List of critics of the New Deal

The following is a list of critics of the New Deal .

From the left (liberals to far left)

• Mary van Kleeck, American social feminist, labor activist, and social scientist ^{[1] [2]}
• Huey Long, governor and senator from Louisiana; supported Roosevelt in 1932; broke and was setting up a presidential campaign on the left in 1936
• William Lemke, North Dakota, picked up Huey Long support in 1936
• Norman Thomas, frequent presidential candidate on the socialist ticket. Disagreed with Roosevelt's economic theory.
• John L. Lewis, leader of mine workers and CIO; strong supporter of Roosevelt in 1936; in opposition 1940 because of Roosevelt's foreign-policy opposing Germany^{[ clarification needed ]}
• Francis Townsend, physician and political activist, he argued that his Old-Age Revolving Pension Plan (known as the Townsend Plan) was superior to Social Security.

From the right (conservatives, libertarians, etc.)

Politicians

• John Nance Garner, supported Roosevelt in 1932; elected vice president 1932 and 1936; broke with Roosevelt in 1937 over his court packing plan.
• Carter Glass, Democratic senator from Virginia, came from his deathbed to the 1940 Democratic Convention to nominate Franklin Roosevelt's campaign manager James Farley as the Democratic Party's candidate for the presidency. Glass was against Roosevelt's third term candidacy.
• William Randolph Hearst, former leader of left-wing of Democratic Party; owned nation's largest newspaper chain; major supporter of Roosevelt in 1932, broke with Roosevelt in 1935 over Roosevelt's proposal to greatly increase taxes on the inheritances of the wealthy, and to close several tax loopholes used by the wealthy to avoid paying taxes.
• Hugh S. Johnson, first head of the National Recovery Administration (see ). Johnson fell out with Roosevelt after Roosevelt fired him in 1935.
• George N. Peek, farm leader; supported Roosevelt in 1932^{[ clarification needed ]}
• Al Smith, Democratic nominee for U.S. president in 1928; founded American Liberty League in 1934 to attack New Deal programs as fostering unnecessary "class conflict".
• Rush D. Holt, Sr., Democratic West Virginia senator; opposed Roosevelt's domestic and foreign policies. He became a Republican in 1949.
• Robert A. Taft, powerful Republican senator from Ohio from 1939 to 1953. Taft was the leader of the Republican Party's conservative wing; he consistently denounced the New Deal as "socialism" and argued that it harmed America's business interests and gave ever-greater control to the central government in Washington. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Taft, a non-interventionist, vigorously opposed Roosevelt's attempts to aid Britain in World War II.
• Ronald Reagan, Hollywood film actor; strong New Dealer in 1940s; started opposing New Deal programs in the 1950s as a spokesman for the General Electric company; would later become President of the United States in 1980.
• Barry Goldwater, Republican senator from Arizona from 1953 to 1965 and 1969 to 1987; Republican nominee for U.S. president in 1964
• Herbert Hoover
• Lou Henry Hoover
• Lewis Douglas, Budget Director, 1933
• Harry F. Byrd, Democratic senator from Virginia
• Frank Knox, Republican vice presidential candidate in 1936; joined Roosevelt's cabinet as Secretary of the Navy, 1940–44
• Henry Stimson, Hoover's Secretary of State; joined Roosevelt's cabinet as Secretary of War, 1940–45
• Wendell Willkie, Republican presidential candidate in 1940; supported Roosevelt 1941–43
• Ellison D. Smith, Democratic senator from North Carolina, Roosevelt tried to defeat him for reelection 1938.
• Chauncey Sparks, Democratic governor of Alabama, from 1943 to 1947.
• Eugene Talmadge, Democratic governor of Georgia (U.S.state) from 1933 to 1937 and again from 1943 to 1945. He was elected to another term in 1946, but died before taking office.
• Charles Martin (Oregon politician), Democratic governor from Oregon from 1935 to 1939, U.S. Representative from Oregon's 3rd District from 1931 to 1935.
• Ogden L. Mills Republican U.S. Representative from New York (state) 17th District from 1921 to 1927, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury 1932 to 1933.
• Andrew Mellon U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1927 to 1932.
• John W. Davis Democratic representative from West Virginia first district from 1911 to 1913, Solicitor General of the United States from 1913 to 1918. Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1924. After his political career he argued many cases before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality and application of New Deal legislation.
• Pat McCarran Democratic senator from Nevada from 1933 to 1954. He rejected the second New Deal.
• Josiah Bailey Democratic senator from North Carolina from 1931 to 1946. He coauthored the Conservative Manifesto which criticized the New Deal.
• Bruce Fairchild Barton Republican member of the House of Representatives from New York (state) 17th district from 1937 to 1941.
• John W. Bricker Republican Senator from Ohio from 1947 to 1959, governor of Ohio from 1939 to 1945.
• Joseph W. Martin Jr. Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1925 to 1967.
• Hamilton Fish III Republican member of the House of Representatives from New York (state) 20th District from 1920 to 1945.
• Happy Chandler Democratic United States Senator from Kentucky from 1939 to 1945, governor of Kentucky from 1935 to 1939,and 1955 1959. He was fiscal conservative who was critical of parts of the New Deal. He became an independent in 1971.
• Jacob Thorkelson Republican member of the House of Representatives from Montana first district from 1939 to 1941.
• Arthur Vandenberg Republican United States Senator from Michigan from 1928 to 1951. He originally supported the New Deal, but opposed the second New Deal
• Frank Gannett Newspaper publisher and unsuccessful political candidate.
• Merwin K. Hart Republican member of the New York State Assembly from 1907 to 1908. He later formed organizations critical of the New Deal.
• William Dudley Pelley Unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States on the Christian Party ticket in 1936.
• Joseph H. Ball Republican Senator from Minnesota from 1943 to 1949.
• Theodore G. Bilbo Democratic Senator from Mississippi from 1933 to 1947. Governor of Mississippi from 1928 to 1932. Lieutenant governor of Mississippi from 1912 to 1916. Member of Mississippi Senate from 1908 to 1912. He moved from original support for the New Deal to voting with the Conservative Coalition.
• Milford W. Howard Populist member of the House of Representatives from Alabama from 1895 to 1899. He later was one of the editors of The Awakener an anti-New Deal publication.
• Dewey Short Republican member of the House of Representatives from Missouri from 1929 to 1931 and 1935 to 1957.
• Robert F. Rich Republican member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania from 1930 to 1943 and from 1945 to 1957.
• Charles Hawks Jr. Republican member of the House of Representative from Wisconsin from 1939 to 1941.

