WEBVTT 1 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:20.879 From power Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is 2 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:36.679 the power Line Show with your host Steve Hayward. Among the many odd things 3 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:42.200 going on right now is a revival of interest and favoritism towards Franklin Roosevelt and 4 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:46.399 the New Deal. As we know, the usual gang of liberal intellectuals and 5 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:51.079 historians told Joe Biden when he took office in twenty twenty one that he could 6 00:00:51.079 --> 00:00:55.600 be another Franklin Roosevelt, and this only encouraged the old hack to blow out 7 00:00:55.679 --> 00:01:00.960 our spending with these multi trillion dollar spending bills and other grandiosities as natural to 8 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:06.640 him as a fish swimming in water. But there's also surprising interest and new 9 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:11.879 favor for Roosevelt found among some conservatives, especially the National Conservatives, who think 10 00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:18.400 aspects of the New Deal's political economy and especially its favoritism towards labor unions are 11 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.719 something we should emulate today, which seems rather puzzling. There there's been a 12 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:26.920 lot of really good critiques of New Deal political economy, some great revisionism from 13 00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.439 people like Ambony Schlas and Bert Folsom and Jim Powell. And there's been lots 14 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:36.799 of great constitutional commentary on the mistakes of the Supreme Court and the jurisprudence that 15 00:01:36.879 --> 00:01:40.959 ruled really for fifty years until originalism caught on from people like our friend Richard 16 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.840 Epstein and many others, And in fact that scholarship did play a role, 17 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:49.120 I think in the turn towards originalism at the Supreme Court over the last decade 18 00:01:49.239 --> 00:01:53.879 or two. But there's one aspect of Roosevelt's record that has escaped attention from 19 00:01:53.920 --> 00:02:00.200 most historians, and that is his record on civil liberties. Now, the 20 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:05.439 impositions on civil liberties, or the restrictions on civil liberties by Woodrow Wilson are 21 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:09.199 widely known and widely and correctly deplored, but Roosevelt has gotten a pass with 22 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:15.840 of course, the conspicuous exception of interning Japanese Americans during World War Two that 23 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.800 was simply too large to be ignored by historians. But there are many others 24 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:24.000 that have simply disappeared from the radar of historians and journalists who write their favorable 25 00:02:24.039 --> 00:02:29.800 recollections and histories of the New Deal. Why did Roosevelt get a pass on 26 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:34.680 this well, one reason is he never had a historian like David Bito take 27 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:38.240 up the cause. David Biito is a professor emeritus of history at the University 28 00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:43.759 of Alabama and someone whose work I've long admired, going back to some of 29 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:46.919 his very early work more than thirty years ago on tax revolts during the Great 30 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:52.879 Depression. One hopes that that might be a model or roadmap for tax revolts 31 00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:55.759 over the next decade or two that may want too necessary to restoring limited government 32 00:02:55.840 --> 00:03:00.120 in America. In any case, David has a brand new book out called 33 00:03:00.280 --> 00:03:05.840 The New Deal's War on the Bill of Rights, The Untold Story of FDR's 34 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:09.400 concentration, camps, censorship, and mass surveillance. I highly recommend it to 35 00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:14.039 everybody, and I was lucky enough to catch up to David recently to talk 36 00:03:14.039 --> 00:03:19.439 about the book and some of these unknown aspects of Roosevelt's story that have somehow 37 00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:23.879 simply vanished from the conventional histories. And so, without further ado, let's 38 00:03:23.919 --> 00:03:30.520 talk with David Bito. Well, David, let's start first of all by 39 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:32.199 saying, it's a real thrill to talk to you. I've been reading you 40 00:03:32.319 --> 00:03:38.479 for years and years, and in particular I'm really thrilled about your new book 41 00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:42.360 because you know, there are a lot of critiques of Roosevelt from the conservatives 42 00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:46.280 of libertarians, but they tend to look at the changes that he worked in 43 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:51.479 our constitutional law, the bureaucracy and regulation, a political economy of course, 44 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:55.719 with Kenesianism and tax and spin politics and so forth. But with the exception 45 00:03:55.919 --> 00:04:02.759 of his setting up the internment camps for