This article is part of a series on American history. Cross-reference to chapters 15-17 of A Patriot’s History of the United States and chapters 15-16 of A People’s History of the United States.
Wilson presided over an era of significant policy and attitude changes in America, but the following 25 years—up to the end of the next Democratic administration, Franklin Roosevelt’s—brought all that and more. Unprecedented technology and quality of life improvements were followed by an unprecedented depression, which in turn gave way to an unprecedented war. Following the war was the most opportune moment to revise or reconsider the global order since the post-Napoleonic Vienna Conference in 1815.
All three of these: the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and World War II, still have resonance in the minds of many Americans (as opposed to earlier and less recognizable events like the War of 1812). Because of this, our authors address many of the same themes, often drawing different conclusions and citing conflicting information. We’ll make sure to address this.
Scandal, Tax Cuts, and Prosperity
Running a “front-porch” campaign similar to McKinley’s, Republican candidate Warren Harding won the presidency in 1920. Harding remains on a short list of America’s worst presidents, due to corruption scandals brought on by senior members of his cabinet. Patriot’s compares Harding to Grant, that he “had a knack for appointing crooks and bunglers.” Harding died halfway through his term in 1923, of a heart attack. Fortunately, his successor, vice president Calvin Coolidge, exercised measured self-control in personal and political life, remaining largely in the background until the end of his administration in 1928.
Patriot’s gives Harding credit for one thing, however: the appointment of Andrew Mellon, a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman, as Treasury Secretary. Mellon realized the inverse relationship between the tax rates on the richest Americans and the total tax the same group paid. Over the next several years, Congress reduced the top tax bracket rate from 73% to 25% of income (in fact lowering tax rates on all incomes), while tax receipts from this bracket tripled. As a result, the national debt fell by a third between 1921 and 1926. Such an action dovetails with common debates about tax rates and compliance rates that continue today. People’s, meanwhile, points out that this very proposal just so happened to reduce Mellon’s own tax bill by $800,000.
The key theme of the 1920s was incredible economic growth. New technology and mass production brought both greater wealth and quality of life, with cars, radios, movies, and air travel. Patriot’s cites a 75% increase in man-hour productivity over just six years, and that the era witnessed a generational leap in “knowledge capital”. Schweikart & Allen call out the “intellectual stake the modern Left has in debunking the real growth of the 1920s to set the stage for its ‘speculation’ theories.” Speak of the devil, People’s endorses this very speculation theory, originally postulated by Galbraith, in which the stock market crash “came directly from wild speculation which collapsed and brought the whole economy down with it.” This is enough for People’s to conclude that capitalism is a “sick and undependable system.” Zinn mentions little else about this period of growth other than to grudgingly admit: “The general level of wages for workers rose. Some farmers made a lot of money.” Zinn also cites historians who illustrate that the gains from prosperity were overwhelmingly concentrated among the wealthy.
Hoover: Wrong Place, Wrong Time (Wrong President?)
Few American presidents have been as brutally oversimplified as Hoover—part of the price for seeing the worst economic crisis in American history on his watch. Debates still rage on around how the Great Depression started, but to most, Hoover’s incompetence is a foregone conclusion. I believe much of this is unfair, and that Hoover’s pre-presidential career was more glowing than most—he led a humanitarian effort to feed civilians in occupied Belgium during World War I. For those interested, I would recommend the following biography.
Patriot’s seeks to dispel the common myth that Hoover was a do-nothing conservative during the first few years of the Depression. In fact, Hoover was a “big-government type”, a Republican progressive who won high praise from FDR prior to becoming president. 1928 saw a landslide Hoover victory, although Democratic victories in major cities marked a harbinger of a coming Democratic coalition.
The economic crash had its origin in several factors at once. Patriot’s cites an agricultural sector that struggled to overcome harsh weather and falling commodity prices. This brought on bank weaknesses—many farms used crops and livestock as debt collateral, and the lack of collateral left banks with a “mountain of bad debts.” Further, the money supply grew slowly during the 1920s, not nearly fast enough to keep up with the growth in output and productivity. This sounds contradictory to many students of economics, who learn that economic growth tends to run hand-in-hand with inflation. This monetary tightness, per Patriot’s, suggests the Depression was brought about by supply-side issues and the unavailability of funding, rather than financial speculation that outstripped the real growth of the economy. On top of this, a new tariff bill raised rates on many goods, creating unpredictable disruptive effects. Ultimately, dissecting exact causes of such a complex chain of events is an elusive and impossible task, as generations of economists should attest.
What Patriot’s sees as far more clear is the fact that Washington’s initial responses didn’t do much to help. As bank failures grew rampant, the Federal Reserve sat back, avoiding the aggressive actions that the 2008 Fed took to stabilize the financial system. Tax cuts aimed at helping the middle class “offered no incentives to the wealthy to invest”, and Hoover simultaneously signed taxes bank checks and other transactions, further discouraging people from spending money. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation offered large loans to banks and other businesses, but the requirement of public disclosure of recipients created a strong negative signal to customers and depositors.
