Review of "FDR: The First Hundred Days," by Anthony J. Badger

 Review of

FDR: The First Hundred Days, by Anthony J. Badger ISBN 9780809015603

Four out of five stars

How the great crisis was first attacked

 Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency as the Great Depression was in force and was becoming solidified as an economic reality and in the minds of the people. In the last years of his presidency, Herbert Hoover seemed clueless regarding what could and should be done to get the wheels of economic progress going again. While Roosevelt had some plans, the reality was that he really did not have a master plan and was forced to make much of what he did at the start up as he went. 

 The explanations of how it was first necessary to restore public confidence in the banking system are easily understood. Without confidence in the banks, there would be runs and there would be widespread failures. This would end the normal processes of loans for economic expansion, housing and credit purchases. As was the case in the later financial meltdown in 2008, the people with the expertise to fix the problem were the very bankers and financial operators that had to be saved. 

  Once the banking system was stable, the next things to be done were to get money back into the hands of the public so that they could spend it and create demand for goods. Which would lead to increased production and increased demand for workers. The explanations of how the attempts were made to do this, essentially creating new government agencies and operations are fascinating to read about. No one really knew precisely what to do, Congress was largely a rubber stamp for the Roosevelt proposals, very few people wrote the legislation and sometimes in the matter of a day or two. 

 The first hundred days of a new presidency is now a fundamental part of every new administration. Rightly or wrongly, all U. S. presidents face this type of benchmark. In reading this book, it is clear that Roosevelt did many things right and some things wrong in his first three months in office. It is also clear that much of Roosevelt’s early success was due to the fact that the American public perceived that he was doing something to get the economic engine moving again. 

 While there is a bibliographical section, this book is more a popular version of events rather than an academic one. It is also generally even-handed, the criticisms from the left and right are both mentioned and generally given equal amounts of ink. 


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