FDR and His Enemies

From the Publisher

“Fried's thesis is fresh and . . . a valuable addition to understanding how Roosevelt maintained confidence in the federal government while winning re-election three times.” —Publishers Weekly

“Fried masterfully weaves a fascinating and important history in prose that reflects the basis for his two previous Pulitzer Prize nominations.” —Library Journal

Publishers Weekly

Fried's thesis is fresh and . . . a valuable addition to understanding how Roosevelt maintained confidence in the federal government while winning re-election three times.

Library Journal

Fried masterfully weaves a fascinating and important history in prose that reflects the basis for his two previous Pulitzer Prize nominations.

Publishers Weekly

Starting from the premise that the legacy of a public figure is largely defined by the quality and number of his enemies, Fried (Communism in America, etc.) views the successes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt through the lens of his triumphs over five prominent foes: Al Smith, New York governor and Democratic presidential candidate; Huey Long, Louisiana governor and U.S. senator; hate-filled radio demagogue Father Charles E. Coughlin; United Mine Workers labor leader John L. Lewis; and aviator and political isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. There is little new about Roosevelt in this book, and little new about his antagonists. Fried's thesis, though, is fresh and yields an interesting way of viewing the political battles Roosevelt had to wage to boost the Depression economy as well as to mobilize the nation's citizenry for a world war. Fried believes Roosevelt prevailed over impressive opposition because he understood the needs of the American populace better than his opponents did. Among the hundreds of books about Roosevelt and his presidency and the numerous books about Smith, Long, Coughlin, Lewis and Lindbergh as individuals, none treats the five men as agroup in quite the way Fried does. His book is a valuable addition to understanding how Roosevelt maintained confidence in the federal government while winning re-election three times. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In the midst of Civil War, Abraham Lincoln upheld America's great experiment in self-government by holding a national election, although the results could have ousted him as president. Likewise, Franklin Roosevelt successfully waged internal war on the Great Depression, then mounted an offense in World War II without curtailing national elections, although Britain suspended them during the same period. Fried history, SUNY at Purchase, author of more than a dozen books, highlights FDR's democratic character by contrasting him with five major antagonists: Al Smith, Charles E. Coughlin, Huey Long, John L. Lewis, and Charles A. Lindbergh. Fried masterfully weaves a fascinating and important history in prose that reflects the basis for his two previous Pulitzer Prize nominations. Fried's latest work complements Byron W. Daynes's The New Deal and Public Policy St. Martin's, 1997. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.--William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's bold initiatives and his willingness to break historic precedent in handling the Great Depression and the coming of WWII were challenged by giant figures of the era, each with his own fierce constituencies. This study looks at Roosevelt's ideological and personal struggle with five influential men: ex-New York governor Al Smith, the popular "radio priest" Charles Coughlin, Louisiana Senator Huey Long, labor champion John Lewis, and aviator Charles Lindbergh. The author is a professor emeritus of history at the State University of New York. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kirkus Reviews

Hard as it may be to believe, there's still ore to be mined from the history of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, and Fried (History/SUNY, Purchase; The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America, 1980) has mined it by rearranging already known facts to give us a fresh slant on an oft-told story. If a man can be known by the enemies he makes, then FDR comes into clearer focus through an examination of those who detested him. Fried has singled out five of his most inveterate enemies, and his selections cannot be faulted, at least as far as they go. One is fellow Democrat Al Smith, who assailed FDR for leading his party away from its true (that is, Smith's) position. Another, a demagogic loose cannon, was Louisiana's Huey Long, who, probably happily for FDR and the country, met death by assassination before he could more directly threaten FDR's presidency. A third was the populist and anti-Semitic "radio priest," Father Charles Coughlin. A fourth was Charles A. Lindbergh, who cozied up to Germany's Nazi regime and contributed much to the forces of isolationism before 1941. The fifth, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the CIO, was perhaps the most brilliant, skilled, and politically dangerous of them all. How they imperiled FDR's attempts to deal with the Great Depression and the threats of Nazism and Soviet Communism comes vividly alive in Fried's telling. It's therefore a pity that he doesn't go further. He ignores the Republican powers of Wall Street, those whom FDR labeled "economic Royalists." More seriously, Fried fails to reflect on the significance of FDR's enemies or on how, together, they affected the New Deal. But he does make clear howcunning and skilled FDR himself was in defusing these threats to his presidency. Colorful portraits, too loosely linked, of some of the most fascinating characters of the 1930s.