In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

148 Six The Tug of the West A California Interlude Dennis McCarthy’s busy father greeted him in New York when the young man returned from serving in the LDS Church’s British Mission in August 1933. He joined Wilson in Washington for several days at the Shoreham Hotel. Minerva and the rest of the family had already decamped to their new home in Piedmont, California, while Wilson wrapped up his duties at the RFC. In early October, McCarthy “yielded to the tug of the west” and was on his way to California, where he spoke to San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on the sixth.486 McCarthy’s address, which was broadcast, outlined his twenty months’ work with the RFC and addressed the “wide divergence of opinion concerning the merits” of the corporation. The speech gave the former director his first opportunity to share his perspective on the agency’s effectiveness. He discussed what he called the progressive invalidism that had afflicted the nation’s credit system following the debacle of 1929. The attendant “hysteria of fear” escalated as banks fought to maintain liquidity and “depositors rushed to withdraw their balances and hide them in the family closet.” For McCarthy, the nationwide banking holiday in March 1933 marked the climax of that madness. He credited the RFC with delaying the collapse of the banking system, cushioning the blow when it came, and making it possible for so many banks to reopen quickly following the moratorium. Federal deposit insurance, which was to go into effect in January 1934, would protect the 21,748,754 ordinary Americans whose savings deposits averaged $183.17. The skyrocketing deposits in the postal savings system proved that depositors wanted to have their savings insured against loss. McCarthy predicted small savers would transfer much of the billion dollars that had accu486 McCarthy, Biographical Sketch of Dennis McCarthy, 44, 83; and “Limelight: Wilson McCarthy,” Columbia Law School News, 29 October 1951. The Tug of the West 149 mulated in the government’s insured postal savings program back into the economy. While his address focused on banking issues, McCarthy briefly mentioned the particular pride he took at the RFC in his supervision of the Regional Agricultural Credit Corporation. During its eight months of operation , it had lent $134,768,000 to 105,901 borrowers, most of whom lived in the West. “No perfect plan has ever been devised,” he concluded, but he was convinced the combination of the RFC, the National Recovery Administration, and deposit insurance would inevitably heal the nation’s economy. Whatever personal reservations he might have had about the New Deal, McCarthy loyally recognized “that there is but one leader, the President of the United States.”487 Four years later, McCarthy had acquired some perspective on his decision to resign from public service after he made a “not very enlightening” visit to Washington in October 1937 to attend the dedication of the Federal Reserve’s new offices. “All of the dignitaries were there and it was a typical Washington show,” he observed, noting that he and Minerva had lunch with director Marriner S. Eccles and his wife. “I had an opportunity to visit around with various Government department heads and found that most of them have their respective knives out, if not for each other, for someone else, fighting for a place or position and particularly the lime light,” he told Ashby Stewart. “I was very happy that I had enough sense to quit Washington when I did.”488 Bridging the Bay McCarthy restarted his legal career with his old friend Jack Richards and their partner, Arthur W. Carlson, a Republican who added political balance to the firm, which had offices in the Central Bank Building in downtown Oakland. He brought with him a number of significant clients, ranging from powerful friends in Intermountain banking circles, such as the Eccles Brothers, to old allies in western ranching and agriculture, not to mention men impressed by his service in Washington. In June 1933, the family drove across country and first moved into 41 King Avenue in suburban Piedmont and then settled into a rented hilltop home overlooking a canyon at 155 Inverleaf Terrace. Twenty years after completing law school, McCarthy faced passing the notorious California Bar exam, which is widely considered the nation’s most difficult. He registered for the Bar while visiting the family in August and then hit the books. By state law, he had to wait 487 Address...

Share