President Reagan’s death and James Taranto’s new book on presidents have spurred a rash of evaluations of past chief executives. Franklin Roosevelt usually appears among the few “greats.”
It seems strange to bestow that rank on him. He inherited a recession and turned it into a twelve-year Great Depression, even creating a recession-within-a-depression in 1937. He exhibited no self-doubt, so if you do the wrong things with verve, are you nevertheless great?
He also bullied the Supreme Court (e.g, the “Court-packing” threat) into rendering opinions which took people’s rights in property. The damage to the economy and to liberty as a result has been enormous.
Warren Harding’s rank should be upgraded. To solve a recession twelve years earlier, he and Treasury Secretary Mellon cut federal spending by 40 percent, got government out of the way, and it was over in a year.
FDR made stirring speeches and convinced people he was their infallible leader. His professor-lieutenants in the New Deal for years wrote books about the brillance of their policies.
Now many economists and a few historians are pointing out the truth.
