My Amazon Review of Eric Rauchway's "Winter War: "Hoover, Roosevelt and the First Clash Over The New Deal"

Not Quite a War

UC Davis economic historian Eric Rauchway elevates the personal dislike between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt into a war that would determine the future of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Simply put, he way overstates his case and demonstrates his very clear left-liberal bias. To be sure Hoover is a sore loser and acts that way, but their disagreements can hardly be characterized as “a war”.

Rauchway’s thesis is that Hoover consciously acted to abort the New Deal in the womb.  To me the disagreement was far more personal than political and given the economic crisis it would have been far better for both of them to work together the way George Bush and Barack Obama did in 2008, but alas that was not the case. Beneath the surface while Hoover and Roosevelt were having their spat Hoover treasury officials Ogden Mills and Arthur Ballantine were working hand-in-glove with income treasury secretary William Wooden to deal with the banking crisis. In fact Jonathan Alter in his "Defining Moment" noted that “the Hoover men essentially designed the blueprint of FDR’s rescue of the banks.” Thus if the generals were at war the lieutenants certainly were were not.

Rauchway argues that Hoover’s ideas were a precursor to the Republican southern strategy of the 1960s. To his credit he does note that the African-American vote began deserting the party of Lincoln in response to Hoover’s treatment of them during the 1927 Mississippi River Flood and his failed supreme court nomination of the racist John Parker in 1930. That is all true, but the fact remains Roosevelt sold out to the southern barons of the Senate to pass his program and it was the Republican Party that was the party of civil rights well into the 1960s and especially with the nomination of Wendell Willkie in 1940.

He also argues that Roosevelt as early as 1932 was well aware of the threat that the rise of Hitler presented to the democracies. Yet he blew up the 1933 World Economic Conference that sent a clear signal to Hitler that the U.S. was abandoning Europe. Indeed from 1933-38 was probably the most isolationist period of the 20^th Century. Being worried about Hitler and acting are two different things.

Moreover while Roosevelt was worried about fascism abroad he was implementing it at home. What else can you make of the cartelization caused by the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act, if not a form of proto-fascism? Moreover it was hardly progressive to plow under crops and slaughter piglets to prop up farm prices during a period of real starvation. Thankfully the Supreme Court saved us from these failed experiments.

Rauchway conveniently leaves out the crackpot ideas of Cornell economist George Warren who influenced Roosevelt on farm and monetary policies. He also ignores that one of the causes of 1920s farm crisis was the mechanization of agriculture as 40% of cropland was devoted to forage crops that were no longer needed.

Let me say that this review is not intended to be an all-out attack on the New Deal. Much good came from leaving the gold standard, banking and securities reforms and the beginning of massive public works projects. The country was in a crisis and we have to put ourselves into the shoes of the decision makers of the time, but we also have to heed Keynes admonition that “reform is the enemy of recovery.” I wish Rauchway would see things that way.

For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1VJ9V9PPKXS9F/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv