Saint Frances (Perkins)

By Gary Berg-Cross

 

Frances Perkins, featured in an earlier blog (2 Progressive Women), is in the news again this spring.  Part of the reason is that her birthday is April 10. Another is that she just won the single-elimination online tourney of Episcopal saint of the year. She beat out St. Luke the Evangelist. But more importantly cut backs to her creation, Social Security, are in the news.

Perkins was a champion of labor & the working poor and the first woman to serve in the cabinet. Besides the Social Security Act she played a large role in the other parts of the safety net- minimum wage, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour work week, occupational safety protections. This was featured recently on MSNBC’s Last Word as “The most important liberal you’ve never heard of.”

As noted by Lawrence O'Donnell she remains unknown to many Americans, partly due to being in FDR's shadow. Yet her words defending and explaining the Social Security Act are worth noting as we hear of plans to cut SS back. And perhaps there is enough of her balanced vision remaining to do the right thing even in tough times.

 

While it is not anticipated as a complete remedy for the abnormal conditions confronting us at the present time, it is designed to afford protection for the individual against future major economic vicissitudes. It is a sound and reasonable plan and framed with due regard for the present state of economic recovery. It does not represent a complete solution of the problems of economic security, but it does represent a substantial, necessary beginning. It has been developed after careful and intelligent consideration of all the facts and all of the programs that have been suggested or applied anywhere…… This is truly legislation in the interest of the national welfare. We must recognize that if we are to maintain a healthy economy and thriving production, we need to maintain the standard of living of the lower income groups of our population who constitute ninety per cent of our purchasing power. The President's Committee on Economic Security, of which I had the honor to be chairman, in drawing up the plan, was convinced that its enactment into law would not only carry us a long way toward the goal of economic security for the individual, but also a long way toward the promotion and stabilization of mass purchasing power without which the present economic system cannot endure....

Speech on the Social Security Act (September 2, 1935). From Frances Perkins, Vital Speeches of the Day (Pelham, NY: City News Publishing Co., 1935), 1: 792-94.

 

Images

From sites linked to in the blog.

 

Looking at Political Rhetoric Ahead with the Aid of a Look Back at Decider Era Language

By Gary Berg-Cross

There are quite a few decisions ahead we face as a nation, but the end of the year is also a time to look back.  Well, at first blush we see in the rear view mirror a very political, ideological and shallow belief driven year.  Looking ahead at some of looming, large conversations it seems that there is plenty to anticipate. But  as a nation we have gone from a 2 year campaign to a permanent campaign mode that makes compromise and balanced decisions difficult.  With ideological belief ridding harshly on pragmatic approaches we are likely to slink into that finger-pointing style for some time. 

That seems a poor environment for decisions so perhaps a look back provides some perspective on what might get when we auto pilot on  politics, ideology and God-given beliefs.  We don’t have to go back too far.  We can look at George W. Bush’s (ghost team written) presidential autobiography Decision Points for some idea of what emerges from such an atmosphere.

When it came out Decision Points  was described by a NYTs review as:

 “a book that is part spin, part mea culpa, part family scrapbook, part self-conscious effort to (re)shape his political legacy…. Certainly it’s the most casual of presidential memoirs: how many works in the genre start as a sort of evangelical, 12-step confession (‘Could I continue to grow closer to the Almighty or was alcohol becoming my god?’),”

Eliot Weinberger’s writing in the London Review of Books pointed out how the book blurred distinction between fiction and non-fiction.

That is to say, the parts that are not outright lies – particularly the accounts of Hurricane Katrina and the lead-up to the Iraq War – are the sunnier halves of half-truths.

