FDR: fireside demagoguery—“saving the Court from itself”
[NOTE: Last night I wrote a draft of a post on how Barack Obama’s latest remarks on SCOTUS precedent are an attempt to emulate Franklin Roosevelt in the 30s. I was going to polish it up and submit it to PJ, but I see that Ron Radosh has beaten me to it with this article, which covers much the same territory as mine did. I still may work on mine and publish it somewhere; we’ll see. But in the meantime, read his—and this, which complements it.]
When I was a little kid, I heard that there were some people who didn’t like FDR and thought he’d led the country in the wrong direction.
I couldn’t understand why they’d believe something like that; how could they? After all, my parents had admired him so greatly—and even loved him—for saving the country from the Depression and steering the ship of state during the war. And what curmudgeonly souls could fail to be drawn to that wonderful voice, that energetic sense of positive energy, that jaunty grin?
Later, in school, I learned about FDR’s court-packing escapade. It was shocking, as though one heard that a favorite uncle had embezzled money or tortured kittens. Even then I realized the attempt had been a bad thing—a very bad thing. But for a long time I didn’t integrate it into my knowledge of the Roosevelt I knew about, the wartime leader of my parents’ young adulthood. Nor did I know anything about the theory that many of FDR’s economic policies had lengthened the Depression rather than shortening it.
I’d never read the words of this fireside chat of FDR’s, either—not till now, anyway. I’m sure you know what prompted my little bit of research; I was wondering about the details of FDR’s criticism of the Court.
Well, on reading FDR’s little heart-to-heart talk to the people about SCOTUS, I have to say that compared to Roosevelt Obama’s a piker, a model of restraint. Not only that, but note what a master of propaganda with a folksy touch FDR was, in comparison to Obama. In that respect—getting the tone right to get his message across—FDR was more like Reagan.
It’s worth reading the whole thing to get the flavor of what he’s doing—how he brings the listener in as a co-conspirator in the task of rebuilding America, and how he heightens the sense of urgency and impending catastrophe if he doesn’t get what he wants—but I’ll just post lengthy excerpts for you to read [all emphases mine]:
…I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you. We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis.
Soon after, with the authority of the Congress, we asked the Nation to turn over all of its privately held gold, dollar for dollar, to the Government of the United States.
Today’s recovery proves how right that policy was.
But when, almost two years later, it came before the Supreme Court its constitutionality was upheld only by a five-to-four vote. The change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great Nation back into hopeless chaos. In effect, four Justices ruled that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh [quite a reference, no?] was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to establish an enduring Nation.
…It will take time – and plenty of time – to work out our remedies administratively even after legislation is passed. To complete our program of protection in time, therefore, we cannot delay one moment in making certain that our National Government has power to carry through.
The American people have learned from the depression. For in the last three national elections an overwhelming majority of them voted a mandate that the Congress and the President begin the task of providing that protection – not after long years of debate, but now.
The Courts, however, have cast doubts on the ability of the elected Congress to protect us against catastrophe by meeting squarely our modern social and economic conditions.
…I want to talk with you very simply about the need for present action in this crisis – the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed.
Last Thursday I described the American form of Government as a three horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their field might be plowed. The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government – the Congress, the Executive and the Courts. Two of the horses are pulling in unison today; the third is not. Those who have intimated that the President of the United States is trying to drive that team, overlook the simple fact that the President, as Chief Executive, is himself one of the three horses.
It is the American people themselves who are in the driver’s seat.
It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed.
It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to pull in unison with the other two.
I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.
…Having in mind that in succeeding generations many other problems then undreamed of would become national problems, [the framers] gave to the Congress the ample broad powers “to levy taxes … and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”
That, my friends, is what I honestly believe to have been the clear and underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote a Federal Constitution to create a National Government with national power, intended as they said, “to form a more perfect union … for ourselves and our posterity.”
