Opposition to FDR’s “New Deal”
SSUSH18 The student will describe Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as a response to the depression and compare the ways governmental programs aided those in need.
e. Identify the political challenges to Roosevelt’s domestic and international leadership; include the role of Huey Long, the “court packing bill,” and the Neutrality Act.
Directions: Below are primary source excerpts dealing with Louisiana governor Huey Long and of Roosevelt’s plan to “pack the court”. After analyzing the primary source documents, you are to choose one of the writing prompts that follow.
HUEY LONG
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"Every Man a King"
Huey Long seemed to have his own definition of wealth for American families. In his February 1934 speech he notes:
To share our wealth by providing for every deserving family to have one third of the average wealth would mean that, at the worst, such a family could have a fairly comfortable home, an automobile, and a radio, with other reasonable home conveniences, and a place to educate their children. Through sharing the work, that is, by limiting the hours of toil so that all would share in what is made and produced in the land, every family would have enough coming in every year to feed, clothe, and provide a fair share of the luxuries of life to its members.
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A "Long" Sound-Off
Raymond Gram Swing, in a January 1935 issue of Nation said of Huey Long,
Huey Long is the best stump speaker in America. He is the best political radio speaker, better even than President Roosevelt. Give him time on the air and let him have a week to campaign in each state, and he can sweep the country. He is one of the most persuasive men living.
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Power Corrupts
Though Huey Long always called himself the champion of the people, many of his critics accused him of seizing dictatorial powers in Louisiana. By the time he became a U.S. Senator in 1930, he controlled almost every aspect of the state’s government. Raymond Gram Swing, in The Nation (January, 1935) noted:
He is not a fascist . . . He is a dictator. He rules, and opponents had better stay out of his way. He punishes all who thwart him with grim, relentless, efficient vengeance.
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Writing Prompt: Why would FDR fear the political challenge posed by Huey Long?
FDR and the “court-packing” scandal
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"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.
That plan has two chief purposes. By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first, to make the administration of all federal justice, from the bottom to the top, speedier and, therefore, less costly; secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work. This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.
The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the decision of present judges now over seventy, or those who would subsequently reach the age of seventy.
If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the plan, no additional place would be created. Consequently, although there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve. And there may be only nine. “ - Franklin D. Roosevelt, “fireside chat” March, 1937
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Writing Prompt: Why would many refer to Roosevelt as a “tyrant” after his “court-packing” proposal?