February 14, 2025 • 59 mins
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GUEST: Mary Grabar
BOOK: Debunking FDR: The Man and the Myths
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-FDR-Myths-Mary-Grabar-ebook
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GUEST: Mary Grabar
BOOK: Debunking FDR: The Man and the Myths
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-FDR-Myths-Mary-Grabar-ebook
Charles Moscowitz LIVE
Website: https://charlesmoscowitz.com
Moscowitz Author Page:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Charles-Moscowitz/author/B00BFLX7S0
Buy Me a Coffee, Join me for Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/moscowitz
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, thanks for joining me everyone. Charles Moskowitz here
and welcome to the program. My guest is Mary Graber.
She's the author of Debunking FDR, The Man and the Myths.
She's a Resident Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for
the Study of Western Civilization. She's the founder of the
(00:22):
Dissident Professor's Education Project. She taught that the college level
for twenty years, most recently at Emory University. Her work
has been published by the Federalist town Hall, Front Page Magazine,
City Journal, American Greatness, and Academic Questions. Thank you so
much for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Mary, Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You know, your book about FDR is very timely right now,
as President Trump has literally launched, I think, what is
a revolutionary administration that's going to affect the future of
our country in the coming many decades, if not the
set incoming centuries in a way similar to the way
(01:06):
FDR had that same influence when he took office in
nineteen thirty three. So it's important to understand what he established,
which in a sense parallels exactly what President Trump is
trying to undo and recreate something new. So let's talk
(01:29):
a little bit about FDR in his background and how
that does not necessarily match up with the standard official
history version that we were all taught in school.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, well, yeah, there are a lot of myths about
Roosevelt in your correct As a matter of fact, President
Trump came out and said that they were going to
shatter Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal coalition, and looks like that's
what they're doing. Excuse me, but yeah, there are a
(02:05):
lot of these myths about Franklin Roosevelt that you know,
even conservative authors say that, you know, if his New
Deal policies didn't work, he really meant well, which I
found out was not the truth, or that you know,
these were intended to just get us out of the depression,
(02:27):
you know, all the New Deal programs, the Agricultural program,
the NRA, the National Recovery Administration, the the TVA that
you know, all the alphabet agencies, and and I found out,
you know, by researching and focusing mostly on his pre
presidential years, uh, that that was not the case. The
(02:49):
plan all along for Franklin Roosevelt was to establish this
deep administrative state, and he made those aims pretty clear
as a young state senator from New York when he
gave a talk in Troy, New York in March of
nineteen twelve where he gave a little history lesson. He
(03:12):
was not a good student at Harvard, but he nonetheless
felt himself capable of providing a history lesson at the
People's Forum in Troy, New York, and said, while the
Founders were successful in establishing independence, but what they were
really sort of groping towards was interdependence. And that is
(03:38):
the real aim of this country. And you know what
if that requires compulsion, well, you know, the government knows best.
And you know, as an assistant Secretary of Labor, he wanted,
you know, mandatory military training, universal military training. He wanted
(04:03):
you know, compulsory labor. Just really he really liked what
the New Deal stood for.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Right, and I think that also don't forget that particular year.
And of course his uncle Teddy Roosevelt had been president,
so he obviously had ambitions. As a young man. He
became a part of the Wilson administration Woodrow Wilson. That
was a revolutionary administration in and of itself. It was
(04:33):
the first the first self described socialist in the White
House who really changed the way we see ourselves in
many ways. And in the case of Roosevelt, I think
he became assistant Secretary of the Navy right, and he
was a real warhawk, much more so than anyone else
(04:54):
when the United States really did not necessarily need to
get intervene and get involved in in that particular foreign war,
to the point where I think that the Secretary of
the Navy, and his name is because Josepha.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
This something, Joseph Daniels, Thank you, Josephus Daniels. He was
out of town on a day when information came into
the office indicating that there had been an incident with
the German U boats, and Roosevelt took the opportunity to
embellish and fabricate and exaggerate this incident as a way
(05:33):
to push the United States into war.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Did you did you come across that?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I mean there were there were instances, you know,
where he defied what his boss, Josephus Daniels wanted said,
and even the President and you know, sort of hyped
up the threat of the Germans, you know, the incident
in Mexico. He also implied that you know, he was
(06:03):
in charge of sending warships down there, telling you know,
reporters that there was going to be a war, when
you know Wilson is, you know, having talks and trying
to avoid war. There was something about him and I,
you know, I think I used the phrase lot he
(06:24):
had a lost for war. He you know, of course
he never served, he never trained to serve, but he
just seemed to like the thought of war. And it's
a very interesting psychological element of his personality.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, his he happened to live in a townhouse in
Manhattan that was next door to the Consul on Foreign Relations,
which was a think tank that was promoting international war
at a time, and that was the counterpart to the
British Royal Institute of International Affairs or Chathamhouse, which were
(07:06):
kind of working together to try to embrail the United
States into this kind of Anglo American internationalism. So I
think that that was his orientation. He was truly maybe
the first internationalist. And yet when he ran for president,
he ran as a nationalist and he ran as more
(07:30):
conservative than Herbert Hoover. My understanding is in that he
actually was criticizing Hoover's government expansion at the time, where
he was trying to deal with the depression and the
stock market crash. And when he became president, and I
think to his credit, we should note that one of
(07:52):
his first acts in this way, similar to Trump, was
that he all he ordered all executive cabinet offices and
agencies to cut their budget by five percent, to freeze
all salaries, and to put a halt on all hiring,
under the understanding that if the rest of the country
(08:13):
is dealing with the depression, why should you know our
public sector be high on the hog.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, yes, he did cut one hundred million dollars from
the salaries of federal workers. He also cut four hundred
million dollars from the veterans. Okay, so you know where
his priorities are. And you're right, it was a bait
and switch campaign because you know, there was no end
(08:42):
to how much money he was willing to spend and
wanted to spend. And actually one of his advisors, Bernard Baruk,
was the one who gave him the figure of cutting
four hundred million for veterans and one hundred million for
federal workers. So Bernard Baruk was the largest contributor to
(09:06):
his nineteen thirty two presidential campaign. He had final say
over his campaign speeches, and he was the one who
told FDR to do that, and he did. He once
he established himself and I think he had you know,
(09:26):
other sources of funding as well. He did not take
orders from Baruk. But it's interesting how that came about.
And it's also interesting in light of the fact that
Roosevelt was presenting himself as a friend of the working man,
of the common man, the forgotten man, right the right, yeah, yeah,
(09:49):
but you know, here he is with you know, a
Wall Street speculator, one of the richest men in the country, right,
and you know, doing his bidding in exchange for his
financial support. So there was there. That's one of the
myths that I'm busting in my book is the idea
(10:12):
that he really that he was a trader to his class.
That's the title of HW Brands's book, and it's a
phrase that was coined by Arthur Schlessinger.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Oh yeah, okay, well that's that gets into like in
the Kennedy Johnson time. But Bernard Baruk also was one
of the major figures during the Wilson War years where
basically the constitution was suspended, yes, and we had an
outright authoritarian regime that was engaging in open censorship, putting
(10:50):
people in prison for speaking out, including Eugene V. Debs,
the Socialist candidate for president, and anyone who was a
dissenter from the war. And that FDR also, And this
is something that you could tell me if I'm really
(11:12):
going out on a tin hat here and speculating. But
when he gave his initial speeches, he talked about a
national emergency and the need to have extraordinary powers in
the presidency to deal with it, the national emergency being
(11:33):
the depression, and that in his inaugural address in nineteen
thirty four he basically and Phiiry explicitly said that he
would be declaring a national emergency, and that a few
weeks into his administration he declared what's called the bank Holiday,
(11:54):
where all banks were closed. There was a lot of
fear in the country at that time. I mean it
was then some banks were liquidated and others were allowed
to open limited I don't know if people lost money.
I recently read some letters written by my late grandmother
who was around at that time, and it was a
teenager and she kept a diary and she was like
(12:17):
everybody was frightened everybody was like, what's going on here?
Is It's like the country is moving to a dictatorship.
You know, we should yeah, I mean we should note
that at that time, Hitler had declared a suspension of
the German constitution after the Reichstaud fire. And of course
you had Busselini had already taken emergency powers in Italy,
(12:41):
and you had Stalin, and you had others around the
world where you had this kind of massive move toward
a strong hypernationalist entities. And I think that FDR was
cut of that cloth in the American context. It wasn't
like or Italy, but I think that he saw himself
(13:03):
in that vein. But he was restrained by our way
of life. I mean, he couldn't get away with that here.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yes, he was restrained by the constitution, you know, the
other two branches of government, even though he tried to
fight those. But it's interesting you know about your grandmother's diary,
because when you read most of the history books about
you know, Franklin Roosevelt, what you read are excerpts from
(13:33):
letters who are people who are thanking him, willing to
do anything. And when you're talking about the banking holiday,
now the banks. You know, in New York State, the
banks were okay. You know Governor Lehman, who was the
lieutenant governor under Franklin Roosevelt was you know, was governor.
(13:55):
Then he did not want to close the banks, and
Emon unlike Fdr knew about economics. He was a finance guy.
