Franklin Roosevelt as a leader

Your two-part question goes to the heart of our mission at the Hauenstein Center. Using the presidents as case studies in leadership, we inquire into what makes some chief executives more effective than others in office, and what makes some greater than others to posterity.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt provides rich case studies in executive leadership and presidential rankings. He was a complex, controversial leader; but whatever combination of DNA and experience made him, he was extremely effective while in office, especially during his first and third terms, and posterity has persistently seen him as one of the most powerful leaders in U.S. history.

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

Love him or loathe him, most people admit that FDR was an effective leader. Numerous writers have tried to dissect the qualities that made Roosevelt able to attract followers. Better than most, Stanford historian David Kennedy has tagged several characteristics: the 32nd president, he notes, was a quick study; he could connect with people; he was self confident; he was committed to public service; he developed a strong character; he had a clear vision of the nation and its role in the world; he had the political skills to get his vision off the drawing board; and -- he had luck.[1] Let's examine these various elements.

1. FDR was a quick study. He possessed an insatiable curiosity, a boundless appetite for knowledge that combined with his capacity to absorb a striking range of facts through conversation. Talking was his preferred mode of learning -- there were not many books he had the patience to read from cover to cover -- and he supposedly could talk at length about anything.

2. FDR possessed the charisma to connect with large numbers of the American people. A good looking man, in his prime he stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall, and weighed 190 pounds. His stentorian voice made him one of the powerful orators of the twentieth century. It especially helped that he could project his voice, along with a sunny disposition, by means of that newfangled technology, the radio, to millions of people.

After Roosevelt had been in office a week, he delivered his first fireside chat, on March 12, 1933, to announce that the nation's banks would reopen. The president's performance was stellar -- in David Kennedy's words, cultivated yet familiar, commanding yet avuncular, masterful yet intimate. And the response was unprecedented: almost a half million letters poured into the White House over the ensuing week, written by Americans expressing appreciation for the president's reassurance. (For comparison, consider this: during the Hoover administration, the White House mailroom was staffed by one person; after FDR's first week in office, some 70 individuals were needed to staff the mailroom.) It might be said that FDR, like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt, founded the charismatic presidency. In an age of mass democracy, both leaders self consciously harnessed the power of their personality as an instrument of government.

3. FDR possessed vaulting self confidence. Indeed, he possessed such a high degree of self confidence that his utterly untroubled conception of the presidency conformed to the image he cultivated of himself in it. FDR's confidence would enable the president to disagree with advisors when confronting major decisions; his early support of Britain at the beginning of World War II confounded most of them.

4. FDR possessed noblesse oblige, a sense of patrician duty or responsibility toward others. His sense of service was ingrained by his parents, by his extended family (including TR), and by his headmaster and teachers at Groton. He apparently never contemplated any other career than that of public servant. Uncannily like cousin Theodore, FDR rose through the ranks from New York state senator, to assistant secretary of the Navy, to vice presidential candidate, to New York governor, and finally to the presidency. Virtually all his life was spent in public service.

5. FDR possessed a strong character. Look at the way he dealt with the polio he contracted at 39 years of age, and the resulting paralysis that made him handicapped. All those who knew him agreed: he faced the malady with courage, tenacity, and hopefulness. These same character traits would be communicated when, as commander in chief, he sought to encourage a nation struggling against the Great Depression and then against the Axis powers in the Second World War. As David Kennedy puts it, FDR's "polio proved to be a political and even a national asset."

6. FDR possessed a clear vision of America and her role on the world-historical stage. David Kennedy believes the 32nd president "made a shrewd appraisal of the vectors of development that had brought him and his countrymen to their own moment in time -- a rendezvous with destiny, he once called it; and he made a no less shrewd appraisal of what possibilities for change the great engines of history might now be compelled to yield up, if they were skillfully managed."

Take FDR's handling of the Great Depression. To him the Depression was not just another cyclical downturn, but a long-brewing crisis whose dislocations could wreak permanent economic, political, and social havoc if not managed smartly. Capitalism had been largely unregulated for more than a century. It had produced unprecedented wealth for unprecedented numbers of people but it had also been unstable and unsettling for millions of other people. During rough times, the temptation was to abandon free markets for statist isms. In the pressure cooker of the Great Depression, FDR wanted to steer a middle course between unregulated capitalism and socialism. The crisis-management plan he enacted came to be known as the New Deal, which represented new policies and attitudinal changes about the role of the federal government in American life.

Think of what the New Deal meant in U.S. history: Up to the Great Depression, the storyline of American history had been about freedom. During the 1930s, the storyline changed to security. Through such legislation as the National Industrial Recovery Act, National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), Fair Labor Standards Act, Securities Act, and Social Security Act -- an alphabet soup of programs, as detractors put it -- FDR tried to wrestle industrial capitalism to the ground. His aim was to expand security in American culture and reduce insecurity in modern life. The Depression showed that not enough people felt secure in their homes, secure at their jobs, secure in the marketplace, secure through the life cycle. So in his idiosyncratic, ad hoc way, Roosevelt "tested the Left-most limits of American culture" (David Kennedy's words) to bring about a revolution in security. According to some historians, it is not too much to say that FDR should be credited with saving industrial capitalism in the U.S., for his programs coopted and pre-empted more radical calls for a thoroughgoing revolution. The head of the Socialist Party, Norman Thomas, was once asked if FDR had not carried out socialism's aims in the U.S. Thomas answered, "Yes, he has -- on a stretcher."

