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6: President and Congress
- Indiana University Press
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65 Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 78th Congress were not functioning on the same wavelength. Although the Congress was nominally controlled by Democrats, it was actually run by a coalition of conservative Southern Democrats and conservative Northern Republicans. Committee chairmanships were held by Democrats, but because so many of the southerners served year after year without any meaningful opposition, their seniority gave them most of those chairmanships. Columnist Ernest Lindley, analyzing the differences between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, wrote that “the prevailing attitude in Congress has been that the home front and the war front are separate and that the home front is an open field for politics as usual.” The administration ’s efforts to reverse this attitude had been less than successful, and congressional leaders were catering “to the narrowest and most selfish economic interests of voters.” In addition to Republican opposition , Roosevelt faced such Democrats as Texas Senator W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, who announced that “I’m a Democrat but the one-eyed mule they’re riding around here is not our Southern donkey” and called for the defeat of FDR and his congressional followers.1 The major items on the congressional agenda as the solons reconvened on January 10, 1944, were military voting and taxes. Columnist Drew Pearson predicted that Congress was “fairly sure to be even more noisy, even more obstreperous, even more difficult for FDR.” He thought, though, that the President would come out “reasonably victori6 President and Congress 66 FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 ous”intheend.AndevensomeRepublicanleaderswerebecomingwary of the party’s congressional tactic of blocking and opposing everything that came from the White House. Some of them recognized that the American people were more interested in seeing the war won and won properly than in seeing which party scored more points at the expense of the other.2 The session was off to a contentious beginning with Franklin Roosevelt ’s State of the Union address, delivered on January 11, 1944. The President, still in what he called the “‘relapse danger’ part of the flu,” from which he had been suffering for a couple of weeks, was not permitted by his doctors to deliver the speech in person, so he sent it up to Capitol Hill at noon, when it was read to the two houses with none of the impact and excitement that personal delivery to a joint session customarily had. That evening, however, he went on the radio at 9 p.m. and read nearly the full address to the nation. He first attempted to allay recently voiced suspicions that any secret commitments had been given in recent meetings in Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran. “Of course we made commitments” in military planning, Roosevelt said, “but there were no secret treaties or political or financial commitments.”3 He discussed five items that he wanted the Congress to adopt, “a realistic tax law,” continuation of the law for renegotiation of war contracts , to protect against undue profiteering, “a cost of food law,” reenactment of the stabilization statute of October 1942 well before its June 30 expiration date, in order to prevent price chaos, and, if all the others were provided, a national service law.4 From there, the President went on to what has become the most noted part of his speech, the “Economic Bill of Rights,” based in part on a memo from Chester Bowles. Roosevelt enumerated these rights: the “right to a useful and remunerative job” to earn enough to provide adequatefood,clothing,andrecreation;therightof thefarmertosellhis produce for a decent living; the right of businessmen large and small to trade inanatmosphereof freedomfromunfaircompetition andmonopolies ; the “right of every family to a decent home”; the right to adequate medicalcareandgoodhealth;therightto“protectionfromtheeconomic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment”; and the “right to a good education.”5 [18.233.223.189] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:38 GMT) President and Congress 67 “Congressional reaction” to the message, the Washington Post reported , “was cool to lukewarm.” Congress and the administration were already at loggerheads on some of Roosevelt’s proposals, and there was little enthusiasm for a program of national service. As soon as the reading of FDR’s message was done, the Senate passed an amendment to the tax bill, freezing Social Security taxes and cutting off a scheduled increase. It was another slap at the President.6 As to the “Economic Bill of Rights,” the President’s recommendations stirred up very little reaction at all. No one argued...