The Depression and the New Deal - Essay Example

The Depression and the New Deal Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a pre-eminent presidential persuader. FDR's spoken record reveals his rhetorical eloquence during four terms in office. His phrases, which coaxed the consciousness of his contemporaries and still caress our collective memories, evoked Roosevelt, the Depression and his New Deal, and World War II (Ryan 1988). As a rhetorical president, Roosevelt exploited the technology of his time to its fullest potential. By radio, he spoke to the entire nation in his major addresses and in the prototypic Fireside Chats. By means of the motion picture newsreels, selected segments of his major addresses or staged retakes of important Fireside Chats and radio addresses portrayed his ebullient, confident delivery and infectious Rooseveltian grin; thus, the sound of his superb voice was reinforced by the visual dynamism of his delivery (Felzenberg 2000). When Roosevelt assumed office in 1933, he displaced a president who had failed to solve the riddle of 20th-century presidential communication: how to mobilize a mass public separated from him by time and space. Indeed, it is unclear that Herbert Hoover even recognized his dilemma. For most of his presidency, Hoover preferred to confine his interactions to Washington elites; he preferred not to address the national public. Throughout his presidency, he held to his belief that the depression of 1929-1939 was a consequence of economic laws and cycles, and that, consequently, his time was best spent making policy rather than communicating with the public1 (Schlesinger 1957 cited in Carcasson 1998). During the presidential campaign of 1932, Hoover rejected a suggestion that he make a series of 10minute radio addresses, saying that it was "difficult to deal with anything over the radio except generalities, without embarrassing actual accomplishments that are going forward" (cited in Abbott 1990). In contrast, Roosevelt was determined to use the new medium of radio to establish a firm relationship with the public. It was during his term as governor of New York, from 1928 to 1932, that Roosevelt developed a rationalized system for using the radio to establish a relationship with the public (Peters 2000). Roosevelt created an efficient, systematic, and predictable publicity system, one that was acknowledged at the time to be the slickest peacetime publicity effort ever seen in U.S. politics to that date (Ward 1999). Besides promoting positive newspaper coverage of the New Deal, an important function of this coordinated activity was the projection of Roosevelt's personality to the public. Its message was that the New Deal was taking positive, effective measures to help people, and the President was firmly in control of, and responsible for, this process. The organized nature of these publicity efforts carried over to the production of the Fireside Chats. According to Fine (cited in Sussman & Daynes 2004), much like radio and movie scripts, the Chats were produced by committee. Various groups of officials, from departmental officials to cabinet members to advisors who held no official government position, participated in their production. Each group produced information that was funneled to a central group charged with putting the pieces together. Fine went on to note that President Roosevelt read each draft, paying careful attention to word length and the number of s's1. He wanted short, simple statements, with no abstractions, or what he called "weasel words." He paid careful attention to the rhythm and timing of each speech, speaking each draft out loud to ensure a proper pace. He often wrote the conclusion himself, so as to end on a proper "high" note. Throughout, he used the public opinion data collected by his staff to fashion his appeal in ways likely to resonate with his mass audience. The resulting chat, looked much like a "cuesheet for a stage play. All the signals were clearly marked: the pauses by dashes, the word to be emphasized is underlined, the phrase marked for special treatment1". In their structure, the Chats clearly resembled the production and delivery system of the mass culture industries. They also employed the same idioms. Like ads, movies, and radio programs, the Chats dramatized a problematic situation (the depression) and presented solutions to this problem that hinged on the special relationship between the spokesperson (Roosevelt) and the consumer (the public)2. In so doing, the Chats gave Roosevelt the rhetorical flexibility to appeal to the many constituencies of his New Deal (Philosophy, Rhetoric and Argumentation 1965). Roosevelt's invitation to his radio audience to live through the drama of their common situation, rather than to ignore it, was a key aspect of his leadership style. Whereas Hoover had approached the depression as the result of abstract and inviolable economic laws, Roosevelt preferred to dramatize it for the public. This sense of dramatic narrative 'was conveyed from the Chats' opening lines. The first chat, broadcast a week after Roosevelt took office, when the notion was gripped by a banking crisis and depression-era highs in unemployment and poverty, and which immediately followed the