For nearly twenty years there was no conflict between the Congress and the Court. Then Congress passed a statute which, in 1803, the Court said violated an express provision of the Constitution. The Court claimed the power to declare it unconstitutional and did so declare it…
But since the rise of the modern movement for social and economic progress through legislation, the Court has more and more often and more and more boldly asserted a power to veto laws passed by the Congress and State Legislatures in complete disregard of this original limitation.
In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body.
When the Congress has sought to stabilize national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labor, to safeguard business against unfair competition, to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the Court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress – and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws…
In the face of these dissenting opinions [which FDR had just quoted from], there is no basis for the claim made by some members of the Court that something in the Constitution has compelled them regretfully to thwart the will of the people.
In the face of such dissenting opinions, it is perfectly clear that, as Chief Justice Hughes has said, “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”
The Court in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress – a super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it – reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there.
We have, therefore, reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself. We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution and not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.
I want – as all Americans want – an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written, that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power – in other words by judicial say-so. It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized.
…What is my proposal? It is simply this: whenever a Judge or Justice of any Federal Court has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension, a new member shall be appointed by the President then in office, with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.
…There is nothing novel or radical about this idea. It seeks to maintain the Federal bench in full vigor.
…Like all lawyers, like all Americans, I regret the necessity of this controversy. But the welfare of the United States, and indeed of the Constitution itself, is what we all must think about first. Our difficulty with the Court today rises not from the Court as an institution but from human beings within it. But we cannot yield our constitutional destiny to the personal judgement of a few men who, being fearful of the future, would deny us the necessary means of dealing with the present.
This plan of mine is no attack on the Court; it seeks to restore the Court to its rightful and historic place in our Constitutional Government and to have it resume its high task of building anew on the Constitution “a system of living law.” The Court itself can best undo what the Court has done.
…During the past half century the balance of power between the three great branches of the Federal Government, has been tipped out of balance by the Courts in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution. It is my purpose to restore that balance. You who know me will accept my solemn assurance that in a world in which democracy is under attack, I seek to make American democracy succeed. You and I will do our part.
Sorry for the length of the quote. But the speech was such an organic whole, such a masterpiece of insidious propaganda, that I could hardly bear to cut anything. I still recommend that you read the entire thing, because only then can you see what a genius FDR was at clothing his power grab in the raiments of sanctimonious protection of the checks and balances of the Constitution. Wow.
History is not a set thing, dull and dry, encased in cobwebs. As Twain said, it may not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes. And those verses have a lot to tell us.
The best way to expose “the big lie,” unfortunately, requires honesty and years to elapse. Still more unfortunately, to the programmed and propagandized persons, this subtle and demonic big lie is agreeable while those who oppose it are not.
There is one ironic observation. When one says “Obama is no FDR” a new meaning has been introduced. Obama, the White-African-American, though, has a tool FDR did not.
Sorry for the length of the quote.
no problem… but now you see how hard it is to talk about anything from the past given our stunted abilities today…
that is… talk about today, you have tiny sound bites… talk about yesterday, and you get long things…
the speech given by Frederick Douglas explaining how the proportional weight that a slave had was NOT racist but the opposite, was 16 pages long
when i was a young adult… 8th grade is what you wrote for to be understood… today, 5th grade is what you write to be understood…
prior to my young adult days, higher was common… i had a college level reading ability when i was 7 or 8…
(test topped out at 13th)
its interesting to note that my boss, who is young, has problems understanding me… and she thinks its me… but she also has problems understanding the Phds and other older people who speak at a 8th grade plus level…
i think she doesnt understand many of the words and will not ask or look them up, but rather gets indignant and wishes to punish me as if i am doing it purposefully and doing it to make her seem stupid… but i am a applications engineer in a high tech area writing for researchers in medicine… (she is a modern protected class promotion.. ie, we are to pretend that she is not what she is, because she has a pudenda)
the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of FDRs speech is 11.6
think of that…
that a man would have a fireside chat with the people of our nation, and could use 11th grade words and be understood..
