The Roosevelts - Ken Burns gets my vote!

[lookin]

Probably should have put this in the Politics Forum, but there has been so much more than politics in this series.

I've never been much of a history buff, but then something like The Roosevelts comes along and makes me realize what I've missed. I hope that MsGuy, and others, will come along and put this incredible family in better context. So much is different between then and now but, in my opinion, the similarities and differences are pretty equally weighted. What really seems different though is how much our political discourse has changed.

F'rinstance, one blurb from Franklin Roosevelt's second inaugural address was amazing for its simplicity, directness, and honesty, but mostly for the fact that a president could nearly get booed from the platform for making it today:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

He was warmly cheered for saying that we should be concerned for the less fortunate among us. Today, there would be millions of selfish voices swearing that the only path forward is to cut taxes on the wealthy and cut benefits to the poor. They believe, or so they say, that we will be a much better nation if we let the poorly paid and unemployed just suck it up and put as much money as we can into the pockets of the rich. Such a position would be shameful to FDR and, personally, it's counter to all the values I learned growing up. How can our national values have changed so much?

Something else I learned in the program, or rather unlearned, was the role that World War II spending, in advance of and during the war, was the reason the economy improved so much. In fact, the programs that FDR put in place during his first term, while WWII was still a ways away, had an immediate impact in improving wages and cutting unemployment. Moreover, when he cut back the programs after a few years to 'balance the budget', another mini-depression followed immediately, and most of the programs were restored. And, once again, direct federal intervention worked wonders.

Another learning experience, for me anyway, was how active Theodore Roosevelt was in shifting the balance of power away from the wealthy industrialists and toward workers. Even as a Republican, he was not shy about spreading the country's wealth around more equitably. Also, I hadn't realized how eager he was to go to war, any war, and it was surprising to see how much he cared for the common man, as long as the common man was born in the United States.

I'd known about Eleanor Roosevelt's lifetime connections to active, involved, and powerful women, many of whom were likely gay, but I hadn't been aware of how completely these women were integrated into the Roosevelt family and how much influence they had on FDR himself.

This is the first time I ever stayed glued to two hours of TV, seven nights in a row, and was focused the whole time. All in all, an incredible bit of storytelling by Ken Burns and I'm likely to watch the series again. Looks like they're all on the PBS website for anyone who's interested.

I do tend to get doe-eyed when enveloped by compassionate folks who put their beliefs into action and I'm sure I've missed plenty of nuances in how this powerful family affected our country and the world and millions of hearts in the bargain. So I hope those who are more knowledgeable and informed will rein me in before I become too worshipful.

[Cany10011]

I too was fascinated by the program and enjoyed it immensely. On a side note, i am reading Bill Bryson's One Summer 1927 and it is extremely well written like his other books. Not much of history buff but found it quite engaging.

[MsAnn]

Excellent post Mr. Lookin. Well thought out and insightful. I too was captivated by the series, and at first glance I half expected to be changing the channel, but it was fascinating, and brilliantly done.

[AdamSmith]

Likewise, many thanks. I'll watch this online.

Of the numerous bios, I recently really enjoyed H.W. Brands's Traitor to his Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/history/features/past-features/brands09.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003678.html

[lookin]

Well, lookie here! Paul Krugman, only yesterday, called out the mean-spirited folks who have succeeded in cutting unemployment benefits while the rich are getting richer.

Not as surprising that the politicians are pulling this shit as it is that we're letting them get away with it.

Better wind down my rant here, before I get run off to the Politics Forum.

[MsAnn]

Those pesky poor people. They ruin everything. So unsightly. Ya know, there really should be a law.

http://lightbox.time.com/2011/11/17/below-the-line-portraits-of-american-poverty/#1

http://timethemoment.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/3307_5_5710__final.jpg?w=618

I liked this from Mr. Lookin's post:

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little"

[AdamSmith]

Really worth its own thread but nonetheless apropos here to note the surprising best-seller status attained by the recent Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

"...The central thesis is that when the rate of return on capital ( r ) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century

[BigK]

Probably should have put this in the Politics Forum, but there has been so much more than politics in this series.

I've never been much of a history buff, but then something like The Roosevelts comes along and makes me realize what I've missed. I hope that MsGuy, and others, will come along and put this incredible family in better context. So much is different between then and now but, in my opinion, the similarities and differences are pretty equally weighted. What really seems different though is how much our political discourse has changed.