Writers and speakers

• Maxwell Anderson, playwright, American libertarian, wrote Knickerbocker Holiday (with Kurt Weill) as a satire on the New Deal which compared Roosevelt to Hitler and Mussolini.
• Charles Coughlin, Irish-American Catholic priest with huge radio audience; anti-communist, ^{[3] [4]} originally on the left and a Roosevelt supporter in 1932 but by 1935 Coughlin "excoriated Roosevelt as 'anti-God'". ^[4] Charles Coughlin denounced Roosevelt as too moderate and demanded stronger measures against "capitalism" which he associated with "Jews".
• Elizabeth Dilling, anti-communist activist, author of The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background (1936)
• John Dos Passos, novelist; formerly on the left
• John T. Flynn, journalist, author of The Roosevelt Myth; formerly on the left
• Milton Friedman, economist. A spokesman for the Treasury during World War II; while supportive of relief and employment efforts and expansive monetary policy under the New Deal, Friedman was also critical of the National Recovery Administration. ^[5]
• Robert Frost, poet
• Garet Garrett, editorial writer for Saturday Evening Post
• Henry Hazlitt, writer
• Zora Neale Hurston, novelist
• Robinson Jeffers, poet and playwright ^[6]
• Alice Lee Jemison, Native American rights advocate
• Rose Wilder Lane, novelist and journalist
• David Lawrence, magazine columnist
• Walter Lippmann newspaper columnist and political philosopher
• H.L. Mencken, American journalist, essayist, magazine editor
• Raymond Moley, former top Brain Truster
• Albert Jay Nock, libertarian author and social critic
• Isabel Paterson, libertarian author
• Westbrook Pegler newspaper columnist
• Frank Capra, film director, producer, and screenwriter ^[7]
• Ezra Pound, American poet and expatriate; radio broadcaster for Italian leader Benito Mussolini in World War II
• Ayn Rand novelist, founder of Objectivism and one inspiration for libertarianism.
• John R. Rice, Protestant fundamentalist writer. ^[8]
• Gerald L. K. Smith, Huey Long second-in-command; took over "SOWM" after Long's death, went in pro-Nazi direction
• Gertrude Stein, novelist, poet, playwright
• Mark Sullivan, newspaper columnist
• James True ^[9]
• DeWitt Wallace, journalist and publisher of Reader's Digest ^[10]
• Alfred P. Sloan, President, Chairmen and CEO of the General Motors Corporation. He and his foundations contributed money to Anti-New Deal organizations.
• Irenee du Pont, head of the Dupont organization was connected with the anti-New Deal American Liberty League.
• Fritz Julius Kuhn, leader of the German-American Bund as he called the New Deal a "Jew Deal."
• George S. Benson, president of Harding College (now Harding University)
• Leslie Fry, author of "Waters Flowing Eastward".
• Sewell Avery, businessman, head of Montgomery Ward, he helped finance the American Liberty League
• Frank Chodorov, author
• Roscoe Pound, educator, legal scholar.
• Robert R. McCormick, owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune.
• Harold Gray, cartoonist
• Edward Rumely, physician, educator, newspaper man.
• George Van Horn Moseley, Retired Army general.
• George Deatherage, American political agitator
• Robert Edward Edmondson, journalist
• Curtis Bean Dall, author
• William Wirt (educator)
• Benjamin Anderson, economist
• Harry Elmer Barnes, historian
• R. J. Rushdoony, theologian
• Boake Carter, radio news commentator, he originally opposed the New Deal. Pressure from the Roosevelt Administration caused him to lose his job. He later returned to radio, this time taking a pro-Roosevelt stance.
• Harold Lord Varney editor of The Awakener and The American Mercury, anti-New Deal publications.
• Joseph P. Kamp, executive editor of The Awakener, an anti-New Deal publication.
• Jim Powell (historian) author of an anti-New Deal book.
• Robert E. Wood, retired Army general, executive of Sears Roebuck and Company and Allstate Insurance, he originally supported Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, but later turned against them.

