FDR – Sharing History

“America Was Promises”

May 8, 2024June 15, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On May 7, 1892, a baby boy was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Scottish immigrant and businessman Andrew MacLeish and college professor and president Martha Hillard. Martha named him Archibald, and as he grew, she encouraged in him a love for reading. This love took root in her son, who would go on to become a famous poet, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and influential statesman. Reflecting on his upbringing later, Archibald MacLeish said, “Her insistence on reading those books that had meant most to her . . . was the greatest piece of luck ever. I’ve often wondered how much it had to do with my commitment to poetry. I think I have a guess.”

Archibald MacLeish studied at Yale University where he edited Yale Literary Magazine. After graduation, he attended law school at Harvard University. While a student there, he met and married Ada Hitchcock in 1917. The two were married for 65 years. During MacLeish’s second year of law school, the U.S. entered World War I. MacLeish left to serve in France at a front-line hospital. He later transferred to a field artillery unit. MacLeish referred to WWI as “the most murderous, hypocritical, unnecessary and generally nasty of all recorded wars.” He said, “I had been under fire myself just enough to feel a lack of real purpose, only a presence of accidental mechanical purpose, and it colored the whole experience for me.” MacLeish was discharged in 1919 and returned to finish his law degree, graduating first in his class. During all this, MacLeish never stopped writing.

In 1923, after working for a prestigious Boston law firm for a few years, MacLeish and his wife decided to expatriate to Paris, where MacLeish could focus on his writing. He joined the group of writers often known as “The Lost Generation,” which included such literary legends as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. Of that time, MacLeish said, “what lured us to Paris and held us there was the fact of the magnificent work being done by people from all over the world and in all the arts. This was a period really like the great Quattrocento . . . it was a period of extraordinary achievement.” This was certainly true for MacLeish. He published a series of poems that would go on to become staples of literary anthologies.

In the 30s, MacLeish and his family returned to the U.S. He was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the librarian of Congress and, subsequently, assistant secretary of state. Of this time, MacLeish said, “I think that the reorganization of the Library of Congress . . . was the best thing I did.” In 1949, MacLeish became a professor of rhetoric at Harvard. MacLeish’s works garnered him plenty of attention. Some of his most enduring works are Conquistador, J.B., You, Andrew Marvell, Immortal Autumn, and America Was Promises. The hallmark of a legendary author is that their work is timeless. This certainly feels true of MacLeish’s writing. For example, in the last poem MacLeish wrote before taking the job as librarian of Congress, he explores the idea of America as the promise of the fulfillment of dreams. He writes:

Who is the voyager in these leaves?

Who is the traveler in this journey

Deciphers the revolving night: receives

The signal from the light returning?

America was promises to whom?

East were the

Dead kings and the remembered sepulchres:

West was the grass.

And all beautiful

All before us

America was always promises.

He goes onto suggest that the original promises of America haven’t always been kept. That

the Aristocracy of politic selfishness

Bought the land up: bought the towns: the sites:

The goods: the government: the people. Bled them.

Sold them. Kept the profit. Lost itself.

But he believes there is a chance. MacLeish reminds the reader of freedom-seeking uprisings in

Spain Austria Poland China Bohemia.

There are dead men in the pits in all those countries.

Their mouths are silent but they speak. They say

“The promises are theirs who take them.”

He goes on to implore his generation of Americans that if the promise of their country is not being given to them, they must take it. At the end of his life, MacLeish said of this poem: “Everything about America is based on a beginning which was all promises. We certainly have buggered them, but I guess that’s what mankind does, bugger the promises, and maybe save a few,” a message of action and hope that still seems poignant some eight decades later.

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Smith-Connally and Montgomery Ward

April 26, 2024April 25, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On April 25, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9438. The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to seize control of one of the nation’s most prosperous retail businesses: Montgomery Ward. This controversial step was a prime example of the federal government’s use of the Smith-Connally Act during World War II.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ subsequent entry to the war, President Roosevelt called for a “no-strike pledge” to ensure manufacturing efforts essential to the war effort would continue running. Despite the pledge, instances of strikes increased as the war demanded more production, which meant longer hours and price increases for working-class Americans. In 1943, the United Mines Workers of America went on strike, posing an immediate threat to war production. Roosevelt responded by issuing an executive order allowing the government to seize production themselves. Roosevelt also signed legislation making it illegal to interrupt essential war production through strikes. Moving one step further, two Congress members, Senator Connally and Representative Smith passed a bill (the Smith-Connally Act) giving the president power to seize production of any company that was seen as important to the war effort in any way. This was not a popular bill, even with the president. Roosevelt vetoed it when it came across his desk, arguing that the bill would increase tensions between management and workers. The veto was overturned by Congress.

