Though separated by circumstance, time, and temperament, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson are the two greatest reformers in American
history. At a time in which Congress couldn't pass gas, it's pretty easy to
feel a degree of nostalgia for each—their myriad faults notwithstanding.
How they are similar:
Does being a great reformer start by being known by your
initials? Roosevelt was known to most as FDR,
and Johnson was almost always just LBJ.
It probably has more to do with the fact that each man reformed the nation in deed
instead of rhetoric. Both took office during incredibly difficult
circumstances: FDR during the Great
Depression and LBJ after the assassination
of President Kennedy. Each had the savvy to seize unique opportunities to
experiment and push progressive agendas.
FDR's New Deal was
such a watershed that its effects are still felt more than 80 years later. The
modern welfare system began with the
Federal Emergency Relief Act and was
completed by the Social Security Act and
the Fair Labor Standards Act, the
former which, of course, gave us Social Security pensions for the elderly as well, and the latter of which cemented
such things as the eight-hour work day,
overtime pay, and the minimum wage. What else? Insured bank
deposits under FDIC, Stock Market
regulation under the Securities and
Exchange Commission, the largest public works project in American history
under the Tennessee Valley Authority,
farm subsidies under the Agricultural
Adjustment Act, the building of trails and other wilderness infrastructure
under the Civilian Conservation Corps,
federal housing projects and loans, the creation of thousands of
federal jobs, and the Glass-Steagall Act, whose 1999 repeal
is a major cause of the last two recessions! How about the National Labor Relations Act, which is still the greatest set of worker
protections passed in American history (and sad commentary that this is the
case). And these are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg—FDR's first Hundred Days alone saw a greater output
of reform bills than all of his predecessors put together—a dizzying array of
legislation still referred to as alphabet
soup because of all the new federal agencies established. And let's not
forget one of FDR's greatest gifts: the unleashing of (for reasons to be
discussed below) his wife, Eleanor
Roosevelt. She is, by a wide margin, the most influential First Lady in
history and was far more progressive than FDR on civil rights, labor policy, and concern for the marginalized. She
was so far ahead of the curve on women's rights she can be considered a proto-Second Wave feminist.
What could possibly match the New Deal? Maybe LBJ's Great Society. When conservatives today
speak of Big Government, they really mean Great Society. Want a legacy? Here
you go: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Voting Rights Act, appointing Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court,
tripling spending on education (Head
Start, funding for elementary and secondary education, the Higher Education Act, with its grants
and endowments for low-income students such as yours truly); tripling spending
on health care, creating of the Housing and Urban Development agency,
creating Demonstration Cities that
set up enterprise zones in disadvantaged areas and the Model Cities attempt at countering urban blight, passing the Economic Opportunities Act, and setting
in motion both the National Endowment
for the Humanities and National
Endowment for the Arts, the latter of which greatly resembled special
initiatives set up by FDR under the WPA (Federal
Artists/Writers/Theater/Music programs). LBJ even passed comprehensive gun control legislation. LBJ's environmentalism included the Clean Water Act, the Wilderness Act, and nine other major
bills. His 1965 Immigration and
Nationality Act eliminated preferential quotas for Europeans, which led to
(legal) increases in Latino and Asian immigration. (It also eliminated
unlimited immigration for Western hemisphere immigrants.)
LBJ declared a war on
poverty and there is no bigger lie in contemporary American politics than
the assertion that the war on poverty was a failure. This is bullshit of the
lowest barnyard vintage. Between 1960 and 1968, poverty decreased from 22.2% to
12.6; for African Americans it dropped from 55% to 27%. This is one of the few
periods in which the gap between rich and poor actually shrank. For the record,
today's rate is 14.5% overall and 26.2% for African Americans. LBJ would not be
happy with this.
Both FDR and LBJ unleashed the IRS against the rich. Both were modified Keynesians in economic terms and believers in positive government ideals; that is, government must take the lead
in problems too big for the private sector. FDR famously dunned high incomes to
support his programs, a rate that rose to 91% during World War Two. When Barack Obama used the IRS to go after
conservative anti-government groups, he had to surrender; LBJ made no bones
about his intent and refused to back down! He cut taxes, but mostly in the lower-income
brackets.
Both presidents battled critics on the right and left. The
business community called FDR a communist, communists called him a capitalist
tool, and the masses elected him four
times. LBJ was viewed as too timid by civil rights activists, was despised
by campus radicals, was called a race traitor by Dixiecrats, and was public enemy # 1 for conservatives who
condemned his programs as government intrusion and wasteful attempts at social engineering.