But nonetheless, all the banks were closed, even the ones
that were good, you know that, right. And also along
(14:18):
with that so called bank holiday, you know, nice, nice
way to put it right, people were ordered to give
up their gold. There were lines. If you read the
New York Times, it's so revealing. You know, people were
in fear. You know, they're given like two days notice
(14:41):
and told you need to hand in your gold by
Thursday otherwise you will face a ten thousand dollars fine
and ten years in prison. Yeah, people were emptying out
their you know, safe deposit box and banks. They were
going through their jewelry boxes like if they'd gotten gold
(15:05):
coins as a Christmas present. They were bringing them in
and waiting in line, and there were guards there, and
I mean that is I mean, that's what that's what
Lenin did. You know? After the revolution, right, you know,
they took over the banks and there was really no
(15:26):
constitutional reason for FDR to do that. But what he did,
he was very, very tricky. He went back, he recalled
from his assistant Secretary of the Navy days that there
was a Trading with the Enemies Act that was instituted
and that prohibited the outflow of gold, and it gave
(15:49):
the national government power over gold. But can you imagine that,
I mean the closest thing I come to imagining is
what happened and during COVID, when you know, people were
afraid of the government and they did things you know
that they would not normally do you know, wear masks,
(16:10):
walk one way down the grocery store aisle, right.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And it's all done under this hysteria that there was
this disease that was I mean, the original propaganda coming
out of that was horrible. I mean everybody was scared.
I was scared. I mean people throught a young man
dying with limbs falling off. I remember reading, and so
you know, they created a hysteria. I think of FDR
(16:35):
that hysteria was the depression. I think I recall reading
an article about the gold seizing the gold where he's
sitting in his bed with a couple of advisers standing
by tinkering onto how much to value the gold, and
it was valued in a way obviously the benefit of
the government, and so people got only a percentage of
(16:57):
the value in they were forced to accept it is
a form of basically fiat dollars. And so that led
to it, in a way somewhat of an economic contraction.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, exactly. Henry Morgan his I think he became Secretary
of Treasury eventually, but his neighbor, his wealthy neighbor over
in Hyde Park, was shocked because Roosevelt personally was determining
the value of gold, and Henry Morgan thought gave him
(17:34):
a figure, and you know, Roosevelt saying, no, I don't
like that. I want twenty one dollars and I don't
know something since and Henry Morgan's thought says why, he said, well,
it's three times seven and seven is a lucky number.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah. And you know, in a way, that brings up
another issue about Roosevelt, in that I get the sense
that he was not quite as bright as people have
always portrayed him. It is kind of like rather, you know,
the patrician sort of a hell fellow, well met, you know,
didn't kind of a mediocre intellect. But just to touch
(18:13):
again on this issue of the emergency, was it not
under this guise of this emergency powers were basically it
declared war, took war powers, but the enemy was the
American people. That it was under that extraordinary power that
he was able to create all of these alphabet agencies,
(18:35):
and that this same power is quietly has been ever since,
quietly renewed by Congress every two years.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's he did. Congress did eventually assert themselves,
the conservative Democrats and the Republicans. You know that he
later he want he tried to purge all the conservaive
of Democrats during the primaries in nineteen thirty eight. But yeah,
(19:04):
there's this this sense that you know, the president is
it he expresses the will of the people. The will
of the people goes through him. He assumes to know
what the people want and what's good for them. And
you know that that banking bill, it was amazing the
(19:25):
way it was passed. It was like, you know, when
Nancy Pelosi said, we have to, you know, pass to
find out what's in it, right, right, And Congress the
House passed a rolled up newspaper. It was like at midnight,
and you know, and it's an emergency session, and you know,
(19:49):
they're all you know, it's overwhelmingly democratic, and all these
congressmen are new they don't know the ropes yet, and
they feel this sense of emergen and they're passing a
rolled up newspaper because it was still being printed. And
then you know, the Senate passed at thirty eight minutes later.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
It was kind of the beginning of these big, confusing
omnibus bills, which no, they don't have a chance to
read them. It's like a thousand pages. It's like the
USA Patriot Act. Was that where Biden had one I
think with the so called Inflation Reduction, which of course
is one of these Owellian names for a bill. Also,
(20:32):
when FDR met opposition from the Supreme Court, that's when
he tried to pack the Court, which was the most
unpopular thing he ever did. I mean, I think that
that was opposed by all, you know, all sides, and
it was like a low point in his in his presidency.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, he overreached. You know, he was, you know, buoyed
by the nineteen thirty six election, which he won overwhelmingly.
You know, I don't know how many states you know,
went with him. I think it was over forty and
voted for him. And so he thought he had this mandate,
(21:12):
and of course he was going to take as much
power as he possibly could until someone stopped him. I mean,
that was in his nature. One of the accusations that
was leveled at him at the time was that he
wanted to be a dictator, and I believe that that
assessment is accurate. He had he had no sense of
(21:35):
humility as far as I can tell. He never admitted
he made a mistake and punished people who disagreed with him.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right right, indictive to it, anybody who to fight him,
and he was known for that, including Joseph P. Kennedy,
ambassador to Great Britain, who was in a sense trying
to keep the United States out of the war. So
my guest is Mary grab The book is debunking FDR
the Man and the Myth, available at Amazon and a
(22:08):
major bookstores. So you had the situation of emergency powers
and the alphabet agencies. I think that it's been said,
and maybe with some justification, that some of that actually
prevented the United States from becoming a communist country, particularly
(22:31):
the CCC, which employed tens of thousands of unemployed men
doing these massive projects, very much in line with the
American project tradition, going back to Henry Clay, you know,
the Whigs, the nationalist American position. I mean it goes
back to the Erie Canal, and right here in Boston
(22:53):
for example, where I live. Fter your administration, they created
the Cape Cod Canal and the Cape and the bridges
over that canal in a matter of three years. It's
actually amazing. When I drive over that over that bridge
to go to the Cape to visit my mother, I'm
all struck by how those bridges were built from nineteen
(23:16):
thirty three to nineteen thirty five. Today those bridges would
take twenty years. And he did it with this inexpensive
labor of men taken basically off the street who might
otherwise have contributed to a revolution.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah. Well, I have mixed feelings about that. If there
is any program, you know, among those alphabet agencies that
I think were good, I think I would say it's
a CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps. And you know, it
basically took young men and gave them work to do,
(23:56):
because young men in times of desperation can be very
very dangerous. I mean, right, and they weren't paid much,
but you know, they were paid, and they also got
kind of pseudo military training, which which is always needed.
You know, he neglected the military up until about nineteen
(24:19):
thirty seven or thirty eight. But the other public works projects,
you know, the problem with those was that the wages
were relatively high, and it excluded a lot of workers.
So it was they were artificially high. And if you
(24:40):
were lucky enough to get one of those jobs, it
was good for you. But I think it distorted the economy.
And he was and it was very divisive. I mean,
he was a divisive president. His inaugural first inaugural addresses
extremely divisive when he talks about the money changers in
(25:03):
the Temple and chasing them out and the speculators, whereas
he was doing that himself. But it's very hypocritical. But
these public works projects, you know, could they have been
done privately? I mean, I think the consensus of most historic,
most economists other than the Kensians is that he that
(25:31):
you know, Hoover began it. Hoover began tinkering, and he
you know, so when you had you know, the Triple
a program where that was ordering farmers to plow under
a third of their crops and to slaughter all the piglets,
you know, and they didn't even have the equipment to
do that. That was kind of started by Hoover with
good intentions by Hoover, I think, I think, you know,
(25:53):
personality wise, he was very different from FDR, you know,
the engineer, and but I think, you know, the consensus
of conservative historians, the relatively few who have written about
FDR's New Deal, is that he should have left the
(26:19):
economy to sort of bottom out. So what they did
is they artificially raised wages. So Hoover started doing that
and also to go back to you know, letting the
economy sort of recover on its own, the same thing
it happened in nineteen twenty after World War One, there
(26:40):
was a depression. You know, things are pretty much left alone.
Wages decreased, prices decreased, but then it kind of found
its own level. But what happens when you artificially raised wages,
you and you know, you forced business owners to do that,
have to lay off people, and it.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Has like an unintended consequence. And I mean, the other
project was the TVA the Tennesee Valley, which I think
took some government involvement to pull off such a huge project,
and it's one that actually I think still remains in place.
And then there was the dust Bowl that it required
(27:27):
government intervention in that surface soil was being blown even
up to Washington. It was on Roosevelt's desk. And the
other one, of course, is the National Park Service and
a lot of I think good construction went into that.
If you go to like the Shenandoah Valley Park and
(27:48):
other parks, a lot of Depression era work was done.
I don't know if it was the CDC or what,
but I don't think that's all bad. I think that
that is as I say, there is a certain American
blueprint tradition that goes back to Henry Clay in that regard. Now,
(28:11):
to bring things up to the eve of World War Two,
there have always been rumors that were actually articulated by
Thomas Dewey in the campaign of nineteen forty four, that
FDR had pre knowledge of and that he had instigated
the attack on Pearl Harbor, in that there was a
(28:34):
complete embargo on oil and other products to Japan, which
they say might have forced Japan's hand in that. Do
you have any research on that?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, well, you know, there's no question about it. FDR
wanted to get us into war. He wanted to help
Great Britain. He also had a lifelong hatred of Germans
and the Japanese. There was the Alien I think it's
called the Alien Exclusion Act or something in the nineteen
teens that prohibited you know, Japanese nationals from owning land.
(29:14):
That led to riots at DR road a column and
I think it was a nineteen twenty three or twenty
five where he talked about the Japanese menace in California
and yeah, so yes, the the encirclement, you know, sort
(29:35):
of cutting off this island nation from all its resources
was provocative.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
He did.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
You know, Also he sent someone in the Navy was
going to send him off into the Philippines, knowing that,
you know, into enemy Japanese enemy territory, basically on a
suicide mission, hoping that the Japanese would attack. You know.
(30:06):
Admiral Richardson had told FDR, don't keep the fleet in Hawaii.