In 1944, trouble started with Montgomery Ward, a retail company second only to Sears Roebuck in mail-order sales. The company’s CEO, Sewell L. Avery, who was no great fan of the president, refused to comply with agreements made with the United Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Avery was reprimanded and ordered to comply by the National War Labor Board, as Montgomery Ward supplied parts used in military aircraft and agricultural machinery. Avery refused, claiming that Montgomery Ward’s business was mostly not war related, though the company had certainly taken advantage of grants of priority status from the War Production Board, giving them access to materials that were difficult to source during wartime. Finally, in April 1944, Roosevelt issued an executive order to seize Montgomery Ward’s Chicago facilities. Sewell refused to stand down and had to be carried from the building by members of the National Guard, resulting in an iconic photo (be sure to look it up; it doesn’t disappoint). The move was not popular. A Gallup poll showed that 60% of Americans thought the seizure was a mistake and an instance of government overreach. The government yielded control two weeks later.

In December that year, Montgomery Ward was seized by the federal government for a second time for the same reason. In a statement given by Roosevelt about the seizure, he said, “The Government of the United States cannot and will not tolerate any interference with war production in this critical hour . . . Strikes in wartime cannot be condoned, whether they are strikes by workers against their employers or strikes by employers against their Government.” The government held control of the company until the war ended the next year.

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The Vaccine that Eradicated Polio

February 23, 2024February 22, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On February 23, 1954, the first injections of the polio vaccine were given to a group of children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. The vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, has virtually eradicated polio worldwide over the last 70 years. In 1952, two years before the vaccine was introduced, the U.S. alone had an outbreak of over 58,000 polio cases, which killed 3,000 and paralyzed 21,000 Americans, mostly children. In 2021, only two cases of polio were recorded worldwide.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an extremely contagious virus that causes muscle deterioration and paralysis. In the early 20^th century, polio ran rampant around the world, posing great risk to school-age children, especially. Many who survived the disease were paralyzed, some even saw paralysis of the muscles needed to breathe, leaving them to live inside a large metal tube called an iron lung. In 1921, future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio, which left him paralyzed. While president in the 1940s, President Roosevelt founded an organization called March of Dimes that aimed to raise money to research a cure for polio. It was this organization that hired Dr. Jonas Salk to do research on the disease.

Salk’s research led him to a vaccine that built immunity to polio without actually infecting the patient with the disease. He tested it first on his own family before it was used to inoculate millions of children in the U.S. and Canada. In 1957, annual polio cases in the U.S. had dropped from 58,000 to 5,600. By 1961, there were 161 cases. The polio vaccine had about 90% efficacity against the poliomyelitis virus. Salk knew that with universal vaccination, polio could be completely eliminated from the world. In order to ensure that the vaccine would be available to everyone, Salk did not patent the vaccine nor did he collect money from the production. When asked about who owned the patent, he famously said, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Polio is one of many diseases that has been virtually eradicated thanks to the science of vaccines, including smallpox, measles, and diptheria. Unfortunately, we are seeing a resurgence of many of these diseases in the U.S. as anti-intellectualism rises, misinformation abounds, and parents refuse to vaccinate their children.

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The Attempted Assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt

February 16, 2024February 15, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On February 15, 1933, President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt (this was pre-20^th Amendment, so the inauguration would have been in March) was in Miami following a cruise vacation. While there, Roosevelt’s staff planned for him to give a short speech at Bayfront Park before boarding a train to head north. With him at this speech was Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. He intended to meet up with the President-Elect to discuss the possibility of an RFC loan to the city of Chicago. Despite the fact that this was supposed to be a short stop for both men, one of them would not walk away from the encounter.

Following Roosevelt’s speech, he and his security team started moving toward their vehicle. Mayor Cermak approached Roosevelt at this point for their discussion. In this moment, a man named Giuseppe Zangara pulled a pistol from his pocket, took aim at the President-Elect, and began shooting. Zangara didn’t expect that the woman sitting next to him, Mrs. W. H. Cross would grab his arm, deflecting his aim. Regardless, Zangara continued shooting until all six bullets had been spent. Five of the six bullets injured six people, including Mayor Cermak, Robert Clark (one of Roosevelt’s Secret Service agents,) a chauffeur, a retired policeman, Mrs. Joe Gill (there with her husband who was the president of Florida Power and Light Company,) and a night club entertainer.