Organizations

• American Liberty League (1934–1940)
• Conservative coalition (unofficial alliance) (1937–1994)

Books with an anti-New Deal point of view

• Alfred M. Bingham & Selden Rodman, editors, Challenge to the New Deal (1934)
• Elizabeth Dilling, The Red Network (1934)
• Elizabeth Dilling, The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background (1936)
• Herbert Hoover, Addresses Upon the American Road, 1933–1938 (1938)
• Raymond Moley, After Seven Years (1939)
• Herbert Hoover, Addresses Upon the American Road, 1940–1941 (1941)
• Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Why Centralized Government (1941)
• John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth (1948, revised 1952)
• Garet Garrett, The People's Pottage (1951, later republished as Burden of Empire and Ex America)
• Murray Rothbard, America's Great Depression (1963)
• James J. Martin, American Liberalism and World Politics, 1931–1941 (1964)
• Gary Dean Best, Pride, Prejudice, and Politics: Roosevelt Versus Recovery, 1933-1938 (1990)
• Garet Garrett, Salvos Against the New Deal: Selections from the Saturday Evening Post, 1933–1940 (2002), edited by Bruce Ramsey
• Thomas Fleming, The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II (2002)
• Garet Garrett, Defend America First: The Antiwar Editorials of the Saturday Evening Post, 1939–1942 (2003), edited by Bruce Ramsey
• Jim Powell, FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (2003)
• Gene Smiley, Rethinking the Great Depression (2003)
• Thomas Woods, The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (2004)
• Robert P. Murphy, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism (2007)
• Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (2007)
• Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (2008)
• Burton W. Folsom, Jr., New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America (2008)
• Robert P. Murphy, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression and the New Deal (2009)
• George Selgin, False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933-1947 (2025)
• Leslie Fry, pen name of Paquita Louise de Shishmareff "Waters Flowing Eastward"(1931)
• Curtis Bean Dall, 'F.D.R.:My Exploited Father-in-Law" (1968)

See also

• Conservatism portal

• Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Old Right (United States)

References

1. "Mary Abby Van Kleeck | American social reformer". Encyclopedia Britannica. 1999. Retrieved September 5, 2019.
2. McClurken, Kara M. (April 22, 2011). "van Kleeck, Mary". The Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved November 21, 2024.
3. Richard Davis and Diana Owen. New Media and American Politics, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN   0195120612, p. 9.
4. "Coughlin, Charles Edward" in Martin J. Manning and Herbert Romerstein (eds) Historical Dictionary Of American Propaganda Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004 ISBN   0313296057, pp. 71–72
5. "Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman". PBS. Retrieved 2019-05-06.
6. Robert J. Robinson Jeffers, dimensions of a poet, Fordham Univ Press, 1995, ISBN   0-8232-1566-0 (p. 25)
7. LIFE Magazine (November 19, 2021). LIFE It's a Wonderful Life. TI Incorporated Books. p. 96. ISBN   9781547859740.
8. Andrew Himes, The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family Chiara Press, 2011 ISBN   1453843752, (p. 271).
9. "Attacks Advisers of the President". New York Times. September 17, 1934. Retrieved November 21, 2024.
10. Heidenry, John. Theirs was the Kingdom: Lila and DeWitt Wallace and the story of the Reader's Digest. New York, W.W. Norton, 1993. ISBN   0-393-03466-6 (pp. 130–35).

Other references

• Gary Dean Best; The Critical Press and the New Deal: The Press Versus Presidential Power, 1933–1938 Praeger Publishers 1993. online edition
• Brinkley, Alan. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, & the Great Depression (1983)
• Graham, Otis L. and Meghan Robinson Wander, eds. Franklin D. Roosevelt: His Life and Times. (1985), an encyclopedia
• Kennedy, David M. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. (1999) the best recent scholarly narrative.
• Carl McCarthy. The Great Wisconsin Brainwash (1954)
• McCoy, Donald * R. Landon of Kansas (1966) standard scholarly biography
• Paterson, James. Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert Taft (1972), standard biography
• Ronald Radosh. Prophets on the Right: Profiles of conservative critics of American globalism (1978)
• Rudolf, Frederick. "The American Liberty League, 1934–1940," American Historical Review, LVI (October 1950), 19–33 online at JSTOR
• Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Age of Roosevelt, 3 vols, (1957–1960), the classic pro-New Deal history, with details on critics. Online at vol 2 vol 3
• Smith, Richard Norton. An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (1987) biography
• White, Graham J. FDR and the Press. 1979
• Winfield, Betty Houchin. FDR and the News Media 1990
• Williams, T. Harry. Huey Long (1969), Pulitzer Prize biography
• Wolfskill, George. The Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934–1940 (1962)