Conservatives were right that some FDR and LBJ programs were
boondoggles. Each experimented in response to social crises—the changing social
mores and the rise of liberation ideology in LBJ's case–and each put into
effect so many programs that some were bound to fail. Some WPA projects were wasteful
"make work" nonsense; a few New Deal programs were deemed
unconstitutional, like his ill-advised court-packing
plan and the NIRA. LBJ's Model
Cities program led to foolish choices such as building high-rise apartment
complexes for the poor that turned into dens of crime, despair, and entrenched
poverty.
How they were different:
FDR was a man of his time, whereas LBJ was a man out of
time. FDR wasn't the first president to use radio, but he recognized the
potential of mass media better than any POTUS in US history–only the telegenic Ronald Reagan rivals him. LBJ was just
55 when he became president, but in a day in which the phrase "don't trust
anyone over 30" gained purchase, he might as well have been 105. The
contrast to the suave, youthful, martyred JFK was striking and LBJ's
rough-edged West Texas ways didn't translate well. He was a back room
persuader, not a camera-smooth communicator. Nor was he a stellar advocate of his
own deeds. He felt hurt when he wasn't beloved by the black community, but
didn't make the connection between distrust and his mishandling of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964, or his public anger at urban
riots—even though LBJ privately understood them. My late 1966, LBJ had a
well-publicized "credibility
gap" that was out of accord with his actual record.
FDR was unfaithful to Eleanor and though LBJ was later said
to have had mistresses, no hint of this occurred when he was president. More
substantively, Eleanor traded silence for autonomy and power. If there is a
silver lining in infidelity, it is that FDR agreed to give free rein to one of
the greatest female minds of the 20th century. (Lest we forget,
Eleanor also wrote most of the UN Charter
on Human Rights and Title VII of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act.)
It's hard to overlook that FDR won his war—World War II–and LBJ bungled his: Vietnam. FDR loved foreign affairs and
LBJ famously remarkied that the problem with foreign leaders was, "You
can't make deals with the sons of bitches." FDR saw WWII coming long before
Congressional isolationists. He took heat for his back-door support for China after the 1937 Japanese invasion,
for his Fortress America ideas, for Lend-Lease aimed (mostly) at Britain,
and for his critique of groups such as America
First, but his opponents looked awfully stupid after Pearl Harbor. It's hard to imagine a better wartime leader than
FDR, though he was probably too ill to have run for reelection in 1944. (He
died April 12, 1945—just before VE Day.) Had he lived, his distrust of Charles DeGaulle might have averted the
disaster in Vietnam that brought down LBJ.
Johnson neither liked nor understood foreign affairs. His
show down with the USSR over the 1967 Israel-Egypt
war was either his Cuban Missile Crisis triumph, or a dangerous game of brinksmanship—probably
the latter. But there is no polite way of saying that his every move in Vietnam was a disaster—from the
manufactured Gulf of Tonkin Incident
onward, missteps catalogued in the Pentagon Papers. Johnson called
Vietnam "that bitch of a war" and remarked that the war he hated
prevented him from fighting the one he loved—the war on poverty. It led him to
give up dreams of the second elected term for which he would have been eligible
under the 22nd Amendment.
This paved the way for the disastrous 1968
Democratic Convention, Robert
Kennedy's assassination, the election of Richard Nixon, and Watergate.
Vietnam practically defines hubris
when applied to LBJ.
One the plus side, LBJ was sympathetic to people of color and the lengths to which he went to
assure the passage of the Civil Rights Act were both heroic and a textbook case
in how to use the power of the presidency. FDR probably wasn't a racist, but he
wasn't willing to spend political capital to protect minority rights. He
worried about losing the Solid South
and never spoke out with Eleanor's forcefulness. Much to her chagrin, he did
not push Dixiecrats to support a bill that would have made lynching a federal crime, which would have taken enforcement powers
away from Southern lawmakers and juries. Moreover, FDR's authorization of Japanese internment during WWII (and
some German and Italian as well) is one of the most shameful incidents in
American history.
FDR died beloved and mourned; LBJ was reviled.
Rankings:
No credible source ranks FDR any lower than 4th
and he's usually 2nd, just below Lincoln. With no disrespect meant to Honest
Abe, I'd rank FDR at the top of the heap. Lincoln was a masterful wartime
commander, but FDR was more inspiring—plus he had the Great Depression to manage.
No president has had so much on his plate. It is easy to find fault, but it's
hard to imagine who could have done better. Forget Reagan; the missing figure
on Mount Rushmore is Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.
LBJ is currently ranked 13th, a rating that would
be higher were it not for Vietnam. Look for it to go up, as the Vietnam
generation passes. It's damned hard to overlook Vietnam, but given the totality
of LBJ's record suggests he should be ranked in the top ten. Vietnam must be
viewed within the context of the Cold
War and I have come to see "Johnson's War" as one he inherited
from John Kennedy's brain trust. I'll take Andy Jackson's # 8 and give it to
LBJ.
Rob Weir
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