much like shakespears day..
its very interesting to rewrite it to conform to 5th grade level… (the Constitution is also not low level!)
what we have is something akin to you as an adult trying to get a 4th grader to understand tolstoy…
and refusing to accept that they cant grasp it, and its not the person offerings fault, but the progressive liberal education they received, they get nasty…
so what you have is a bunch of people teaming up under inability, ignorance, etc… and FORCING the smarter less brutal to comply with them..
to think how far FDR would have gotten if his constituency was as illiterate/ignorant as today…
to think that our nation cant turn back and get back, as we no longer have the older people who hav ethe history, the connections and we certainly dont have any respect for them.
farenheit 451 was not precient…
it was wrong in the idea that such books would be remembered…
as the people who would listen to them be recited, would tear and murder the speaker, and marginalize and turn them in..
just like they do today in other ways
“Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those we are obliged to trust with power…. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
– Thomas Jeffferson, 1799
For however difficult eternal vigilance may be, siren alarms should go off in the midst of personality cults. What may be learned from FDR may be applied to BHO. None of this would be all that difficult if it weren’t that damned thing, human nature.
Even at so late a time and so deep a hole I am heartened the question is asked — which is bigger, the President or the Constitution?
Some pretty smart people have made the case that FDR’s central government policies extended the Great Depression. He was a dangerous man who almost destroyed America with his efforts to save it.
All of FDR’s rhetoric boils down to the twin assertions that, “I care and therefore I’m in the right” and “the end justifies the means” couched within the premise that, the conservatives on the court are falsely interpreting the Constitution so as to frustrate the will of the people.
When I was a kid, my brothers and I were walking with my mother and she pointed to some really pretty flowers. One of my brothers said, “I’ll pick them for you…” and she grabbed his arm and said, “No. That’s poison nightshade. You have to learn all you can, so that you can recognize danger that comes with a wonderful face.”
I think about it every time I hear something like the FDR speech you quoted.
Thanks, Neo. As usual, I’m going to send your post to friends.
It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to pull in unison with the other two.
Not if the other two horses are pulling in the wrong direction. Checks and balances, Franklin, checks and balances.
Nebbia v. New York
As far as i am concerned Justice Owen J. Roberts was the point where the pin touches the pit of the ruby that made everything spin.
I will have to assume that he had never read the Federalist Papers, and so is the one who twisted the general welfare clause.
One can almost get a hint that for the healthcare they are deriving from Nebbia, and for the mortgage remedies Blaisdell…
Their golden era came RIGHT after those two cases… they thought so much so that
-Wiki
from that point on… Quoting wiki:
“While continuing to run its own candidates for office, the CPUSA pursued a policy of representing the Democratic Party as the lesser evil in elections.”
Browder supported Stalins “Moscow trials” and the later greater purges among the people.
Things changed once the war came and the people in the US realized what these things actually stood for.
however we sit here and we read that fireside chat and we forget that FDR was one of the first to use cadres of others to make him more than what he was… (unlike the founding fathers)
FDR’s Fireside Chats, by Buhite and Levy
detail a list of ghost writers that helped FDR.
Harry Hopkins,
Hugh Johnson,
Raymond Moley,
Rexford Tugwell,
Benjamin Cohen, Thomas Corcoran, Donald Richberg,
Adolf Berle
Archibald MacLeish
Robert (Bob) Emmet Sherwood
Which writer wrote the above fireside chat, i do not know… but i can tell you a bit about some of those authors.. ESPECIALLY Harry Hopkins…
Today we now know more. From Venona and records, we know that “Source no. 19” was Harry Hopkins, and Zamestitel was Henry Wallace…
now its interesting to note who he was married to… Akhmerov was married to Helen Lowry, the niece of Earl Browder mentioned above.
