April 12, 1945- The Day America's Father Died

by Nomad

Today marks the seventieth anniversary of the death one of America's greatest presidents. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's passing left the nation not only struck dumb with grief but also a world poised on a new and dangerous age.

Shock and Disbelief

On this day seventy years ago, one of America's most beloved president died suddenly at the "Little White House," his Warm Springs, Georgia retreat since the 1920s.

Shortly after lunch, the care-ridden president had sat in the living room of his cottage, signing letters and reviewing documents. He was sitting for his portrait, reportedly engaged in a lively conservation.

Then, without warning, he was seized by a sharp pain in his head and collapsed. He slumped backward in his chair in an apparent coma. His staff carried him to his bedroom. Doctors were summoned but there was very little that could be done.
In a few hours- at about 3:30 p.m- the 63-year-old president would be dead from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

The Roots of Right Wing Religious Extremism: The Winrod Legacy 1/2

by Nomad

Most Americans have not heard of the name Winrod but decades ago, Reverend Gerald Winrod was at one time a charismatic voice of right-wing dissent, His anti-Semitic message spread through the Midwest by radio at a time when the Nazi party in Germany were rising to power. 

This two-part post traces his rise and fall and his ideological rebirth through his son, a man who took the message to the next level.

Of all the books of the Bible, the Book of Revelations holds a particular spell over right-wing Fundamentalists. I suppose there's a good reason. It is colorfully written and vague enough to mean nearly anything, depending on current events, the mood of the preacher and the target of the sermon. And for the more literal- minded Christians it instills a sense of imminent unalterable doom and fear. A proven motivator. 

In our times, we have heard suggestions that Obama is somehow related to the coming of the Anti-Christ, the devil-incarnate from the biblical prophecies. 

However, Obama is hardly unique in this regard. In fact evangelists have used the prophecies to point fingers at well-known leaders nearly from the time the book was included in the official canon of Scripture. 

In this post, I want to examine the biographical history of the nearly forgotten Reverend Gerald Burton Winrod. Winrod used this particular technique against the president and against the progressive movement in general.

Reverend Gerald Winrod vs. Franklin Roosevelt

In the 1930s, for Christian fundamentalists, all the signs of the end times were obvious. It was a time of great -almost unbearable- tension and apprehension. The rise of totalitarianism in Europe and a world-wide depression unlike anything anybody had ever seen were just two signs that of the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies.

Matt Sutton, Professor of History at University of California, Santa Barbara, notes that in the 1930s, a few influential Christian leaders began to impose their own view on political events.

Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal quickly emerged as the object of their most intense domestic scrutiny. Fundamentalists sensed something sinister in the thirty-second president. His consolidation of power, his controversial policies, and his internationalist sensibilities seemed consistent with biblical descriptions of politics and international relations in the last days.

As a result, fundamentalists did not interpret the growth of the modern liberal state in the U.S. as a reasonable response to the growing global economic depression but instead viewed it in conjunction with Mussolini’s visions of empire and Hitler’s Antisemitism. In short, fundamentalists across the continent came to believe that New Deal liberalism was the means by which the U.S. would join the legions of the Antichrist.

One of the more notable preachers that took this view was Rev. Gerald Burton Winrod in Wichita, Kansas.

When the Supreme Court Struck Back at Roosevelt 2/2

NRA (National Recovery Administration) member: We Do Our Part (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Nomad

In the PART ONE, we examined the attempts by Franklin Roosevelt to develop a series of far-reaching social programs to get the American economy back on its feet. One of his many programs was the National Recovery Act, which attempted to restart and reform the industrial sector. Roosevelt sought to standardize manufacturing and labor by drafting a uniform code for all industries. It was a bold initiative.

The Case of Sick Chicken

Under the blanket codes of National Recovery Act (NRA), Brooklyn-based Schechter Poultry was found in violation of the industry codes for the poultry industry. The sixty charges against the retailer were later to be reduced to eighteen, and among those eighteen charges were "the sale to a butcher of an unfit chicken" and the sale of two un-inspected chickens.

The poultry industry in the 1930s had long been corrupted by gangsters and the Schetchers had struggled hard to evade “the rackets.” When the NRA was introduced, Joe Schechter joined in and displayed the blue eagle in his window. He had little interest in following the codes and it wasn’t long before inspectors found him out.

Franklin Roosevelt's Forgotten War with The Supreme Court

by Nomad

As the Supreme Court deliberates the constitutionality of President Obama's health care plan, it might come as a surprise to a lot of people that this isn't the first time a progressive president has come up against a conservative Supreme Court. Franklin Roosevelt encountered similar problems when he attempted to implement his own economic reforms.

Of the Court's overreach, the president in his ninth fireside chat told the American people, "To the far-sighted, it is far-reaching in its possibilities of injury to America."

Battle Between the Branches

This event of our day and age would not be the first time the Supreme Court has been accused of activism and overstepping its prescribed powers. And this isn't the first time a crisis has developed between the Judicial and the Executive branches of the United States Government.

On March 9, 1937, Franklin Roosevelt, speaking by radio to the nation described the problem of an obstructionist Supreme Court, and the need for a drastic re-evaluation of the process. 
Roosevelt stated the problem very directly "The Court" he claimed,"has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body." He went on to cite, with quotes of dissenting opinions from other High Court judges, instances after instance in which the Court went beyond its duty.

I want - as all Americans want - an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution. That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written, that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power - in other words by judicial say-so. It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized.

His proposal was that "hereafter when a Judge reaches the age of seventy, a new and younger Judge shall be added to the Court automatically."