Japanese Americans, Roosevelt's Franklin Roosevelt's legacy 46 00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:08.680 on civil rights and civil liberties has been largely ignored. And although I've heard 47 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.879 about a few things beyond the internment camps, I learned a lot from your 48 00:04:11.919 --> 00:04:15.199 book. So I guess we'll sort of start the beginning. What prompted you 49 00:04:15.279 --> 00:04:20.399 to take up this particular subject. Well, I've done some research in the 50 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:24.560 period as you As you know, I did a book on tax revolts during 51 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:28.800 the Great Depression. I did another book on mutual aid. I was so 52 00:04:29.079 --> 00:04:35.240 touched on the period, and I could never really understand all the positivity for 53 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:40.920 Roosevelt's administration. And I've read, you know, certainly a lot of the 54 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:45.360 work by people like Bert Folsom on the economic record, which was not very 55 00:04:45.399 --> 00:04:50.120 good. I mean, we're still we still a double digit unemployment, you 56 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:55.439 know, right on the eve of World War Two, and certainly there was 57 00:04:55.480 --> 00:05:01.399 the Japanese internment. But I saw little nuggets here and there that presented a 58 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:09.199 very negative record about Roosevelt's attitude towards the Bill of Rights, despite the fact 59 00:05:09.199 --> 00:05:14.000 that we often associate him with the very flowery rhetoric of the first of the 60 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:17.240 Four Freedoms speech, which he gave in nineteen forty one, and there's a 61 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:23.399 sort of an interesting things going on at that time that contradicted that speech in 62 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:27.639 many ways. But Roosevelt was really a late comer to promoting the Bill of 63 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:31.199 Rights in that way to the extent he did, and his civil liberties record 64 00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:35.680 was I would rank it as, if not the worst, close to the 65 00:05:35.680 --> 00:05:41.079 worst in American history. And I think his attitudes towards civil liberties were actually 66 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:46.279 more hostile. I would actually make this case than Woodrow Wilson's. Well, 67 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:48.399 I was going to ask about that. I mean, you opened the book 68 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:51.120 by talking about how, as I put it, he was an epagon and 69 00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:56.360 Wilson the sort having served in the Wilson administration. And you know, there 70 00:05:56.360 --> 00:06:00.040 has been some pretty good, quote unquote mainstream work about WILLLM and civil liberties 71 00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:04.839 over the years, but it didn't seem to attach to Franklin Roosevelt. But 72 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:08.879 I mean, so I guess what I'm saying is it's important, I think 73 00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:12.120 to time into Wilson, isn't it. Didn't he kind of learn from Wilson 74 00:06:12.199 --> 00:06:15.639 to contempt or disregard for the Bill of Rights? Is that fair? Yeah? 75 00:06:16.279 --> 00:06:23.040 The two most influential people in his life politically were his cousin. He 76 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:26.639 referred to his uncle Ted, but he was actually a distant cousin. He's 77 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:30.560 Eleanor's cousin though, so I guess that kind of works. But I think 78 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:32.879 he called him uncle Ted for a long time, and it was really only 79 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:36.240 kind of an accident that he didn't run for office as a Republican. He 80 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:41.959 supported he supported his cousin. He was in the Young Republicans Club, but 81 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.399 the Democrats kind of it was available, so he ran as a Democrat and 82 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:50.600 became very much an early supporter of Woodrow Wilson. So he's able to start 83 00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:57.439 to have this interesting balance of having good relations with Uncle Ted but also very 84 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:01.000 close to Woodrow Wilson and a very consistent support order of Woodrow Wilson. And 85 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:06.360 I think what comes out of that both from Uncle Ted and Wilson, is 86 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:14.720 Roosevelt really latches onto that part FDR of progressivism, which focuses on the ends. 87 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:18.279 Your ends are the key, if you're if you're out for them, 88 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:24.560 are just society. Don't worry so much about how you get there. So 89 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:29.839 there was never Roosevelt was never somebody that was worried that much about procedure, 90 00:07:30.639 --> 00:07:34.079 never worried that much about the protections of the Bill of Rights. Now, 91 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:39.160 I will say for Wilson, Wilson empowered a lot of people that did some 92 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:44.279 very bad things in terms of civil liberties, but he tended to sometimes push 93 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:47.560 back against them, not often very successfully. Like he would talk to his 94 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:51.199 Attorney general and said, do we really have to prosecute this guy? Do 95 00:07:51.279 --> 00:07:54.040 we really need to do it? And he say, yes, we do. 96 00:07:54.120 --> 00:08:00.240 He said, okay. Roosevelt, on the other hand, is pushing 97 00:08:00.439 --> 00:08:03.160 his subordinates to go in further than many of them wanted to do, which 98 00:08:03.240 --> 00:08:09.079 is a big difference. So there's a lot of resistance that FDR is getting 99 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:13.800 from subordinates on Japanese in tournament, for example, his own attorney general, 100 00:08:13.879 --> 00:08:20.160 his own director of the FBI are against it. So he's often pushing them 101 00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:24.319 in a more hostile direction towards the protection of the Bill of Rights that they 102 00:08:24.360 --> 00:08:28.560 would have even wanted to do. Yeah. Yeah, Well, let's go 103 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:33.840 through some of the particulars in the book again, things that I was totally 104 00:08:33.919 --> 00:08:37.159 unaware of, and you really get into the weeds of you know, Hugo 105 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.720 Black before he was on the Supreme Court, of course, being on what 106 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:45.000 you call the Inquisition Committee, of the Minton Committee. I don't want to 107 00:08:45.039 --> 00:08:46.559 take some of these in orders do a little bit of the Hugo Black story, 108 00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:50.799 because that's a name that people still recall some these days, even if 109 00:08:50.799 --> 00:08:54.480 they forget the details. Well, Black is from my own state. In 110 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:58.240 fact, the law library, I think the law library here is named after 111 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:07.279 him. So he's a figure that we associate as somebody a very important figure 112 00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:11.879 in the Supreme Court, sometimes pushing for civil rights and civil liberties. But 113 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:16.639 if you look at his background, Black, of course this came out later, 114 00:09:16.360 --> 00:09:20.639 was a member of the ku Klux Klan. He sort of said later, 115 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:24.120 well it was for politics and so forth, But he ended up getting 116 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:28.799 elected to the US Senate, and he was right there in the thicket things 117 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:35.080 during the early New Deal and was a very zealous New dealer, very ruthless 118 00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:41.879 really in supporting the New Deal, and a trusted ally of President Roosevelt. 119 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:48.679 So Roosevelt was looking for a way to investigate his opponents. And the way 120 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:52.080 they did it is they set up a committee in the US Senate to investigate 121 00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:58.559 lobbyings, which just so happened to be anti New Deal organizations. And lobbying 122 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:05.480 was very broadly defined. Our conversation would be considered lobby right because it as 123 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:11.120 an effect on the world of ideas. That's how broad it was. So 124 00:10:11.399 --> 00:10:18.039 he wanted to get somebody to who would really be loyal and attack dog and 125 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:24.720 recruited Black, and Black was chair of this committee to investigate lobbies, and 126 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:28.080 it came to be known as the Critics. And I'm not just talking about 127 00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:35.120 right wing conservatives. I'm talking about you know, mainstream newspapers like the Washington 128 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:41.200 Post, you know New York Times describing it as an inquisition, saying that 129 00:10:41.279 --> 00:10:50.080 Black had gone really too far in his methods, which included surveillance of something 130 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:56.519 like three million private telegrams, which is a story I had not heard before, 131 00:10:56.080 --> 00:11:00.600 and it sort of blew me away when I read about it because I 132 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:05.600 saw these references in the nineteen fifties to the notorious Black Committee, and I 133 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:09.240 didn't know what that was. And I started to look further back and found, 134 00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:15.200 yeah, this was headline news throughout you know, uh, well, 135 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:22.399 nineteen thirty six it was headline news the Black Committee. Black How did you 136 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:24.600 get the information on this? I mean, did you trace back through the 137 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:28.679 newspaper counts and then get into archives at the Library of Congress or how did 138 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.799 you unearth the story of this? I'm curious always to Well, so you 139 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:37.919 just go to ProQuest or newspapers dot com. You know, you're just gonna 140 00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:41.519 and you just you do Black Committee. It's just gonna. It's going to 141 00:11:41.559 --> 00:11:45.919 be almost unavoidable. It was headline news. Now there was a very good 142 00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:50.279 There was some it was good doctoral dissertation down on it that I found quite 143 00:11:50.360 --> 00:11:54.919 useful. But it was all over the place. If you if you ended 144 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:01.720 up sort of looking at Roosevelt Civil Liberties Record just doing the newspaper search on 145 00:12:01.879 --> 00:12:05.600 terms related to that, the Black Committee would come up over and over again. 