George McJimsey. The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. American Presidency Series. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. xvi + 355 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7006-1012-9.
Reviewed by Jonathan M. Schoenwald (Fellow in the Humanities, Stanford University)
Published on (August, 2001)
The Pluralistic Vision of FDR
The Pluralistic Vision of FDR
Nearly seventy years after Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first term as president, there is no shortage of investigations of the most influential executive in the twentieth century. The range of questions discussed in these volumes reflect the general public's and the academic community's fascination with the man and the era: did FDR allow the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in order to draw America into the war? Was the New Deal radical, liberal, or conservative? What did it take for the groups that comprised the Democratic coalition, which dominated American politics for nearly four decades, to rally around FDR and his agenda? How did the New Deal work at the grassroots level and how effective was it for various constituencies? What were the New Deal's and Roosevelt's most lasting legacies? And who has appropriated these legacies most effectively? In 1995, for example, both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich claimed FDR's mantle, although not as we "or FDR himself" might have expected. At the fiftieth anniversary of Roosevelt's death, Clinton told reporters, "We don't need the kind of big, centralized, organized, top-down sort of projects that we had. We can have smaller, less bureaucratic, more entrepreneurial, flexible Government because we're living in a totally different time." At the same time, Gingrich borrowed the "Hundred Days" phrase to describe the Republican capture of Congress, positing the notion that programmatic experimentation was the way of the future.[1] Yet even if historians and audiences have not tired of the man and the era, it is hard not to wonder if there is really anything new to say about FDR.
Seeking to shed light on Roosevelt's skills, style, successes, and failures as a leader, George McJimsey's The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt offers a synthetic examination of FDR through the lens of pluralism. Pluralism, McJimsey tells us, is "an intellectual outlook that emerged in the 1920s," which "assumed social relationships were or could be harmonious, but because such relationships were always changing, harmony required constant adjustments and decisions, each of which created a new reality that required other adjustments and decisions" (p. xii). Such a modus operandi seems guaranteed to drive an executive crazy; a final decision might never be reached. "Pluralism assumed that life was too complex, varied and dynamic to be so organized," and the ideology "did not look for final solutions" (p. 7). But, McJimsey assures us, this is how FDR loved to lead. The author's main task is to illuminate the major events and elements of domestic and foreign policy in the light of pluralism in order to better understand how and why FDR made the decisions and took the paths he did. Therefore, instead of studying, for example, the impact of the New Deal on a local community or constituency, or delving into the primary sources related to American diplomacy leading up to and during the war, McJimsey applies the ideology of pluralism as an explanatory methodology to say something new about FDR. On the whole, he succeeds admirably.
Using mostly secondary sources, McJimsey, a professor at Iowa State University, surveys some familiar ground. The book begins with FDR's life before 1932, including brief background on his upbringing, his election and appointment to public offices, his affliction and coping with polio, his service as a progressive governor of New York, and his first presidential campaign and election. The chapters that follow cover the Hundred Days, the economic, social, and natural resources programs of the New Deal, the politics of the New Deal (which McJimsey tells us is the most important chapter of the book), Eleanor Roosevelt's role in the government, the transformation of the New Deal after 1936, and then the entry into and fighting of World War II. In other words, most of the content is not new stuff, nor is it supposed to be.
McJimsey's major contribution with this volume is to examine the New Deal and the war as a means to understanding the transformation of American government as facilitated by the structures FDR championed. If pluralism was a "continuous process of decision and action, action and decision" (p. 7), the New Deal, after fits and starts and some notable failures (most significantly that of the National Recovery Act), evolved "from the ideal of friendly cooperation to a new form of economic enfranchisement in which separate groups were given the means to organize their interests democratically" (p. 83). In other words, FDR helps transform the vestiges of Progressivism, with the broker state emerging as the executive template for all successive presidents. McJimsey does a good job of illustrating how FDR's style unfolded, beginning with the recruitment of the Brains Trust, the crises of the Hundred Days with its achievements like the TVA, which the author calls the "most unalloyed example of presidential leadership," to the indecision "or, as a pluralist might see it, the action and decision cycle" of trying to shore up the economy (p. 41).
The weight-bearing chapters of the book "on economic and social recovery, FDR's political base, and the limits of the New Deal" are policy history. We don't hear from the American people much, if at all. McJimsey delves deeply into the processes through which Roosevelt and his advisers approached implementing such policies as the AAA, the NRA, the CWA and WPA, and how he assembled a coalition that supported him and the party. Some of these examples are fascinating, such as his profile of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier, who used the plasticity of the New Deal to expose injustices and begin modifying obsolete policies for this oft-ignored minority group (pp. 89-94). At the same time, McJimsey keeps his critical distance, noting that the example illustrates "the complexities of New Deal pluralism," and that "Indians probably benefited more from the New Deal's short-run programs than from Collier's fundamental reforms" (pp. 91 and 93).