Roosevelt's vision also led to boldness in the conduct of foreign affairs. Already in the 1920s and '30s, FDR was committed to transform the American people from isolationists to global citizens. He believed it would be fatal for the U.S. to do nothing in the face of militant Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Long before Pearl Harbor he stubbornly persisted in wanting to help the British resist the Nazis, over the opposition of a majority of the American people as well as senior advisors like his Army chief of staff, George C. Marshall, and his ambassador to the U.K., Joseph Kennedy.

7. FDR possessed the political skills to get his vision communicated and his programs enacted. By the time he became president, he knew how to get things done. He understood the art of consensus building in Washington and the importance of mass communication to the nation.

8. As for reputation, FDR enjoyed an element of luck. He was in the White House during 12 event-packed years that saw huge developments unfold on the world-historical stage. Having to deal with the greatest economic depression of all time in the 1930s, and the worst totalitarian threat the U.S. ever faced in the 1940s, allowed Roosevelt to take center stage and make the best use of his talents. In photographs he cut a strong figure alongside Britain's great leader, Winston Churchill, and the Soviet Union's powerful dictator, Joseph Stalin.

Indeed, historian Robert Dallek notes that FDR's reputation was saved by World War II. The New Deal stalled out by the late 1930s, and if Roosevelt had been a two-term president, posterity probably would have ranked him in the middle of the pack, near, say, Lyndon Johnson. But the outbreak of war gave FDR a new focus that he handled masterfully. His handling of the war encouraged historians to look more favorably on his handling of domestic crises as well, so he tended to get higher marks all around. Such is the curious way luck works.

It is ironic that presidential rankings work like this, but the presidents who live in the darkest times usually get the greatest spotlight, and thus the highest rankings: Washington during the first unstable years of the republic, Lincoln during the Civil War, FDR during the Great Depression and World War II. Fewer historians and readers are drawn to presidents who kept crisis at bay -- James Monroe, Chester Arthur, Calvin Coolidge. For this reason, historian H. W. Brands jests that presidential historians are the "ambulance chasers" of the profession.

FDR'S FAULTS

Now, Franklin Roosevelt had his faults -- he was no marble statue. His self confidence could slide into hubris, as when he tried in 1937 to pack the U.S. Supreme Court; his overreaching in effect stopped the New Deal dead in its tracks. Likewise, he sought to stay in office -- successfully, we should add, since he was elected a record four times -- long after he should have retired from public life due to failing health. Also, argument has raged over Roosevelt's economic IQ; more than a few economists and historians have questioned whether his policies actually made the Depression worse.[2] Further, FDR was the consummate "party man"; no one questions his patriotism, but there is merit to the charge that his agenda was less about doing what was best for the nation and more about undercutting Republicans and making the Democratic Party the permanent governing majority.

On a personal level also, FDR could be duplicitous, as when he lied to Eleanor about the status of his love affair with Lucy Mercer, which supposedly had ended in 1918; recall that it was Lucy Mercer who was at FDR's side when he passed away on April 12, 1945.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Ultimately most presidents are measured by their achievements. Admirers believe that Franklin Roosevelt resolved the historic tension between two major strains in the Founders' thought -- between the Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians -- between those who wanted a strong central government, and those who sought to champion the common man. To his admirers, FDR combined the best qualities of both sides of this very American argument -- he embraced "Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends."[3]

David Kennedy observes that FDR had three significant achievements to his credit. First, he successfully steered the nation through the Great Depression by fighting for lasting reforms that kept revolutionary change at bay. Second, he led a reluctant nation through the most devastating war in human history by actions that would minimize the war's negative effects on the U.S., yet maximize our nation's international leadership; let us recall that the United States was the only nation in the world to come through World War II with a higher standard of living than when we entered the conflict.

This combination -- of bringing about lasting reforms during the Depression, of minimizing the war's negative impact while maximizing the nation's international leadership -- contributed to the third great achievement: more than a half century of relative peace and prosperity. FDR's vision, policies, and style did much to make possible the American Century. As wrong-headed as he could be in his day, as controversial as he remains to this day, FDR's presidency nevertheless brought about structural changes that contributed to the U.S. remaining the most prosperous nation in world history, and avoiding a cataclysmic war with its archrival in the nuclear era. All in all, not a bad contribution. It is telling that his vision and policies, his style and manner of being president, would influence subsequent presidents in both parties (not least of whom was Republican Ronald Reagan). That's why Franklin Roosevelt is widely regarded as one of America's greatest presidents.

(Question from Douglas M. of Atlanta, GA)

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[1] From start to finish this answer draws heavily from a lecture by Stanford historian David Kennedy, "The Life of FDR and the Meaning of History," given at the National Conference for History Education, held in Los Angeles, October 16, 2003.

[2] See, for example, Jim Powell, FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (New York: Random House/Crown Forum, 2003).