146 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:11.879 Because it brought to light all these issues of privacy, property rights. 147 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:16.440 It's it's sort of an early example of strong arming social media companies. I 148 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:20.840 guess you could say, because what Black was able to do is he went 149 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:26.480 to the FCC. There was a rule that the telegraph companies, the big 150 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:31.039 one was Western Union, had to have copies of all their telegrams. That's 151 00:12:31.080 --> 00:12:35.600 more than fifty percent of long distance communication as telegrams. That's the email of 152 00:12:35.639 --> 00:12:41.679 its day, instantaneous, almost instantaneous, going back and forth, people being 153 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:43.759 very candid, you know, just like email in a lot of ways. 154 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:48.639 They wouldn't be in letters now thinking things through, And he got access to 155 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:54.159 these by order of the FCC. Went to Western Union. They protested, 156 00:12:54.720 --> 00:13:01.919 but went in their offices and searched something like three million private telegrams targeted towards 157 00:13:01.159 --> 00:13:05.600 critics of the new deal. Yeah, well, I'm going to bring things 158 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:07.200 all the way up for the current time here toward the end of our conversation 159 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:11.320 for some obvious parallels that are on our mind, or ought to be on 160 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:16.159 our mind. But you did mention. So there was Black in his committee, 161 00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:18.919 and then you have the FCC. I don't remember it was the FCC 162 00:13:20.159 --> 00:13:22.919 started, I guess in the twenties when radio started to explode. I don't 163 00:13:22.919 --> 00:13:26.399 remember now when it was started. But you detail the ways Roosevelt used the 164 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:31.240 FCC, who you know, harassed radio stations. I mean, I continued 165 00:13:31.279 --> 00:13:35.000 well into the sixties and beyond I think by presidents. Well, certainly Johnson 166 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:39.120 did that in the sixties. But tell us a little bit about that story 167 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:43.840 too. Yeah, the FCC actually dates from nineteen twenty seven. It is 168 00:13:43.879 --> 00:13:48.320 called the Federal Radio Commission, basically the same thing. They revamped it nineteen 169 00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:52.759 thirty four and expanded it really limited that's where that's where it started. And 170 00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:56.759 again the old rule was pulled out over and over again by regulators. And 171 00:13:56.799 --> 00:14:03.120 these were also network executives that were kind of intimidated in some ways. Well, 172 00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:07.600 we've got scarcity, right, and we could have free speech like we 173 00:14:07.639 --> 00:14:11.679 do for the print press, but we can't do that for radio because we 174 00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:15.639 have a limited number of stations. Of course, by the end of this 175 00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:18.879 period, they are more radio stations than newspapers. And to extent that there 176 00:14:18.879 --> 00:14:24.440 were limits on radio stations, it was somewhat arbitrary in the way they accomplished 177 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:28.039 that after they created it. So that brings in a kind of equal time 178 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:37.720 view, right, and this would serve to intimidate networks to say, Okay, 179 00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:41.840 we're going to put on a commentator's anti New Deal, because instantly the 180 00:14:41.919 --> 00:14:46.080 expectation would be that they're going to put on a pro New Deal commentator. 