FDR--A Four Term Progressive Part 3

In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidential election defeating Herbert Hoover handily with 57 percent of the vote and carrying all but 6 states. He was a charming man with a considerable base given his roots and popularity in New York state. He had the assistance of Al Smith and William Randolph Hearst as well as the support of Joseph Kennedy from Massachusetts and William McAdoo, Democratic leader in California. John Nance Garner came over to Roosevelt's side and brought Texas into FDR's column while picking up the Vice Presidential spot for himself.

In addition to his above mentioned supporters, Roosevelt was able to put together what came to be know as the New Deal coalition. The unions, the poor, Southern whites, ethnic minorities, and folks living in the cities of the nation were brought together by FDR .This coalition stayed together for over half a century.

It was during the campaign that FDR made his famous speech where he pledged a "new deal for the American people." Denouncing Hoover's failures and inability to stop the economic slide into the abyss of the depression, FDR campaigned on an immediate need to cut public expenditures, getting rid of useless offices and government commissions, and the consolidation of bureaus while supporting a strong currency that needed to be kept despite any hazards. Doesn't even sound like FDR does it? This was a very conservative platform given the fact that many believed that government needed to ride in and spend big bucks while redistributing the wealth.

This optimism on FDR's part disappeared almost overnight. On September 23, 1932, just a few weeks before the election, Roosevelt spoke from his Progressive heart. "Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has since been reached."(Great Speeches by FDR) Golly shades of what was to come in the Carter and Clinton administrations. Now we know where they got it. Hoover, meanwhile, was furious with this admonishment. He called it a denial "'of the promise of American life'" (The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America).

Despite Hoover's response, there was no chance that the Republicans were going to win in 1932. When Hoover asked FDR after the election about forming a joint commission to end the downward spiral of the nation's economy, FDR turned him down. Probably a bad idea on FDR's part. With the election won, Roosevelt set about formatting and implementing his New Deal. He consolidated more power into the central government then had ever been amassed prior to his administration. It was not and is not a good thing.