[3] James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn, George Washington (New York: Henry Holt/Times Books, 2004), pp. 89-90.

Nobel Prize winning presidents

Question: How many presidents have won the Nobel Prize?
From: Susan E. of Washington, DC
Date: February 7, 2005

Gleaves answers: The Nobel Prize has been given in most years since 1901, in the fields of physics, chemisty, medicine, literature, and for promoting peace. Three U.S. presidents and one vice president have won the Peace Prize in particular.

Theodore Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to win the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. He received the honor in 1906 for his efforts in mediating the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), midwifing the Treaty of Portsmouth signed by Russia and Japan on September 5, 1905, at Portsmouth, NH. TR did not attend the award ceremony but dispatched Herbert H. D. Peirce to accept the prize on his behalf. Deputizing Peirce was fitting: in 1905 Peirce, as a member of the U.S. State Department, was in charge of organizing the deliberations at Portsmouth.[1]

Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 "in recognition of his Fourteen Points peace program and his work in achieving inclusion of the Covenant of the League of Nations in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles." Wilson was too sick to attend the award ceremony in person. Albert G. Schmedeman, United States ambassador to Norway, accepted the prize on Wilson's behalf.[2]

Vice President Charles Dawes won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, along with Sir Austen Chamberlain. Dawes was a member of Warren Harding's administration as well as Calvin Coolidge's. He became a Nobel laureate in recognition of his work as chairman of the Dawes Committee, which tackled the problem of German reparations.[3] He became vice president-elect when Coolidge was elected in 1924. So he was the nation's Veep when he received the Nobel Peace Prize -- the first and only vice president to have achieved that distinction.

Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." He was the first U.S. president to accept the prize in person, in a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, 2002.[4] His efforts at Camp David were instrumental in Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin sharing the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.

In addition to these three presidents and a vice president, a handful of secretaries of state also won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Elihu Root won the Nobel Peace Prize for 1912. Root had served as Theodore Roosevelt's second secretary of state. Root agreed to speak in Oslo on September 8, 1914, but was prevented from doing so by the outbreak of World War I. This is what was said about Root in absentia: "In the ten years during which he held office [as secretary of war and secretary of state], he had to settle a number of particularly difficult problems, some of an international character. It was he who was chiefly responsible for organizing affairs in Cuba and in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Even more important was his work in bringing about better understanding between the countries of North and South America. When he visited South America in the summer of 1906, he did a great deal to strengthen the Pan-American movement, and in 1908 he founded the Pan-American Bureau in New York. His strenuous efforts to improve relations between the small Central American countries have borne splendid fruit. The most difficult problem with which Root had to deal while secretary of state, however, was the dispute with Japan over the status of Japanese immigrants. Although a final solution of this dispute eluded him, his work on it was nevertheless of great value.After he had left the government, Root gave himself heart and soul to the cause of peace, and he is now president of the great Carnegie Peace Foundation. [As a senator] Root was one of the most energetic champions of Taft's proposal for an unconditional arbitration treaty between the U.S.A. and Great Britain; and in the dispute concerning tolls for the Panama Canal, he supported the English interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, opposing special privileges for American shipping. When he spoke on this in the Senate last spring, he gained the admiration of all friends of peace."[5]

Frank Kellogg won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929. He served as Calvin Coolidge's second secretary of state, and Herbert Hoover's too. At the presentation ceremony it was said of him: "The movement in favor of the 'outlawry of war,' to proclaim war illegal and to label it a crime, had gained increasing support in the U.S.A. ever since the end of the World War. Mr. Briand, France's great champion of peace, made a point of choosing a memorable date in the American calendar -- April 6, 1927 -- the tenth anniversary of the entry of the United States into the war, to declare himself a disciple of that movement: 'If there were any need between these two great democracies [the United States and France] to testify more convincingly in favor of peace and to present to the peoples a more solemn example, France would be ready publicly to subscribe, with the United States, to any mutual engagement tending, as between those two countries, to "outlaw war," to use an American expression.' And on June 20, 1927, Briand handed to the American ambassador in Paris a draft of a treaty of perpetual friendship between the two countries. According to the draft, the two parties would solemnly declare that they condemned war and renounced it as an instrument of their national policies. On the other side of the Atlantic, Frank B. Kellogg, the U.S. Secretary of State, elevated this proposal to the status of the world pact to which we pay tribute today in the person of its author: 'The Government of the United States is prepared, therefore, to concert with the Government of France with a view to the conclusion of a treaty among the principal Powers of the world, open to signature by all nations, condemning war and renouncing it as an instrument of national policy in favor of the pacific settlement of international disputes.' And from this common action emerged the pact that today binds together almost all civilized nations in the world. Article I of the Pact states the following: 'The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.'"[6]

Cordell Hull won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for a career devoted to peace. He was Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of state from 1933-1944, and his reward was sealed when FDR called him the "father of the United Nations."[7]

