Why Roosevelt Was a Great President

       As I read the review of the book on Roosevelt [see "Democracy on the Edge," p. xxx], I thought it, and perhaps the book, did not adequately convey an understanding of what made Roosevelt a great president and that the concept of cause in historical analysis was misused.
       
       The concept of cause is of immediate interest because Republicans and Democrats are arguing over whether the invasion of Iraq caused Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to renounce weapons of mass destruction or whether this decision was already in process. In this case, an answer is hard to come by. The fact that Qaddafi's son wanted this change, whereas Saddam's sons were as beastly as he is, probably did play a role. The fact that vital materials for a nuclear program were still being shipped to Libya in 2003 suggests, although it does not prove, that the decision to renounce such weapons had not been made at that time.
       
       We do not know how decisive the impact of Iraq was, or whether Qaddafi would have made this move in its absence. But the public debate is a useless partisan contest because no clear answer is yet permitted by the evidence. Perhaps even Qaddafi cannot be sure whether there is a clear answer, because such decisions usually are determined by a variety of considerations.
       
       On the other hand, the argument that the harsh peace forced on Germany after the First World War caused the Great Depression, the accession of Hitler to power, and the Second World War can be discredited with reasonable precision. I do not know to what extent the harsh war penalties contributed to the great inflation of the early twenties in Germany, but good economic policies quickly eliminated the worst excesses of the inflation, suggesting that bad policies were largely responsible for producing it. Although economists I respect differ about which policies caused a world depression that was triggered by the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Austria, the possible lingering effects of immediate postwar penalties were marginal at most.
       
       Treating Germany as a pariah nation surely made for difficulties in political sentiments in Germany, but General von Ludendorff's stab-in-the-back thesis--that Germany had a winning position in the First World War and lost because of betrayal--would have had important effects on German politics even apart from the country's treatment by the allied powers. The Great Depression also was an important component of the events that led to Hitler and war, but it just as surely did not cause them in any meaningful sense of the term. In fact, Hitler's party suffered minor electoral losses before the events that put him in as chancellor in a coalition cabinet. There was a solid parliamentary majority that could have kept the detested Hitler out, but there was a job that President von Hindenburg and others wanted him to perform.
       
       The Communist Party, led from Moscow, was popular and was viewed by conservatives as a threat to the nation. The conservative Right thought that Hitler could be brought in to destroy the communists. In the meantime, von Papen, a leader of the moderate Catholic Center Party, as vice chancellor, would keep Hitler under control and get rid of him after he had done what the conservative parties were unwilling to do directly. They underestimated Hitler, who was not the clown they thought.
       
       Even after the Enabling Act that permitted Hitler to issue decrees was passed, war was not inevitable. If the democracies had followed the policies Churchill advocated, the German army might have removed Hitler before he could involve it in a dreaded two-front war against both Russia and the Western allies. At the least, it would not have acquiesced in his war plans. It was the continuous collapse in the face of Hitler's demands that caused the war. The harsh peace was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of depression or war. It did not cause either in any meaningful sense of the concept.
       
       Now let me turn to Roosevelt. The qualities of character and personality that made him a bad person were among the qualities that made him a great president. As the book points out, Roosevelt's economic policies were a failure and he engaged in class warfare. What it apparently does not convey is that terrible domestic conditions required public and visible efforts to change them. At a time when the population was only 120 million, some 11 million were unemployed and most others were impoverished. Masses were homeless. Malnutrition was rampant. A popular song was "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"
       
       If not for Roosevelt, extreme solutions might have tempted the public. The fascist parties, the Coughlinites, the KKK, and other extreme groups were getting significant support. Roosevelt's sequence of useless policies and his fireside chats seemed to show such warm concern for a lumpenproletariat that he likely held in visceral disdain that he won over most of the disaffected from racist and fascist temptations. It is no accident that the socialist movement and extremist groups were successfully constrained while he was president.
       
       Roosevelt also preserved the Western democracies in the face of Hitler's victories. The public was still isolationist. Many still believed that the munitions makers had got us into the First World War. The neutrality laws of 1935, 1937, and 1939 raced through Congress in response to urgent public demands. Roosevelt convinced the public he would keep the country out of war--"I hate wah, Elenah hates wah, Falla hates wah"--at the very time we were convoying British ships and secretly sinking German submarines. Except for Roosevelt's duplicity, England and Russia both would have been lost to Hitler's hegemony. The world would have been dominated by a fascist Axis stretching from South America through Europe to the Indian Ocean in alliance with a militaristic Japan.
       
       Roosevelt was a master of duplicity. He promised the same job to three or four people. British intelligence had more access to Roosevelt than many cabinet members did. He enjoyed toying with people. He knew that the internment of the Japanese was part of a land grab, and J. Edgar Hoover told him that the Japanese were no threat to American security.* He did not care.
       
       John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers and a founder of the CIO, had financed Roosevelt's 1936 campaign. But he had quarreled with Roosevelt, who had to turn to Dan Tobin of the Teamsters for the 1940 campaign. In return for his money, Tobin wanted Roosevelt to use the legal system to remove the Trotskyite leadership of a dissident local of the union.
       
       Roosevelt was not in a position to carry out this quid pro quo before the election. And he had often failed to carry out promises to financial backers after elections if he had a reason to welsh on the promise. To understand why carrying out the promise after the election in this case was so immoral, one has to understand the situation in which the local was operating and the knowingly false nature of the case against its leaders.
       
       The Teamsters local had been getting waylaid by farmers. Since the police would not protect them, they bought .22 caliber rifles to defend their trucks. After the election, when Roosevelt no longer needed Tobin, the government had the leaders of the local arrested under the Smith Act for attempting to overthrow the government by force. The rifles were a main exhibit. I can just see Roosevelt chuckling to himself as these truck drivers were convicted, to the applause of the Communist Party, for attempting to overthrow the government by force when they were trying to protect themselves from attack.
       
       It was Roosevelt's dissembling and lack of concern for formal equity that made him so successful in eventually getting us into war. These may not be admirable qualities, but they were the qualities needed in the circumstances. I may not admire the man as a human being, but he knew the important things that had to be done. If not for Roosevelt and Churchill, we would be living in a benighted world. Thank God he was there.
       
       The United States was fortunate to have had great presidents at crucial nodes in American history: George Washington at the founding, Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, and Ronald Reagan at the height of the Cold War. We will not be so fortunate regardless of who wins the next election.
       
       * The Japanese owned a great many prosperous and well-managed farms in California. Wealthy Californians put pressure on Gov. Earl Warren, who in turn put pressure on Roosevelt. The ensuing internment of the Japanese permitted these wealthy Californians to purchase the farms at very low prices at forced auctions. In the Hawaiian islands, the home base of the Pacific fleet, virtually all the land was owned by the big six. The Japanese, who worked as farm labor, were not interned there, although there were far more of them in an area the Japanese would have had to attack if they wished to move directly against the United States.
       
       
       Morton A. Kaplan
       Editor and Publisher