Public Comment

Although Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had many imperfections, our Democratic and Republican leaders have much to learn from FDR. As you know, the 1930s depression cost millions of workers their jobs. By 1932, twelve million workers were unemployed. One out of every four American families no longer had an income.

Nevertheless, FDR wasted little time in developing a very impressive jobs program. He hired Harry Hoplins, who was a social worker and also a past president of the National Association of Social Workers. The jobs program, which was named the Civil Works Administration, created under Hopkins four million jobs. So Hopkins provided jobs in the depth of the depression for one third of the unemployed! 

These workers performed mainly manual labor. Among the program’s accomplishments it laid 12 million feet of sewer pipes, built or improved 255,000 miles of road, built 3,400 playgrounds, nearly 1,000 airports, and thousands of schools. 

Unfortunately, the program was short lived. Its lifespan began in November 1933 and ended March 31 1934. The program ended only because some advisors complained that it was not accomplishing enough. Accepting bad advice was an occasional weakness of the president. On the other hand, FDR established the WPA by executive order one year later in 1935. The WPA provided about 8 ½ million jobs, which was more than twice as many as the previous program. This very popular program lasted eight years. It was terminated because World War 2 substantially reduced unemployment. 

The WPA not only did construction work such as providing a building for the Library of Congress. The program provided work for 5,300 artists, and also added to the payroll many musicians, actors, and writers. The WPA produced for Americans 225,000 works of art. In fact, the famous artist, Jackson Pollock, prior to his career, was among the WPA artists. Also, trees, which improve air and water quality, mattered to the WPA. The workforce planted 24 million trees. 

But what about the employment of minority workers? On this vital issue our current public officials have much to learn. Black workers did okay. WPA employed 350,000 African Americans. This constituted 15 percent of the workforce, although blacks made up only about 10 percent of the workers. 

Many women also needed jobs but they did not do well, They averaged only about 7 percent of the WPA workforce. Generally speaking, FDR had much to be proud of. However , he made some very serious mistakes. Clearly, one way of increasing employment is by reducing the number of hours for full time work. So one of the senators, Hugo Black from Alabama, drafted a law to limit full time jobs to a 30 hour week. This idealistic senator, incidentally, was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. 

He estimated that reducing full time work to 30 hours would create 6 million jobs. An employer would have to pay time-and-a-half to any worker who exceeds 30 hours. The Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, which passed by 53 to 30. 

FDR initially did not oppose the bill. But in response to tremendous opposition from the business community, he changed his mind. The House of Representatives was likely to support the legislation. But FDR intervened by persuading some key committees to not allow a vote on this bill not only then but for five years! So FDR succeeded by violating the democratic process by preventing a vote. Several years later, in 1938, FDR supported and obtained the Fair Labor Standards Act which established overtime pay for more than 44 hours and over 40 hours beginning in 1940. 

In 1937-38 the economy experienced a very severe recession because FDR played a major role in precipitating the downturn. FDR wanted to balance the budget, which he was convinced that it was safe to do. So he reduced spending by almost 14 billion dollars in two years. As a result the economy again crashed and unemployment increased substantially. . 

How would we characterize the president during these years? Despite his mistakes, he very much cared about improving the economy and providing jobs to the unemployed. However, the problem was not only his occasional poor judgment. He worked in a very difficult and imperfect economic environment. Historically speaking, FDR was the nation’s most popular president. In February 1936 an unknown person sent him these lines of admiration. “I think that we shall never see A president like unto thee Poems are made by fools like me, But God, I think made Franklyn D”