They're vulnerable, you know, And FDR said, well, I've got
an election to win, you know, nineteen forty and kept
the fleet there, and you know, of course fired Richardson
or moved him to a different position and put Kimmel
(30:29):
in his place. So did he know exactly on December seventh,
you know, on the December sixth in the evening that
you know what was at three o'clock in the morning
of December right, right, Well, I think the so the
(30:52):
I think the telegram came in around one o'clock in
the afternoon, and so it was in the early morning hours,
you know, the West coast time. Did he know that
it was going to happen exactly? That I don't know,
but you know, certainly it was not It could not
have been a shock to him. And one of the
(31:13):
first things to see said, or the first thing he
said immediately is you know, I'm ruined or you know
about his own reputation, you know, forget the three thousand
men who died, right right exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
It was a devastating attack. I don't even if he
did know. I'm not sure, you know, it was going
to be that big an attack, right, really destroyed the
Pacific Fleet and it was what really was one of
the most infamous events in American history and nothing like
that up until the of course, the attack on nine
to eleven of two thousand and one. No FDR's administration
(31:53):
was honeycombed with communists. That's something that has been proven
beyond a shadow of Whittaker Chambers, who was one of
the handlers of communists inside the FDR administration, including Algerhiss,
of course, Secretary under Secretary of State, Harry Dexter White,
(32:14):
under Secretary of the Treasury, and several other people, Laughlin Curry,
who was a chief legal consul who actually lived in
the White House, Harry Hopkins, a bunch of others. He wanted.
He warned the Roosevelt administration, mainly after the Hitler Stalin Pact,
because he could see that, you know, we were heading
(32:34):
into real danger at that time. He had a meeting
with Adolph Burley, who was a close associate of FDR,
and he warned him and he said, please let the
President do something about this. When Burley went in to
talk to FDR about it, FDR told him mind your
(32:55):
effing business, and he did nothing. What was going on
with that? Did he? He didn't certainly deny it. And
he had these people literally living in the White House.
I mean, this is these were high level figures who
were reporting to Stalin. What was going on with that?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's very curious. He had this infatuation with Stalin,
and you know, he wanted the two economic systems to
sort of converge. He thought that he threw his personal charm,
he could sort of persuade Stalin not to murder as
(33:42):
many people or you know, send so many to the Gulag.
But you know the problem began with the recognition of
the Soviet Union in nineteen thirty three, but already he
would But in nineteen thirty two he was meeting with
Walter Duranti, the New York Times reporter who lied about
(34:06):
the starvation of millions in the Ukraine, and talking to
him about giving you know, Soviet Russia recognition, diplomatic recognition,
and it had been tried by other countries, and they said,
you know, we can't do this. You know, as soon
as you open up the doors to these people, they
send in spies, they sabotage your government. And so Roosevelt
(34:30):
had warnings, you know, a couple of journalists, you know that.
I think it was only a couple. Maybe it was
in August of that year nineteen thirty twos said, you know,
we've been there, We've seen what's going on. There is
state sponsored you know, famine. It's been engineered by Stalin.
(34:55):
But FDR didn't care. I mean, like he said, you know,
mind your own laughing business, you know, I mean that
just shows a complete indifference to.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
A moral individual. Yes. Plus, when his wife Eleanor brought
up the lynching of black people in the South, he
told her to stay out of it a mindor business.
He didn't want to hear about it. Speaking of whom
talk about obsession with Stalin, She wrote Dear Uncle Joe
(35:28):
as a column during the war. She seemed to have
loved Stalin. I wonder if you know anything about her
and her rather peculiar relationship with him. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
I don't know about her relationship with Stalin, but.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
I do her relationship with her husband.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Oh, her husband. Yeah, Well, you know that was a
political marriage, you know, for the long you know. As
he was growing up, Franklin Rosa about admired Teddy Roosevelt
as a freshman at Harvard. He had told this girl
(36:08):
and her family that he was going to be president,
and this was his goal and the path he would
follow was the one Teddy Roosevelt had laid out, and
you know she, you know, she did not want to
marry him or have anything to do with him, and
(36:29):
he pursued some other girls. But then he came across
his distant cousin, Eleanor on a train, I think it was.
She was about sixteen, he was eighteen, and he was
with his mother, which was often the case. She was
pretty domineering and they married young. But he all his
(36:50):
life he wanted to get in with that other side
of the family. There was the Oyster Bay branch on
Long Island, which was Teddy Roosevelt the Republicans, and then
the Hudson River Roosevelt's the Democrats. You know, Franklin's father
was a Democrat, and he, you know, sought to be
(37:12):
connected with that side of the family, and so it
was a politically advantageous marriage. So when they were on
their honeymoon in Europe, people didn't know who Franklin Roosevelt was,
but they knew who Eleanor was. She was, you know,
Teddy Roosevelt's niece. So but he he had no respect
(37:36):
for her, you know, she she had grown up as
pretty much an orphan after around the age of ten.
Her mother, you know, didn't treat her very well. Her father,
Elliott Roosevelt, you know, Teddy's brother was an alcoholic and
(37:57):
a drug addict, and woman is iSER those she worshiped him,
and so she was kind of shunted around with her
two younger brothers between relatives and this kind of stern grandmother.
So she she you know, came from a sad background
(38:17):
and was flattered by the attention of Franklin, who of
course had an opposite experience in growing up. He was
an only child, doated on, treated like a young gentleman,
and had everything he ever wanted. So he I go
(38:38):
into some of the things that he did to her,
which were pretty cruel. But anyway, while he was assistant
Secretary of the Navy, he carried on this long term
affair with Lucy Mercer, who was Eleanor's social secretary.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Right, and.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
There was talk about it in Washington, so people would
like whisper and and she she said something was going on.
But when he came back in nineteen it was nineteen
from his European tour of the battlefields, and he had
been stricken with pneumonia and influenza, and so she was
(39:26):
unpacking for him and came across these letters, and that
marriage was destroyed at that point. And and you.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Know, I think it was with five children.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, as one of I think it was James Roosevelt
to one of the sons, said, you know, there was
always like this kind of warfare going on. You know,
they were sort of at a standstill, but you never knew,
you know, there are hostilities constantly between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It was. It was pretty plus rumors about both of
them having extramarital affairs even during the White House years,
and those rumors of Eleanor having lesbian affairs, of the
FDR being homosexual while at Harvard. You know, they seem like,
in a way like the classic elite type people that
(40:19):
just we've leaved led a rather decadent and strange life.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, you know, there was the scandal of homosexuality at
you know, while he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
and you know, there was a hearing, but he got
out of that, and there were several people who described
him as being effeminate, and so I I, you know,
(40:48):
I don't know, uh, you know, what he did, and
certainly you know, I've been to the FDR Library and
Eleanor had built this cottage. I forget what it was called.
But if you see the pictures of her friends, you
know there obviously you know they're lesbians, and it was known,
(41:14):
you know, these were women living together in relationships.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Plus it was the love letters with Lorena Hitcocks.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, yeah, were.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Published I think in the in the eighties. Yeah, and
they just were sort of deconed into his very heavy
drinking and smoking and who knows what else. And the
atmosphere was, I don't know, a bit.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
De bochered, like cocktails. Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
At the end of ftr's life, he was He contacted
Stalin because he had gotten a report that Stalin had
held when he moved into Eastern Europe, he had held
American Americans as pow as prisoners. He demanded that Stalin
(42:05):
release those prisoners at once, that these are Americans and
we were allies. Stalin sent him back a scathing letter, saying, oh,
how dare you preach to me when America Look how
you treated Native Americans in the last century, and you
know this kind of thing and at that time also
(42:26):
this is I mean, I don't really exactly recall where
I read this. But FDR was contacted by Churchill, who said, look,
we have been betrayed, we have been had by Stalin.
At Yalta. Don't forget. At the Alta conference, Roosevelt had
algae Hiss standing over his shoulder. After that conference, algiae
(42:49):
Hiss went to Moscow where he received an award, and
then he became Under Secretary of the First Secretary General
of the UN. To get back, I mean, Churchill warned him.
He said, look, Stalin is going to be occupying poland
he's not gonna he's not going to do anything that
I'm not going to keep any commitments, and that we
(43:11):
basically have fritted away the victory against Hitler, and FDR
became angry about it, and he became suddenly it's like
he became to use an expression red pilled. It's like
I've been had. I thought that I could work with
Stalin because of my great personality and charm, and I'm
(43:32):
in big trouble now and Stalin is screwing this country
and he's occupying Eastern Europe. And he began to start
to speak about it. It was shortly after that that
he died. Now I'm not trying to weave a conspiracy
theory here, because I'm not saying I know this, no
one does. But I kind of wonder, given the fact
(43:55):
that the people around him very close quarters were pro stalin,
including his chief loyal Laughlin Curry, and his Andy and
his wife Frankly, I mean, I kind of wonder if
something might have happened another way, he might have been
(44:17):
given he might have been it might have been a hit.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Oh wow, I haven't heard that. You know, Franklin Roosevelt
had health problems.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Oh yeah, no question. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I mean that's interesting because you know, I mean even
before he ran for his third term here he was
having health problems high high blood pressure and so forth.
And his his last year. I mean, it's kind of
(44:52):
surprising that he lasted as long as he did. I mean,
if you look at pictures from me all ta, I
mean so.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Terrible, it was all gone. Yeah, But at the same time,
it was a strenuous trip to go there for a
man of his condition and age. Look, I mean I
think that it probably died of natural causes while visiting
Lucy Mercer at Warm Springs, Georgia. But I mean, I
(45:21):
don't you know, It's just that if what has been
said is true in terms of Churchill waking him up
and like we have to take action, we can't let
this happen. There was a lot at stake in terms
of the Soviet Union expanding into Eastern Europe and making
sure that that went according to plan, and there were
(45:41):
a lot of people around him in his administration who
were pro Soviet and who wanted to help that happen.