George C. Marshall won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. His packed resume included being general president of the American Red Cross, President Truman's third secretary of state, Truman's third secretary of defense, U.N. delegate, and originator of the Marshall Plan. At the award ceremony, it was said of Marshall: "Less than four months after entering the State Department, he presented his plan for that tremendous aid to Europe which has become inseparably connected with his name. He stated in his famous speech at Harvard University: 'Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. Such assistance, I am convinced, must not be on a piecemeal basis as various crises develop. Any assistance that this government may render in the future should provide a cure rather than a mere palliative.' Marshall carried out his plan, fighting for it for two years in public and in Congress."[8]

Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Le Duc Tho, in 1973. After negotiations that lasted nearly four years, a ceasefire agreement was concluded between the U.S. and the Vietnamese Democratic Republic on January 23, 1973. The new secretary of state was unable to attend the award ceremony.[9]
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[1]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1906/roosevelt-acceptance.html

[2]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1919/wilson-acceptance.html

[3]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1925/dawes-acceptance.html

[4]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/2002/carter-lecture.html

[5]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1912/press.html

[6]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1929/index.html

[7]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1945/press.html

[8]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1953/press.html

[9]http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1973/press.html

Christmas at the White House

Question: How have the holidays been celebrated by our presidents?
From: Hauenstein Center staff and friends, Grand Rapids, MI
Date: December 18, 2004

Gleaves answers: To our visitors, holiday greetings from the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies! Around Grand Valley I have run into several people who have asked if there would be something on the website talking about how our presidents have traditionally celebrated the holidays.

It surprises many Americans to learn that Christmas was not celebrated by every community in the early years of the United States. Some descendents of the New England Puritans, for example, avoided placing special emphasis on the Yuletide season. But in states like Virginia, Christmas enjoyed more popularity. At Mount Vernon on Christmas morning, the festivities organized by George and Martha Washington began at daybreak with a fox hunt. A hearty midday feast followed in a celebration that included Christmas pie, music, dancing, and visits with friends and relatives that sometimes continued for a week.

One of the most unusual Christmas celebrations was hosted by James Buchanan, our nation’s lone bachelor president. In 1857 he threw a party for 30 American Indians representing the Ponca, Pawnee, and Pottawatomie tribes. An eyewitness account reported that while the Pottawatomie arrived in “citizen’s dress,” the Pawnee and Ponca “were in their grandest attire, and more than profuse of paint and feathers.”

Half a century later, Theodore Roosevelt almost forbade bringing a Christmas tree into the White House. A staunch conservationist, TR didn’t believe in cutting down conifers for decoration. Two of his boys, Theodore Jr. and Kermit, got into a bit of trouble when their father caught them dragging two small trees into their rooms. After the incident, Roosevelt spoke with Gifford Pinchot, the famous forester, who persuaded TR that selectively cutting down trees helped forests thrive. That was enough for TR, and the first family kept the trees Theodore Jr. and Kermit had dragged in, and every year thereafter brought a Christmas tree into the White House.

In 1923 First Lady Grace Coolidge accepted the gift of a large Christmas tree given by the District of Columbia Public Schools, and it became the first cut tree ever displayed on the grounds outside the White House. The balsam fir was decorated and displayed on the South Lawn. To dazzle citizens with new technology, President and Mrs. Coolidge were able to light the tree by merely pushing a button – a feat that we take for granted today but that caused wonderment then!

The idea of having themes for official White House Christmas trees was championed by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961. A tree decorated with ornaments reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite stood in the Blue Room. Some of the ornaments were reused on the next year’s tree and included brightly wrapped packages, candy canes, gingerbread cookies, and straw ornaments crafted by disabled persons and older citizens from all over the United States.

With the growth of the environmental movement in the late 1960s and early ’70s, President Richard Nixon took an environmentally friendly step. In 1972 he planted a Colorado blue spruce on the Ellipse south of the White House. By 1978 the spruce was large enough and sturdy enough to be designated the National Christmas Tree. It is lit up every year in early December and tended by the National Park Service.

Back in the residence, topping the official White House Christmas tree has become another holiday tradition, and that feat has been accomplished by former First Lady Barbara Bush a record twelve times. She had the honor from 1981 to 1992, during President Reagan’s and her husband’s combined three terms.

Increasingly, American presidents have been sensitive to the fact that the holiday season is not just celebrated by Christians, but by believers of other faiths and people from other traditions. For instance, several presidents – among them Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton – have participated in Hanukkah celebrations. In 1998 President Clinton joined Israel’s President Weizman in Jerusalem to light the first candle of Hanukkah. And this year a 100-year old menorah, borrowed from the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York, was lit in the White House residence for the first time. President and Mrs. George W. Bush celebrated the holiday with staff members and their families by lighting the second candle on December 10th.

As Americans, we have much to celebrate this holiday season among our family, friends, and colleagues, and we at the Hauenstein Center wish you a happy holiday and productive 2005.

2008 Election

Question: Now that the 2004 presidential election is over, what are your thoughts about the wide-open 2008 election? How unusual is that in U.S. history? Are you predicting who the Democratic and Republican nominees might be?
From: Larry G. of Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: November 23, 2004

Gleaves answers: The 2008 election is going to be interesting. As you note, it will be an open presidential election since President George W. Bush cannot run for re-election, and Vice President Dick Cheney will not run for election.

