FDR Would Appoint Elizabeth Warren

The historically-minded debate over "is Obama's presidency progressive?" seems the perfect topic for this blog, so it’s long past time I jump in. To summarize: On one side are those who look at Obama so far and see missed opportunities, political cowardice, and a presidency whose ideological marker seems more mushy third-way then strong progressivism. Obama’s failings often find themselves unflatteringly contrasted to the strength and principle that Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson brought to achieving their legislative aims. Perhaps the most cited example of this involves contrasting some seemingly weak-willed, overly nuanced Obama talk about big business with the fire of Franklin Roosevelt's "I welcome their hatred" speech in Madison Square Garden in November 1936. One could also note the extraordinary pressure Johnson often brought on members of Congress to vote his way on particular bills or even Roosevelt’s noble (though somewhat disastrous attempt) to purge ultra-conservative Democrats with more progressive ones in the 1938 midterm elections.

The other side, best represented by Michael Tomasky in his piece, "Against Despair," urges progressives to take a deep breath and look at the full records of Roosevelt and Johnson. Rather than liberal stalwarts, Tomasky and writers such as Eugene Goodheart, note the many compromises and failings of both Roosevelt and Johnson in fighting for progressive goals. One need only look at the essential exclusion of African-American workers from the original Social Security program (a compromise to Southern Democrats) to see that high progressive principle was not the only pillar Roosevelt stood upon. Overall, as Tomasky describes in writing about FDR, both his presidency and Obama’s provide clear demonstrations of the “difficulties inherent in trying to effect change, the readiness to accept half a loaf, and the regular reassurances sent to the moneyed classes that the liberals hadn’t taken over the candy store.” He then goes on to detail the historical and structural barriers Obama faces that FDR and LBJ did not: the ballooning of the filibuster, the evaporation of bipartisanship, the weakening of social movements like labor, etc.

Overall, I tend to agree with the tenor of Tomasky and others who, looking at the history, find that "all this has happened before and will happen again" so to speak, a subject I hope to come back to later. For now however, let’s focus on one area where a historical perspective does not place Obama in as good standing as an FDR: diversity of advisers.

Generally, both camps have ignored the specific issue of advisers when examining Obama historically. Goodheart does cite Obama's promotion of a "team of rivals" as a positive characteristic of his administration. At a forum about his article, I had the opportunity to ask Tomasky about Obama's lack of progressive high-level appointees; his response focused on the fact that Roosevelt’s cabinet did not overflow with aggressive liberals, but rather counted among its number several conservative appointees, such as Hans "let's cut the deficit during a depression, what could go wrong?" Morgenthau.

The point however is not to expect that Obama’s policy team would be totally culled from the precincts of The Nation or the Economic Policy Institute. Rather, where some disappointment with Obama in historical context seems merited revolves around the lack of an ideologically diverse set of core advisers. I differentiate this from his cabinet in general; on that count Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis is an obvious progressive and strong cases can also be made for many on the energy and environment team such as Stephen Chu or Lisa Jackson. Thinking specifically about the economics team, the question though is how much he listens to those outside the Geithner-Summers pole of opinion. Solis for example has dramatically transformed the Department of Labor into a force siding with working people as it should (we have Treasury and Commerce Departments to look after business after all). But does Obama listen to her about larger economic matters? How much input did Solis have in health care or financial reform? Or Jared Bernstein for that matter?

Now, one could easily fit Tomasky and co.'s overall argument on to the appointee question: with the absurd filibuster continuing as a sort of tragicomical block on reform, what good would some more progressive advisers have? Perhaps none. At the same time, who knows what political and policy options currently receive scant consideration because there are not forceful advisers to make their case. As William Leuchtenburg and others have long argued, Roosevelt did not want to expend political capital on the National Labor Relations Act, although he did not fundamentally oppose the idea. It took the great upswell and pressure of organized labor to provide the space for people Roosevelt trusted (primarily then New York Senator Robert Wagner) to lobby him personally and bring the bill over the line. Similarly, it was the relentless lobbying by Frances Perkins that helped push Roosevelt to embrace and fight for the creation of Social Security. Are there similar situations for Obama? Perhaps regarding a public option or a different sort of jobs bill?