It just seems like he might have been vulnerable to
something like that. I mean, again, we'll never know. I
don't think it's something that It's something we can only
speculate about. But we do know is that you know,
(46:02):
Stalin completely, you know, screwed over Roosevelt at Yalta. It
was a terror and it was he was said at
the time. But you know, he ended up occupying Eastern
Europe as a result, which was the whole point of
World War Two in the first place, which was the
(46:23):
Poland is being occupied by Germany and Russia.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So yeah, well, I don't I don't think Roosevelt cared
about Eastern Europe. He you know, when he made the
deal in Tehran, uh, you know, for Poland. You know,
he was talking about you know, well, I you know,
(46:49):
I've got to tell the polls in the United States
that you know, they're they're going to have a democratic government,
just you know, kind of like what Obama did with
met the med the Dad. He was caught on tape saying,
you know, we'll.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Talk to Vladimir afterwards about this.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Right right, right, And you know, and I think, you know,
I don't think Eastern and I'm from an Eastern European country.
I was born in Slovenia, so it's kind of personal
with me. And you know, Churchill was a little more aware.
I mean, that's why he wanted the Mediterranean Campaign. And
(47:32):
it was Stalin that was pushing for an attack on
the Western Front. You know, anyone could have seen that,
you know that this was you know, Stalin's goal because
he wanted to come in and take over Eastern Europe.
And Churchill recognized that, although you know, in the end,
(47:57):
you know, he settled for Greece and you know, keeping
the Mediterranean open. And you know, the Eastern Europeans, I mean,
they were just dispensable by the Western leaders. They it
was just like pieces on a chess board.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Just the terrible betrayal of the whole principle of World
War Two in a sense, Russia's upstanding. After the war,
we defeated one side and not the other. The other
one expanded and that led to a horrible period of
oppression and Cold War that continued right up to Reagan.
(48:34):
So to sort of wrap things up, I want to
look at the legacy of FDR in terms of the
actual impact that he had on how we governed ourselves
after his administration, what sort of changed, and in the
context of what is happening right now with President Trump,
(48:56):
who was sort of beginning to unravel some of what
he Trump accurately describes as the deep state that I
think was established by FDR and by Truman.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Anyway, Well, yeah, I mean, you know this idea of
the brain trust, you know, where you have these you know,
supposedly really smart people, you know, with Ivy League degrees,
and they're they're going to you know, run these agencies
that are going to be a different another branch of
(49:29):
government that's actually going to have control over the other
branches and taking power away from the people, you know,
through their elected officials. So you know, we've got this
huge administrative state, and you just listen to some of
these people who are being fired or you know, given
these compensation packages, and it's like, you know, how, you know,
(49:53):
how dare you you know, kick me out? You don't
you know what I'm doing for you by having you know,
Brad shows in you know, Turkistan or wherever. You know,
that's what they need. You know, we know this better
than you do. And you know, just the arrogance of
(50:13):
such people. I mean, Joseph lash you know, you're talking
about communists and Eleanor Roosevelt. He was a very close
friend and was part of this front group that was
a communist group, and she was just sort of taken in.
But even he, in his book, you know, admitted that
(50:35):
these bureau crafts, these PhDs who worked in Washington, d c.
Were making two to three times as much as they
could make if they were teaching or had other jobs.
I mean, this was and Washington exploded in size. It
was this sleepy little town, but under the New Deal,
you had all you know, all these you know, self
(50:56):
important people walking around and that's you know, and it's
only grown since then. And you know, that's the that's
what Washington has become. And I think that was one
of the reasons. You know, there's been these proposals for
you know, putting these offices in Wyoming or you know,
(51:16):
someplace else.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
President wants to put like the Department of Agriculture in Wyoming,
which is brilliant. Yeah, a out of Washington. You know,
it's this huge it looks like ancient Rome. It's this
massive government, and these people seem to have gotten awfully rich.
You know, these are public servants, even like I noticed
Samantha Powers, the head of the USAID. How is it
(51:38):
that she's worth eighteen million dollars? Was apparently I mean
working for AID, she wasn't inside out that way. This
is true. Trump is saying he's going to investigate this.
You know that Elizabeth Warren likes to talk about the poor.
She's worth I think about ten million, you know, on
a teacher salary. So I just these people have, you know,
(52:01):
besides being so arrogant and so out of touch, I mean,
they've just profited immensely. You know, Obama was given a
book deal worth ten million dollars just to start running.
I mean in a way, it's sort of a handwashing
the other this whole rotten establishment where they just sort
of help each other up the rat line, and they
(52:22):
demonize everyone else, and they have no idea who they
are or what they're doing. It's it's just it's it
really is almost like a what professor Michael Glennon called
the double government. He's being a professor at job. He's
not some conservative, he's a professor at the Fletcher School,
and he's a former counsul to the US Senate. So,
(52:45):
you know, I think that's what we're looking at now.
They are so out of touch, so top heavy, and
so filled with their own sense of importance. And that
does reflect Roosevelt's personality. I mean, he almost had like
a sense of like, you know, not no blessed obleeged,
but you know, like divine right of kings, which is
(53:05):
something that we got rid of when we kicked out
George the Third, you know, or the Chinese concept of
the you know, the magic kingdom, I mean, the head
of the Chinese dynasty, the mandate of Heaven.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
They called it.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
It's really something that's not the American way. And I
think that he said in motion a pattern that has
continued up until now that enough people are waking up.
So it's very interesting to study who he was and
what he did. I mean, it's not just in politics
either or policy. It's personality. It's you know, you set
(53:44):
the stage. The president does this. I mean George Washington
was very aware of that when he became president. He
wanted to be careful how he was addressed, how he
looked while riding a horse, what kind of suit he wore,
how his hair was combed, because he knew that he
was setting a stage that every president following him would
imitate to a certain degree, and they have. So FDR
(54:07):
had that kind of impact on American politics, not just
the presidency, but the entire you know, bureaucracy that has
run the show since and that's now being smashed, thank god.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, well I hope it is smashed, you know, because
these people who are in these departments, they change the terminology,
they change names, and they switch people around. You know,
I was in academia, so I I know that they're
(54:41):
gonna they're going to try every method that they can
think of, you know, behind the walls, to keep doing
what they've been doing and feeling very righteous about it.
But you're you know, I mean, that's what I'm trying
to point out in my book, is that, you know
(55:02):
FDR thought of himself or actually Edmund Wilson, the liberal journalist,
said that he governed as if he were lord of
the nation. And I think and that comment struck me.
It's in a book called Upstate, and I thought, well,
(55:22):
that's exactly right. And John Flynn had this book in
nineteen forty titled Country Squire in the White House. But
that view of Roosevelt, which I think is accurate, has
been quashed by these historians. These historians in the interim
have built up this myth that FDR was an advocate
(55:47):
of the working man, of the forgotten man, when in
fact he was the opposite. He was an elitist who
felt that you know that he was like the country choir,
who would tell every American, you know, what their job was,
where they should live, you know, farmer, where he should
(56:09):
put plants, crops, what crops he should plan, even though
he'd never farmed. Actually, so you know that that is
who he really was.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
It was like a feudal lord, yes, exactly, controlling the
serfs and being very evolent. But yet everyone had to be,
you know, basically subservient. So the book is Debunking FDR,
The Man and the Myths. Mary Graber is the author.
The book is available at all major bookstores and Amazon
(56:40):
and Barnes and Noble. Mary, what is this project that
you're involved in, the dissident you know professors what you're
calling it, the Dissident Professor Education Project.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Yes, well that was started back in twenty eleven when
I was still teaching at Emory and I was writing articles,
you know. So you know, people are aware now about
critical race theory and DEI, but no one was really
aware of that back then. They knew that professors were liberal,
(57:17):
but they had no conception of what was really going on.
And so I thought, well, I know what's going on
because I'm right in the middle of it, and I'm
going to expose it. And I was writing articles, and
I was I had these adjunct positions, and you know,
when a department chair or the college president got wind
of these columns, you know, all of a sudden, I
(57:38):
had no more classes the following semester, so to teach
after they'd been begging me, And so I was sending
out my articles to a list and I gotten a
check for five hundred dollars from one of my readers,
and I thought, wow, I'm going to, you know, have
to really do something with us. So I set up
(57:59):
a website and I thought, well, I'll be a nonprofit
so he can get the tax right off and other
people can. And then I got caught up in Obama's irsh.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah that was the whole lowest learner business.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Suddenly, all of a sudden, these new conservatives started to
wake up and realize if they could do the stuff
that was really only mental liberals in terms of tax
exemptions and nonprofit Yeah. Yeah, very very bad news. Mary. So,
you know, thank you for joining me. This is really
(58:38):
a great talk, and I'd love to get in touch
with some of the other authors and intellectuals in your group.
But to let my listeners and viewers nowhere they can
get your excellent book and website or anything else you'd
like to share.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Sure. Yes, So my book is, you know, published by Ragnery.
You can go there. You can go to Amazon, Barnes
and Noble, any place books are sold. You should be
able to get it there on my website if you
want to see all my articles I published frequently. I've
been publishing on FDR lately it's Mary graybar dot com.
(59:15):
My last name is g R A B A R.