OPEN ELECTIONS IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY

In American history, the wide-open presidential race has become uncommon; it is unusual for neither the sitting president nor vice president to be on the ballot. In fact, it has been more than a half century since the last open race for president. The last open race occurred in 1952, when President Harry S. Truman, discouraged by depressingly low approval ratings because of the Korean War, declined to run for re-election; nor did his vice president, Alban Barkley, run. (Perhaps the most memorable thing Barkley ever said was, "The best audience is one that is intelligent, well-educated -- and a little drunk.") In 1952 Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and running mate Richard Nixon won.

Open elections used to be more common. During the first half of the twentieth century, there were four (of 14 elections held during that period). The 1928 election was an open presidential contest. Calvin Coolidge did not seek re-election, nor did Charles Dawes. Republicans Herbert Hoover and running mate Charles Curtis succeeded them.

Prior to that, the 1920 election was an open contest. Woodrow Wilson was too sick to run, and Thomas Marshall did not run either. Republicans Warren Harding and running mate Calvin Coolidge succeeded the Democrats.

The 1908 election was another open contest. Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Fairbanks were not on the ballot. Republicans William Howard Taft and James Sherman succeeded that duo.

Note that in each of the four open elections in the twentieth century, the Republican ticket won.

OPEN ELECTIONS IN THE 19th CENTURY

The first presidential race in U.S. history was technically open, but it was a foregone conclusion that George Washington, the hero of the War for Independence and president of the Constitutional Convention, was a shoo-in. So the 1789 election doesn't really count, nor does the 1792 election in which Washington was unanimously re-elected.

Historically, the first open presidential election occurred in 1808, when the Democratic-Republican James Madison was elected to succeed Thomas Jefferson. Madison had served as Jefferson's secretary of state. But even in this instance a qualification is in order, since Jefferson's vice president, George Clinton, was re-elected to serve as Madison's vice president. (It has happened only twice in U.S. history that a new president would be elected when the vice president would be the same. See yesterday's Ask Gleaves answer to find out which other vice president shares this distinction.)

Now, the first election in U.S. history in which both the office of president and vice president were wide open was 1816. That's when Democratic-Republicans James Monroe and Daniel Tompkins were voted into office.

The next time an open election took place was in the bizarre election of 1824, which saw John Quincy Adams win the White House even though initially he received enough votes neither in the Electoral College nor in the popular vote.

Other open elections in the 19th century occurred in the years before and after the Lincoln administration: in 1844, 1848, 1852, and 1856; and in 1868, 1876, 1884, and 1896. In the nineteenth-century, all told, there were 11 open presidential elections (out of 25 elections) -- in other words, almost half of all electons during the first century of our nation's existence were wide open.

ASSESSMENT

Wide-open elections for president used to be fairly common. The diminution of a once-strong pattern is striking:
- in the 19th century, 11 of 25 presidential elections were wide open;
- in the first half of the 20th century, 4 of 14 presidential elections were wide open;
- in the second half of the 20 century, 0 of 11 presidential elections were wide open.

Obviously the trend over the past half century has been for the party in office to encourage the president to run again or to groom the vice president to run for the top spot. Gone are the days, it seems, when a Polk (1845-1849) or a Coolidge (1923-1929), having achieved all their major goals, would be content to serve as president only one term.

Another trend emerges when one inquires which party tends to do better in open elections (counting from 1856, when Republicans first appeared on the national scene to compete against Democrats). In sum:
- In the second half of the 19th century, the Republican ticket won three of five open elections.
- In the first half of the 20th century, the Republican ticket won four of four open elections.
- In all, since 1856, Republicans have won seven of nine open presidential contests against Democrats.

Regarding who might run in 2008, I'd humbly submit that it's a bit early to be making predictions -- I am going to stick to history, not prophesy. But watch to see if 2008 will be the first time since 1976 that a person named Bush or Dole will not be on the Republican ticket.

Regarding the Democrats in 2008, see if they don't look south of the Mason-Dixon line for their candidate. As presidential scholar Mark Rozell observes, "In the past 40 years, the Democrats have won the White House only with a Southern Baptist at the head of the ticket.... For 2008, the lesson for the Democrats seems clear: In seeking a party nominee, go south. Even more so, go south to a candidate with credibility and appeal among the region's heavy doses of evangelical and pro-military voters."[1]

Stay tuned.

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[1]Mark J. Rozell, "Look to the South for a Nominee," Washington Post, November 11, 2004, p. A8.

Presidents, the economy, and domestic policy

Question: I'm a student and this is the first time I've written your column. Could you please tell me how the presidents have become increasingly involved in managing the economy and shaping domestic policy over the last hundred years?
From: Matt M., of Okemos, MI
Date: September 3, 2004

Gleaves answers: One of the most significant changes in the American presidency over the last hundred years has been the extent to which our chief executives are expected to manage the economy and to take the lead on domestic policy. It was not always the case. Since we are at the beginning of the gridiron season, let me answer your question in a way that compares the presidency to football.

