The New Deal and the Political Party System

The New Deal and the Political Party System Richard M. Skinner

The Great Depression • The stock market crash of 1929 ended the prosperity of the Twenties. • By 1933, unemployment reached 24%. Widespread bank failures threatened the very survival of the economy.

Living in “Hooverville” • Before the crash, Herbert Hoover had been widely admired for his work feeding starving Europeans after World War I. • Republicans had been seen as the party of prosperity: “ The Full Dinner Pail,” “A Chicken in Every Pot.” The party had held the White House for 28 of the previous 36 years. • Neither reputation survived the Depression.

Franklin D. Roosevelt • FDR was a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt and his wife was T.R.’s niece. Early in his career, he was widely seen as mostly trading on his famous surname. • He had served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson, and had been the 1920 Democratic nominee for Vice President. • He was then stricken with polio.

“A Second-Class Mind…” • FDR was elected governor of New York in 1928, when incumbent Al Smith ran unsuccessfully for president. • He quickly became the leading Democratic contender for the 1932 presidential nomination.

…But a First-Class Temperament” • Despite a mostly incoherent campaign, Roosevelt trounced Hoover with 57% of the vote, the largest Democratic victory since before the Civil War. • FDR had a mandate to do something to alleviate the suffering of the Depression.

A New Deal • FDR’s answer was to greatly expand the role played by the federal government in the nation’s economy. • Higher taxes on the rich. • Huge public works projects to create jobs. • Old-age and disability pensions. • Unemployment compensation. • More regulation of business. • Federal deposit insurance.

“The President Wants You to Join” • FDR’s policies favored the growth of labor unions; union membership grew from 12% of the workforce in 1930 to 35% in 1945. • The National Labor Relations Act (known as the “Wagner Act” for Sen. Robert Wagner) guaranteed the right of unions to collectively bargain.

A New Ally • The fastest growing unions were those who belonged to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), founded in 1937. • They were far larger and more politicized than their predecessors. • They became a major constituency for FDR and the Democratic Party.

Continuity… • FDR tried to identify his program with the “common-man” politics of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. • He built upon William Jennings Bryan’s and Woodrow Wilson’s acceptance of an activist government to help ordinary people.

… and Change • But FDR expanded the federal government far beyond the imagination of politicians of both parties. • Many fear that he was taking the nation to socialism, communism or fascism. • Conservative Democrats (including Al Smith) warned that FDR was breaking with the party’s Jeffersonian traditions of localism and laissez-faire. • Conservatives (and even some progressives) in both parties feared the destruction of America’s democratic institutions.

“Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Roosevelt!” • During FDR’s first term, congressional Democrats let him get his way on most matters. • They were fearful that the Depression could get even worse. • They thought that FDR was saving the country. • They were grateful that their party was in power after spending a generation as a minority. • Most powerful Democrats were from the South, the nation’s poorest region, which benefited disproportionately from the New Deal.

“Court-packing” • But in FDR’s second term, conservative Democrats (especially Southerners) began to revolt. • Angered by the Supreme Court’s repeated overturning of New Deal legislation, FDR proposed expanding its size and imposing a mandatory retirement age.

A Dictator? • Members of both parties united in opposition to FDR’s “court-packing” proposal. The Supreme Court began upholding New Deal programs. • “Court-packing” failed in Congress. And conservatives – including FDR’s own Vice President John Nance Garner – began to say that the president was out of control.

The “Conservative Coalition” • Southern Democrats began breaking with FDR on economic issues, too, such as the regulation of wages and hours. • With the economy sagging again, the Republicans scored major gains in the 1938 midterm elections. • For decades to come, Congress would be dominated by a “conservative coalition” of Republicans and Southern Democrats.

The New Deal Realignment • Despite being split between northern liberals and southern conservatives, the Democratic Party had gained a majority. • It won every presidential election from 1932 to 1948. • It held a clear edge in party identification until the 1980s. • It controlled the House of Representatives until the 1990s, with two short exceptions.

The Party Roosevelt Builds • FDR splits the electorate along class lines, with the poor and working class backing the Democrats. • Many wealthier Americans saw FDR as playing to class warfare. He called them “economic royalists.”

Unions and the Democrats • Labor unions became a cornerstone of the Democratic coalition and have remained one to this day.

City Slickers • Unlike Bryan or Wilson, FDR enjoyed more popularity in big cities than in rural areas. • Many cities that had once been competitive between the parties became solidly Democratic. • Rewarded with patronage and government spending, the Democratic machines in those cities became important supporters of FDR and his successors. • These cities had concentrations of union members, blacks, Jews and Catholics – all groups supportive of FDR.

Catholics and Jews • Many recently arrived immigrants had not voted in the 1920s, but turned out in 1928 to back Al Smith and in the 1930s to back FDR. • Long a Democratic constituency, Catholics especially appreciated FDR’s ending of Prohibition. • Generally supportive of FDR’s progressive policies, Jews especially admired his tough stance against Hitler. • Both groups were still mostly working-class, and were well represented in the ranks of organized labor, as well as those of urban machines.

“The Great Migration” • During the early 20th century, both political parties ignored black voters and accepted the racial status quo. • But as African-Americans left the South for Northern cities (beginning around World War I), white politicians increasingly had to pay attention to their concerns.

“The White Man’s Party” • Franklin D. Roosevelt led a Democratic Party whose base of support lay in the South and had a long history of support for “white supremacy.” He himself had little interest in the issue of civil rights.

A New Deal for Blacks? • But FDR had an unusual opportunity to win votes from African-Americans. • While his “New Deal” programs still sometimes discriminated against blacks, they provided essential aid to the poor and unemployed. • FDR also appointed blacks to some, mostly symbolic, government positions. • Perhaps for the first time since Reconstruction, black citizens felt they had a friend in the White House.

“Miss Eleanor” • FDR especially used his wife, Eleanor, as an emissary to the black community.

“Mr. Roosevelt, You’re My Man!” • In 1936, black voters broke with decades of Republican loyalty to back FDR. • For example, FDR’s vote in black neighborhoods of Cleveland jumped from about 18% in ’32 to about 60%. • In the next few elections, about 70% of blacks voted Democratic.

Liberal Democrats • Many liberal intellectuals and reformers had been suspicious of the Democrats. They often had been “Bull Moose” Republicans, Socialists, or independent Progressives. • The New Deal brought them into the Democratic coalition, including many powerful jobs in the administration. • Harold Ickes, an ardent liberal (and civil rights backer) and a one-time supporter of Theodore Roosevelt and Robert LaFollette, served as FDR’s Secretary of the Interior.

The “Solid South” • The South remained loyal to the Democrats in the 1930s and 1940s. • It was still a desperately poor region, where many still made their living as farmers. • Even conservative Southerners appreciated New Deal programs such as rural electrification and farm price supports.

“The Solid South” • Southern Democrats in Congress enjoyed virtually lifetime tenure, allowing them to build the seniority that made them chairmen of many powerful committees. • At home, the Democratic Party remained in the hands of conservatives sworn to uphold limited government and white supremacy. • So even the most anti-New Deal Southerners saw little reason to leave the party.

“The Solid South” • But conservative Southern Democrats remained fearful of FDR’s expansion of the federal government. At home, they successfully fought union organizers. • While FDR avoided the civil rights issue, many white Southerners still resented the power of black voters and liberal activists in the North. • Even small gestures angered them. In 1936, Sen. Ellison “Cotton Ed” Smith (SC) walked out of the Democratic convention when a black minister presented a prayer.

The New Deal and the Political Party System