Advisers talk about the actions taken in the 1930s and early 1940s bring the country back from the Great Depression. Joining them at the Roosevelt Library and museum in new york was fdrs own grandson, James Roosevelt, junior. Its about an hour and 45 minutes. How do weed at connect whats going on in the world tonight what happened in the roosevelt area. This was one of the ideas that has been vital. How do we make the Roosevelt Legacy in living part of our history . A great champion of the Roosevelt Legacy and of one of my favorite actors, Frances Perkins. I will let chris introduced the rest of the panel. There is a small family, committed family of roosevelts. I am a newbie in this world. I have been welcomed warmly. I appreciate that. But there are a few who have been more dedicated and more thoughtful in their writings about it. Please welcome chris bryson. [applause] thank you. We have all come to count on the new deal safety net to remain secure. But in a time when much that had seemed secure is coming unstuck, we need to remind yourselves of what that new deal legacy is, and how it came about in the first place. Understanding is history is crucial to preserving it. The impact of disregarding our history, the disease we are painfully aware has afflicted us at the highest levels, can seriously undermine the foundations of the new deal programs, as of other institutions that were created after circumstances that now seem to be threatened. We are fortunate to have the grandchildren of the leaders and pieced together the new deal in response to a disintegration of american society, happening because of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Their grandparents, including franklin and eleanor roosevelt, henry a wallace, Frances Perkins, and Harry Hopkins, had a vision of what government could do, indeed must do, to meet the urgent needs of all americans. They had a vision. Acting upon that vision, they dramatically change the relationship between the American People and their government. And through that relationship, the way americans learned to deal with and help each other as fellow citizens. Today, these grandchildren, James Roosevelt junior, David Wallace douglas and jane , hopkins, whose comments will read because a family emergency prevents her from being with us. First, we will describe the contributions to create the new deal. Then we will ask them to help us shape a vision that can inform our future efforts to meet the needs of our country as it negotiates vast social, economic, and cultural challenges, both within our nation and within a World Society increasingly tightly built. The job is nothing, the new deal policies and programs, but to capture the vision of what our society is becoming and to begin to look at how our government, which is the instrument of all the people, how it can respond to the needs of all our people. This is what their grandparents did in the 1930s. We need to do this for the 20 20s. We had the opportunity today with a National Audience to capture the spirit of the new dealers and project that spirit forward beyond the immediate crises of our political present, to our future as a people and as a crucial player as a whole human family. You have brief biographical introductions to our speakers. So let me turn to them directly and have them say whatever is of moments to suggest their own careers as a way of leading to interpreting their grandparents. Let me first begin with the grandson of franklin and eleanor roosevelt, James Roosevelt junior. [applause] thank you. Let me begin by saying how appreciative we are of the work that chris does. Many of you in this room join him in that effort. It is very important. And also paul sperry. Paul spero. Just a word of thanks. [applause] i was born in 1945, about six months after my grandfather passed away. I grew up with the legacy of the new deal in place. As a young person, probably as we all do when we are young, some things had always been that way. In fact, only a dozen years before i was born, this is a country of desperation. In fact, it was probably true around the world. But focusing on this country, think about the level of unemployment. Millions of people unemployed. One third of potential workers unemployed. Think about the poverty that existed in this country. Today, we focus on inequality and there is real poverty there. But we should be at a point in the United States of america where one terrible event after another was prefaced by the word hoover overfill, hoover mobile hooverville, hoovermobile that was the situation in this country. My wifes family, i hear stories about relatives who lived for a week on oatmeal in those days. Not for breakfast, for every meal all week. That is the kind of poverty that existed in what we would today call middleclass family. A brother who was an educator, a phd, a brother who was a priest, and members of the Family Living on oatmeal. I think of the lack of opportunity for education. Indeed, my own mother, who was the valedictorian of a small Town High School where she grew up, going a few tens over to state teachers college, but then dropping out because her family could not afford to feed and shelter