FDR - Jean Edward Smith [461]
100. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 84.
101. Executive Order 7037, 4 Public Papers and Addresses 172–174. In May 1936 the REA was given a statutory basis when Congress adopted the Norris-Rankin Act. Public Law 605, 74th Congress; 49 Stat. 1363.
102. For a still useful general survey, see Morris Cooke, “Early Days of Rural Electrification,” 42 American Political Science Review 431–444 (1948). Cooke, whom FDR had placed on the board of the New York Power Authority in 1931, was the first head of the Rural Electrification Administration.
103. Walter Lippmann, Interpretations: 1933–1935 154, Allan Nevins, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1936).
104. Roper to FDR, May 22, 1935, FDRL.
105. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935).
106. Public Law 198, 74th Congress; 49 Stat. 449. For FDR’s statement upon signing the bill, see 4 Public Papers and Addresses 294–295.
107. Ibid. 470–478. Governor George Earle of Pennsylvania later regaled FDR with the story of four wealthy Philadelphians sipping their whiskey in the posh Rittenhouse Club and damning the president and the New Deal with considerable gusto. At that point a member turned on the club radio and out came Roosevelt’s voice ridiculing “gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs.”
“My God,” exclaimed one of the men. “Do you suppose that sonofabitch could have overheard us?” James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 235 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956).
SEVENTEEN | Hubris
The epigraph is from FDR’s Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937. 6 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 122–133, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Random House, 1941).
1. James A. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 58 (New York: Whittlesey House, 1948).
2. Ibid. 59.
3. Raymond Moley, After Seven Years 343 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939).
4. Harold L. Ickes, 1 The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes 465 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953).
5. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical History of the United States 70, 143, 283 (Stamford, Conn.: Fairfield Publishers, 1965). Also see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval 571 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960); James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 266–267 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1956).
6. Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt 381–382 (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003).
7. Thomas L. Stokes, Chip off My Shoulder 404 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940). The “Second Louisiana Purchase” phrase was coined by journalist Westbrook Pegler following the government’s quashing of indictments against a number of Long’s lieutenants for income tax evasion.
8. Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., Roosevelt and Howe 447 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962).
9. 5 Public Papers and Addresses 8–18.
10. Roosevelt spoke to the dinner in Washington on January 8, 1936, but his remarks were broadcast to three thousand similar dinners throughout the nation. Ibid. 38–44.
11. The New York Times, January 26, 1936.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. James A. Farley, Behind the Ballots 293 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938).
15. The New York Times, January 29, 1936.
16. The visitor was Fannie Hurst. Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt 376.
17. Blanche Wiesen Cook, 2 Eleanor Roosevelt 353 (New York: Viking, 1999).
18. Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember 145 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949).
19. Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe 448.
20. New York Times, April 23, 1936.
21. Byrd to FDR, November 16, 1940, September 9, 1944, FDRL.
22. Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe 453. For a loving portrait of Howe during his illness, see James Farley, Behind the Ballots 296–303. “The only tribute I can pay him,” wrote Farley, “is to say that, as long as I live, I shall never ask for a better friend than Louis Howe.”
23. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 99 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).
24. Quoted in Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval 533–534.
25. 1 Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes 648–649.
26. The 1936 Republican