Sign up for my newsletter. I send out notices when
I have things published or if I'm speaking someplace, and
you can go to dissident prof dot com and sign
up for my newsletter and stay in touch. And that's
(59:38):
how you can get in touch with me.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Dissonant dot com. Mary Grab again, thanks for joining me today.
Really good talk. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (59:46):
Yes, it's been fun. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
All right,
All right, thanks for joining me everyone. Charles Moskowitz here
and welcome to the program. My guest is Mary Graber.
She's the author of Debunking FDR, The Man and the Myths.
She's a Resident Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for
the Study of Western Civilization. She's the founder of the
(00:22):
Dissident Professor's Education Project. She taught that the college level
for twenty years, most recently at Emory University. Her work
has been published by the Federalist town Hall, Front Page Magazine,
City Journal, American Greatness, and Academic Questions. Thank you so
much for joining me today.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Mary, Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You know, your book about FDR is very timely right now,
as President Trump has literally launched, I think, what is
a revolutionary administration that's going to affect the future of
our country in the coming many decades, if not the
set incoming centuries in a way similar to the way
(01:06):
FDR had that same influence when he took office in
nineteen thirty three. So it's important to understand what he established,
which in a sense parallels exactly what President Trump is
trying to undo and recreate something new. So let's talk
(01:29):
a little bit about FDR in his background and how
that does not necessarily match up with the standard official
history version that we were all taught in school.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, well, yeah, there are a lot of myths about
Roosevelt in your correct As a matter of fact, President
Trump came out and said that they were going to
shatter Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal coalition, and looks like that's
what they're doing. Excuse me, but yeah, there are a
(02:05):
lot of these myths about Franklin Roosevelt that you know,
even conservative authors say that, you know, if his New
Deal policies didn't work, he really meant well, which I
found out was not the truth, or that you know,
these were intended to just get us out of the depression,
(02:27):
you know, all the New Deal programs, the Agricultural program,
the NRA, the National Recovery Administration, the the TVA that
you know, all the alphabet agencies, and and I found out,
you know, by researching and focusing mostly on his pre
presidential years, uh, that that was not the case. The
(02:49):
plan all along for Franklin Roosevelt was to establish this
deep administrative state, and he made those aims pretty clear
as a young state senator from New York when he
gave a talk in Troy, New York in March of
nineteen twelve where he gave a little history lesson. He
(03:12):
was not a good student at Harvard, but he nonetheless
felt himself capable of providing a history lesson at the
People's Forum in Troy, New York, and said, while the
Founders were successful in establishing independence, but what they were
really sort of groping towards was interdependence. And that is
(03:38):
the real aim of this country. And you know what
if that requires compulsion, well, you know, the government knows best.
And you know, as an assistant Secretary of Labor, he wanted,
you know, mandatory military training, universal military training. He wanted
(04:03):
you know, compulsory labor. Just really he really liked what
the New Deal stood for.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Right, and I think that also don't forget that particular year.
And of course his uncle Teddy Roosevelt had been president,
so he obviously had ambitions. As a young man. He
became a part of the Wilson administration Woodrow Wilson. That
was a revolutionary administration in and of itself. It was
(04:33):
the first the first self described socialist in the White
House who really changed the way we see ourselves in
many ways. And in the case of Roosevelt, I think
he became assistant Secretary of the Navy right, and he
was a real warhawk, much more so than anyone else
(04:54):
when the United States really did not necessarily need to
get intervene and get involved in in that particular foreign war,
to the point where I think that the Secretary of
the Navy, and his name is because Josepha.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
This something, Joseph Daniels, Thank you, Josephus Daniels. He was
out of town on a day when information came into
the office indicating that there had been an incident with
the German U boats, and Roosevelt took the opportunity to
embellish and fabricate and exaggerate this incident as a way
(05:33):
to push the United States into war.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Did you did you come across that?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I mean there were there were instances, you know,
where he defied what his boss, Josephus Daniels wanted said,
and even the President and you know, sort of hyped
up the threat of the Germans, you know, the incident
in Mexico. He also implied that you know, he was
(06:03):
in charge of sending warships down there, telling you know,
reporters that there was going to be a war, when
you know Wilson is, you know, having talks and trying
to avoid war. There was something about him and I,
you know, I think I used the phrase lot he
(06:24):
had a lost for war. He you know, of course
he never served, he never trained to serve, but he
just seemed to like the thought of war. And it's
a very interesting psychological element of his personality.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Well, his he happened to live in a townhouse in
Manhattan that was next door to the Consul on Foreign Relations,
which was a think tank that was promoting international war
at a time, and that was the counterpart to the
British Royal Institute of International Affairs or Chathamhouse, which were
(07:06):
kind of working together to try to embrail the United
States into this kind of Anglo American internationalism. So I
think that that was his orientation. He was truly maybe
the first internationalist. And yet when he ran for president,
he ran as a nationalist and he ran as more
(07:30):
conservative than Herbert Hoover. My understanding is in that he
actually was criticizing Hoover's government expansion at the time, where
he was trying to deal with the depression and the
stock market crash. And when he became president, and I
think to his credit, we should note that one of
(07:52):
his first acts in this way, similar to Trump, was
that he all he ordered all executive cabinet offices and
agencies to cut their budget by five percent, to freeze
all salaries, and to put a halt on all hiring,
under the understanding that if the rest of the country
(08:13):
is dealing with the depression, why should you know our
public sector be high on the hog.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Well, yes, he did cut one hundred million dollars from
the salaries of federal workers. He also cut four hundred
million dollars from the veterans. Okay, so you know where
his priorities are. And you're right, it was a bait
and switch campaign because you know, there was no end
(08:42):
to how much money he was willing to spend and
wanted to spend. And actually one of his advisors, Bernard Baruk,
was the one who gave him the figure of cutting
four hundred million for veterans and one hundred million for
federal workers. So Bernard Baruk was the largest contributor to
(09:06):
his nineteen thirty two presidential campaign. He had final say
over his campaign speeches, and he was the one who
told FDR to do that, and he did. He once
he established himself and I think he had you know,
(09:26):
other sources of funding as well. He did not take
orders from Baruk. But it's interesting how that came about.
And it's also interesting in light of the fact that
Roosevelt was presenting himself as a friend of the working man,
of the common man, the forgotten man, right the right, yeah, yeah,
(09:49):
but you know, here he is with you know, a
Wall Street speculator, one of the richest men in the country, right,
and you know, doing his bidding in exchange for his
financial support. So there was there. That's one of the
myths that I'm busting in my book is the idea
(10:12):
that he really that he was a trader to his class.
That's the title of HW Brands's book, and it's a
phrase that was coined by Arthur Schlessinger.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Oh yeah, okay, well that's that gets into like in
the Kennedy Johnson time. But Bernard Baruk also was one
of the major figures during the Wilson War years where
basically the constitution was suspended, yes, and we had an
outright authoritarian regime that was engaging in open censorship, putting
(10:50):
people in prison for speaking out, including Eugene V. Debs,
the Socialist candidate for president, and anyone who was a
dissenter from the war. And that FDR also, And this
is something that you could tell me if I'm really
(11:12):
going out on a tin hat here and speculating. But
when he gave his initial speeches, he talked about a
national emergency and the need to have extraordinary powers in
the presidency to deal with it, the national emergency being
(11:33):
the depression, and that in his inaugural address in nineteen
thirty four he basically and Phiiry explicitly said that he
would be declaring a national emergency, and that a few
weeks into his administration he declared what's called the bank Holiday,
(11:54):
where all banks were closed. There was a lot of
fear in the country at that time. I mean it
was then some banks were liquidated and others were allowed
to open limited I don't know if people lost money.
I recently read some letters written by my late grandmother
who was around at that time, and it was a
teenager and she kept a diary and she was like
(12:17):
everybody was frightened everybody was like, what's going on here?
Is It's like the country is moving to a dictatorship.
You know, we should yeah, I mean we should note
that at that time, Hitler had declared a suspension of
the German constitution after the Reichstaud fire. And of course
you had Busselini had already taken emergency powers in Italy,
(12:41):
and you had Stalin, and you had others around the
world where you had this kind of massive move toward
a strong hypernationalist entities. And I think that FDR was
cut of that cloth in the American context. It wasn't
like or Italy, but I think that he saw himself
(13:03):
in that vein. But he was restrained by our way
of life. I mean, he couldn't get away with that here.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yes, he was restrained by the constitution, you know, the
other two branches of government, even though he tried to
fight those. But it's interesting you know about your grandmother's diary,
because when you read most of the history books about
you know, Franklin Roosevelt, what you read are excerpts from
(13:33):
letters who are people who are thanking him, willing to
do anything. And when you're talking about the banking holiday,
now the banks. You know, in New York State, the
banks were okay. You know Governor Lehman, who was the
lieutenant governor under Franklin Roosevelt was you know, was governor.
(13:55):
Then he did not want to close the banks, and
Emon unlike Fdr knew about economics. He was a finance guy.
But nonetheless, all the banks were closed, even the ones
that were good, you know that, right. And also along
(14:18):
with that so called bank holiday, you know, nice, nice
way to put it right, people were ordered to give
up their gold. There were lines. If you read the
New York Times, it's so revealing. You know, people were
in fear. You know, they're given like two days notice
(14:41):
and told you need to hand in your gold by
Thursday otherwise you will face a ten thousand dollars fine
and ten years in prison. Yeah, people were emptying out
their you know, safe deposit box and banks. They were
going through their jewelry boxes like if they'd gotten gold
(15:05):
coins as a Christmas present. They were bringing them in
and waiting in line, and there were guards there, and
I mean that is I mean, that's what that's what
Lenin did. You know? After the revolution, right, you know,
they took over the banks and there was really no
(15:26):
constitutional reason for FDR to do that. But what he did,
he was very, very tricky. He went back, he recalled
from his assistant Secretary of the Navy days that there
was a Trading with the Enemies Act that was instituted
and that prohibited the outflow of gold, and it gave
(15:49):
the national government power over gold. But can you imagine that,
I mean the closest thing I come to imagining is
what happened and during COVID, when you know, people were
afraid of the government and they did things you know
that they would not normally do you know, wear masks,
(16:10):
walk one way down the grocery store aisle, right.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And it's all done under this hysteria that there was
this disease that was I mean, the original propaganda coming
out of that was horrible. I mean everybody was scared.