181 00:14:46.639 --> 00:14:56.279 So that rule ends up leading the networks to steer away from controversy. Anything 182 00:14:56.360 --> 00:15:01.159 that's smacked of controversy they ran away from well late Night. It's all described 183 00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:05.600 in the book. It's very complicated how this happened. Combination of strong arm 184 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:11.320 tactics behind the scenes things, and this kind of equal time rule. By 185 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:15.799 the late thirties, they're so skittish. There is not a single anti New 186 00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:20.759 Deal commentator on network radio by the late nineteen thirties. Yeah, well, 187 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:24.879 of course, I mean it parallels, on my mind, at least the 188 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:28.120 way the economic policy work, you know, creating cartels of you know, 189 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:33.720 agricultural sectors and so forth, and you know, jailing people who violated the 190 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:37.720 price controls into the National Recovery Act and things of that kind, which you 191 00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:41.200 know, as you know, the National Recovery Act was ultimately struck down by 192 00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:46.360 the Supreme Court in a rare moment of sense even for the pre nineteen thirty 193 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:52.120 seven era. But you don't see this similar solicitude or scrutiny by the Court 194 00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:58.159 of Civil Liberties during that period and afterward, I'd say, but I skipped 195 00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:00.000 over. I mean, I'm going a little out of worder for your table 196 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.480 contents. It wasn't just the Black Committee, but you mentioned the Minton Committee. 197 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:07.080 Uh. And there's several parts of that story, I guess, and 198 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:10.360 I only skimmed your chapters, So it was a couple of the bullet point 199 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:14.600 highlights of I think one of the themes here too, is that Roosevelt was 200 00:16:14.679 --> 00:16:18.720 very effective, as you already suggested, of getting Congress to do his bidding, 201 00:16:18.919 --> 00:16:22.480 to be to be his You might say, his do his wetwork. 202 00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:30.399 Roosevelt is a very smart politician. I think you could make comparisons to Trump, 203 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:34.720 but there but there's big difference. Roosevelt would not give speeches and would 204 00:16:34.799 --> 00:16:41.360 rarely personalize them. Uh. He used good humor. I guess Trump does 205 00:16:41.399 --> 00:16:44.039 in a way too. He would belittle his opponents, but he would do 206 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:49.320 it in kind of a kind of a good natured way, in a in 207 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:56.200 a certain sense. You know, Roosevelt is a very but behind the scenes, 208 00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:00.360 he could be extremely ruthless, and he could be a candid behind the 209 00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:04.519 scenes. He would say things to friends. He would say say things privately 210 00:17:04.599 --> 00:17:10.079 that he would not say publicly, and they paint a very different picture of 211 00:17:10.119 --> 00:17:12.519 who he was when you get some of these things, like, for example, 212 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:18.519 his opponent in nineteen forty was Wendell Wilkie, and it came to be 213 00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:25.359 known there were rumors that Wilkie was having an affair with the editor one of 214 00:17:25.400 --> 00:17:29.559 the books, editor at the New York Post, I think it was, 215 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:33.119 And so Roosevelt wanted to get this out there. He said, well, 216 00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:37.519 of course we can't say anything about it, but what we can do is 217 00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:41.000 down the line, people can say things. Of course, it should never 218 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:42.720 be tied to us. Now, why do we know about this. We 219 00:17:42.759 --> 00:17:48.160 know about this because Roosevelt actually did some taping in the White House and they 220 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:52.359 would left leave the tape machine on. They kind of lost track of it, 221 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:56.400 really, and he would had a conversation with someone who was saying, 222 00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:59.440 you know, this is how we want to handle this thing, and that 223 00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:02.559 I think I quote from that at the beginning of the book. But I 224 00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:08.640 think it's illustrative that you will get a different Roosevelt. Often in private conversations 225 00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:12.200 a lot more dangerous than Trump. Trumps just lay it out, now, 226 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:15.400 you know. And Roosevelt would have some of the same views, but he 227 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:19.160 wouldn't just lay it out. I would come to getting opponents right. I 228 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:22.920 mean, I think some of my favorite accounts of the what you're referring to, 229 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:26.880 those sort of the inside story or backroom story, or Raymond Moley's two 230 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:33.279 memoirs, which you may well know after seven years and the first ye those 231 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:37.279 are of course Moley was a great writer and then changed his mind about Roosevelt 232 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:40.119 and the New Deal. But boy, those have some really candid and I 233 00:18:40.119 --> 00:18:45.000 think shrewd assessments of the darker side of Roosevelt that I've also been forgotted. 