themselves and clothes themselves if she stayed in college. And she switched, which ended up quite providentially, to a nursing career. Nursing school in those days provided a place to live and three meals a day. No pay, accept for a very small stipend. But a place to live and eat all you got a professional education. She ended up being a nurse at the hospital that was part of the mayo clinic, and my father ended up being a patient there. That worked out ok, but it gives you an idea an idea of the decisions that families face, even if they had the ability and the intent of striving for education. The lack of infrastructure in this country we talk about our crumbling infrastructure today the reason we have crumbling infrastructure, of course, is underfunding. But because a lot of infrastructure was built after the new deal was started, there were not the roads or even the electricity or means of communication that could help a country build it self out of the depression that it was in. And in those times, just a dozen years before, real racial tension in isolation. Because we focus on the later events of the civil rights movement, we dont read much about that, but that was a real factor in the Great Depression as well. My grandfather, fdr, was not a politician of ideology. In fact, newspaper columnists, like walter litman, thought he was shallow because he didnt talk about ideology. He was in the best sense of the word a populist. He focused on what would improve peoples lives, both in terms of the direct services, which i will talk about in a minute, but also regulation of the forces that had gotten them into this situation. His definition of populist did not exploit or divide people. It was about focusing on the needs of americans. And what he saw was the need for change, the need for hope, and the need for action. To paraphrase what he said what he focused on was to paraphrase him the country needs, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. Take a method and try it. If it fails, try another. But above all, try something. And what that really captured was the contrast between the prenew deal government, which was passive, totally relied on the market have you heard that lately . Totally reliant on the market, laissezfaire government. It failed. The new deal counted that countered that failure with an activist government. A regulated degree regulated the greed of the private sector. Think of all of the programs are comprised the new deal. Immediately, the banking bill, federal deposit insurance, so people could be secure with the money in banks, reading the risky activities of banks from the deposit activities with the glasssteagall act, the creation of the securities and Exchange Commission and the set of securities laws so that the Financial Sector actually operated with some transparency and reliability. The end of prohibition, which not only make people happier [laughter] but was aimed directly at doing away with a criminal conspiracy to evade a law that did not have broad support. We might see that going on again right now actually. They agricultural adjustment act to keep farmers in business. The civilian conservation corps, which was so important in providing jobs for younger men in those days to save money home to their families. My mothers brother was one of those core members. We honored surviving conservation Corps Members who had intended to be here, but due to transportation difficulties, wasnt. Look how that combined jobs and conservation. My mothers brother going to conservation corps when she had to drop out of college. Not only did he receive a job in the selfesteem that that brought, the money to send to his family, he had no health care for the first time in his life. Unfortunately, for the first time in his life, he identified severe diabetes and he died of it. Had he had access to health care before that, he might have been treated even in those days, when we dont have the treatments that we have today. The homeowners loan corporation, which help people restructure their mortgages to avoid foreclosure. Had a little bit of that in the great recession, but not enough. That was very important in the new deal. The federal emergency relief act, which provided cash to people who were in desperate situations. The pwa and the cwa the Public Works Administration and the civil works administration, later on the Works Project Administration. Huge effects in, again, directly providing people jobs, which was so important, both for the income and the selfesteem that they created. And, of course, the great buildings and Arts Projects and literature that they produced. When you look at even today at post offices and libraries and roads and parks. The labor rights legislation, leading to the wagner act and the right to organize and so on. The National Recovery organization, which was found unconstitutional by the supreme court, but set out the process of finding a way for businesses to cooperate, to stay in business. And very important to me and the work i have had a chance to do in my life, the Social Security act, which was so important because a lot of it affects whole families. Yes, it provided for a decent retirement for older