The Forgotten Man

Amity Shlaes' book (The Forgotten Man) is a wonderful piece of work.  Schlaes explores the responses of both Herbert Hoover and FDR  to the depression.  What struck me most about the book (Shlaes is even handed in her criticism of both presidents.) was the similarity of response between the presidents.  Both started with a fair dose of hubris about the capabilities of policy makers to successfully change behavior.   Hoover started with a history of being a successful engineer and looked at the world as a series of problems which could be solved.  Want to understand how to feed people after WWI - it is an engineering problem.   Want to find out how to build business in the country as Secretary of Commerce - again an engineering problem.  Want to help with power and water problems - another engineering problem.  FDR came with advice from his "brain trust" both inside and outside of the administration (she mentions Keynes as a relatively constant commentator to FDR).

The discussions about FDR's brain trust center on a couple of important people including Rex Tugwell, Henry Morgenthau, Robert Jackson and FDR himself.    Shlaes begins her discussion with a short history of a group that went to visit the Soviet Union early in its history - these were young academics - Tugwell, and Stuart Chase (who was later a liberal journalist) who journeyed to Russia and actually met Stalin. These guys were fooled by what was going on in Russia.  Schlaes also discusses the roles of Harold Ickes and Felix Frankfurter and has an absolutely wonderful discussion of the conflict which caused FDR to try to pack the Supreme Court.

She describes, in pretty good detail,  the work and failures of the National Recovery Administraion.  She does this by describing a decision against a small kosher chicken merchant who fought against the absurd controls in the NIRA (the National Industrial Recovery Act).  The Administration tried to persecute (not prosecute) this small business and make them an example.  But this family decided to fight, and they won.

Shlaes also presents, in rather glorious detail, the flexibility that FDR had in pressing his case.  Indeed he did not seem to be guided much by ideology - although a lot of his staff came with a high degree of confidence that they could change behaviors.  They knew they were right and they were not going to allow some pesky data to turn them around.  FDR was able to take an essay that had been prominent with his generation of undergraduates (William Graham Sumner's Essay) and turn the principles in the essay on their head.  Sumner's point was to discuss the person who pays for services designed to help others - FDR called the forgotten man the person who lost out in the depression and needed help.

Shlaes asks the question why FDR is given the credit for solving the problems of the depression when the data suggests that all of his efforts did little or nothing to reduce double digit unemployment for most of the thirties.  She also describes in great detail the huge abuses of power that people like Robert Jackson (who worked for Morgenthau then went on to be AG and a Supreme Court Justice and part of the Nuremberg trials after WWII) and Ickes took to pursue enemies of the Roosevelt administration.  There is a continuing discussion of  Andrew Mellon,who is also discussed in some detail in the book for his role as Treasury secretary, the Roosevelt's efforts to make him a scapegoat for the wealthy and his magnificent gift of the National Gallery.

What Shlaes does not expressly do is the intellectual history of the era that brought people like all those mentioned above had in common.  There is clearly a link between the excitement that Frederick Jackson Turner (mentioned in the book) and Frederick Winslow Taylor (also mentioned) created for people as diverse as FDR, Hoover and Chase.  Shlaes' book is worth the read just to get a good picture of both the data from the era and the people who made the history.  

Perhaps the most interesting picture for me was her constant description of Wendell Willkie.  Willkie started out as a energy exec and a democrat.   She also gives you an idea about the development of electric power in the country.  From the first efforts by Samuel Insul toward Willkie's holding company to the determined efforts to create public power in the TVA and the Bonneville Power system. 

If you are interested in this era in history or even in the precursors of the debates we are still living through today - this is a great read.