As the shots rang out, Roosevelt’s security team pushed him into his car and ordered the driver to pull out. Roosevelt told the driver to stop until wounded Cermak could be loaded into his car. Roosevelt later recounted, “. . . we put him in our car. He was alive, but I was afraid he wouldn’t last. I held him all the way.” The car drove to Jackson Memorial Hospital, a place Cermak would never leave. He died from his injuries 19 days after the shooting.

Zangara said he decided to assassinate the president because he hated all people with wealth and power. He also cited a medical condition for his rage. He said that his stomach hurt all the time, and the pain and anger turned to hate, which turned to violence. Zangara was initially charged with attempted murder; however, after Cermak’s death, he was charged with murder and sentenced to death by electric chair.

It is reported that upon arriving at Jackson Memorial, Mayor Cermak said to President-Elect Roosevelt, “I am mighty glad it was me instead of you . . . the country needs you.” As Cermak pointed out, it’s hard to imagine what might have happened if Zangara had been successful that day and Roosevelt hadn’t served his four terms as president.

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Transforming the Workplace: The Fair Labor Standards Act

October 24, 2023December 3, 2023Labor HistoryLeave a Comment

On October 24, 1940, the Fair Labor Standards Act, passed two years earlier, went into effect in the United States. A sweeping reform bill that included provision for a federal minimum wage, weekly limits on working hours, and heavy restrictions on child labor, the act changed the labor market, setting the standards that we abide by now. There has been a call in the last few years for labor reform to adjust the workplace to the world we live in now. So, how did they make it happen in 1938?

A change in labor standards was an election promise by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt began his first term under the shadow of the Great Depression. He signed the National Industrial Recovery Act, hoping to raise wages and create jobs. There were provisions for a shorter work week, a $12 per week minimum wage, and child labor restrictions. Unfortunately, most parts of the bill, including restrictions on child labor, were struck down as unconstitutional by the Republican-dominated Supreme Court at the time. This sentiment trickled down through the circuit courts as well. One judge said, “the so-called Child Labor Amendment . . . will result in the filing, by the coming generations, of the reformatory institutions and prisons beyond their capacity. The failure of parents to teach and compel children to perform reasonable and proper labor while yet young is the prime cause of the wave of crime in this country.”

In 1936, Roosevelt campaigned on labor reform as the basis for his second term. He won the election 523 electoral votes to 8. He felt that this proved the country’s commitment to labor reform. To encourage change, Roosevelt suggested that he might add seats to the Supreme Court to be sure the three branches of legislature were on the same page. Shortly after, conservative Justice Owen Roberts sided with the liberal judges in a case regarding minimum wage. This opened the gate to more legislation moving through the House and Senate regarding minimum wage, child labor, and weekly hour ceilings. Frances Perkins, Roosevelt’s Labor Secretary and the first female member of the cabinet, worked tirelessly to put together labor reform packages that would accomplish what they wanted while still appealing to the Republican members of Congress. What finally convinced Republicans to move the bill through were two Senate seats in Republican strongholds that were lost to pro-labor reform candidates. At this point, many Republican congress members seemed ready to make a deal. The bill that finally made it through in 1938—the Fair Labor Standards Act—provided for a 40-cent-per-hour minimum wage, a 40-hour work week, and a restriction on hiring children under the age of 16.

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On This Day: The Bonus Marchers

July 28, 2023July 31, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

During WWI, approximately 4.2 million young Americans served as part of the US Army. About half of those were drafted. As a soldier, young men could expect to be paid about $1.00 per day of service, while friends at home working were making 10 times that. As the war drew to a close, WWI veterans thought they deserved more pay and lobbied for an additional service bonus, something they received in 1924 when Congress passed a bill that promised veterans a cash bonus that would be paid out in 1945. Perhaps this promise would have satisfied the veterans had it not been for the Great Depression.

As the depression pushed on and people were unable to provide necessities for their families, WWI veterans pushed Congress for an early payout on their bonuses. Early in 1932, Representative Wright Patman introduced a bill to Congress that would do just that. Encouraged by the bill and inspired by their First Amendment rights, WWI veterans from all over the country traveled to Washington D.C. to petition Congress to pass the bill. Within a few weeks, over 20,000 veterans had set up camp along the Anacostia River. They called themselves the Bonus Marchers.