I was scared. I mean people throught a young man
dying with limbs falling off. I remember reading, and so
you know, they created a hysteria. I think of FDR
(16:35):
that hysteria was the depression. I think I recall reading
an article about the gold seizing the gold where he's
sitting in his bed with a couple of advisers standing
by tinkering onto how much to value the gold, and
it was valued in a way obviously the benefit of
the government, and so people got only a percentage of
(16:57):
the value in they were forced to accept it is
a form of basically fiat dollars. And so that led
to it, in a way somewhat of an economic contraction.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, exactly. Henry Morgan his I think he became Secretary
of Treasury eventually, but his neighbor, his wealthy neighbor over
in Hyde Park, was shocked because Roosevelt personally was determining
the value of gold, and Henry Morgan thought gave him
(17:34):
a figure, and you know, Roosevelt saying, no, I don't
like that. I want twenty one dollars and I don't
know something since and Henry Morgan's thought says why, he said, well,
it's three times seven and seven is a lucky number.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah. And you know, in a way, that brings up
another issue about Roosevelt, in that I get the sense
that he was not quite as bright as people have
always portrayed him. It is kind of like rather, you know,
the patrician sort of a hell fellow, well met, you know,
didn't kind of a mediocre intellect. But just to touch
(18:13):
again on this issue of the emergency, was it not
under this guise of this emergency powers were basically it
declared war, took war powers, but the enemy was the
American people. That it was under that extraordinary power that
he was able to create all of these alphabet agencies,
(18:35):
and that this same power is quietly has been ever since,
quietly renewed by Congress every two years.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's he did. Congress did eventually assert themselves,
the conservative Democrats and the Republicans. You know that he
later he want he tried to purge all the conservaive
of Democrats during the primaries in nineteen thirty eight. But yeah,
(19:04):
there's this this sense that you know, the president is
it he expresses the will of the people. The will
of the people goes through him. He assumes to know
what the people want and what's good for them. And
you know that that banking bill, it was amazing the
(19:25):
way it was passed. It was like, you know, when
Nancy Pelosi said, we have to, you know, pass to
find out what's in it, right, right, And Congress the
House passed a rolled up newspaper. It was like at midnight,
and you know, and it's an emergency session, and you know,
(19:49):
they're all you know, it's overwhelmingly democratic, and all these
congressmen are new they don't know the ropes yet, and
they feel this sense of emergen and they're passing a
rolled up newspaper because it was still being printed. And
then you know, the Senate passed at thirty eight minutes later.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
It was kind of the beginning of these big, confusing
omnibus bills, which no, they don't have a chance to
read them. It's like a thousand pages. It's like the
USA Patriot Act. Was that where Biden had one I
think with the so called Inflation Reduction, which of course
is one of these Owellian names for a bill. Also,
(20:32):
when FDR met opposition from the Supreme Court, that's when
he tried to pack the Court, which was the most
unpopular thing he ever did. I mean, I think that
that was opposed by all, you know, all sides, and
it was like a low point in his in his presidency.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, he overreached. You know, he was, you know, buoyed
by the nineteen thirty six election, which he won overwhelmingly.
You know, I don't know how many states you know,
went with him. I think it was over forty and
voted for him. And so he thought he had this mandate,
(21:12):
and of course he was going to take as much
power as he possibly could until someone stopped him. I mean,
that was in his nature. One of the accusations that
was leveled at him at the time was that he
wanted to be a dictator, and I believe that that
assessment is accurate. He had he had no sense of
(21:35):
humility as far as I can tell. He never admitted
he made a mistake and punished people who disagreed with him.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right right, indictive to it, anybody who to fight him,
and he was known for that, including Joseph P. Kennedy,
ambassador to Great Britain, who was in a sense trying
to keep the United States out of the war. So
my guest is Mary grab The book is debunking FDR
the Man and the Myth, available at Amazon and a
(22:08):
major bookstores. So you had the situation of emergency powers
and the alphabet agencies. I think that it's been said,
and maybe with some justification, that some of that actually
prevented the United States from becoming a communist country, particularly
(22:31):
the CCC, which employed tens of thousands of unemployed men
doing these massive projects, very much in line with the
American project tradition, going back to Henry Clay, you know,
the Whigs, the nationalist American position. I mean it goes
back to the Erie Canal, and right here in Boston
(22:53):
for example, where I live. Fter your administration, they created
the Cape Cod Canal and the Cape and the bridges
over that canal in a matter of three years. It's
actually amazing. When I drive over that over that bridge
to go to the Cape to visit my mother, I'm
all struck by how those bridges were built from nineteen
(23:16):
thirty three to nineteen thirty five. Today those bridges would
take twenty years. And he did it with this inexpensive
labor of men taken basically off the street who might
otherwise have contributed to a revolution.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah. Well, I have mixed feelings about that. If there
is any program, you know, among those alphabet agencies that
I think were good, I think I would say it's
a CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps. And you know, it
basically took young men and gave them work to do,
(23:56):
because young men in times of desperation can be very
very dangerous. I mean, right, and they weren't paid much,
but you know, they were paid, and they also got
kind of pseudo military training, which which is always needed.
You know, he neglected the military up until about nineteen
(24:19):
thirty seven or thirty eight. But the other public works projects,
you know, the problem with those was that the wages
were relatively high, and it excluded a lot of workers.
So it was they were artificially high. And if you
(24:40):
were lucky enough to get one of those jobs, it
was good for you. But I think it distorted the economy.
And he was and it was very divisive. I mean,
he was a divisive president. His inaugural first inaugural addresses
extremely divisive when he talks about the money changers in
(25:03):
the Temple and chasing them out and the speculators, whereas
he was doing that himself. But it's very hypocritical. But
these public works projects, you know, could they have been
done privately? I mean, I think the consensus of most historic,
most economists other than the Kensians is that he that
(25:31):
you know, Hoover began it. Hoover began tinkering, and he
you know, so when you had you know, the Triple
a program where that was ordering farmers to plow under
a third of their crops and to slaughter all the piglets,
you know, and they didn't even have the equipment to
do that. That was kind of started by Hoover with
good intentions by Hoover, I think, I think, you know,
(25:53):
personality wise, he was very different from FDR, you know,
the engineer, and but I think, you know, the consensus
of conservative historians, the relatively few who have written about
FDR's New Deal, is that he should have left the
(26:19):
economy to sort of bottom out. So what they did
is they artificially raised wages. So Hoover started doing that
and also to go back to you know, letting the
economy sort of recover on its own, the same thing
it happened in nineteen twenty after World War One, there
(26:40):
was a depression. You know, things are pretty much left alone.
Wages decreased, prices decreased, but then it kind of found
its own level. But what happens when you artificially raised wages,
you and you know, you forced business owners to do that,
have to lay off people, and it.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Has like an unintended consequence. And I mean, the other
project was the TVA the Tennesee Valley, which I think
took some government involvement to pull off such a huge project,
and it's one that actually I think still remains in place.
And then there was the dust Bowl that it required
(27:27):
government intervention in that surface soil was being blown even
up to Washington. It was on Roosevelt's desk. And the
other one, of course, is the National Park Service and
a lot of I think good construction went into that.
If you go to like the Shenandoah Valley Park and
(27:48):
other parks, a lot of Depression era work was done.
I don't know if it was the CDC or what,
but I don't think that's all bad. I think that
that is as I say, there is a certain American
blueprint tradition that goes back to Henry Clay in that regard. Now,
(28:11):
to bring things up to the eve of World War Two,
there have always been rumors that were actually articulated by
Thomas Dewey in the campaign of nineteen forty four, that
FDR had pre knowledge of and that he had instigated
the attack on Pearl Harbor, in that there was a
(28:34):
complete embargo on oil and other products to Japan, which
they say might have forced Japan's hand in that. Do
you have any research on that?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, well, you know, there's no question about it. FDR
wanted to get us into war. He wanted to help
Great Britain. He also had a lifelong hatred of Germans
and the Japanese. There was the Alien I think it's
called the Alien Exclusion Act or something in the nineteen
teens that prohibited you know, Japanese nationals from owning land.
(29:14):
That led to riots at DR road a column and
I think it was a nineteen twenty three or twenty
five where he talked about the Japanese menace in California
and yeah, so yes, the the encirclement, you know, sort
(29:35):
of cutting off this island nation from all its resources
was provocative.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
He did.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
You know, Also he sent someone in the Navy was
going to send him off into the Philippines, knowing that,
you know, into enemy Japanese enemy territory, basically on a
suicide mission, hoping that the Japanese would attack. You know.
(30:06):
Admiral Richardson had told FDR, don't keep the fleet in Hawaii.