LATE 19TH-CENTURY PRESIDENTS: REFEREES

During the last third of the 19th century -- between the Civil War and Spanish-American War -- our presidents did not have the power that presidents today have. Most of the power resided in Congress. To many Americans, this arrangement seemed consistent with what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had wanted. Article I set up a strong Congress or legislative branch of government whose role was to make laws that in large measure reflected the will of the people. Article II provided for a not-so-strong president when it came to domestic affairs, where his role was chiefly to sign, implement, administer, and enforce the laws passed by Congress. By this understanding of the Constitution, the president -- in peacetime, anyway -- was like a referee at a football game. He administered the rules of the game but did not himself want to be a player.

The comparison with football describes the referee role of presidents in the three decades between Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) and Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909). During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, it did not matter which party the president belonged to. Republican presidents like Rutherford B. Hayes were as disinclined to intervene in national life as the Democratic president of the era, Grover Cleveland. They assiduously avoided intervening in the economy. In fact, when a bill to support Texas farmers suffering from a drought came to Cleveland's desk, he vetoed it, observing, "Though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people."[1]

James A. Garfield was typical of the string of referee presidents between Lincoln and TR. Garfield biographer Allan Peskin points out:

The pantheon of presidential "greats" seems reserved for activists, which, in the nature of things, means those who dealt with major national crises. Presidents with the good fortune to preside over quiet times seem doomed to obscurity. In Garfield's day, America was at peace with itself and the world. Neither presidents nor government was expected to make things better, only to keep them running smoothly. Garfield shared this passive view. The whole duty of government, he once maintained, was "to keep the peace and stand outside the sunshine of the people."[2]

As Harvard's Thomas Patterson observes of this era, "The prevailing conception was the Whig theory, which held that the presidency was a limited or constrained office whose occupant was confined to the exercise of expressly granted constitutional authority. The president had no implicit powers for dealing with national problems but was primarily an administrator, charged with carrying out the will of Congress."[3] Because he was merely an administrator, he was not even expected to have a vision of where the country should go. "My duty," said James Buchanan, a Whig adherent, "is to execute the laws ... and not my individual opinions."[4]

THEODORE ROOSEVELT: REFEREE-COMMISSIONER

Theodore Roosevelt, who served in the White House from 1901-1909, is regarded by many historians as the first modern president. When he became president at the beginning of the 20th century, the Progressive movement was influencing public opinion. The industrial revolution had led to much social displacement and economic imbalance, and muckrakers were drawing attention to the problems. It was increasingly debated whether the federal government should restore the balance between big business on the one hand, and workers and the public on the other. Progressive politicians sought government intervention. Their vision -- of government, the economy, and social policy being an inseparable triangle -- was the future.

TR was energetic and ambitious for himself and for the United States. He cherry-picked progressive ideas and translated them into a political agenda. Because of his strong character and charismatic personality, he was able to convince the American people that the presidency should have more influence over domestic affairs. He was especially eager to "level the playing field" so that all Americans could compete and get ahead in the marketplace. TR, using the office of the president as a bully pulpit, transformed the presidency and role of the federal government. He sought to make the president and federal government the mediator between special interests and the national interest. One way he did so was by targeting overly large concentrations of power, whether in economic monopolies or political machines. It was the era of trustbusting. He called his philosophy the Square Deal, and by it he meant to make America more truly a land of opportunity.

To translate TR's action into football, imagine a guy who no longer wants to sit in the stands. Imagine a guy so interested in the game that he wants to be down on the field. He doesn't think he can play -- the rules prohibit that -- but he at least wants to referee the game. Better yet, in his wildest dreams he wants to be commissioner of the entire sport. That was TR. He was a dominant personality who started out like a referee (think of the famous NFL referee, Jim Tunney) but decided that it would be even more fun to be commissioner (think of Pete Rozell, who forever changed the NFL). That analogy describes how TR's conception of the office changed over eight years. He had an irrepressible personality that has led some historians to call him the founder of the "charismatic presidency." He used his bigger-than-life personality and ambition to transform the office of the president and its role in domestic affairs.

Now, after progressive presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and, later, Woodrow Wilson, there was a brief ebb in presidential power. Between 1921-1929, during the Harding and Coolidge administrations and first year of the Hoover administration, there was an effort to take the presidency back to what it was during the late 19th-century, a referee in American domestic life. In Calvin Coolidge's words, "The chief business of America is business."

By the 1930s, that idea was roundly rejected.

HOOVER AND FDR: GETTING INTO THE GAME AND PLAYING DEFENSE

The idea of the referee presidency was abandoned during the Great Depression. It was Herbert Hoover's misfortune to have been in office only seven months when economic catastrophe struck. A common myth of American history is that Hoover remained essentially a spectator when confronted with the deepening crisis, that he stuck to laissez-faire principles while the people starved. This is not accurate. Indeed, before he ever became president, Hoover was no apostle of the unfettered marketplace. Already as Commerce secretary under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, he championed a closer partnership between business and government. The Wall Street Journal noted, "Never before, here or elsewhere, has a government been so completely fused with business."[5]

As the Great Depression worsened from late 1929 to 1932, Hoover accepted increasing responsibility for ending the economic crisis and doing so in a socially humane manner -- he would make the economic and social effects of the depression the federal government's problem. That was unprecedented. Historian Michael Stoff observes, "Measured against past depression presidents -- Martin Van Buren in the 1830s, Ulysses S. Grant in 1873, Grover Cleveland in 1893, Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, Warren Harding in 1921 -- Hoover was a whirlwind of activity."[6]

Nevertheless, in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt challenged the hapless Hoover and won the first of four terms. He pledged to be an energetic executive dedicated to changing the relationship between the federal government and the American people. FDR inherited the worst depression in American history -- one-quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Within his first 100 days in office, he dramatically enlarged the scope of the federal government and initiated numerous new domestic programs. During his second term, he pushed through a program that affects virtually every American to this day: Social Security. During his third term, most of which coincided with U.S. involvement in the Second World War, he instituted rationing and price controls.