Obama is certainly not George W. and likely more thought and data for decisions, but he is dealing in part with neo-con and rigid belief factions that advised us into “problems.”  It is sobering to think about how many Bush legacies, discussed in that book as if Bush was heroically dealing with each one, still have to be dealt with by Obama. The list includes:

• Recession and debt following the financial crisis of 2008
• Terrorist attacks,
• Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and controlling the military,
• Middle East conflicts, emerging democracies & aid,
• drones,
• Various domestic issues (including Medical reform, Social Security reform, Education and Immigration reform),
• Federal response to disaster (Sandy etc.) and
• Political strategy

What ever book Obama writes it will probably provide more insight into these and reflect a different backward glance than W’s last days in office (from Wikipedia):

"I reflected on everything we were facing. Over the past few weeks we had seen the failure of America's two largest mortgage entities, the bankruptcy of a major investment bank, the sale of another, the nationalization of the world's largest insurance company, and now the most drastic intervention in the free market since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time, Russia had invaded and occupied Georgia, Hurricane Ike had hit Texas, and America was fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was one ugly way to end the presidency."

Ugly yes, but as Eliot Weinberger wrote in the London Review of Books:

“Bush is the lone hero of every page of Decision Points. We hear very little substantial thinking but are offered instead some detached voice sounding forceful, in command, and often peeved at “the inadequacies of his subordinates”. 

 

Now with a permanent campaign abroad in the land we don’t have to wait for a book to hear spin, combined with mea culpas and self-conscious effort to (shape political legacies (think John Boehner).   So perhaps we can be fore-warned and not have to wait for a future Obama book.  Instead someone else is likely to spin the next few years events to their purpose in a George W decision making style voice:

‘What the hell is happening?’ I asked during an NSC meeting in late April. ‘Why isn’t anybody stopping these looters?’

‘By the time Colin gets to the White House for the meeting, this had better be fixed.’

‘We need to find out what he knows,’ I directed the team. ‘What are our options?’

‘Damn right,’ I said.

‘Where the hell is Ashcroft?’ I asked.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘This is the right thing to do.’

‘We’re going to stay confident and patient, cool and steady,’ I said.

‘Damn it, we can do more than one thing at a time,’ I told the national security team.

As I told my advisers, ‘I didn’t take this job to play small ball.’

‘This is a good start, but it’s not enough,’ I told him. ‘Go back to the drawing board and think even bigger.’

‘We don’t have 24 hours,’ I snapped. ‘We’ve waited too long already.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ I asked Hank. ‘I thought we were going to get a deal.’

‘That’s it?’ I snapped.

It’s complaint and bravado without substance and you can substitute freely to imagine the events that will be reported around the fiscal curb, for example. (“we don’t have 2 hours and what the hell is going on?”)  It’s the new normal and I’m already afraid we’ll be hearing this empty leadership style language in the 2014 campaign. In Texas, noted the NY Times, the 2014 Campaigns  Have Already Begun – “The Campaigns Are Dead, Long Live the Campaigns”. .And the rhetoric has plenty of fodder to throw at us. 

‘That’s it?’ I’ve snapped just thinking about what our political-interest-media hybrid system has become.

Image Credits

Bush Cartoon: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/68807

Bush on Katrian: http://jezebel.com/5680772/bush-says-kanyes-katrina-outburst-was-worst-moment-of-his-presidency

Jeb: http://blog.4president.org/2012/jeb-bush/

 
George P. Bush: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2014-statewide-elections/what-if-bush-leapfrogged-other-texas-republican

A Tale of Two Progressive Women

By Gary Berg-Cross

Like many recent events have reminded me enough of the Great Depression. You don’t have to be economist Paul Krugman to know that the economy of the last 4-5 years bears a resemblance to the late 20s and some of the 30s. They differ in degree but less in kind with a Stock market prices crash, failing banks, stalling manufacturing, large and persistent unemployment, people losing houses and markets stalled. The dismal scene confronting Obama was a bit like what faced FDR with a few wars thrown in early and an opposite that is not apologetic or remorseful about its role in creating and solving the mess. In an open letter to the newly elected President Krugman drew attention to the comparison:

“The last president to face a similar mess was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and you can learn a lot from his example. That doesn’t mean, however, that you should do everything FDR did. On the contrary, you have to take care to emulate his successes, but avoid repeating his mistakes.”