Nearly two-thirds of the book is devoted to the New Deal. The American entry into the war and diplomacy with the British and the Soviets occupy the final four chapters. McJimsey bases his narrative on the standard work on this topic, Robert Dallek's Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945, although he takes issue with Dallek, defending FDR against charges of misleading the people in order to escalate American entry into a military conflict (p. 210). As McJimsey acknowledges, FDR used the Greer incident, in which an American destroyer and a British seaplane collaborated against a German U-boat that returned fire against the Americans, to justify escorting supplies shipped to the British under Lend/Lease. But McJimsey sees this deception as limited in scope and not cause enough to chastise FDR (p. 209). When discussing foreign policy the connection with pluralism seems to disappear intermittently, replaced by what is essentially a straight synthesis. McJimsey does consult some primary texts in the chapters on foreign policy, including Roosevelt's papers, Foreign Relations of the United States, a variety of diaries, and other published sources. McJimsey, the author of a biography of Harry Hopkins, gives Hopkins a central role in both these chapters and those dealing with the New Deal, particularly in his capacity as FDR's closest adviser, as head of the WPA, and as the chief negotiator with the British.
A clear admirer of FDR's leadership style, McJimsey lauds the president for using pluralism to govern through "traditional institutions and methods of American democracy" rather than executive orders in a time of crisis, and argues that any failures that came from his leadership came from "bad judgment, not inattention" (pp. 286-87). Here, however, McJimsey might have been a bit more critical. Though McJimsey sees the fault of bad judgment as less cause for alarm than inattention, FDR's judgment, which flowed from his personality, helped frame his decisions. Such a heavy reliance on personality to manage everything from setting the price of gold in 1933-34 to negotiating with Stalin over the fate of Europe, frequently got FDR into trouble. To get out of trouble FDR relied on his confidence, developed in part from having to overcome polio, which helped paper over any gaffes. In other words, to the "action and decision cycle" might be added "overconfidence," which could both cause bad decisions and correct them. Other presidents have been criticized for the same hubris, but McJimsey seems to believe that since Roosevelt meant well, his errors are, for the most part, excusable.
Though McJimsey does not claim his book to be anything other than policy history, this reader wishes he had included the voices of some of the targets of these policies. An admirer of Lizabeth Cohen's work on the New Deal, McJimsey might have made his argument even more convincing had he at times included elements of her methodology, which examines how average Americans accepted and often modified projects on their own.[2] For example, how did Tennesseans respond to the coming of the TVA? Why did the government feel compelled to produce such films as "The Plow that Broke the Plains" and "The River" to sell the New Deal and the TVA to the same people who were supposed to be its beneficiaries? McJimsey dwells briefly on the reception of conservation programs (p. 115), but an uninformed reader would not know of the obstacles facing the actual implementation of New Deal programs and the complex reception many received at ground level, and thus would likely think they enjoyed instant widespread acceptance and success. Some of this comes as a result of relying on Roosevelt's pluralism to explain the impact of his presidency. The reader becomes a fly on the wall when FDR and his advisers make decisions, following the process step-by-step as the action-decision cycle is set in motion. To tell the story of the consequences of those decisions, however, would require tracing pluralism at the ground level, an undertaking that might be a book of its own. Nevertheless, such top-down history at times assumes a black box quality: FDR gathers with his advisers, they bicker, and out pops a decision, which is further refined in similar sessions in the future. Though McJimsey acknowledges the role public opinion plays in FDR's relationship with the press (pp. 133-136) and as a restraining force in 1940-41 (pp. 209-10), the people themselves have no real voice.
This criticism is ironic, for McJimsey^s most inspired writing comes not when he discusses policies, but when he profiles the people behind those policies. Biographical sketches of Hopkins, Eleanor Roosevelt, Francis Perkins, Hugh Johnson, and a handful of others show McJimsey at his finest, including enough details so that the characters come alive but are not overwhelmed by minutiae. This deftness is sometimes in sharp contrast to discussions of policy, during which a reader can be overwhelmed by detail. In short, this volume is appropriate for more advanced readers with some background on FDR (so that they might compare other approaches to the use of pluralism), but undergraduates (except the most advanced) will have a tough time remaining focused.
That said, McJimsey's volume is a welcome addition to the work on FDR and this critical period in the twentieth century. Synthesizing sources and occasionally commenting on other interpretations, McJimsey goes well beyond simply retelling the story of this critical time and leader of the twentieth century. The use of pluralism as a lens through which to understand Roosevelt's leadership style works, and although readers will not discover many new distinct case studies, they will gain a greater, holistic understanding of FDR's vision and the world it helped create.
Notes:
[1]. R.W. Apple, Jr., "Commemorating Roosevelt's Death, Democrats Praise His Legacy of Liberalism," New York Times, April 13, 1995, A10.
[2]. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
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Citation:
Jonathan M. Schoenwald. Review of McJimsey, George, The Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
H-Net Reviews.
August, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5401
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