234 00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:51.880 I'm always amazed how Moley is largely ignored by most Roosevelt biographers or mentioned and 235 00:18:51.880 --> 00:18:55.000 shoved aside as quickly as possible, which I think is a big mistake. 236 00:18:55.039 --> 00:18:57.400 But anyway, straight from the point, which is your book not Raymond Moley's 237 00:18:57.400 --> 00:19:02.279 book, Well, mole is quote it, and he he had some interesting 238 00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:07.559 private conversations with the Roosevelt that he related in reference to civil liberties issues, 239 00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:11.680 particularly the Black Committee, where he you know, Roosevelt would still let it 240 00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:15.279 down his hair and tell him what he really thought of this. He wouldn't 241 00:19:15.319 --> 00:19:18.359 do that publicly. Yeah, yeah, that's right. He was a very 242 00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:21.119 shrewd guy. And you know, I have to say, you know, 243 00:19:21.160 --> 00:19:26.319 as a spectator or someone who treats politics often as a spectator sport, I 244 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:30.480 always did kind of admire or relish the way Roosevelt, to paraphrase what you 245 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.920 said, he would deliver his attacks with a smile and a glint in his 246 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:37.880 eye like he was enjoying it, right, And you know he he knew 247 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:41.079 he was making fun of these people, and he did though. I mean, 248 00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:45.279 I'm actually you probably knew for us McDonald pretty well. I mean McDonald's 249 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:51.759 book on Roosevelt's I guess you'd say, Persecution of sam Insall. Oh, 250 00:19:51.799 --> 00:19:53.920 it's a brilliant book, right right. There should be more of those kind 251 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:57.559 of yours is kind of in that vein a little bit covers a more bigger 252 00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:03.279 territory. But Insul is somebody that Roosevelt did mention my name a few times 253 00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:07.240 in public. But and that's quite yeah, that's a great story. All 254 00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:14.279 right. Let's see you mentioned already the internment camps in World War Two, 255 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:18.680 and you know I've read the decisions that you know, famous Corey Matsu case, 256 00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:22.400 and I've actually talked to students, uh, and so I usually concentrate 257 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:26.599 narrowly on the constitutional reasoning involved in that case. But I actually don't know 258 00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:33.039 much of the whole story other than the role of then Governor Earl Warren of 259 00:20:33.079 --> 00:20:37.359 California, a progressive Republican who seemed to go on to do penance the rest 260 00:20:37.359 --> 00:20:40.279 of his life for having been one of the instigators and saying we need to 261 00:20:40.359 --> 00:20:44.880 round up Japanese and put them in camps. But you said something a minute 262 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:48.640 ago that I was not aware of that there were actually people in and around 263 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:53.279 Roosevelt who had second thoughts and and and doubts and even opposition of the idea. 264 00:20:53.319 --> 00:20:56.359 So it walked through the story a little bit for us. Okay, 265 00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:03.000 well, this is it's interesting that you say that Roosevelt no historian, very 266 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:07.680 few historians now are going to defend the interment, right, and if you 267 00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:10.599 look at the standard district textbooks, none of them do. However, you 268 00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:15.799 also look at them carefully, what you find is there tends to be they 269 00:21:15.839 --> 00:21:19.160 pull their punches in some interesting ways when it comes to Roosevelt. Well, 270 00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:25.519 he didn't really initiate this. This was these people in the military were pushing 271 00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:27.720 it, and there was all this hysteria. It was the hysteria of the 272 00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:32.000 moment. It's all unfortunate. He shouldn't have done it, But you know 273 00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:36.920 that kind of thing. So what you have missing from that is the Roosevelt 274 00:21:36.920 --> 00:21:40.079 of the New Deal, in the Roosevelt of World War Two, who's often 275 00:21:40.119 --> 00:21:42.880 depicted quite accurate, I think, is a man that knew what he wanted 276 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:47.480 right and was going to push for it, and he was going to focus 277 00:21:47.559 --> 00:21:49.559 on it. Somehow, when it comes to Japanese intermity, he doesn't seem 278 00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:52.240 to know what he wants. He said, drifts along and so forth. 