They're vulnerable, you know, And FDR said, well, I've got
an election to win, you know, nineteen forty and kept
the fleet there, and you know, of course fired Richardson
or moved him to a different position and put Kimmel
(30:29):
in his place. So did he know exactly on December seventh,
you know, on the December sixth in the evening that
you know what was at three o'clock in the morning
of December right, right, Well, I think the so the
(30:52):
I think the telegram came in around one o'clock in
the afternoon, and so it was in the early morning hours,
you know, the West coast time. Did he know that
it was going to happen exactly? That I don't know,
but you know, certainly it was not It could not
have been a shock to him. And one of the
(31:13):
first things to see said, or the first thing he
said immediately is you know, I'm ruined or you know
about his own reputation, you know, forget the three thousand
men who died, right right exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
It was a devastating attack. I don't even if he
did know. I'm not sure, you know, it was going
to be that big an attack, right, really destroyed the
Pacific Fleet and it was what really was one of
the most infamous events in American history and nothing like
that up until the of course, the attack on nine
to eleven of two thousand and one. No FDR's administration
(31:53):
was honeycombed with communists. That's something that has been proven
beyond a shadow of Whittaker Chambers, who was one of
the handlers of communists inside the FDR administration, including Algerhiss,
of course, Secretary under Secretary of State, Harry Dexter White,
(32:14):
under Secretary of the Treasury, and several other people, Laughlin Curry,
who was a chief legal consul who actually lived in
the White House, Harry Hopkins, a bunch of others. He wanted.
He warned the Roosevelt administration, mainly after the Hitler Stalin Pact,
because he could see that, you know, we were heading
(32:34):
into real danger at that time. He had a meeting
with Adolph Burley, who was a close associate of FDR,
and he warned him and he said, please let the
President do something about this. When Burley went in to
talk to FDR about it, FDR told him mind your
(32:55):
effing business, and he did nothing. What was going on
with that? Did he? He didn't certainly deny it. And
he had these people literally living in the White House.
I mean, this is these were high level figures who
were reporting to Stalin. What was going on with that?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's very curious. He had this infatuation with Stalin,
and you know, he wanted the two economic systems to
sort of converge. He thought that he threw his personal charm,
he could sort of persuade Stalin not to murder as
(33:42):
many people or you know, send so many to the Gulag.
But you know the problem began with the recognition of
the Soviet Union in nineteen thirty three, but already he
would But in nineteen thirty two he was meeting with
Walter Duranti, the New York Times reporter who lied about
(34:06):
the starvation of millions in the Ukraine, and talking to
him about giving you know, Soviet Russia recognition, diplomatic recognition,
and it had been tried by other countries, and they said,
you know, we can't do this. You know, as soon
as you open up the doors to these people, they
send in spies, they sabotage your government. And so Roosevelt
(34:30):
had warnings, you know, a couple of journalists, you know that.
I think it was only a couple. Maybe it was
in August of that year nineteen thirty twos said, you know,
we've been there, We've seen what's going on. There is
state sponsored you know, famine. It's been engineered by Stalin.
(34:55):
But FDR didn't care. I mean, like he said, you know,
mind your own laughing business, you know, I mean that
just shows a complete indifference to.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
A moral individual. Yes. Plus, when his wife Eleanor brought
up the lynching of black people in the South, he
told her to stay out of it a mindor business.
He didn't want to hear about it. Speaking of whom
talk about obsession with Stalin, She wrote Dear Uncle Joe
(35:28):
as a column during the war. She seemed to have
loved Stalin. I wonder if you know anything about her
and her rather peculiar relationship with him. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
I don't know about her relationship with Stalin, but.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
I do her relationship with her husband.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Oh, her husband. Yeah, Well, you know that was a
political marriage, you know, for the long you know. As
he was growing up, Franklin Rosa about admired Teddy Roosevelt
as a freshman at Harvard. He had told this girl
(36:08):
and her family that he was going to be president,
and this was his goal and the path he would
follow was the one Teddy Roosevelt had laid out, and
you know she, you know, she did not want to
marry him or have anything to do with him, and
(36:29):
he pursued some other girls. But then he came across
his distant cousin, Eleanor on a train, I think it was.
She was about sixteen, he was eighteen, and he was
with his mother, which was often the case. She was
pretty domineering and they married young. But he all his
(36:50):
life he wanted to get in with that other side
of the family. There was the Oyster Bay branch on
Long Island, which was Teddy Roosevelt the Republicans, and then
the Hudson River Roosevelt's the Democrats. You know, Franklin's father
was a Democrat, and he, you know, sought to be
(37:12):
connected with that side of the family, and so it
was a politically advantageous marriage. So when they were on
their honeymoon in Europe, people didn't know who Franklin Roosevelt was,
but they knew who Eleanor was. She was, you know,
Teddy Roosevelt's niece. So but he he had no respect
(37:36):
for her, you know, she she had grown up as
pretty much an orphan after around the age of ten.
Her mother, you know, didn't treat her very well. Her father,
Elliott Roosevelt, you know, Teddy's brother was an alcoholic and
(37:57):
a drug addict, and woman is iSER those she worshiped him,
and so she was kind of shunted around with her
two younger brothers between relatives and this kind of stern grandmother.
So she she you know, came from a sad background
(38:17):
and was flattered by the attention of Franklin, who of
course had an opposite experience in growing up. He was
an only child, doated on, treated like a young gentleman,
and had everything he ever wanted. So he I go
(38:38):
into some of the things that he did to her,
which were pretty cruel. But anyway, while he was assistant
Secretary of the Navy, he carried on this long term
affair with Lucy Mercer, who was Eleanor's social secretary.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Right, and.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
There was talk about it in Washington, so people would
like whisper and and she she said something was going on.
But when he came back in nineteen it was nineteen
from his European tour of the battlefields, and he had
been stricken with pneumonia and influenza, and so she was
(39:26):
unpacking for him and came across these letters, and that
marriage was destroyed at that point. And and you.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Know, I think it was with five children.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, as one of I think it was James Roosevelt
to one of the sons, said, you know, there was
always like this kind of warfare going on. You know,
they were sort of at a standstill, but you never knew,
you know, there are hostilities constantly between the two of them.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
It was. It was pretty plus rumors about both of
them having extramarital affairs even during the White House years,
and those rumors of Eleanor having lesbian affairs, of the
FDR being homosexual while at Harvard. You know, they seem like,
in a way like the classic elite type people that
(40:19):
just we've leaved led a rather decadent and strange life.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Well, you know, there was the scandal of homosexuality at
you know, while he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
and you know, there was a hearing, but he got
out of that, and there were several people who described
him as being effeminate, and so I I, you know,
(40:48):
I don't know, uh, you know, what he did, and
certainly you know, I've been to the FDR Library and
Eleanor had built this cottage. I forget what it was called.
But if you see the pictures of her friends, you
know there obviously you know they're lesbians, and it was known,
(41:14):
you know, these were women living together in relationships.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Plus it was the love letters with Lorena Hitcocks.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, yeah, were.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Published I think in the in the eighties. Yeah, and
they just were sort of deconed into his very heavy
drinking and smoking and who knows what else. And the
atmosphere was, I don't know, a bit.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
De bochered, like cocktails. Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
At the end of ftr's life, he was He contacted
Stalin because he had gotten a report that Stalin had
held when he moved into Eastern Europe, he had held
American Americans as pow as prisoners. He demanded that Stalin
(42:05):
release those prisoners at once, that these are Americans and
we were allies. Stalin sent him back a scathing letter, saying, oh,
how dare you preach to me when America Look how
you treated Native Americans in the last century, and you
know this kind of thing and at that time also
(42:26):
this is I mean, I don't really exactly recall where
I read this. But FDR was contacted by Churchill, who said, look,
we have been betrayed, we have been had by Stalin.
At Yalta. Don't forget. At the Alta conference, Roosevelt had
algae Hiss standing over his shoulder. After that conference, algiae
(42:49):
Hiss went to Moscow where he received an award, and
then he became Under Secretary of the First Secretary General
of the UN. To get back, I mean, Churchill warned him.
He said, look, Stalin is going to be occupying poland
he's not gonna he's not going to do anything that
I'm not going to keep any commitments, and that we
(43:11):
basically have fritted away the victory against Hitler, and FDR
became angry about it, and he became suddenly it's like
he became to use an expression red pilled. It's like
I've been had. I thought that I could work with
Stalin because of my great personality and charm, and I'm
(43:32):
in big trouble now and Stalin is screwing this country
and he's occupying Eastern Europe. And he began to start
to speak about it. It was shortly after that that
he died. Now I'm not trying to weave a conspiracy
theory here, because I'm not saying I know this, no
one does. But I kind of wonder, given the fact
(43:55):
that the people around him very close quarters were pro stalin,
including his chief loyal Laughlin Curry, and his Andy and
his wife Frankly, I mean, I kind of wonder if
something might have happened another way, he might have been
(44:17):
given he might have been it might have been a hit.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Oh wow, I haven't heard that. You know, Franklin Roosevelt
had health problems.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Oh yeah, no question. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I mean that's interesting because you know, I mean even
before he ran for his third term here he was
having health problems high high blood pressure and so forth.
And his his last year. I mean, it's kind of
(44:52):
surprising that he lasted as long as he did. I mean,
if you look at pictures from me all ta, I
mean so.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Terrible, it was all gone. Yeah, But at the same time,
it was a strenuous trip to go there for a
man of his condition and age. Look, I mean I
think that it probably died of natural causes while visiting
Lucy Mercer at Warm Springs, Georgia. But I mean, I
(45:21):
don't you know, It's just that if what has been
said is true in terms of Churchill waking him up
and like we have to take action, we can't let
this happen. There was a lot at stake in terms
of the Soviet Union expanding into Eastern Europe and making
sure that that went according to plan, and there were
(45:41):
a lot of people around him in his administration who
were pro Soviet and who wanted to help that happen.
