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- #61
So, Franklin Roosevelt didn't know jack about business. and, seeing others become successful where he failed, he used his talent in politics to assault them, and take their success away from them.
We see the same motivations in today's administration.
But.....war made FDR into quite a different animal, with a new-found love of the business community. Suddenly....he needed them!
No longer would he refer to their "obeisance to Mammon!" (Roosevelt's Nomination Address, July 2, 1932)
14. On May 16, 1940, Roosevelt had addressed Congress and asked for more than a billion dollars for defense, with a commitment for fifty thousand military aircraft. He knew, also, that he needed the good will of business to win the war: no longer would he call them “privileged princes…thirsting for power.”
On May 26, 1940 his Fireside Chat signaled a new relationship with business: he would insure their profits, and assuage their fears that he would nationalize their factories.
a.“…we are calling upon the resources, the efficiency and the ingenuity of the American manufacturers of war material of all kinds -- airplanes and tanks and guns and ships, and all the hundreds of products that go into this material. The Government of the United States itself manufactures few of the implements of war.
Private industry will continue to be the source of most of this material, and private industry will have to be speeded up to produce it at the rate and efficiency called for by the needs of the times….
Private industry will have the responsibility of providing the best, speediest and most efficient mass production of which it is capable.”
On National Defense - May 26, 1940
Took him long enough.
We see the same motivations in today's administration.
But.....war made FDR into quite a different animal, with a new-found love of the business community. Suddenly....he needed them!
No longer would he refer to their "obeisance to Mammon!" (Roosevelt's Nomination Address, July 2, 1932)
14. On May 16, 1940, Roosevelt had addressed Congress and asked for more than a billion dollars for defense, with a commitment for fifty thousand military aircraft. He knew, also, that he needed the good will of business to win the war: no longer would he call them “privileged princes…thirsting for power.”
On May 26, 1940 his Fireside Chat signaled a new relationship with business: he would insure their profits, and assuage their fears that he would nationalize their factories.
a.“…we are calling upon the resources, the efficiency and the ingenuity of the American manufacturers of war material of all kinds -- airplanes and tanks and guns and ships, and all the hundreds of products that go into this material. The Government of the United States itself manufactures few of the implements of war.
Private industry will continue to be the source of most of this material, and private industry will have to be speeded up to produce it at the rate and efficiency called for by the needs of the times….
Private industry will have the responsibility of providing the best, speediest and most efficient mass production of which it is capable.”
On National Defense - May 26, 1940
Took him long enough.