In sum, rather than failing to do anything, Hoover instead did much, but not much good. As Patriot’s tell it: “His activist policies deepened and prolonged the business downturn.” It would be up to another man of activist policies to seize the moment and become a household name in history.
A New Deal? Or Just More Wilson?
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was from the same clan of New York patricians that had already given the country one president. He married his distant cousin Theodore’s niece, Eleanor, and evinced the same “disdain for commerce” that had characterized the previous Roosevelt administration. Also like his cousin, FDR would push the limits of presidential power, winning election to four consecutive terms in office.
Hoover was a sitting duck in 1932, and FDR won handily, despite a surprisingly close popular vote. His policies of economic recovery have been collectively referred to as the New Deal—a label which Patriot’s questions on a few grounds. First, Patriot’s suggests that “no overarching principles” guided this set of policies. Further, it suggests that political motivations rather than economic ones guided much of federal action, and that the New Deal was a continuation of “Wilsonian Progressivism.”
Either way, the new executive acted quickly, requesting broad executive powers from Congress and declaring a bank holiday, removing the gold standard, and promulgating an “alphabet soup” of new agencies focused on “raising wages or providing jobs.” The National Recovery Administration (NRA) represented a stunning overt combination of government power and corporate interests, essentially rigging markets at the expense of small business. This element of fascism—large corporations serving as a mask of centralized government power—brought Roosevelt high praise from Mussolini, and this admiration was mutual.
Labor won significant concessions, with the Wagner Act protecting their rights to organize and creating a federal entity to mediate between management and labor. Yet as unions gained more formal recognition, they lost much of their radical appeal. People’s laments the need for “strict observance of union procedure on the part of the workers,” and wildcat strikes, made without union sanction, continued despite the new regulations. To Zinn, this fake concession to labor was simply a sop to maintain control and forestall radical political actors.
Indeed, People’s speaks a great deal of the rise of the Communist Party in America during the 1920s and 30s, seeking to capitalize (pun intended) on the economic crisis of a lifetime. Communist sympathizers were active in fomenting strikes and discontent, much as the IWW had done in previous decades. Zinn goes so far as to dismiss the murder of police as a byproduct of Communist-led unionization efforts—seemingly contradicting his introductory credo of refusing to pay such a price for “progress.”
Ultimately, Patriot’s and People’s come to disapproving conclusions about the New Deal, but through very different routes. People’s saw the NRA as a mere reorganization through which FDR “surrendered an inordinate share of the power of government…to industrial spokesmen,” and the New Deal itself as a mere shell game. Patriot’s saw the policies as far more destructive than their immediate results showed, pointing to another recession in 1937 that it claims was brought on by the New Deal programs. Further, Schweikart & Allen cite unemployment as higher in 1939 than in 1931, and homicide rates at an all-time high during Roosevelt’s tenure. Patriot’s saw the New Deal as a failure because it did too much, while People’s saw it as a half-measure that did not do enough.
However, if nothing else, FDR contributed enough to the image of hope and recovery to gain unprecedented electoral support, winning re-election three times. This was despite many ill-fated failures, such as his efforts to “pack” the Supreme Court with friendly faces. Both authors point to another factor as affecting the legacy of FDR and his time in office. Patriot’s: “It is undeniable that World War II saved America from the New Deal.” Even Zinn admits that “the war economy created millions of new jobs at higher wages,” a stunning admission (even if he makes this point to mourn the reduction of militant labor activism during the war—although he goes on to claim over 14,000 strikes occurred while America was at war).
Both authors thus acknowledge that FDR’s legacy to Americans is greatly shaped by events taking place abroad during the 1930s and 40s—perhaps one might even say that World War II saved not just America, but FDR as well, from the New Deal.
Head in the Sand, or Had it Coming?
Following the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, much of the world sought a retreat from the great-power politics, rivalries, and wars that had marked the last several centuries. Arms control agreements between nations, some American aid to Germany following her defeat, and a multinational pact that “outlawed” war all contributed to this. Yet the continued strength of the British Navy and French border defenses suggested that “the major Western powers never believed their own arms control promises,” as Patriot’s says.
Our authors disagree on exactly what fascism means. People’s cites Hitler’s policies of “totalitarianism, racism, militarism, and overt aggressive warfare.” To Patriot’s, “fascism was never anything but convoluted socialism.” Regardless of the definition, Germany and Italy saw more government control and expansionist fervor. Japan, while not endorsing fascism, nevertheless came under control of radical military elements with imperial ambitions throughout the Pacific. Our authors do agree on the fundamental evil of the Axis Powers.
Even when the war broke out with Germany invading Poland in 1939, many Americans sought to remain on the sidelines. When France and Scandinavia fell, leaving Britain on her own, FDR’s Lend-Lease program, which provided destroyers to the British, was criticized by those who felt it would “drag the United States into the war.” British agents rigged public opinion polls to try and foster some popular desire for war. American Communists opposed the war vigorously until Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and then clamored for war with equal vigor (a fact that both our authors note).