people, but it also meant that families could save to send kids to college, that families did not have to take care on their own of their older family members. And is part of the Social Security act, beyond retirement, which is what we all think of and which later added disability coverage, equally important, the concept of unemployment compensation, when people lost jobs. And of minimum wage, also part of the Social Security act. The National Youth administration and directly at jobs for young people. The food, drug and cosmetic bill. If you talk about regulation that actually meant something valuable in peoples lives, there had not been agile regulation of dangerous or possibly effective but certified safe food and drug and cosmetics before that. I think of that regulation has become a dirty word. But so much regulation is so important. I even think about you know, you take hoover my which claimed itself the end of regulations. Fortunately, cities like new york and states like massachusetts have runways to regulate now for uber drivers, for fairness in ridehailing. And fairness for those employees as well. The federal housing administration, which we still have for fha loans, the u. S. Housing authority, which began for the firsttime federal construction of housing for the poor. And the fair labor standards act, which included limits on work hours and age of workers and so on. What is amazing to me is that nothing none of this existed before the new deal. What is amazing is that much of it still does exist today. What is amazing to me today is that much of it is still under attack. And what is amazing is that much of it still needs expansion. For one example, Social Security benefits should be raised. That would do something to convince people under 40 that Social Security will be there for them, which, by the way, it will. It is actuarially sound. And then subsequently, the legacy of the new deal has finally fired Health Care Coverage and access. Medicare and medicaid in the 60s and the Affordable Care act in our time. I could go on about that because that is my day job, but i wont. [laughter] and because my wife is tommy i just use all my time. My wife is telling me i just use all my time. But the new deal philosophy was the government should intervene to help americans. That is the basic principle. Then, as now, powerful forces preached that government was the problem. That resurfaced in about 1980. Whether it is conservatives as it was called then, libertarians as it is called later, or altright, the goal is to lead people on their own. The spirit of the new dealers is to adapt to the needs of the people. This is the longterm battle and this is what the concept of the new deal and the role of government is about. [applause] and now, David Wallace douglas, the grandson of henry a guard wallace. It is good to be here again. Thank you to politic racing to bash thanks to paul and to chris and to kathy for helping make this possible today. For henry a wallace, my grandfather, the contribution begins with agriculture. He was secretary of agriculture during fdrs first two terms, and at a time when 40 of the country population lived on farms. Because of his background as an iowa farm editor, as a scientist, as the founder of what would become the nations largest feed corn company, and thanks to fdrs strong backing, edge hair a Henry Wallace and the new deal lifted the farm economy out of the depression, stabilizing prices by controlling excess production with government incentives. He and the new deal instituted soil and for stream restoration. Wallaces department of agriculture started food stamps. Or if theres less injured, no front, by the late 18th woodys 1940s called him the best secretary of agriculture the country had ever have. Wallace was talking was writing about ecological sustainability back in the 1920s and 1930s. I attribute to him and his mother i attribute to him and his sister jean, my mother, the sustainability of water and soil. My wife and i will be married or to use. The first book i ever gave her when we were dating was the classic romantic volume titled topsoil and civilization. [laughter] i think the second key contribution of Henry Wallace in the new deal, in 1940, fdr declared he would not run for a third term without Henry Wallace. Wallaces predecessor had cleared the office not worth a bucket of warm spit. But Henry Wallace used in the office to head up a key warrelated boards and played a vital role in its and persuading latin american countries to come into the war on the allied side. To define the causes for the fighting of the war, including Economic Justice and freedom and to provide a vision of postwar global order without american domination or british imperialism. One speech of particular that became the history of the common man speech, an editor called for the american century, a theme i think donald trump has doubled down on. Wallace envisioned in the 1940s instead a century where no nation will have the godgiven right to exploit other nations or older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization. As a quick aside, wallaces words provided the basis for Aaron Coplands musical piece called