FDR - Jean Edward Smith [228]
* Despite their rivalry Ickes and Hopkins shared a genuine affection for each other. “Harry was an agreeable scoundrel when he wanted to be,” said Ickes, who described his liking for Hopkins as “the liking of a man who had grown up under Scotch-Presbyterian restraint for the happy-go-lucky type who can bet his last cent, even if it be a borrowed one, on a horse race.” The fact is, both men were pragmatists and shared a common goal. The tension between them may have forced each to excel and produce results beyond what they might have achieved otherwise. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 93 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948). Also see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal 347 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960).
* “I had great sympathy for Mr. Hopkins,” said Clay. “We knew what his task was. We felt that a public works program was not going to provide the necessary employment in itself, but Mr. Ickes did have a going organization and Mr. Hopkins did not. So we provided the basic elements of an organization for him, and a great many of the men we assigned to him became his lifelong friends.” Smith, Lucius D. Clay 63. (When Hopkins resigned as WPA director in December 1938 to become secretary of commerce, he was succeeded by Colonel Harrington.)
* I vividly recall how my mother’s relatives living in northern Chickasaw County, Mississippi, received electricity in the spring of 1941, while our farm in the southern part of the county did not obtain it until 1946.
SEVENTEEN
HUBRIS
I propose that hereafter, when a Judge reaches the age of seventy, a new and younger Judge shall be added to the Court automatically.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, MARCH 9, 1937
FDR KICKED OFF the 1936 campaign early. “We began the first of the year and never let up until the polls closed ten months later,” said Jim Farley.1 Roosevelt told Farley to organize a sponsorship committee of twelve prominent Americans. “I would like to have five clergymen. I think we should have a Catholic priest, a Baptist minister, an Episcopalian minister, a Presbyterian minister, and a rabbi.”
“What about the Methodists?” asked Farley.
“Well, we could leave out the Jews,” FDR replied. “No, there are more of them than there are Episcopalians. Take the Jews and leave out the Episcopalians.”2
Roosevelt saw the election as a referendum. “There is one issue in this campaign. It is myself, and the people must be either for me or against me.”3 In FDR’s eyes the outcome was never in doubt. “We will win easily,” he told his cabinet, “but we are going to make it a crusade.”4
Roosevelt had good reason for optimism. By almost any measure the economic surge since 1932 had been remarkable. National income had risen by more than 50 percent, 6 million new jobs had been created, and unemployment had dropped by more than a third. Of the 8 million still unemployed, more than 70 percent worked at least part of the year for the WPA or were enrolled in the CCC. Industrial production had doubled, stock prices were up 80 percent from their 1933 lows, farmers’ cash income—which had fallen below $4 billion in 1932—rose to almost $7 billion in 1935, and corporate profits, deep in negative territory when Roosevelt took office, had zoomed to nearly $6 billion.5
Statistics told only part of the story. The banking system had been rescued, depositors enjoyed a federal guarantee of their savings, most farm mortgages had been refinanced, and the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation had bailed out more than 3 million debt-ridden home owners. Social Security, rural electrification, and the massive public works program now under way were changing the face of the nation. A Fortune magazine poll in June 1936 indicated