This is where Elizabeth Warren comes in. I don't know how good Obama and her relationship is or how much weight he places on her opinions. However, we do know that Nancy Pelosi takes Warren seriously, as do several key Senators. The fact that in the past she and Geithner have sparred to me is a big PLUS; they're both smart people and her presence could bring some needed variety and yes "rivalry" to Obama's team. Also, like strong progressives in past administrations, she can count on an independent public constituency (in some ways akin to Perkins, whose previous labor advocacy work gave her key allies in civil society) willing to support and assist her, one she has helped build through media appearances, including several with Jon Stewart. Certainly there are other good nominees who could run the agency competently. Warren however, would be an outsized voice, someone who could spark debate and maybe even cause some trouble from time to time. And history does show that it is often the healthy annoyances that catalyze real accomplishment.

Woodrow Wilson's Leftist Lawyer, Part I

It has been one of the more idiosyncratic aspects of Glenn Beck’s version of reality that Woodrow Wilson has become one of its central villains, with our 28th president also serving as the father of the "cancer" that is modern progressivism. Suffice it to say, no, Woodrow Wilson did not invent progressivism. Wilson fits in no easy box (one of the reasons historians keep writing about him), but certainly he embodied both progressive and conservative (even reactionary) views. Wilson certainly has many detractors on the left, who, while perhaps not as vitriolic as Beck, have found much to criticize him for, ranging from Wilson's often hypocritical foreign policy in which rhetoric (and some action) seeming to challenge imperialism cohabitated quite nicely with often imperial policies, his deep racism which saw expression in the segregating of the federal government, and his unforgivable suppression of civil liberties during World War I. Perhaps because of this, Wilson’s legacy as a sometimes quite progressive president have been sidelined, but are worth looking at. To tie these to my previous post about Beck's obsession with Obama's "radical" advisers, I want to look specifically at how major pieces of Wilson's legacy are due, in part, to the work of a "radical" adviser, who helped make the U.S. a fairer nation for the wage-earning masses.

And with that, let us now turn to one of the great unsung heroes of the Progressive Era: Frank P. Walsh. A brilliant labor lawyer from Kansas City, Walsh served as a steady ally of Wilson in the 1912 campaign. This work caught Wilson's attention and led him to push for Walsh to chair the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations (USCIR), a congressionally appointed body tasked with investigating the problems of labor in the new industrial economy (a commission, it is worth pointing out, created because of organized citizen pressure). Walsh devoted himself completely into the USCIR's work, often stirring up great controversy as its investigations proceeded. Among its most impressive features was the the set of witnesses the USCIR heard from, which consisted of a range of views one rarely sees invited into mainstream dialogue. Coming before the commission was everyone from Industrial Workers of the World founder "Wild Bill" Haywood to the grand industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. In a rather surprising turn of events, the members of the USCIR, representing a variety of interests, disagreed with each other on the final report so vigorously that they issued three separate reports! The most important of these however was Walsh's, which also advanced the most radical analysis and recommendations. With exhaustive documentation, Walsh's USCIR report gave a greater legitimacy to the struggles of workers in a time when unions were in many ways still a rogue institution. Walsh minced no words in the report, stating that "the basic cause of industrial dissatisfaction . . . .[is] the fact that the workers of the nation, through compulsory and oppressive methods, legal and illegal, are denied the full product of their toil." He called for unions to be given the right to organize and for the society to embrace the idea that "political freedom can only exist where there is industrial freedom [and he wasn't talking about deregulation], political democracy only where there is industrial democracy."

Before discussing Walsh's further work with the Wilson administration, it is worth taking a moment to comment on where Walsh stood ideologically. While his politics are somewhat hard to describe, he certainly stood on the left end of progressivism and showed at least a comfort with, if not outright support of, socialist ideals. In a letter to Eugene V. Debs, the perennial Socialist Party candidate and hero of American radicalsim, Walsh approvingly quoted one of his staffers' summary of the USCIR report, that, “[a]ccording to this report, Eugene Debs was right, and his only mistake was in being twenty years in advance of the times.” Walsh also maintained a friendship with the renown anarchist Emma Goldman, including providing legal assistance to her. Goldman felt sufficiently ideologically compatible with Walsh to call him in her memoirs a "radically minded man." Yet, Goldman also recognized the limits of Walsh's radicalism, particularly in his close relationship not just with Wilson, but with the Democratic Party, and in the next sentence after noting his radicalism she goes on to accuse him of "political blindness and social muddle-headedness." Walsh's desire to remain connected to the Democrats and the mainstream led him away from some of his more progressive stances, as in his support U.S. entry into World War I, despite having identified himself as a pacifist. Perhaps Walsh himself best expressed the seemingly contradictory relationships and positions he found himself in when he commented to feminist activist Doris Stevens that, "I hate like hell to be so respectable."

In part 2 I will discuss Walsh's involvement in helping set the first real federal labor policy through his service on the National War Labor Board.