Even before Pearl Harbor, Japan-America relations had become poor. Roosevelt had contributed to this by freezing Japanese assets in the U.S. and restricting oil exports in 1941. However, deciphered Japanese communications suggested that Japan had been planning for an attack on the U.S. fleet as early as 1940. Japan had even sent a war message terminating diplomatic relations the day before the Pearl Harbor attack, but the officer on duty disregarded the message.
People’s claims that American actions “clearly provoked the war with Japan”, citing the oil embargo. Patriot’s insists that Japan had “all but committed” to war even before FDR’s actions. Regardless, the attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 erased all doubts as to whether the U.S. would enter the fray.
The War in Brief
World War II is certainly one of the most-covered topics in all of history. Many budding history buffs trace their fascination with history to the time they began to learn about this frenetic decade. Because of this, it is also an area of study rife with conspiracy theories, sensationalist “history”, and what-ifs that all-too-often are mere speculation. Besides, conclusions about war events differ greatly based on an author’s biases:
- More conservative historians like Patriot’s claim that American industrial power, productive capacity, and equipment lending to the Soviets were the key factors in the Allies’ victory.
- Modern historians on the left insist that Soviet manpower and determination would have inevitably defeated Hitler even without any “second front” in Europe.
- Between these camps, a group of (mostly British) historians insist that the war situation in 1940-41 was never as dire as many claim, and that Britain was in fact capable of resisting Hitler on its own for far longer.
Each of these views has some merit, but each should be scrutinized and weighed against the others. Because this is a monumental task, we cannot do it justice here. Patriot’s can cite (and does cite), the overwhelming advantages in production that America had over the other nations (100-to-1 vs. Japan in oil, 20-to-1 in steel, 5-to-1 in aircraft, etc.), and can cite that polls that displaying willingness to sacrifice for the war effort. Yet as Schweikart & Allen admit, “Upon…slender threads is history often woven.” War, more than any human endeavor, is dependent upon contingency.
While People’s agrees that the Axis Powers represented an enemy of “unspeakable evil”, it also takes issue with how the war is portrayed in America: “For the United States to step forward as a defender of helpless countries matched its image in American high school history textbooks, but not its record in world affairs.” Zinn also suggests that the Allies (England, the U.S., and the U.S.S.R.) did not represent “something significantly different” than the “imperialism, racism, totalitarianism, [and] militarism” they were fighting against. Just like the American Revolution, the tyranny of the victors and the vanquished is thereby equated.
“Death, Destroyer of Worlds”
Where our authors contend the most is not on the war itself, but the way it ended. Allied troops had occupied Germany by 1945—Britain and the U.S. in the west, and the Soviets in the east. Japan was shrinking in the Pacific, with its fleet destroyed and its troops fighting desperately in a series of island defensive actions, with the Americans inching closer to Japan itself.
It became clear that the Americans and British had a different vision for the postwar order than the Soviet Union did, yet FDR remained confident: “I think I can personally handle Stalin better than either your [British] Foreign Office or my State Department.” This echoes the personal confidence Donald Trump would display in dealing personally with Vladimir Putin. FDR would die in April of 1945, right at the start of his fourth term. His successor, Harry Truman, felt similar confidence that he could handle the Soviet dictator. Truman also made the decision that ended the war in August of that year—by dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The dropping of these bombs remains one of the most controversial actions of the last century. Patriot’s claims this saved lives by forestalling an American invasion of Japan’s home islands, which American planners estimated would kill million of civilians and up to a million American troops. Patriot’s counters the “liberal critics” of these estimates by insisting “the estimates were probably low.” Further, Schweikart & Allen explain Truman’s complete lack of hesitation in his decision, and that the initial response from Japan was to question its own top scientists to try and duplicate the weapon as quickly as possible. Only after the second bomb did Japan accept “in principle” the terms of unconditional surrender, and it took direct intervention from the Emperor—normally a figurehead in Japanese affairs—to bring this about.
People’s admits that an invasion would have brought high casualties, but cites numbers an order of magnitude lower, and provides quotes from a War Department study that found that “in all probability,” Japan would have surrendered by November of that year—too late to prevent the planned wholesale extermination of American prisoners-of-war—even without use of the bomb. Further, People’s insists that America’s demand of “unconditional surrender” was too harsh, given that Japan would only require one condition: that the Emperor could remain in place. Zinn goes further to detail that the first bomb was dropped two days before the U.S.S.R. had pledged to declare war on Japan—and that the U.S. hoped that by getting a quick surrender it could exclude the Soviets from a place at the peace table. People’s cites the bomb as “the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia.” This diplomatic war would hang like a dark cloud over the prosperity that followed.
In our next post, we’ll cover the Cold War and America’s permanent emergence into global affairs.