279 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:56.640 Well, as I looked more into this, and initially I wasn't even going 280 00:21:56.720 --> 00:21:59.319 to have a chapter on it because I thought we know that story, I 281 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:03.440 said, no, he's actually they're ahead of the curve in the mid late 282 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:11.240 thirties. He's actually proposing this kind of modified uses the term concentration camps, 283 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:15.079 and some people criticized me for that. I was initially resistant, but that's 284 00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:22.160 the term Roosevelt used, right, And I'm not saying they're anything like the 285 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:26.559 death camps in Europe. I'm not making that comparison, but I think they 286 00:22:26.599 --> 00:22:33.319 aren't really internment camps either in the sense of the Japanese and the in terms 287 00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:37.119 of the Germans and the Italians are not comparable to that. In any case, 288 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:42.480 Roosevelt is sort of friendly to this idea from the beginning. Now it's 289 00:22:42.519 --> 00:22:47.960 often forgotten that we don't get interment right away. We don't get it till 290 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.880 February nineteen forty four. There's a long period there, and the initial reaction 291 00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:57.279 from newspapers, even in California is by and large, hey, these are 292 00:22:57.319 --> 00:23:02.559 Americans, leave them alone, you know that kind of thing. So it 293 00:23:02.599 --> 00:23:06.440 takes time to build, and Roosevelt kind of creates an environment for it to 294 00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:11.160 build, and then ultimately in February we get it. But he's really kind 295 00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:15.319 of behind the scenes, I think, not standing in the way and sort 296 00:23:15.319 --> 00:23:18.920 of giving the league way to people that were pushing the idea, and then 297 00:23:18.920 --> 00:23:22.559 he signs off on it. Having said that, as I mentioned, his 298 00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:26.480 own attorney general, this is under publicized. I don't know why. His 299 00:23:26.599 --> 00:23:33.839 name is Francis Biddle. Biddle Is writes about this in his memoir. He 300 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:38.039 has a whole chapter about it, and Biddle is a Roosevelt fan on the 301 00:23:38.079 --> 00:23:42.799 whole, but on this he says, I was against this, And he 302 00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:47.880 even says, we didn't have to do it. There wasn't that much hysteria, 303 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:52.279 there wasn't that much of a call for it. We didn't have to 304 00:23:52.359 --> 00:23:56.079 do it. He goes at great length. And I was surprised when I 305 00:23:56.160 --> 00:24:00.440 read that. And there's a friend of mine who's a scholar, very knowledgeable 306 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:03.720 about the period, and I told him about this, and he wasn't aware 307 00:24:03.799 --> 00:24:07.880 of it, you know. So he's grateful now that he is aware of 308 00:24:07.880 --> 00:24:11.160 it. But I just sort of came across this, and it's been mentioned 309 00:24:11.200 --> 00:24:15.519 by others, but it has not been publicized that much. And of course 310 00:24:15.599 --> 00:24:19.400 jaegg Or Hoover, Harold Ikeys, who was Secretary of the Interior. You 311 00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:26.440 go down a long list of people that were at the time against it and 312 00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:30.440 made known their views. I hadn't known that Hoover had been against it. 313 00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:37.279 That's an interesting and perhaps surprising position for him. I don't know. I 314 00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:41.720 mean, never is a character that you don't know. Sometimes there's a civil 315 00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:47.039 libertarianism that's somewhat latent, But I think a lot of this is he doesn't 316 00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:51.720 want this responsibility and he ends up not getting it. He doesn't it's the 317 00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:55.640 military, and that's part of this. Who wants nothing to do with this. 318 00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:00.119 He thinks this is you know, a bureaucratic knight mayor. But he 319 00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:06.960 also doesn't think it's necessary. He says, so and so that's Bill, 320 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.759 and you know his main enforcement officer, you know, worked under him. 321 00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:15.000 Of course you can't say jag or who were worked under anyone really, but 322 00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:19.319 you know they are against it. Well, my own little footnote to the 323 00:25:19.880 --> 00:25:22.960 the you know, the case that was finally got to the Supreme Court is 324 00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:26.519 I forgot what the vote split was, but it was, you know, 325 00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:30.359 like six three or seven two, something like that. And one of the 326 00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:34.000 leading dissenters was the last of the anti New Deal justices from the early thirties. 