declaration of a banking holiday by Roosevelt, led with a sense of understated purpose: "I want to talk for a few minutes," Roosevelt began, "with the people of the United States about banking." Each subsequent chat explicitly referenced the last in its opening lines. The second chat began: "On a Sunday night a week after my Inauguration, I used the radio to tell you about the banking crisis. . . . Tonight, 8 weeks later, I come for the second time to give you my report." The third opened with a reference to actions taken in the past few months: "After the adjournment of the historic special session of the Congress 5 weeks ago I purposely refrained from addressing you"1. Though often labeled as distinct appeals concerning particular topics, such as the banking chat or the drought chat, it is obvious that these are not isolated broadcasts. If each was solely concerned with a particular topic, distinct from any other broadcast, there would be no need to refer to a prior speech. Its meaning and intent would be wholly self-contained. However, the opening of these Chats suggests that the Chats were delivered, and meant to be understood, as statements within a larger, continuing conversation. It was as if Roosevelt was an old acquaintance of the public who occasionally called to "catch up" on things. As in a telephone conversation between distant friends, Roosevelt initially reviewed what happened since he last spoke to the public, before launching into the immediate purpose of his talk (Rozell & Pederson 1997). This "catching up" served several purposes: (a) It eased any sense of intrusion the broadcast might provoke; (b) it constructed a background for the immediate purpose of the chat; (c) it lent a sense of continuity in the relationship between the President and individuals who composed the public; and (d) it allowed Roosevelt to build a sense of dramatic continuity, or linked movement, in the nation's problems and his efforts to solve them2. As media events, the Chats functioned as something like a radio soap opera, in that they offered the public a ritualized opportunity to experience and move through the drama of the depression as part of a mass public (Maio & Olson 2000). Roosevelt personalized this experience using perhaps the often-cited technique of the Chats: personal pronouns. It was a rhetorical device described in somewhat ominous tones by John Dos Passos as Roosevelt "speaking clearly and cordially to youandme, explaining how he's sitting at his desk there in Washington, leaning towards youandme across his desk, speaking clearly and cordially so that youandme shall completely understand" (cited in Felzenberg 2000). Here, Dos Passos caught the sense in which Roosevelt's use of "I," "you," and "we" elides the boundaries between himself and the public. At times "we" referred to the government and at others to the American people. The confusion worked to identify Roosevelt and his policies with the nation as a whole. In this way, as Eden (1989) suggested, the Chats worked to construct a sense of national identity and an "imagined community"1. This use of pronouns has been appreciated for the way in which it figured a new, more intimate relationship between the president and the public. The Chats' success hinged on more than the depiction of a new, more familiar and intimate president, though. Without figuring who Roosevelt was against the background of what he was doing as president, listeners would not have had a firm sense of who they were and what they were doing as a public. Like compelling characters in a movie with a slim plot, listeners may have felt closer to the president, but had little sense of how he, or they, fit into a larger narrative. For Roosevelt's intimate image to gain political power, it had to be situated within a larger dramatic narrative (Biles 1991). Roosevelt's use of pronouns was helpful in this regard because they developed a specific sense of agency as well as identity. Like a Hollywood movie, the Chats narrativized the depression in terms of the psychology of individual characters. For instance, the banking crisis was described in terms of a few "incompetent or dishonest" bankers who speculated in unwise loans. Such dishonesty led to a "crisis of confidence"2 on the part of the public, who rushed to get their money out of the banks. Serious structural conditions were thus reduced to the psychology of individuals. Characteristically, Roosevelt suggested that the end of the depression would come only if "confidence" was restored. To this end, he reported that the "patriotic" Congress passed legislation to rehabilitate the banks and to monitor unscrupulous bankers, and that he was "confident" that these measures would solve the problem. Even in his discussion of the drought (chat 8), a problem ostensibly caused by weather patterns and soil composition, Roosevelt took great pains to personalize the issue. Rather than describing the nature of the drought, its causes, and consequences, Roosevelt described his trip through the Midwest, in which he "talked with families who had lost their wheat," and "saw cattlemen [who] . . . have been compelled to sell all but their breeding stock." He spoke of the "spiritual" connection between farmers and the rest of the