fanfare for the common man. This global view, his concern for global poverty, that others have adequate substance system sustenance has influenced my own work to increase funding for povertyfocused foreign assistance. The third and last point to make about Henry Wallaces contribution to the new deal was after he left the vice presidency. Fdr appointed him secretary of commerce. But after being fired by truman in 1946 first speeches trying to slow the cold war and the arms race with russia, Henry Wallace, first as editor of the new republic and then on a run for president with the progressive party, try to speak out for such new deal policies as higher minimum wage, decent housing, improved health care, the rights for working people, and desegregation. As well as u. S. Commitment to the. Wallace refused to for segregated audiences in the jim crow south or to stay in segregated or to stay in allwhite accommodations. He and his supporters were rough up. Rough up. Wallace warren of a democracy that was fanatically defensive of freedom. In trying to avoid the militarization of the as it emerged from world war ii as the worlds most powerful nation, k wrote the destiny and salvation of the u. S. Is to serve the world, not to dominate it. I always admired my grandfathers willingness to take unpopular positions and bear the costs. What was it like, i wondered, to go from being one of the nations most popular political leaders in the new deal to getting vilified and pelted with eggs as you campaigned. Henry wallace showed similar strength of character later in life after he left politics. He carried on speaking and writing, returning to scientific research, devising new strains of plants, he knew had led the way in hybridizing the nations corn, showed his grandchildren with less success how to have strawberries and gladiolus. [laughter] how to hybridize strawberries and gladiolus. [laughter] when he died in november, 1965, johnsons and previously kennedys secretary of agriculture said no single individual has contributed more to the abundance we owe today than Henry Wallace. The clarity of his progressive vision influenced the country and his values, strength in all of his descendents. If there is a single word to describe what i feel for my maternal grandfather, it would be this gratitude. [applause] and now the grandson of francis perkins. Thank you, chris. Im really honored to be here today on Hallowed Ground for the new deal. I want to thank chris for inviting me to participate and kathy flynn and the board of the National New Deal preservation association, for all the work they have put in to make today come about. Just for full disclosure, i am not a new deal historian and my grandmothers career was not a focus of my brain. It wasnt until 1980 that i learned my grandmother was a very important person and had done a great deal in her amazing career. I didnt realize that she was in government, that it was sort of taken for granted and assumed the way we do have young people this is the way how things work. On her birthday in 1980, the new labor building in washington, d. C. Was renamed the Frances Perkins labor building. With much pomp and circumstance, including a visit from jimmy carter and hail to the chief being played, i was there with my grandmother as a 20 somethingyearold. There were many speakers comically my mother, which was a bit worrisome but we got through it. [laughter] she managed to only put down a few government officials, like the postmaster, for one. [laughter] i swallowed hard and luckily did not have a speaking role after hers. But the naming ceremony and all that was done to commemorate francis perkinss hundredth birthday was very moving and reminded me that my grandma was someone i needed to know much more about. This is the contributions that our grandparents made, the preamble i just went through is just fluff. But when my grandmother was invited by fdr to be hers be his secretary of labor, she was not sure that accepting the post would be the right choice, certainly not for her comfort and not for the comfort of her daughter nor for her husband, norm for her has, who were settled in new york city and living comfortably there. And also, did she want to bear the awkwardness of being the first woman serving in the executive cabinet . She really was a private person. Im sure she was really from reeling from this possibility and she wrote in her book that the night before she went to speak with fdr, she spent most of it crying and worrying all night in a decision of what to do, i guess. That she heard the voice of her grandmother, who gave her many pearls of wisdom, that if a door is open for you, one should walk through and do ones best on the other side. So after this anguished night, no doubt pondering various ramifications, knowing that fdr wanted to see her the next day to talk about her role in his new government, my grandmother decided to shoot for the moon, as it were. She made a list of all the topics or issues she thought needed to be addressed up at the nation back on its economic feet while introducing muchneeded social reforms. She used the back of an envelope to the back of the list, tucked it in her purse, and