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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations Used in the Footnotes
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Old Regime
- Part II Early Progressivism
- Part III Late Progressivism
- Part IV The New Deal
- 18 The Hundred Days
- 19 To the Brink
- 20 The Second New Deal
- 21 The Court Fight
- 22 The Abortive Third New Deal
- 23 The New Deal Court
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Primary Sources
- Index
- References
18 - The Hundred Days
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations Used in the Footnotes
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Old Regime
- Part II Early Progressivism
- Part III Late Progressivism
- Part IV The New Deal
- 18 The Hundred Days
- 19 To the Brink
- 20 The Second New Deal
- 21 The Court Fight
- 22 The Abortive Third New Deal
- 23 The New Deal Court
- Appendix A
- Appendix B
- Primary Sources
- Index
- References
Summary
WAR EQUIVALENTS
The economic crisis that destroyed the Republicans in 1932 was intensified by another banking crisis between the election and the March 1933 inauguration. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office on March 4, the nation’s banking system had frozen. The new president began his inaugural address by blaming the “rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods . . . the unscrupulous money changers,” for the Depression. Using Louis Brandeis’s phrase, he called for an end to “speculation with other people’s money.” The restoration of the economy would require “treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war,” with the American citizenry “a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline.” All would sacrifice for “a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.” The president confidently maintained that “Our Constitution is so simple and so practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by change in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form.” He was ready to “ask Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis – broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The American State from the Civil War to the New DealThe Twilight of Constitutionalism and the Triumph of Progressivism, pp. 231 - 241Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013