We’ve had too like of both emulation and error avoidance and as Krugman (and others) have pointed out the “recovery” economic conditions today bear a strong resemblance to the 2^nd economic dip of 1936-37 with slowly growing output, some prices rising, and unemployment still very high. The government cut back its fiscal stimulus before there was a full recovery which locked in high unemployment for years. Krugman, an unabashed supporter of FDR’s New Deal, is good on the history but understand what Krugman was writing about I picked up a library copy of Adam Cohen’s Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Day that Created America. It’s a timely narrative that provides a picture of Roosevelt’s first Hundred Days through the biographic eyes of an inner circle of five men and one woman. I learned something about each of them (e.g. committed liberals Henry Wallace, Harry Hopkins, along with conservative Lewis Douglas) and their relationships but was particularly struck by his female appoint – Elizabeth Warren. Wait it wasn’t Elizabeth Warren it was Frances Perkins, the first woman to hold a cabinet position – Secretary of Labor. It’s just that Frances reminds me of Elizabeth. As they say Frances Perkins is no longer a household name, but many see her as one of the most influential women of the 20th century if only because of the ways she found to help people through government problems. Cohen provides a vivid portrait of Frances Perkins arriving in Washington in 1932 by train with no one to guide her to the days’ events or means to get there. With gritty determination she pulls a Department together and works to sway the president to back large-scale public work programs. This was difficult since FDR had an anti-dole oriented to the projects. Hopkins, Perkins, and Wallace worked together on the progress idea that government, especially in times of crises, should take an active role in improving the lives of its citizens - workers, the poor,youth, the unemployed, and farmers. A conservative Douglas at Treasury backed a Hoover like approach favoring, low taxes, laissez faire economics, and small government. While Douglas one the early battles the latter part of the 100 days belongs to the progressives. In his introduction, Cohen neatly sums up this up:

"While the public story line of the Hundred Days was about how Roosevelt, through his eloquent public statements and legislative initiatives rallied a desperate nation, behind the scenes his advisers were battling over what shape the New Deal would take. Perkins, Wallace, and Hopkins worked with members of Congress, farm leaders, union officials, and other progressives to promote their agenda. Douglas worked with business leaders and other conservatives to pull Roosevelt in the opposite direction. In the first month of the Hundred Days, through the passage of the Economy Act, Douglas’s side prevailed. For the rest of the Hundred Days, Perkins’s side did. While Douglas won the early battles, Perkins, Wallace, and Hopkins won the war."

Perkins and the Progressive team were able to win FDR’s support for progressive legislation that launched massive public works projects. Over time these created millions of jobs for unemployed workers. As a new type of Secretary of Labor, one not under the thumb of bosses, she advanced work for all workers. But she also invigorating the labor movement. Perhaps her greatest monument was creating Social Security. This and her other successes like unemployment compensation, child labor laws, and the forty-hour work week still provide the basis for a social safety net.

Which brings me back to Elizabeth Warren who seems to combine the same degree of pluck, competence number of skills including management and PR along with a vision of what needs to be done. Like Perkins her vision and role is challenged by conservatives. Like Perkins she has crafted ideas and helped with legislation (Dodd-Frank reform law) about how federal agency that can protect people and help in times of crisis, In Warren’s case it is protecting consumers from flawed financial products – the type of thing that got us into our problems such as predatory sub-prime mortgages. Like Perkins she has the ear of the President and some in Congress who she has lobbied to turn her vision into a reality. Like Perkins she can recognize talent and attract it take on hard jobs. She also recognizes non-talent in the merely political and recognizes the damage it can do And now, working inside the Executive Branch she is busy setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which should come to life soon. We can only hope that she like Francis Perkins will be working inside a long time.

For more on Frances Perkins see Kirsten Downey’s biography of Frances Perkins The Woman Behind the New Deal. For more on the similarities between these two women see What Would Frances Perkins Do? Who? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/13/629459/-What-Would-Frances-Perkins-Do-Who

The author notes:

“Both were direct speakers; both fought single-mindedly to protect the American people; both did so without thinking of personal gain or fame. And now we can add one more similarity: both were short-shifted out of positions of leadership in their own creations for political efficacy.”