F'rinstance, one blurb from Franklin Roosevelt's second inaugural address was amazing for its simplicity, directness, and honesty, but mostly for the fact that a president could nearly get booed from the platform for making it today:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

He was warmly cheered for saying that we should be concerned for the less fortunate among us. Today, there would be millions of selfish voices swearing that the only path forward is to cut taxes on the wealthy and cut benefits to the poor. They believe, or so they say, that we will be a much better nation if we let the poorly paid and unemployed just suck it up and put as much money as we can into the pockets of the rich. Such a position would be shameful to FDR and, personally, it's counter to all the values I learned growing up. How can our national values have changed so much?

Something else I learned in the program, or rather unlearned, was the role that World War II spending, in advance of and during the war, was the reason the economy improved so much. In fact, the programs that FDR put in place during his first term, while WWII was still a ways away, had an immediate impact in improving wages and cutting unemployment. Moreover, when he cut back the programs after a few years to 'balance the budget', another mini-depression followed immediately, and most of the programs were restored. And, once again, direct federal intervention worked wonders.

Another learning experience, for me anyway, was how active Theodore Roosevelt was in shifting the balance of power away from the wealthy industrialists and toward workers. Even as a Republican, he was not shy about spreading the country's wealth around more equitably. Also, I hadn't realized how eager he was to go to war, any war, and it was surprising to see how much he cared for the common man, as long as the common man was born in the United States.

I'd known about Eleanor Roosevelt's lifetime connections to active, involved, and powerful women, many of whom were likely gay, but I hadn't been aware of how completely these women were integrated into the Roosevelt family and how much influence they had on FDR himself.

This is the first time I ever stayed glued to two hours of TV, seven nights in a row, and was focused the whole time. All in all, an incredible bit of storytelling by Ken Burns and I'm likely to watch the series again. Looks like they're all on the PBS website for anyone who's interested.

I do tend to get doe-eyed when enveloped by compassionate folks who put their beliefs into action and I'm sure I've missed plenty of nuances in how this powerful family affected our country and the world and millions of hearts in the bargain. So I hope those who are more knowledgeable and informed will rein me in before I become too worshipful.

What!!! No Spoiler alert ... So I guess there's going to be a war or II.

Kidding aside, I'm really enjoying the series too. Only up to episode 3 so far.

[lookin]

What!!! No Spoiler alert ... So I guess there's going to be a war or II.

Kidding aside, I'm really enjoying the series too. Only up to episode 3 so far.

And you knew about the Depression, right?

What's especially nice about this series for me is that, even if you know all the history, the personal insights enlighten the events. I could feel the despair and the triumphs that everyone was going through.

A man watching FDR's funeral was weeping. When someone asked him if he knew the president, he said "No, but he knew me."

I bet you're going to like the series more and more as you go along.

PS: Keep an eye out fot the hardbodies in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

[Guest CharliePS]

I have not watched this series, but I know several people who have, and who are fascinated by it, so Ken Burns must be doing his usual job of being professionally entertaining. However, I understand that there is nothing in it that would suggest FDR was not at all progressive where homosexuality was concerned. He condoned a regulation making homosexual conduct in the Navy (of all places!) illegal, and was Sec'y of the Navy during a famous gay witch-hunt there during Wilson's presidency. He sacrificed the career of his friend Sumner Welles, Undersec'y of State, to the private demands of Republican politicians who had discovered that Welles had engaged in sex with two Pullman car porters on a train, failing to stand by a man to whom he was distantly related and had known well since Welles was a child. Eleanor was much more sympathetic, at least to lesbian friends, but Burns apparently whitewashes that as well.

[AdamSmith]

He sacrificed the career of his friend Sumner Welles, Undersec'y of State, to the private demands of Republican politicians who had discovered that Welles had engaged in sex with two Pullman car porters on a train, failing to stand by a man to whom he was distantly related and had known well since Welles was a child.

This view is much harsher toward FDR than accounts I've read, which indicated he defended Welles for more than two years but was finally forced into letting him go, then vowed in retribution to ruin the career of William Bullitt, the person instrumental in outing Welles.