It just seems like he might have been vulnerable to
something like that. I mean, again, we'll never know. I
don't think it's something that It's something we can only
speculate about. But we do know is that you know,
(46:02):
Stalin completely, you know, screwed over Roosevelt at Yalta. It
was a terror and it was he was said at
the time. But you know, he ended up occupying Eastern
Europe as a result, which was the whole point of
World War Two in the first place, which was the
(46:23):
Poland is being occupied by Germany and Russia.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
So yeah, well, I don't I don't think Roosevelt cared
about Eastern Europe. He you know, when he made the
deal in Tehran, uh, you know, for Poland. You know,
he was talking about you know, well, I you know,
(46:49):
I've got to tell the polls in the United States
that you know, they're they're going to have a democratic government,
just you know, kind of like what Obama did with
met the med the Dad. He was caught on tape saying,
you know, we'll.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Talk to Vladimir afterwards about this.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Right right, right, And you know, and I think, you know,
I don't think Eastern and I'm from an Eastern European country.
I was born in Slovenia, so it's kind of personal
with me. And you know, Churchill was a little more aware.
I mean, that's why he wanted the Mediterranean Campaign. And
(47:32):
it was Stalin that was pushing for an attack on
the Western Front. You know, anyone could have seen that,
you know that this was you know, Stalin's goal because
he wanted to come in and take over Eastern Europe.
And Churchill recognized that, although you know, in the end,
(47:57):
you know, he settled for Greece and you know, keeping
the Mediterranean open. And you know, the Eastern Europeans, I mean,
they were just dispensable by the Western leaders. They it
was just like pieces on a chess board.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Just the terrible betrayal of the whole principle of World
War Two in a sense, Russia's upstanding. After the war,
we defeated one side and not the other. The other
one expanded and that led to a horrible period of
oppression and Cold War that continued right up to Reagan.
(48:34):
So to sort of wrap things up, I want to
look at the legacy of FDR in terms of the
actual impact that he had on how we governed ourselves
after his administration, what sort of changed, and in the
context of what is happening right now with President Trump,
(48:56):
who was sort of beginning to unravel some of what
he Trump accurately describes as the deep state that I
think was established by FDR and by Truman.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Anyway, Well, yeah, I mean, you know this idea of
the brain trust, you know, where you have these you know,
supposedly really smart people, you know, with Ivy League degrees,
and they're they're going to you know, run these agencies
that are going to be a different another branch of
(49:29):
government that's actually going to have control over the other
branches and taking power away from the people, you know,
through their elected officials. So you know, we've got this
huge administrative state, and you just listen to some of
these people who are being fired or you know, given
these compensation packages, and it's like, you know, how, you know,
(49:53):
how dare you you know, kick me out? You don't
you know what I'm doing for you by having you know,
Brad shows in you know, Turkistan or wherever. You know,
that's what they need. You know, we know this better
than you do. And you know, just the arrogance of
(50:13):
such people. I mean, Joseph lash you know, you're talking
about communists and Eleanor Roosevelt. He was a very close
friend and was part of this front group that was
a communist group, and she was just sort of taken in.
But even he, in his book, you know, admitted that
(50:35):
these bureau crafts, these PhDs who worked in Washington, d c.
Were making two to three times as much as they
could make if they were teaching or had other jobs.
I mean, this was and Washington exploded in size. It
was this sleepy little town, but under the New Deal,
you had all you know, all these you know, self
(50:56):
important people walking around and that's you know, and it's
only grown since then. And you know, that's the that's
what Washington has become. And I think that was one
of the reasons. You know, there's been these proposals for
you know, putting these offices in Wyoming or you know,
(51:16):
someplace else.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
President wants to put like the Department of Agriculture in Wyoming,
which is brilliant. Yeah, a out of Washington. You know,
it's this huge it looks like ancient Rome. It's this
massive government, and these people seem to have gotten awfully rich.
You know, these are public servants, even like I noticed
Samantha Powers, the head of the USAID. How is it
(51:38):
that she's worth eighteen million dollars? Was apparently I mean
working for AID, she wasn't inside out that way. This
is true. Trump is saying he's going to investigate this.
You know that Elizabeth Warren likes to talk about the poor.
She's worth I think about ten million, you know, on
a teacher salary. So I just these people have, you know,
(52:01):
besides being so arrogant and so out of touch, I mean,
they've just profited immensely. You know, Obama was given a
book deal worth ten million dollars just to start running.
I mean in a way, it's sort of a handwashing
the other this whole rotten establishment where they just sort
of help each other up the rat line, and they
(52:22):
demonize everyone else, and they have no idea who they
are or what they're doing. It's it's just it's it
really is almost like a what professor Michael Glennon called
the double government. He's being a professor at job. He's
not some conservative, he's a professor at the Fletcher School,
and he's a former counsul to the US Senate. So,
(52:45):
you know, I think that's what we're looking at now.
They are so out of touch, so top heavy, and
so filled with their own sense of importance. And that
does reflect Roosevelt's personality. I mean, he almost had like
a sense of like, you know, not no blessed obleeged,
but you know, like divine right of kings, which is
(53:05):
something that we got rid of when we kicked out
George the Third, you know, or the Chinese concept of
the you know, the magic kingdom, I mean, the head
of the Chinese dynasty, the mandate of Heaven.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
They called it.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
It's really something that's not the American way. And I
think that he said in motion a pattern that has
continued up until now that enough people are waking up.
So it's very interesting to study who he was and
what he did. I mean, it's not just in politics
either or policy. It's personality. It's you know, you set
(53:44):
the stage. The president does this. I mean George Washington
was very aware of that when he became president. He
wanted to be careful how he was addressed, how he
looked while riding a horse, what kind of suit he wore,
how his hair was combed, because he knew that he
was setting a stage that every president following him would
imitate to a certain degree, and they have. So FDR
(54:07):
had that kind of impact on American politics, not just
the presidency, but the entire you know, bureaucracy that has
run the show since and that's now being smashed, thank god.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, well I hope it is smashed, you know, because
these people who are in these departments, they change the terminology,
they change names, and they switch people around. You know,
I was in academia, so I I know that they're
(54:41):
gonna they're going to try every method that they can
think of, you know, behind the walls, to keep doing
what they've been doing and feeling very righteous about it.
But you're you know, I mean, that's what I'm trying
to point out in my book, is that, you know
(55:02):
FDR thought of himself or actually Edmund Wilson, the liberal journalist,
said that he governed as if he were lord of
the nation. And I think and that comment struck me.
It's in a book called Upstate, and I thought, well,
(55:22):
that's exactly right. And John Flynn had this book in
nineteen forty titled Country Squire in the White House. But
that view of Roosevelt, which I think is accurate, has
been quashed by these historians. These historians in the interim
have built up this myth that FDR was an advocate
(55:47):
of the working man, of the forgotten man, when in
fact he was the opposite. He was an elitist who
felt that you know that he was like the country choir,
who would tell every American, you know, what their job was,
where they should live, you know, farmer, where he should
(56:09):
put plants, crops, what crops he should plan, even though
he'd never farmed. Actually, so you know that that is
who he really was.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
It was like a feudal lord, yes, exactly, controlling the
serfs and being very evolent. But yet everyone had to be,
you know, basically subservient. So the book is Debunking FDR,
The Man and the Myths. Mary Graber is the author.
The book is available at all major bookstores and Amazon
(56:40):
and Barnes and Noble. Mary, what is this project that
you're involved in, the dissident you know professors what you're
calling it, the Dissident Professor Education Project.
Speaker 2 (56:54):
Yes, well that was started back in twenty eleven when
I was still teaching at Emory and I was writing articles,
you know. So you know, people are aware now about
critical race theory and DEI, but no one was really
aware of that back then. They knew that professors were liberal,
(57:17):
but they had no conception of what was really going on.
And so I thought, well, I know what's going on
because I'm right in the middle of it, and I'm
going to expose it. And I was writing articles, and
I was I had these adjunct positions, and you know,
when a department chair or the college president got wind
of these columns, you know, all of a sudden, I
(57:38):
had no more classes the following semester, so to teach
after they'd been begging me, And so I was sending
out my articles to a list and I gotten a
check for five hundred dollars from one of my readers,
and I thought, wow, I'm going to, you know, have
to really do something with us. So I set up
(57:59):
a website and I thought, well, I'll be a nonprofit
so he can get the tax right off and other
people can. And then I got caught up in Obama's irsh.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah that was the whole lowest learner business.
Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (58:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Suddenly, all of a sudden, these new conservatives started to
wake up and realize if they could do the stuff
that was really only mental liberals in terms of tax
exemptions and nonprofit Yeah. Yeah, very very bad news. Mary. So,
you know, thank you for joining me. This is really
(58:38):
a great talk, and I'd love to get in touch
with some of the other authors and intellectuals in your group.
But to let my listeners and viewers nowhere they can
get your excellent book and website or anything else you'd
like to share.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
Sure. Yes, So my book is, you know, published by Ragnery.
You can go there. You can go to Amazon, Barnes
and Noble, any place books are sold. You should be
able to get it there on my website if you
want to see all my articles I published frequently. I've
been publishing on FDR lately it's Mary graybar dot com.
(59:15):
My last name is g R A B A R.
Sign up for my newsletter. I send out notices when
I have things published or if I'm speaking someplace, and
you can go to dissident prof dot com and sign
up for my newsletter and stay in touch. And that's
(59:38):
how you can get in touch with me.
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Dissonant dot com. Mary Grab again, thanks for joining me today.
Really good talk. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (59:46):
Yes, it's been fun. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
All right,
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