To translate all this into football, FDR wanted in on more of the action. He didn't want just to call what was fair and what was foul as so many nineteenth-century presidents had; nor did he want to be the commissioner as his cousin, TR, had. He wanted to play ball and, moreover, be an impact player, so he changed out of the zebra-stripes and into a jersey. True, FDR mostly played defense; he primarily reacted to economic and social problems, like a defensive player who reacts to where the ball is. But even in that reactive capacity, during FDR's 12 years in office the federal government assumed an unprecedented role in the nation's economy. FDR's presidency consolidated the idea that the federal government, economic policy, and social policy were an unbreakable triangle in the center of which stood the American president. His actions drew much criticism, but the precedent -- of using the government to impact the economy and society -- stuck.

FDR died in 1945, but not his impact. The Employment Act of 1946 -- passed by a Republican Congress -- ratified the trend toward more federal intervention. It committed the federal government to use its economic might to achieve "maximum employment, production, and purchasing power." While specific policies were not mandated, the president was to work with Congress to foster "free competitive enterprise and the general welfare." As James Tobin and Murray Weidenbaum have observed, "The Act was an important bipartisan declaration of federal responsibility for the nation's economic performance. The electorate takes this responsibility for granted nowadays, but it was by no means generally acknowledged before World War II."[7]

It is revealing to see how difficult it is for later presidents to revert to a less active role once a greater role is carved out for the federal government. Dwight D. Eisenhower campaigned for the presidency in 1952 on a fiscally conservative platform that called for smaller government, balanced budgets, privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority, and abolishing (or at least shrinking) Social Security. So what did Ike do with Social Security once in the White House? Expand the program. The fact that a Republican president ratified the entitlement meant that significant bipartisan support had developed for the program. It has since become a "third rail" of American politics, difficult for any president to touch.

FDR's role in changing the presidency and the federal government cannot be overstated. His 12 years in office effected not only a political sea change, but also -- and perhaps more importantly -- an intellectual sea change, the merits of which are fiercely debated to this day. Roosevelt's 1944 speech, calling for a second Bill of Rights, went far beyond anything the nation's founders had conceived when they drafted the first Bill of Rights back in 1789. The first ten amendments of the Constitution were limited to political rights such as freedom of speech and the press. But in FDR's mind, a second Bill of Rights was needed that went beyond political rights. He championed the right to economic welfare and social access to all citizens. University of Chicago professor Cass Sunstein calls this sea change "FDR's unfinished revolution."

In football terms, FDR had to content himself to play on defense, but what he really wanted to do was play on offense; he wanted the presidency and federal government to set the pace of the game. He envisioned Washington, DC, assuming unprecedented power to change not just politics, but also the economic and social conditions in American life. The nation, however, was not ready for such far-reaching changes; American individualism ran strong and deep and against the current of big government. It would take at least two more decades before a president could both speak of this "unfinished revolution" and sign enough legislation to make the changes permanent.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: PLAYING OFFENSE

After the Second World War, America entered the most prosperous era of its history. Harry S. Truman conceived a far-reaching social agenda that was eventually stillborn, but significant to our story nonetheless. The Fair Deal was government on offence. It proposed medical care for the elderly and only went down in defeat because of the Korean War.

Where Harry S. Truman's ambitions for the federal government stumbled, Lyndon B. Johnson's hit a marathon stride. LBJ represents a major turning point in the presidency. The former Senate majority leader and vice president would have a huge impact on the role the president would play in the American economy and society. In short: the president should not just be reactive; he should be proactive. Johnson reasoned that the United States was the richest, most powerful nation in world history. Given our national resources, couldn't the president make the federal government an agent of positive change?

Johnson was much more ambitious for the federal government than previous Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, or John F. Kennedy had been.

LBJ explained to aides that he wanted to make his mark on history and unroll a "Johnson program." In May of 1964 he went to Ann Arbor to sketch his vision in a commencement address at the University of Michigan. He appealed to their idealism: "Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?... Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?" As historian Robert Dallek notes, "The result of Johnson's antipoverty crusade and reach for a Great Society was an explosion of groundbreaking and far-reaching laws passed by Congress between 1964 and 1968." Henceforth there would be Medicare and Medicaid, a federal Office of Economic Opportunity, the food stamp program; not to mention job training, community volunteerism, and urban renewal spearheaded inside the Beltway.[8]

One of America's most influential commentators, James Reston, observed at the time: "President Johnson is beginning to make Franklin Roosevelt's early legislative record look like an abject failure. He's getting everything through the Congress but the abolition of the Republican party, and he hasn't tried that yet. It's a political miracle. It has even surpassed his own expectations, which were not modest...."[9]

Johnson was president for barely more than 5 years, from 1963 to 1969, but his war on poverty -- his advancing his vision of a Great Society -- encompassed almost a thousand bills and impacted almost every element in American society.