Wikipedia's summary is in line with what I recall from past readings:

In the late 1930s, the State Department was divided by rivalry between Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Undersecretary Sumner Welles, who was Roosevelt's favorite. [Former ambassador to France William] Bullitt, who disliked Welles, was allied with Hull and Department Counselor R. Walton Moore.

In September 1940, Welles, while drunk, made homosexual propositions to a pair of railroad porters. Bullitt learned of this incident through Moore, who at his death passed affidavits sworn by the propositioned porters to Bullitt. Bullitt used this information to campaign for Welles's resignation. Roosevelt long resisted taking any action against Welles. Elliot Roosevelt later wrote that his father believed that Bullitt had bribed the porters to make overtures to Welles to entrap him.

On April 23, 1941, Bullitt confronted the President with his evidence, but Roosevelt refused to yield to Bullitt's demands and dismissed him from any further significant duties with the State Department. At one point, he suggested to Hull that Bullitt should be appointed Ambassador to Liberia, one of the worst postings in the Foreign Service. In 1942, Bullitt pushed the story to Vice President Henry A. Wallace and to Secretary Hull. Roosevelt told Wallace that Bullitt ought to "burn in hell" for what he was saying about Welles. In early 1943, Hull began to demand Welles' removal. Bullitt now informed Senator Owen Brewster, a Republican, a strong opponent of Roosevelt. Brewster threatened a senatorial inquiry. The potential scandal forced Roosevelt to act, and on September 30, 1943, Welles resigned. Roosevelt remained very angry with Bullitt and refused to give Bullitt any government post.

Post-diplomatic career

Denied a commission in the US Armed Forces by Roosevelt, Bullitt joined the Free French Forces. Roosevelt suggested to Bullitt to run for Mayor of Philadelphia as a Democrat in 1943, but Roosevelt secretly told the Democratic leaders there "Cut his throat." Bullitt was defeated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Christian_Bullitt,_Jr.

[Guest CharliePS]

The Welles story is rather murky, because it depends almost entirely on undocumented sources. Even the famous train trip on which the incident with the porters supposedly occurred differs from one source to another, sometimes on a trip to a funeral in 1937, other sources putting it on the trip to William Bankhead's funeral in 1940. Welles supposedly told his wife (he was married three times) that it was an isolated drunken escapade, but other sources claim that Welles was known within DC circles to be gay for years before that. But everything is third person accounts of what one person claims another person said or did. The only thing they all agree on is that when Roosevelt was pressured to get rid of Welles because there was reason to believe he had engaged in homosexual acts, he eventually did so, just as Lyndon Johnson failed to stand up for his close friend Walter Jenkins.

[lookin]

Fascinating story, AdamSmith! Hadn't heard that one.

Dunno how Burns decided what to put in and what to leave out. As mentioned before, the series covered a lot of history but the focus was definitely tilted toward the personal. The full title was The Roosevelts, An Intimate History, and there was a lot on the various Roosevelts themselves. Perhaps the Sumner Welles story didn't make the cut.

He didn't show Eleanor in flagrante delicto, that's for sure, but it wasn't apparent to me anyway that he was "whitewashing" her relationships with other women. CharliePS, I'd be interested in your take after you've had a chance to watch the program.

I could easily see a whole thread on attitudes toward gays throughout U. S. history. My own peccadillos began almost two decades after FDR's death and, even then, I don't recall anyone who was bringing the issue into the public discourse, let along taking a public stand on it. It wasn't until the Walter Jenkins story that I remember hearing anything in the media about it. It would have taken a rare politician to support gay rights in those days. In fact, I don't recall the word even being used then.

One of these days I might sneak off to the Hormel Center and see what I can find.

[Guest CharliePS]

I could easily see a whole thread on attitudes toward gays throughout U. S. history. My own peccadillos began almost two decades after FDR's death and, even then, I don't recall anyone who was bringing the issue into the public discourse, let along taking a public stand on it. It wasn't until the Walter Jenkins story that I remember hearing anything in the media about it. It would have taken a rare politician to support gay rights in those days. In fact, I don't recall the word even being used then.

One of these days I might sneak off to the Hormel Center and see what I can find.

If I remember correctly, it was editorial policy at the NYTimes not to use the word "gay" until sometime in the early 1970s. Even gay organizations didn't use the word in their names before Stonewall.