In June 1932, the bonus bill was passed in the House and then struck down in the Senate. The government expected that the Bonus Marchers would return home. But they stayed. The Washington police were sent in to evict the marchers from their camp along the river. Unfortunately, the altercation ended in violence and two Bonus Marchers were shot.

On July 28, 1932, President Herbert Hoover sent in the US Army, led by Army chief of staff Douglas MacArthur, to break up the camp. The army marched in and began burning the camp to the ground. Bonus Marchers fled as the army attacked with tear gas. As one might imagine, the images and newsreel of this eviction did not play well with American voters. President Hoover and MacArthur looked like the villains in the Bonus Marchers’ story. A few months later, Hoover lost the presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

4 years later, in 1936, the bonus bill finally passed, and the WWI veterans finally received their promised bonuses. In 1944, the GI Bill was passed, which helps veterans receive monetary and other benefits after their service.

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May History Hits: The Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge

May 26, 2022May 26, 2022UncategorizedLeave a Comment

The 1937 opening of the Golden Gate Bridge was a week-long affair dubbed the “Golden Gate Fiesta. “ The event started with a pedestrian only opening on May 27th and then opened to automobiles on May 28th after US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key.

According to the Library of Congress, during the May 27th “Pedestrian Day” over 200,000 people paid a princely sum of 25 cents each to walk the bridge. Black and white films of the day show the excitement and energy.

The Blue Lake Advocate, a Northern California newspaper, reported on an in person visit to the nearly completed bridge by Eleanor Roosevelt earlier that month on May 6, 1937. The paper called her, “M Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Lady of the Land,” and said that she wanted to make a personal inspection of the bridge. She was escorted on this pilgrimage by San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi; James Reed, general manager of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District; Mrs. Arthur M. Brown Jr., chairman of the women’s division of the Fiesta; and Charles Duncan of the chief engineer’s office.

It’s interesting that the fiesta had a “women’s division.”

The First Lady’s party could not fully traverse the bridge because of construction, but when she got out to take in the view, Roosevelt was quoted as saying, “It’s one of the greatest sights I have ever seen.”

The Golden Gate Bridge was constructed over a four year span after a $35 million construction bond was approved in1930, and has become an iconic symbol of San Francisco. The 4,200 square foot suspension bridge depends on steel cables to endure the earthquakes that impact the region.

To learn more, visit these resources:

The Library of Congress, The Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge
California Digital Newspaper Collection, “Blue Lake Advocate,” May 6, 1937

April History Hits: When FDR Seized Montgomery Ward

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022Labor HistoryLeave a Comment

In fairness to Franklin D. Roosevelt, he didn’t want to do it. But, Sewell Avery, the CEO of Montgomery Ward, was refusing to work with labor unions, and the US was a country at war.

Montgomery Ward & Co.S Building, Chicago Source: Wikimedia Commons

At the time, Chicago-based Montgomery Ward was equivalent to Amazon today. According to Matthew Waxman, a law professor at Columbia University, “By 1943, Montgomery Ward served 30 million customers not only through mail-order deliveries but also via 600 stores and 78,000 employees in 47 states. Two-fifths of U.S. mail-order business went through Montgomery Ward, as did one-fifth of all manufactured products purchased by American farmers.”

Avery had capitulated to Roosevelt once in 1942, but by the beginning months of 1944, he was not having it. Roosevelt’s fear was that a labor strike would interfere with the war effort, and according to the War Labor Disputes Act of 1943, the National War Labor Board could get in the middle of anything that might lead to a “substantial interference with the war effort.”

According to Waxman, Montgomery Ward’s attorneys maintained that Roosevelt was overstepping in the matter. On April 25, 1944, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9438, where he proclaimed “that there are existing and threatened interruptions of the operations of the plants and facilities of Montgomery Ward and Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, as a result of labor disturbances arising from the failure of Montgomery Ward and Company to comply with directive orders of the National War Labor Board.”

Roosevelt ordered his then Secretary of Commerce, Jesse H. Jones, who hailed from my hometown of Houston, Texas, to seize control of Montgomery Ward’s headquarters, retail store, mail order house and warehouse in Chicago and to operate them for the “successful prosecution of the war.”

When a federal dispatch consisting of US Marshalls, deputies and soldiers visited Avery at the headquarters they were not only met with verbal resistance, but Avery refused to leave his office chair leading to the amusing photo that headlined throughout the country at time showing him being literally carried out of his office.