In football terms, this was not a president playing defense. It was a president playing offense. The playbook was not always flashy -- often it was three yards and a cloud of dust -- but it represented quite a change for a president to use the federal government itself as an agent to change society.

AFTER JOHNSON: A WEST-COAST OFFENSE?

Not that Washington's tentacles grew willy nilly; not at all, for at least two reasons. In the first place, there were three decades in the past hundred years in which voters grew weary or skeptical of leviathan and were happy to put the beast on a diet: the 1920s of Calvin Coolidge, the 1950s of Dwight Eisenhower, and the 1980s of Ronald Reagan. In Coolidge's case, the federal budget initially shrank but then grew slightly by the end of the '20s. In Eisenhower's case, federal expenditures diminished the first couple of years but then grew significantly by the end of the '50s. In Reagan's case, the federal budget almost doubled during in the '80s [10] -- although it is arguable that it would have ballooned even more had a progressive been in the White House.

In the second place, wars have often diverted presidents' domestic ambitions. In any given administration, domestic policy and foreign policy compete for the president's attention. But when war breaks out, domestic concerns usually take a back seat. American wars are a two-edged sword when it comes to domestic affairs. On the one hand, wars lead to more concentration of power at the federal level; every major U.S. war has put pounds on leviathan: the federal government inevitably grows larger and more intrusive. On the other hand, as presidential historian Robert Dallek observes, wars have repeatedly thwarted reformers' attempts to bend the federal government to their social and economic purposes. The Spanish American War took some of the steam out of populism; World War I took the wind out of the sails of Progressivism; World War II put a halt to the New Deal; the Korean War frustrated supporters of the Fair Deal.

This is why understanding the presidency of Lyndon Johnson is so important to understanding the last four decades of U.S. history. For it was with LBJ that the nation believed that the federal government could simultaneously fight a war against communists abroad and a war against poverty at home. Whether Americans supported or decried the "Johnson program," it was breathtakingly audacious when one considers how tied up in Vietnam the nation was becoming by 1965. Johnson, president during an extremely prosperous era, wanted to have it all -- guns and butter.

We live in Lyndon Johnson's world -- the Johnson administration represents the paradigm in which we live today. He successfully pushed to expand the president's role in domestic affairs. TR (playing commissioner) and FDR (playing defense) and Truman (trying to play offense) were the engineers who made it possible for LBJ to build up the federal government into a leviathan. He did so over vigorous objections and heated debate, and the arguments -- philosophical and practical -- rage to this day.

Yet most chief executives after LBJ either explicitly continued many of his policies -- Nixon, Ford, Carter -- or implicitly recognized that they would not be dismantled -- Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. Reagan railed against the Great Society but did little truly to dismantle it.

President Clinton is an interesting study in the tension between big-government progressives in his administration and small-gevernment conservatives in a Republican-controlled Congress. Clinton's ambition during his first year in office to nationalize much of the U.S. health system was a breathtaking effort to transform the playbook into a wide-open, West Coast offense. When Clinton was stymied, he settled back into the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust playbook of his predecessors. The retrenchment was marked rhetorically with the famous line, "The era of big government is over" -- which was not true. For a brief time, President Clinton was compelled to cooperate with a conservative Congress and Republican governors to reform welfare programs. Yet the Great Society model was not, at its core, dismantled. Many of Johnson's programs survived.

Indeed, when a Republican president like George W. Bush has seemed more interested in reforming Great Society programs than in rescinding them (under the guise of "compassionate conservatism") you know that the offensive role of the federal government in the nation's social and economic life has become permanent.

Nowadays, even amid the war on terror, Americans take it for granted that presidents will spearhead an ambitious domestic agenda. It is useful to recall how unthinkable that would have been barely more than a century ago.

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[1]Suzanne Garment, "Stephen Grover Cleveland," in Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, ed. James Taranto and Leonard Leo (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 113.

[2]Allan Peskin, "James Abram Garfield," in Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House, ed. by James Taranto and Leonard Leo (New York: Wall Street Journal Books, 2004), p. 105.

[3]Thomas E. Patterson, We the People: A Concise Introduction to American Politics, 5th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004), pp. 369-70.

[4]Buchanan quoted in Patterson, We the People, p. 370.

[5]Michael B. Stoff, "Herbert Hoover," in The American Presidency, ed. Alan Brinkley and Davis Dyer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), p. 336.

[6]Stoff, "Hoover," p. 338.

[7]James Tobin and Murray Weidenbaum, Two Revolutions in Economic Policy: The First Economic Reports of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, ed. James Tobin and Murray Weidenbaum (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), p. viii.

[8]Robert Dallek, "Lyndon B. Johnson," in The American Presidency, pp. 413-14.

[9]James Reston quoted in John F. Stacks, Scotty: James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), p. 236.

[10]See the federal budget year-by-year at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/sheets/hist01z1.xls