nation, and of the readiness of the farmers to "fit, and not to fight, the ways of nature." Here again, a large-scale problem was reduced to the level of individual psychology. It was made to seem a challenge to the U.S. character, rather than a complex, natural occurrence (Best 1991). Within the imagined world constructed by the Chats, then, individuals and their dispositions mattered. It mattered that a few people were greedy or unscrupulous. It mattered that Roosevelt was confident and enthusiastic. Most importantly, public opinion mattered. Like all forms of mass culture, the Chats always framed the public as their central protagonist. "After all," Roosevelt said to end his first chat, "there is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold, and that is the confidence of the people. . . . It is your problem no less that it is mine." As in other forms of popular culture, the public was given a privileged place in the Chats. In advertisements, that place is usually depicted as a faceless consumer, in the movies as the camera's perspective, and in radio as a constant appeal to "you," the listener. Roosevelt often used the "you" form. Throughout the Chats, he was concerned to "tell you," "interest you," "make it clear to you," and "make you understand." This phrasing had the effect of placing the individual listener at the center of the New Deal's construction of a vast government apparatus. For instance, in chat 7, Roosevelt ended his discussion of a long list of unprecedented government measures with the request that "you will watch the work in every corner of this nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better, or where improper practices prevail." Here, "you" stood in for the faceless citizen, a position Roosevelt encouraged his listeners to occupy (Jacobs 1995). As listeners did so, they linked themselves in an intimate fashion to government recovery efforts. Much as in an advertisement or a movie, Roosevelt encouraged listeners to lose themselves in the plot of the chat, to insert themselves experientially into its frame. As they assumed the position of "you" the citizen, they occupied a frame of reference that Roosevelt himself constructed. In so doing, they came to view Roosevelt's actions and the depression in his terms rather than others, and to feel their relationship with Roosevelt himself in the intimate way he described. This process conforms to the grammar of mass culture in that it does not overwhelm audiences with the power of a singular message or vision. Rather, it proceeds indirectly, by dramatizing situations and inviting audiences to occupy a privileged position within them (Sussman & Daynes 2004). At times, in his effort to elevate the role of listeners in his dramatization of the depression1, Roosevelt went so far as to claim that solutions to the depression rested largely in public psychology, rather than in governmental measures. Statements like his famous ending to the first chat: "It is your problem, your problem no less than it is mine," dotted the entire corpus of the Chats. The "only instruments," he said in chat 3, that the government would use to fight unemployment "come from opinion and from conscience." Chat 5 urged the public to judge government recovery programs by "the plain facts of your own individual situation." Chat 6 suggested that gains in trade and industry would be made "on the driving power of individual initiative," and chat 7 ended with the claim that "we have in the darkest moments of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master our destiny." Much of Roosevelt's speaking time was spent detailing largescale government programs, such as the National Recovery Act (NRA), but underneath these institutional behemoths always stood the moral force, the pragmatism, and the ambition of the U.S. public. "I cannot guarantee the success of this nation-wide plan," Roosevelt said in chat 3, "but the people of this country can guarantee its success." In making the public central to recovery, Roosevelt portrayed his listeners as the moving force behind his efforts. In this way, he drew them ever closer to him and his policies (Edwards 2000). Even with Roosevelt's skills of dramatization and rhetoric, it was difficult for him to overcome the public's fear at the sheer size of the government's interventions in the economy and society. Since the founding of the U.S., Americans have had a long-standing distaste for a large federal government. Though many groups had been clamoring for strong governmental action for some time, people were rightly worried about so dramatic a breach of the limited-government mantra. To alleviate this anxiety, Roosevelt again turned to the idioms of mass culture, in this case to the folksy style of radio performers (Birkland 1997). More specifically, he used stories and anecdotes to make the New Deal seem familiar and unthreatening. For instance, to the charge that the New Deal corrupted private enterprise and threatened to socialize the economy, Roosevelt replied with a story. In chat 2, he suggested that the government was seeking partnership with, not control of, private industry. "Let me illustrate with an example," he continued. The example was one in which the cotton industry came together and