Akmerov turned his work over to Katz, and Katz replaced Elizabeth Bently… who was the sexy spy of the time, now replaced by Anna Chapman in the publics mind…
Hugh Johnson was sympathetic openly about Italian Fascism… (corporatism)…
Raymond Moley was keen on the whole socialist cradle to grave state. Time reported that he required his students to read New Republic when most thought it was “Red”..
Rexford Tugwell learned under communist Dewey… after the bombs dropped in japan, he became an avid totalitarian advocating that the only way to avoid war was government planning.
Benjamin Cohen was with frankfurter and others who created the ACLU… (whose goal of socialism and communism is well known and lots of old quotes from then too as to such purposes)…
it was those guys that started the defense of the communist radicals that were arrested during the Palmer Raids…
the rest are just as interesting..
but i will close with what the Palmer Raids were…
and the red scare they are referring to is the FIRST red scare… bet you didnt know that we had several before now…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
Maybe this will work.
Nope.
FDR was a half way decent CINC, otherwise his presidency was a disaster with reverberations we still suffer under today. Obama is a disaster as CINC and we will suffer the reverberations of his policies for many moons to come. IMO the presidents who have done the most damage to the republic are Lincoln, Teddy, Wilson, FDR, and BHO.
Valerie Jarret eats turds. Wolfs them down whole. Then snarls while flecks of her ingested matter spatter on her victims.
I just want to see if that will appear in italics.
Oh dear Gawd, please help Mr. Parker who has parkt on the railroad tracks. Libertarians, we understan, do have this crazy thing bout President Lincoln cause he upended habeas corpus. No mattrah that President Lincoln , he thought no less than the future of our Republic were at stake. And at extreme times, the lung wound must await the heart wound. Help Mr. Parker understan that, dear Gawd, even ifen he donna believe in You wee know he’ll see You in the end.
Ohhh, and mega cudo’s to Neo for pointing out that America has had a monster at the contols before.
We can live. We can live. We can LIIIIIIIIIVAH!
Curtis,
Lincoln took the first steps in dismantling the Constitution and the very concept of the rule of law. (Note: slavery is evil.) Slavery, whether you or I these many years later approve or not, was legal, under the Constitution April 12, 1861. AND, nowhere is the Constitution does it state that the States, which are sovereign entities, are prohibited from withdrawing from the United States. (Presently, I would like to see Iowa, Nebraska, North & South Dakota, Kansas, and Wyoming break away from the corrupt, thieving crony nepotism of DC.)
The correct means of ending slavery, which is an abomination, was by the rule of law, namely, amending the Constitution. DC is the despot it is today thanks to Lincoln, then Teddy, Wilson, and FDR. BHO is merely following in their footsteps.
Another time, another place, dear Parker, and we will draw our swords on this one.
But for now: I agree with you, FDR was one of the great baddies. And Wilson. Not so much the Bull.
You left out Carter. It’s, I suppose, okay to leave out Clinton since he was smart enough to chase enough tail to be neutered. Meh. And Gingrich also neutered him in Congress. Meh.
What the hell does “meh” mean?
FDR was good………at propagandizing the people. My parents were apolitical but my grandparents – one was a farmer and the other a small business owner – detested the man. I grew up hearing about all the bad things Roosevelt was doing to the American people. Of course, during WWII the criticism was muted, and he died before the end. I do remember seeing my grandparents sitting by the radio and listening to FDR’s fireside chats. They meant little to me at the time. Reading the text of this one shows me how smooth he was. No wonder he became President for life.
Someone who can take a slick, deceptive message to the people like that is very dangerous. Fortunately, we are a much more alert opposition whose voice is getting louder. Keep on exposing them, neo.
Parker mentioned a list of the most damaging presidents. LBJ was omitted. I nominate him as one of the very worst. His “War on Poverty” was/is one of the most damaging things ever done in this country. Not to mention his micro-management of the Vietnam debacle. Attempting to use calibrated attacks to pressure the North Vietnamese into surrender was the height of bad judgment and, unfortunately, seems to have set a pattern for future military conflicts.
