Five highlights from Eric Rauchway's new book, "Why The New Deal Matters"

 
Above: Eric Rauchway, Why The New Deal Matters, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021. Image scan from a personal copy.

When the going gets tough... double-down on democracy

Eric Rauchway's new book, Why The New Deal Matters, explores how the New Deal proved that democracy can survive economic and social turmoil. Early on, he writes: "[The New Deal] matters too, as a message for Americans from the past: democracy in the United States, flawed and compromised as it was, proved it could emerge from a severe crisis not only intact but stronger" (p. 3).

I have a slightly different take on the matter, because I don't believe democracy has ever existed in the United States, at least not as the overarching system. I would have put it this way: "The New Deal matters, because it proved that the march towards a true democracy can continue, even in the face of extreme national hardship." Of course, whether we have a plutocracy or a flawed democracy is a matter for a different day. Rauchway's sentiment is nonetheless sincere and valid. 

Here are five things that I found particularly interesting in Why The New Deal Matters:

1. Problems on American Indian reservations.

Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior for Republican presidents Harding and Coolidge, commissioned a study of American Indian reservations. The study found that "Sewers were woefully inadequate, and so was medical care. A measles epidemic raged unchecked among children... Throughout the Navajo Nation, physicians were scarce" (p. 80).

This study highlights why the later "Indian New Deal" was so important. New Deal agencies greatly improved infrastructure and public health for American Indians.

2. What can the broader American society learn from the American Indian?

Rauchway tells us that John Collier, commissioner of Indian affairs under FDR, "believed that Indians did a better job of balancing individual needs and group welfare than the commercial and industrial culture then prevailing in the United States, and he hoped not only to preserve Native American societies from erosion but to allow other Americans to learn communitarian lessons from Indians" (p. 82). 

This is interesting, because we know that a broad swath of the American public has no interest in the common good or the general welfare clause of the U.S. Constitution. For many, individualism--even when it results in financial terror and epidemic levels of depression and sadness--is always superior to government intervention or communal effort.

Yes indeed, we can learn some things from American Indian cultures. 

3. The in-your-face racism of the day.

Rauchway provides several examples of how frightening it must have been for African Americans (and other minorities) during the early part of the twentieth century. For example, President Hoover nominated John J. Parker to be a judge. Parker had once said, "The participation of the Negro in politics is a source of evil and danger to both races" (p. 110). And U.S. Senator Allen J. Ellender said, "I believe in white supremacy, and as long as I am in the Senate I expect to fight for white supremacy" (p. 118).

People often wonder, "Why didn't FDR do more on the race issue?" Well, first of all, he did more than most people know; and second, as Rauchway highlights, there were many in Congress who openly embraced white supremacy (and much of the white public, by the way, didn't seem to mind that fact); and thus Roosevelt was limited in what he could openly say or do, if he didn't want to alienate a large group of congressmen, who would in turn squash the New Deal. (However, Roosevelt did utilize his cabinet, his administrators, and his judicial selections, especially on the Supreme Court, to spark positive racial developments - then, and for years to come.)  

4. A key victory for the New Deal's Civil Rights Section.

Rauchway discusses a 1941 voting rights case that is likely to be duplicated in the near future. 

In Louisiana, election official Patrick Classic had erased votes that he didn't like (just as newly-installed, all-Republican election overseers are likely to erase votes that don't support Trump in 2024). The New Deal's Civil Rights Section, created in 1939, took the case all the way to the Supreme Court and secured federal protections for local primaries. This case provided (by design) a precedent for William Hastie and Thurgood Marshall to get rid of all-white primaries, in the Supreme Court case Smith v. Allwright (1944).

The New Deal's Civil Rights Section is not well-known, and many who do know of it belittle it as largely inconsequential. Nothing could be further from the truth. (See the Living New Deal's historical summary of the Civil Rights Section; and Classic v. United States, 313 U.S. 299 (1941) at Encyclopedia.com.

5. How did Hopkins build up the CWA so fast?

The CWA was an early New Deal program, created to hire unemployed workers over the winter of 1933-1934. Within a few months, over 4 million Americans were getting paychecks from CWA. Many have wondered how Harry Hopkins was able to build up the Civil Works Administration (CWA) so fast. Part of it was Hopkins himself - a tenacious administrator, and highly devoted to the cause of the poor and the unemployed. His staff too, undoubtedly shared some of his tenacity. But part of the hiring speed was  plain ol' practicality, as Rauchway points out: "In most cases the CWA adopted existing state relief offices rather than building new bureaucracies. It used the Veterans Administration as its accounting arm, and borrowed trucks and airplanes from the army to deliver materials and paychecks" (pp. 159-160).

So, the CWA build-up was a matter of tenacity, passion, and practicality - and the unemployed's desire for jobs.

Why The New Deal Matters is a fairly quick read (178 pages), and thus very accessible for those who might not otherwise read about the New Deal. I would have liked to have seen further, and more explicit explanation about why the New Deal matters during our current multiple crises (covid deaths, Trumpism, QAnon conspiracy theories, Fox News propaganda, etc.) but the book nevertheless shows how strong men--of the bully variety--are not needed to solve large scale problems.