Betrayal of the Old Right, Lecture 2

The New Deal and World War II

Why the Old “Right”?

• Last time, we raised the problem: why does Rothbard call the Old Right by that name when Nock and Mencken were classical liberals?

• Also, some of the anti-war people allied with the Old Right were Progressives, like Charles A. Beard and Harry Elmer Barnes.

The New Deal

• After FDR became President in March 1933, he proposed a number of radical measures, such as the NIRA.

• Roosevelt had said in the 1932 that Hoover was a big spender and that the government needed to reduce spending.

The New Deal Continued

• Roosevelt received an unprecedented grant of power from Congress when he took office. There were very few limits on what he could do, except for the power of the Supreme Court to declare measures unconstitutional.

• Some supporters of the New Deal, like Rexford Tugwell, were sympathetic to planning both in Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy.

More New Deal

• Both Hitler and Mussolini were at first sympathetic to the New Deal.

• The NRA, under General Hugh Johnson, had some authoritarian elements like those characteristic of fascism. Johnson condoned illegal boycotts of businessmen that wouldn’t conform to “voluntary” NRA guidelines.

Business and the New Deal

• These measures were not opposed by all business interests. On the contrary, some businesses supported them, because they would help eliminate their competition.

• The Swope Plan was an example. Gerard Swope helped draft the NIRA. He was president of General Electric

Business and the New Deal Continued

• Also, these measures brought back some of the wartime measures introduced during WWI. Bernard Baruch, an influential administrator during WWI, was the mentor of Hugh Johnson.

Anti-New Deal Movements

• Not all businessmen favored the New Deal. • Those more inclined to the free market were often

conservative Democrats, like John J. Raskob of Dupont.

• The conservative business groups founded the American Liberty League.

• Although Herbert Hoover’s interventionist measures prefigured the New Deal, he thought FDR had gone too far. He wrote an attack on the New Deal, Challenge to Liberty (1934)

Anti-New Deal Movements and the Old Right

• Mencken, Nock, and other members of the Old Right allied with the anti-New Deal organizations.

• This is the real answer to our question, what makes the Old Right “right”. The movement became more allied to conservative business interests as the New Deal progressed.

The Alliance

• “In fact, the individualists were in a bind at this sudden accession of old enemies as allies. On the positive side, it meant a rapid acceleration of libertarian rhetoric on the part of numerous influential politicians. And, furthermore, there were no other conceivable political allies available.

The Alliance Continued

• But, on the negative side, the acceptance of libertarian ideas by Hoover, the Liberty League, et al., was clearly superficial and in the realm of general rhetoric only; given their true preferences, not one of them would have accepted the Spencerian laissez-faire model for America”

Moves Toward War

• So far, we have been talking about opposition to the domestic programs of the New Deal.

• One of the most important points of the Old Right during the 1920s had been opposition to American entry into WWI.

• At first, Roosevelt didn’t disagree. He was interested in domestic reform, not international affairs. Charles Beard, American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940, discusses this.

Moves Toward War Continued

• Roosevelt’s policy changed in the late 1930s. He came to believe that the US should oppose both the increasing power of Germany under Hitler and also Japanese imperialism in China.

• A key turning point was the Chicago Bridge Speech of October 1937 that called for quarantining the aggressors. Soviet Russia wasn’t included among the aggressors.

Quarantine the Aggressors

• Here is the key passage from Roosevelt’s speech:”It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.”

Collective Security

• The key assumption in Roosevelt’s speech has been the basis for subsequent American foreign policy.

• This assumption is that American security depends on security everywhere. Charles Beard stressed the importance of this assumption.

• The Old Right rejected this assumption

John T. Flynn

• John T. Flynn was one of the most important people on the Old Right. He linked criticism of FDR’s domestic and foreign policies.

• His basic argument was that Roosevelt needed to have outlets for the government spending he wanted. Purely domestic spending was too controversial. Roosevelt needed to picture the US as threatened by foreign powers in order to get support for bigger government.

Flynn and German Historians

• Flynn was a pioneer in the study of the influence of domestic considerations on foreign policy.

• In Weimar Germany, Eckart Kehr argued that domestic considerations influenced German naval policy in the period 1894-1901. Beard was aware of his work.

• Later, the anti-revisionist Fritz Fischer also stressed the importance of domestic interests on German foreign policy.

Flynn Continued

• Here is a key passage from Flynn: • "We have created a huge national debt to relieve

poverty and idleness and produce recovery. With the money we have built schools, hospitals, playgrounds, roads, parkways. But now it is no longer possible to support such expenditures. Powerful resistance has developed. . . . But the spending must go on or the present government will face a collapse. And hence this one great imperious call to national defense is invoked"

Garet Garrett

• Another important person on the Old Right was Garet Garrett, who was an editor of the Saturday Evening Post.

• “Led by a revolutionary elite of intellectuals,the New Deal centralized political and economic power in the Executive, and Garrett traced this process step by step.

Garrett Continued

• As a consequence,the “ultimate power of initiative” passed from private enterprise to government, which “became the great capitalist and enterpriser. Unconsciously business concedes the fact when it talks of a mixed economy, even accepts it as inevitable.”

More Garrett

• Garrett, like Flynn, was also a critic of Roosevelt’s interventionist policies. He didn’t ignore the possibility that Germany might pose a threat to America, but he thought this should be met by internal defense rather than foreign involvements.

Garrett on Wilsonianism

• Here is Garrett on the dangers of Wilson-type interventionism:

• “They are defeatists who develop the beautiful thought that if America will now put her strength forth in the world, instead of keeping it selfishly to herself, the principle of evil can be chained down. . . .

Garrett on Wilsonianism Continued

• Suppose we had reconquered Europe for democracy, and the principle of evil were chained down. What should we do about the peace? Leave it to Europe? We did that once [without success]. . . . Should we stay there to police it? Or should we come home and stand ready to go back to mind or mend it when something went wrong?"

The End of Isolation

• Roosevelt followed a confrontational policy toward Japan. According to the revisionists, such as Tansill and Barnes, Roosevelt’s aim was to provoke a Japanese attack so that America would enter the war in Europe through the “back door” of Japan.

• Roosevelt was relying on the fact that Germany and Japan had signed the Axis Pact.

The End of Isolation Continued

• The most powerful anti-interventionist organization was the America First Committee. Flynn was the head of the New York chapter. Lindbergh was the Committee’s most famous speaker.

• Once Pearl Harbor was attacked, the AFC dissolved. The leadership thought that war in Europe was inevitable and made no attempt to separate the war in the Pacific from the European war.

The Pearl Harbor Attack

• Hitler declared war on the US, so Roosevelt got his wish to enter the war.

• Why did he do so? In part because there was no attempt by the US isolationists to confine the war to Japan.

• If Hitler hadn’t declared war, Roosevelt intended to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Germany anyway.

Revisionism During the War

• Once the war started, the activities of the Old Right in opposing FDR’s foreign policy were curtailed.

• However, people on the Old Right thought that Roosevelt had provoked Japan. Herbert Hoover held this view.

• In 1944, John T. Flynn published The Truth About Pearl Harbor and in 1945 The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor, charging that Roosevelt had provoked the Japanese attack.