decided to stop using child labor, but an "unfair 10%" reneged on the deal, forcing the majority, for reasons of competition, to follow suit. In this case, Roosevelt concluded, the government has a duty to regulate the practices of the industry in the interests of majority sentiment. "The same principle," he concluded, "applies to farm products and to transportation and every other field of organized private industry" (Hoff 1999). In a similar way, when critics contended that the largest New Deal agency, the NRA, was a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed government intrusion into what was supposed to be a free market, Roosevelt again responded with a story. "Let me cite to you the example," he said in chat 4, "of the salesman in a store in a large eastern city who tried to justify the increase in the price of a cotton shirt from one dollar and a half to two dollars and a half by saying to the customer that this was due to the cotton processing tax." Of course, the tax amounted to only four cents. According to this anecdote, NRA taxes were not to blame for the rising cost of consumer goods. Rather, petty "chiselers" out to make "undue profit" were causing "misconceptions" of the government's recovery efforts. Finally, to the charge that the New Deal was communist, fascist, or socialist, Roosevelt responded (chat 6) with the analogy of on-going construction at the White House. A few new rooms were to be built at the White House, and a new electricity system was to be put in place, but "the simplicity and the strength of the structure remain in the face of every modern test." That is to say, just as with U.S. society generally, the basic foundation still remains. By employing the folksy style developed by network broadcasters, Roosevelt was able to frame his policies in nonthreatening terms and thus to smooth the transition to the welfare state1. Roosevelt's own role in the Chats was central to their success. Most often, this role has been described in terms of its familiarity. One scholar wrote that Roosevelt "talked like a father discussing public affairs with his family in the living room"2. On this view, the President related to the public much like a friend sitting across a kitchen table. As Dayan and Katz theory1 suggests, Roosevelt's Fireside Chats fashioned a dramatic narrative of community that served to integrate society into a new symbolic geography. The devices Roosevelt employed -- speaking in informal, personal terms, shifting roles, projecting attitudes, using "fresh talk," cultivating his image - produced a singular message that contained multiple meanings. Letters written in reaction to the Chats suggest the power of this performance (Ryfe, 1999; Sussman, 2004)2. Roosevelt's imagined national community was interpreted in religious terms as the redemption of the nation, in political terms as the continuation of the U.S. political experiment, or in class terms as a strike against the corporate elite. Letter writers referred to Roosevelt variously as a gift from God and a "friend-next-door"3, a supreme being and a real fellow who did not talk down to the public (Rubin 1999). The flexibility of his message was crucial to Roosevelt's political success. This quality allowed him to attract a mass audience, yet speak to individuals; to promote himself, yet exalt the public; and to dramatize the depression, yet depoliticize the New Deal. Most important, the Chats allowed him to organize his grand coalition of Northern workers and Southern Blacks, farmers and businesspeople, urban immigrants and Southern Whites, not only politically, but culturally as well. The Chats conveyed a new symbolic geography appropriate to the patterns of federal administration and bureaucracy initiated by the New Deal. As they did so, they introduced a mass public to identities and practices appropriate to 20thcentury mass politics. Bibliography Abbott, Philip. Franklin D. 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Edited by B. D. Zevin. Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1946. Rozell, Mark J. and William D. Pederson, eds. FDR and the Modern Presidency: Leadership and Legacy. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997. Rubin, Alan M. "Editor's Note." Journal of Communication 49, no. 4 (1999): 3-6. Ryan, Halford R. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rhetorical Presidency. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Ryfe, David Michael. "Franklin Roosevelt and the Fireside Chats." Journal of Communication 49, no. 4 (1999): 80-103. Sussman, Glen, and Byron W. Daynes. "Spanning the Century: Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and the Environment." White House Studies 4, no. 3 (2004): 337. Teten, Ryan L. "Evolution of the Modern Rhetorical Presidency: Presidential Presentation and Development of the State of the Union Address." Presidential Studies Quarterly 33, no. 2 (2003): 333. Underhill, Robert. FDR and Harry: Unparalleled Lives. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1996. Venn, Fiona. The New Deal. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998/ Ward, Ian. "The Early Use of Radio for Political Communication" The Australian Journal of Politics and History 45, no. 3 (1999): 311. Read More