headed to new york. We have heard about where Deborah Gardner works at harold holter. The list of items in her purse included many elements which became known as the new deal. On the list, and i think this is an abbreviated list of we as was oldage pension. That became Social Security. Unemployment compensation, workers compensation, a minimum wage, a 40hour work week, prohibition on child labor, direct federal aid to states on unemployment relief, and universal health care. Those programs are many that jim was describing. After she waded through the reporters who camped in the camped in the front hall, she and fdr settled in for a little chat. When he asked her about being secretary of labor, she told him that he didnt want to have her function in the capacity. If he did not want your sue those reforms. She read him the list on the envelope. He said Something Like i wont try to stop you. [laughter] giving his tacit approval and she accepted. Indeed, after 12 years and his 3. 2 terms in office, they got all the items done except universal health care, which remains on the unfinished agenda. So here is a quote from my grandmother. The people are what matter to government and a government should aim to get all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life. Exactly when and where she said that, i am not quite sure, but i know she said that. I thought i would give you a little background because it so happens, on august 10, 2017, a man named al southwick wrote in wooster telegram, her hometown newspaper, about the amazing Frances Perkins. That is the title he used in the article. After a stint or two of teaching, ms. Perkins found a line of work. She campaigned for womens rights, better working conditions, shorter work weeks and more generous workers compensation. It included housing codes. One of the defining episodes of her life was the fire at the triangle with your ways factory. The triangle shirtwaist factory. Where 148 workers, mostly women, died. She happened to the nearby and the trapped girls leaping from the floor the top floor. One of her lifelong passions was to improve the lot of working women. By 1918, her years of politician, she became expert in such matters as unemployment, wage and payment laws. Al smith appointed her the chairman of the state industrial board in 1919. Governor franklin d. Roosevelt industrial commissioner in 1928, he inherited her from now smith as the chairman of six people. Very quickly, share was the chairperson why dont you be the commissioner, francis . And it was done. Then they worked together for four years. When he was elected, he picked her as secretary of labor. She served for the next 12 years, the first woman cabinet number. Cabinet member. She was a prodigious workaholic. Her usual day began with service at the Episcopal Church at 7 00 a. M. And that she was at her desk until 9 30 or 10 00 p. M. It was a tumultuous time for the secretary of labor. She had to do with labor titans, like john d lewis, harry bridges, at a time when more than 15 million americans were unemployed. Although many People Health to shape the new deal, her fingerprints are all over the meat ingredients, the National Recovery act, the Works Progress administration, and the Social Security administration. The reporter for the worchester telegram is indias his 19 in his 90s himself. He writes a weekly column, else southwick. Al southwick. The Great Depression hit at a time when they began to expense. The Great Depression the hits during that time and they began to experiment with measures that can help the people of new york get through during hard times. When fdr was elected in 1932, he and Frances Perkins were not devoid of what might help the nation, based on strategies they had thought of trying here in new york state, which can now be extrapolated and applied on a largescale with more authority across the nation. The bold experimentation of programs and government initiatives that might help nation that became known as the new deal has roots in the collaboration between my grandmother as mission or of labor and fdr as governor of new york. It is amazing to realize that these significant contributions to the new deals or come from an unlikely source a woman, the first of the u. S. Cabinet came from a family with humble roots from the great state of maine. Soon after fdr died in 1945, Frances Perkins said this these social and Economic Reforms of the past 12 years will be regarded in the future as a turning point in our national life, turning from careless neglect of human values, and toward an order of useful and practical bonobos within a free, competitive and industrial economy. A Common Thread is the ongoing quest for greater social justice and Economic Security for all the people that she served. President obama would have put it that we are our brothers keeper, i think. She did not need credit either. She just had the gift of accurate vision to see what needed to be done and the combination of political instinct or emotional iq, their health or bring others around to her point of view and the willpower and strength of kit character of character to do all she could do all the time, not wasting any time. One source