progress was slow during the 1950s and up to the Kennedy assassination, it took off after that. Between an assault on industry from the newly launched “environmental” movement, and an assault on government regulation by the banking and industrial giants, the U.S. economy began to falter. Infrastructure investment declined, and there was an escalating campaign to deregulate industries like the airlines and utilities, and ultimately banking itself.
The economic royalists were back. And with the emergence of the New Democrats in the 1990s, even the Democratic Party was not prepared to fight them. Many party leaders even embraced them.
What about immigration?
It should be easy to see how a return to the FDR policies of government-backed investment and regulation could restore our industrial base, infrastructure, and living standards. But, you might ask, what about immigration? How would a re-adoption of FDR policies deal with that?
The answer lies in looking at FDR’s foreign policy toward what was then called the Third World. As the President said to his son Elliott during his 1943 trip to Africa, he believed that it was the appalling poverty caused by the imperial system which would lead to new wars and conflicts throughout the world. What was needed was to provide the credit and technology to the poor and formerly colonized countries to develop and provide for their people. And the United States, as the richest country in the world, had the responsibility to spur that effort.[3]
It should be clear that, if such development had occurred throughout South America, Asia, and Africa, the huge flood of immigrants that the United States has had to deal with in recent years would not exist. People who line up at our southern border are driven there by desperation or seeking economic advancement. They are often living in economies dominated by the international drug trade, whose financial center, need I remind you, lies with the major international banks which are no longer subject to strict regulation.[4] Provide the resources for the poor nations to develop prosperous economies, and believe me, they would rather stay home.
FDR as a Leader
What FDR accomplished he hardly did alone. But he had developed those leadership qualities which could bring together the right people, and define the right objectives, to accomplish the task at hand.
He didn’t begin that way, we’re told. Raised as the only child of a rich family, he displayed all the characteristics of a privileged pseudo-aristocrat during his original career in the New York legislature and Woodrow Wilson administration. But he changed. Having been afflicted with polio at the age of 39, he was forced to wage the fight of his life against the disease. Equally important, that fight led him to associate with, and empathize with, other polio victims who, unlike him, had no financial or social resources. His Labor Secretary Frances Perkins put it this way:
Roosevelt underwent a spiritual transformation during the years of his illness. I noticed when he came back that the years of pain and suffering had purged the slightly arrogant attitude he had displayed on occasion before he was stricken. The man emerged completely warmhearted, with humility of spirit and with a deeper philosophy. Having been to the depths of trouble, he understood the problems of people in trouble.
I believe this “change of heart” had a lot to do with FDR’s promotion of the New Deal and subsequent economic policies, and his popularity among the general population. Indeed, it is notable that all the Presidents whom I have identified as advocates of Hamilton’s American System have exhibited that sense of humility and compassion. One thinks of Washington, who constantly expresses his sense of inadequacy to his task, and while often stern in appearance, nonetheless gave presidential pardons to the participants in the Whiskey Rebellion. There’s John Quincy Adams, who was self-effacing in the extreme. And then there’s Abraham Lincoln, who repeatedly expressed his humbleness before the challenges he faced, and went out of his way to be kind to those who came to him in need.
In this regard, I can’t resist telling my favorite story about Abraham Lincoln’s character, which I got from Doris Kearn Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals. As she tells it:
The story is told of an army colonel who rode out to the Soldiers’ Home, hopeful of securing Lincoln’s aid in recovering the body of his wife, who had died in a steamboat accident. His brief period of relaxation interrupted, Lincoln listened to the colonel’s tale but offered no help. “Am I to have no rest? Is there no hour or spot when or where I may escape this constant call? Why do you follow me out here with such business as this?” The disheartened colonel returned to this hotel in Washington. The following morning, Lincoln appeared at his door. “I was a brute last night,” Lincoln said, offering to help the colonel in any way possible.”[5]
While I have no story at hand of FDR acting in such a way, I am sure that there are instances from his time at Warm Springs, Georgia — a rural setting populated by many poor people suffering from the Depression – in which he expressed the same qualities of compassion.
Let Us Learn
In my lifetime, which began in 1943, I have met people who could personally testify to the positive impact of FDR’s policies on their lives. One Virginia politician, who grew up in Georgia, told me how the New Deal policies literally prevented people in his region from starving. Others spoke of their valuable experience in CCC camps, or the fact that their farm was saved from foreclosure by FDR’s programs.
Those people have largely passed away, and we now have to depend upon reading books to get to the truth. Soundbites and anecdotes will not give us the full reality. Perhaps it will take a new existential financial crisis to force us to face the fact: We must restore FDR’s outlook on government today.[6]
In the meantime, happy birthday, Franklin!
[1] According to the best available figures, 20% of Black voters, and 43% of unionists, voted for Trump in 2024. That is a far cry from the 71% of Blacks, and 81% of unionists, who rallied behind FDR in 1936, although it represents a significant increase from recent decades.
[2] These are only two of the wide swath of projects which the RFC supplied with loans.
[3] For more, see my post “FDR versus the British Empire,” by clicking here.
[4] The role of international banks such as Citibank in facilitating the international illegal drug trade has been extensively documented through Congressional research.
[5] Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Simon & Shuster, New York, 2005, p. 512.
[6] As a beginning, I recommend my book Hamilton Versus Wall Street, which includes a chapter encapsulating FDR’s Hamiltonian program, with many references to the relevant documents available on line.
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Tags: economy, Federal government, Franklin Roosevelt, Immigration, Nancy Spannaus, New Deal