Sewell Avery being forced from his office
Source: Iconic Photos

Waxman, who made the extraordinary effort to read and summarize for us the very best part of Attorney General Francis Biddle’s memories on the incident who noted that Secretary of War Henry Stimson had pleaded unsuccessfully with Roosevelt that “[E]very man was needed in the war effort; it is a great army, Mr. President, it must not be sent to act as clerks to sell women’s panties over the counter of a store.”

As a woman, I take exception to the fact that Stimson found our under-clothing the furthest possible thing from a successful prosecution of the war, but I get his point, rude as it may be.

Avery fired back in several ways including a statement released to the Associated Press on May 10, 1944 and reprinted in the New York Times where he called the seizure illegal and demanded that the matter be resolved in court. “Ward’s has been deprived of its property by force and bayonets,” he wrote.

According to Waxman, due to public disapproval, the government released Montgomery Ward back to Avery two weeks later, but then seized the company again, and this time they seized control in nine cities including Chicago after a labor strike broke out at the end of 1944. Litigation ensued and it looked like the government would win, but the end of the war brought an end to the matter.

To learn more about the Montgomery Ward Seizures, visit these resources:

Lawfare: Remembering the Montgomery Ward Seizure: FDR and War Production Powers
War Labor Disputes Act of 1943
Executive Order 9438
In Brief Authority, the Memoir of Francis Biddle
The New York Times: Text of Avery’s Statement

When FDR and Churchill Created the United Nations

December 31, 2020January 1, 2021UncategorizedLeave a Comment

People have varying opinions about the United Nations (UN), which is a 75-year-old intergovernmental peacekeeping organization. But whatever your opinion, there is no doubt that the UN has played a major role in shaping world history since its inception on New Year’s Day, January 1942.

Source: Wikipedia The Poster, created by United States Office of War Information and made by the United States Government Printing Office.

Before the United Nations, there was the League of Nations, which was initiated at the close of World War I during the Paris Peace Conference. The Covenant under which the League of Nations was organized only involved the five major superpowers at the time, namely, France, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, a fact that is pointed to as a reason the organization failed. Also, there is the not so small issue that regardless of covenants or organizational structure, the League of Nations failed to prevent World War II.

The United Nations, whose name was coined by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was formed during the course of World War II, not after, and consisted of a group of countries intent on putting down the Axis powers and reinstating world peace.

Roosevelt and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, led the charge to form the United Nations and were initially joined by the head of the USSR and China in signing the initial brief declaration document on January 1, 1942. The next day, 22 other countries joined the party including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, Union of South Africa and Yugoslavia.

Later this group was joined by Mexico, Philippines, Ethiopia, Iraq, Brazil, Bolivia, Iran, Colombia, Liberia, France, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon. (Source: The UN)

The initial declaration talked about the “common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world.” These were powerful words during a frightening time.

Source: National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Three years later in June of 1945, the details of how the United Nations would work and exist were hammered out at the San Francisco Conference by the initial signers of the declaration (a/k/a the group listed above).

By the time the San Francisco Conference was held, Roosevelt had died and Harry S. Truman was now President. Truman spoke to the delegates ahead of the conference with eloquent wisdom that really captures the focus on the UN at that time. He said: “If we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace.” (Source: UN Foundation)

Another famous quote about the United Nations that is often wrongly attributed to Churchill read, “The UN was not created to take humanity to heaven, but to save it from hell.” If you are thinking about buying a kitchen magnet on Amazon with Churchill as the author, don’t. That comment was actually made later during the 1950s by the second secretary-general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld.

What Churchill did famously say, which many people attribute to the UN was, “It is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.”

If you have the opportunity to buy THAT refrigerator magnet, do it, but just know that Churchill didn’t actually say it about the United Nations. He said it in June 1954, while speaking to Congress about the threat of the spread of communism, as reported by the New York Times.

Source: Yousuf Karsh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

But the UN has used that line, often, even in their job recruitment materials. And they should, it’s classic Churchill, and perfect.

Through the years, the UN has expanded to include agency organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and further extended its initial charter beyond peacekeeping to other issues such as human rights.

World leaders have remained largely supportive of the UN, but there have also been a few critics. US President Donald J. Trump voiced his opinion in a 2017 speech arguing that the United States “bears an unfair cost burden, but to be fair if it could actually accomplish all of its stated goals — especially the goal of peace — this investment would easily be well worth it.” (Source: GlobalCitizen.org)

Despite these comments, the United States, even during the Trump presidency, has remained the largest supporter of the UN and has not followed through with any significant funding cuts. Trump has, however, been incredibly critical of the WHO’s handling of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.