of her vision was for strength of her strength was to follow the teachings of the church to help her fellow man, Love Thy Neighbor and so one. A recognition that she did so much for so many, the Episcopal Church recently named her a holy woman, which is synonymous with saint, in 2009. She never proselytized, but when she wrote to her friend Felix Frankfurter, just as Felix Frankfurter left the office of secretary of labor, she wrote i came to washington to work for god, fdr, and the millions of the forgotten plane, common workingmen. Would you like me to say a few words in her voice . I will try to bring you to her. At the end of her speech on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of Social Security in 1960, she had given a nice 12minute speech. But her last words were im thankful that we will go forward into the future a stronger nation because we have this basic rock of security under all of our people. Thank you. [applause] thank you, francis. [laughter] tricorner hat. [laughter] now i will give you Harry Hopkins through his daughter june, though, if you read the bio in the program, you will realize has been a serious historian of the hopkins career and has another book she is working on right now. One of Harry Hopkinss contemporaries described him as having that purity of st. Francis of assisi combined with a sharp shootingness of a racetrack scout. Another said that he had a knife like to death a mind like a razor and a sufficient vocabulary of partner profanity. The fact that he never Held Elected Office and yet we live in a lot of political power led some enemies to title him a rasputin. He was a room from iowa a rube from iowa who became Franklin Roosevelts best friend and a white house resident. The person who introduced hopkins to the president was Frances Perkins. Henry hawkins may be may have been all of these things, but first and foremost, he was a public servant. He began in 1912 as a social worker in new york citys gritty i. He became gritty east side. He became a nationally known social worker, heading out agencies providing assistance, through abandoned children, to the sick, to the marginalized. And then the economy crashed. The decade of the Great Depression, the 1930s, was a time of anguish, when millions of American Workers and their families were suffering from undeserved poverty and its ancillary ills hunger, homelessness, and hopelessness. Her son, david giffin, is the director of the homeless in new york city. We new york governor Franklin Roosevelt was nominated in 1932, he promised a new deal for the American People. He won in a landslide. As long as he was inaugurated, he made good on his promise. In the first 100 days of his administration, he began the creation of the new deal. In 1933, 13 million workers have no jobs and no options. And now they turned to their president for help. With fdr in the white house, it was now up to the federal government to take action and pull the nation out of the economic morass. Social worker Harry Hopkins stepped in to help. In may of 1933, he became federal relief administrator and eventually a powerful washington insider. For over 12 years, he sat at the right hand of president frank when roosevelt,s first during the second world war. As a new dealer, hopkins ran programs that use federal money to rescue the unemployed, who had no means of support. The federal Emergency Relief Administration created government jobs in the form of work relief. The civil Work Administration created 4 million jobs for unemployed workers over the harsh winter of 19331934. And from 1935 to 1942, the Works Project Administration not only provided government jobs, but also school lunches, subsidies for artists and students, and much more, bringing hope to millions of americans. For seven years, the wpa employed over 2 million workers each month. These men and women had the dignity of a job rather than having to suffer the humiliation of a handout . At the same time, hopkins worked with labor secretary Frances Perkins to create a safety net for the most vulnerable americans the Social Security act of 1935. Hopkins was a new dealer and proud of it. He fought bitter battles with the press, with conservatives, and with congress, in order to create and administer programs that many thought would never work. But not only did they work, they worked within a nation committed to democracy and capitalism. Hawkins had no toleration for bureaucratic red tape. And, yes, money flew out of his office. Song called him the arch angel of spending. And indeed was a whiz at spending other peoples money. During his first day at work in the district of columbia, in april 1933, he spent 5 million creating jobs. Eventually, 3 billion were distributed to states for work projects. It was more expansive than direct relief, the dole. He was adamant that americans should have the dignity of earning a wage. And if the private sector could not provide jobs, this than the government had to do. He did spend a lot of other peoples money. But he never enriched himself by cashing in on the position of power. In fact, when he died, he had virtually no personal assets
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