Damn straight, JJ, and you are definitely right about LbJ too. One must include that SOB in the baddies. Unfortunately, old timer, your experience of being properly informed about FDR are very unique.
I applaud and appreciate your efforts as efforts akin to those fighting WWII. Keep fighting. Let those efforts carry you to 101. Just to piss them off!
Ohh, by the way, if you do live another 22 years, we might be able to preserve your consciousness in a jar of some kind.
So there’s that to look forward too.
For you JJ:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=karzdq34Nns&feature=related
Alright already, I’ll gladly add Jimmy the peanut & LBJ to my list. 😉 Jimmy was a minor league pitcher brought into game 7 in the 9th inning and walked home the winning run because his equivocating emboldened the jihad nuts. LBJ did much mischief (“Great Society”) and was a horrible CINC so he is even more deserving of a place on the list of worst presidents.
Slick Willy OTOH was a buffoon and will go down in history for squirted semen stains (please excuse my crude reference) on a chubby intern’s dress and the definition of “is”. A mere footnote of a president was Willy.
Well, Jimmy was a graduate of Rickover’s Nuclear Navy and that was no small achievement.
But, that era is mostly over. The bulk of the Left’s peanuts are small and non-tasty and the Left no longer lures talent. That is why they settled for Obama and why he compares comparatively less than FDR.
The power of genius and true achievement is a meta-stabilizing requirement built in to protect human society.
Curtis said, “Let those efforts carry you to 101. Just to piss them off!”
If the “death panels” get scrapped, maybe I’ve got a chance at another 22. ;>}
“Ohh, by the way, if you do live another 22 years, we might be able to preserve your consciousness in a jar of some kind.” Yeah, neo’s archives will be the jar.
Curtis, Thanks for the Nick Dip/Milller link. Belly laughs for sure. “ROE – Don’t fire until you smell the humus on their breath.” So true. It is to weep.
OK, people. It’s time to move on. I was raised in the era of the so-called greatness of FDR, but that was a long time ago. FDR was a whimsical leader whose “ideas” were garbage. We know better now.
We now understand that free enterprise, fair laws, equal opportunities, and respect for the Constitution are what make our nation great. The olden days are gone. This is 2012, and we’ve all learned a lot since the mid-20th century.
Right now, we’re moving toward the same kind of gangster state that currently exists in Russia. It’s not about “communism and socialism;” it’s about fascism and a country run by criminals.
FDR’s economic policies led to a dead-end road. It’s time to “reset” and promote the free enterprise system that we now know works better than any statist utopia envisioned by FDR, Mussolini, Juan Peron, etc.
In this ranting post, let me once again put in a plug for Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” and Ann Coulter’s “Demonic.” Both these books have lots of info on the crazy ideas currently expounded by the Democrat party.
Lucky for us, most of the people who thought FDR was some kind of saint are dying out rapidly.
Sorry that I didn’t use the preview function. What I really meant to say is that we must promote “limited government.”
I don’t personally need my federal, state, or local government to tell me how many calories should be in a Snickers bar.
Lordy. let me end the italics
Great work Neo.
I was first exposed to the fdr lie in the military.
I can’t remember the guy but within a year I found talk radio in 1991.
It is lie after lie as Geoffrey Britain says because the ends justify the means…
lets see if this works…
Does it?
🙂
Good Lord, Neo – insidious propaganda doesn’t begin to describe that “chat!”
Thank you for posting it. I’m passing it on.
Promethea,
Liberal Fascism is a great read. In just a few hundred pages Goldberg covers a lot of territory and reveals the ‘progressives’ for what they are: fascists.
A minor piece of historical linkage: LBJ first ran for Congress during the court-packing controversy. His main argument for election was voting for him would be a show of support for the FDR plan.