Have you ever browsed through a Federal Depository library?
The Federal Depository Library Program was established by Congress to ensure that the American public has access to its Government’s information. GPO administers the FDLP on behalf of the participating libraries and the public. Information products from the Federal Government are disseminated to these nationwide libraries that, in turn, ensure the American public has free access to the materials, both in print and online.
Your local Federal Depository Library (Every state has at least one.) holds primary source historical documents generated by Federal agencies and departments. Follow below for a sample. It's worth the read.
By early 1933 the country was on the brink of calamity. Millions of farmers and homeowners were about to lose their lands, their homes, and their savings. Business, large and small, the savings of millions, would have been wiped out if the impending bankruptcy of our insurance companies and banking system had not been prevented.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had campaigned on increased government action to turn the tide and the New Deal was born.
Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth... I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms.
Within his first hundred days FDR instituted numerous reforms and established Federal relief agencies. Assisting him was
Harry L. Hopkins
Following is the transcript of an address delivered at the Chautauqua Institution July 16, 1938, in which Hopkins discusses the New Deal in terms of business, labor, and spending. I think, like me, you may be astounded (and perhaps saddened) at how relevant Hopkins remarks are today.
BUSINESS: "There is no conflict between business and government because there can be none. The conflict is between interpretations of their relationships to each other. Government, by consent of the governed, must be concerned primarily with the welfare of the Nation and all its people. It has no choice. Our system is so designed that if public officials do not show this concern, they will be replaced by officials who do. Concern for the national welfare means concern for the practical success of all parts of it."
LABOR: "When unions and their objectives become more universally accepted into the scheme of things, when the leaders on both sides learn to trust each other and become more experienced in their tasks, I feel sure that labor difficulties will be minimized. I feel certain that in the future, when we look back at 1936 and 1937, we shall all recognize that what some took to be a great revolutionary disturbance was simply the growing pains of a truly American institution."
SPENDING: "Pump-priming has been carried on from the very beginning of our existence. It took the form of giving away the national domain in free land … of giving vast areas to railroad companies … of building roads, subsidizing canals, dredging waterways, and building harbors, all with Government funds … of a protective tariff to subsidize infant industries … of giving away certain sovereign powers of the people, such as franchises to public utilities, the power to issue currency and create credit to banks, and exclusive patent rights for inventions. These are a few examples of the pump-priming which our American government has engaged in for 150 years. Pump-priming is as American as corn on the cob."
The entire document is scanned into jpegs in a Flickr set here.
What Is the "American Way"? Harry L. Hopkins
Reading this I was struck by the timeliness of several quotes.
To be blunt, predatory business refused to take the responsibility along with the privileges. It did not see that the sovereign people, who gave it so much freedom, were entitled, in return, to a working economic system—to jobs, continued opportunities, and security. Business, willing to attend to the earning of money and investing of profits, had little interest in the democratic distribution of income.
The section on unions is particularly worth reading. So many good quotes.
Addressing critics on the subject of public works programs Hopkins had this to say:
And of course we have left out of account the vast social assets created by a work program—the thousands of public buildings—the roads and streets and bridges, the swimming pools, the parks and the playgrounds, the works of art, and the cultural services with which the labors of the unemployed have endowed the Nation. Also we have left out the conservation of human resources, of morale and skill, that are involved in the mere opportunity of work.
In another poignant example of timeliness, Hopkins also addressed the debt hawks of his day.
How do we keep the books on this? Every dollar we spend to put the unemployed to work is carefully entered on the red side of the ledger. But for all the national wealth they have created in permanent and improvements and public services, not one dollar is entered on the black side of the ledger as assets or credit. All this money is listed as expenditures, none as capital investments.
snip
I suppose that besides the bookkeeping confusion, what is disconcerting to many sincere people about the present form of public spending is that it is directed at supplying purchasing power to the masses—to the lower third of our population. We have been brought up on the principle that it is all right for the Government to grant big subsidies to businessmen, because businessmen are employers—work givers, as the German term is. To make Government funds available to the poor, except in minute doses of charity—seems wasteful, unbusinesslike.
And in his conclusion:
We are learning that if our democracy is less secure than it was a century ago it is not that men and women esteem liberty less but because our democracy has failed to give them the essential ingredients of that liberty which they esteem. Men and women do not value the right to starve or even the right to a dole. They demand the right to earn a self-respecting livelihood.
Take a few minutes to read the entire address.
Four years ago I was not alone in hoping that Obama would emulate FDR. The unemployment rate was at 5 percent and many of us believed he should institute public works programs similar to the Works Progress Administration or the Civilian Conservation Corps which employed millions during the Great Depression. January 2009 saw unemployment at 7.8 percent. It peaked at 10 percent in October and has fallen slowly since then. Bureau of Labor
So, here we are on the eve of Obama's second term. How might today be different if the administration had modeled itself on FDR's?