Because of the encouragement of some members of the DB Review list, I've
been slowly reading the 3 volume history about Eleanor Roosevelt. I am
continually interrupted and distracted by other non- fiction books and
articles , but I'm now a few hours into the second volume. So I found this
tidbit just now, of which I was unaware. In 1933, just after FDR took
office, he managed to have passed a monstrosity called The Economy Act. It
is something that Trump and our current congress might well have passed
right now. It cut government spending, shrank government agencies, decreed
that the wives of employed men should be fired from all government
positions, cut so much federal aid to education that many schools in some
states had to close, etc. FDR was influenced by a fiscal conservative
advisor whom he admired and one of his reasons for pushing this legislation,
was to secure the loyalty of fiscal conservatives in congress. Although he
changed course shortly thereafter, some of the cuts weren't restored until
the 1940's. But something that happened then and would never happen now,
was that his wife publicly disagreed with his legislation in her newspaper
column and then, in a book that she was writing for women. When she
disagreed with him in her newspaper column, he wrote an op ed in response to
her. Can you imagine any of the first ladies in the past 30 years doing
anything like that?
Miriam