327 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:38.400 Justice Roberts said, this is violation of due process. And let's face 328 00:25:38.440 --> 00:25:44.799 it, these are concentration camps, and so it is. Liberal students are 329 00:25:44.839 --> 00:25:48.440 often confused that one of the so called reactionary justices who stood up for economic 330 00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:53.240 liberty ten years before was one of the few persons who voiced any clarity about 331 00:25:53.279 --> 00:25:56.599 what was going on then, and I find it useful to confuse students with 332 00:25:56.880 --> 00:26:00.279 that juxtaposition. Well, then they might like my book because I go a 333 00:26:00.279 --> 00:26:07.000 lot into Roberts, because Roberts had a fairly strong civil liberties record, by 334 00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:11.400 the way, all the way back, and he is one of the dissenters, 335 00:26:11.720 --> 00:26:17.319 and he also rights the He writes that there's a unanimous opinion in the 336 00:26:17.440 --> 00:26:22.119 Endoh case, which basically says it's convoluted but basically doesn't strike down in tournament, 337 00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:30.960 but it strikes down incarceration, long term incarceration in the future. It 338 00:26:30.039 --> 00:26:33.480 kind of lays the blame on the military. It's a very kind of I 339 00:26:33.559 --> 00:26:38.400 don't know what you'd call it, cynical case in a way. But he 340 00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:45.279 writes an opinion on that, and all the other opinions are blaming the military. 341 00:26:45.599 --> 00:26:51.279 They're blaming the military for this, they're blaming the War Relocation Administration. 342 00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:56.880 One of the opinions even quotes favorably Franklin D. Roosevelt's commentary on Japanese soldiers. 343 00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:03.880 It's really incredible, and Roberts says, it's just a wonderful Wait a 344 00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:08.400 minute, guys, this is the president who did this. This isn't the 345 00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:14.799 This isn't the military, this is the president who did this, and he 346 00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:21.960 calls them out on So you get these flowery descents and opinions that are often 347 00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:27.759 quoted from from people like Jackson and who's the guy that was from Michigan. 348 00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:36.000 I forget the other one that wrote an opinion. Yeah, but you know, 349 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:38.960 and he comes and they don't blame Roosevelt. If you look at those 350 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:45.279 opinions, there's no criticism of the president at all, including in the descents. 351 00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:49.240 Most of the descents, but there is by Roberts, right, and 352 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:53.200 and that is makes him in something of an interesting exception. Yeah, he's 353 00:27:53.240 --> 00:27:56.920 never been pulling off the mask, right. Oh yeah, it's very bracing 354 00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:00.759 descent. A while since I've read it, but I remember the general impression 355 00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:07.720 related to that is one of your last chapters about the case that I thought 356 00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:11.640 I had least heard of most of the civil liberties cases from that era, 357 00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:15.400 but I didn't know about United States versus McWilliams. And you know the sedition 358 00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:19.640 trial fiasco as you called it. So give us a thumbnail sketch of that, 359 00:28:19.880 --> 00:28:23.559 I think, because that's an interesting story. Well, I'm ahead of 360 00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:26.880 the curve and I don't know it. I mean we have sedition trials making 361 00:28:26.880 --> 00:28:32.400 it bing comeback. I mean it's a thing again. It was, it 362 00:28:32.440 --> 00:28:36.319 had been put away and it's been revived with a vengeance. So this is 363 00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:40.559 these are sedition trials. They're against both the left and the case of the 364 00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:47.039 Socialist Workers Party during the war, but in this case the target are basically 365 00:28:47.160 --> 00:28:52.559 right wingers. And it's I think the largest mass trial in America and Washington, 366 00:28:52.640 --> 00:28:56.680 d C. At least in American history. They bring in defendants from 367 00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:00.920 all over the country and they tend to be right wingers. Some of them 368 00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:04.559 are anti semit it's more than a few are. Some are kind of populistic 369 00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:10.079 types, and a lot of them are guys that and women. They will 370 00:29:10.119 --> 00:29:15.400 run a little newsletter somewhere in rural Kansas, right, they're not big figures. 371 00:29:15.880 --> 00:29:18.799 They bring them in the government and said and Roosevelt. The origin of 372 00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:23.240 this is Roosevelt wanted to put on trial the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, 373 00:29:23.480 --> 00:29:26.880 for example. He wanted to bring him in. He wanted to go after 374 00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:30.319 the big He wanted to bring in members of Congress. Sounds familiar, doesn't 375 00:29:30.359 --> 00:29:33.359 it. He wanted to go after the big Fruy, the big Fish, 376 00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:40.680 and instead his attorney general, who had some civiliberty sensitivity, holds them off 377 00:29:40.759 --> 00:29:44.519 so we really don't have evidence, so he to appease him. He does 378 00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:48.400 this trial. They bring all these nobody's in for the most part, and 379 00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:56.079 they accuse them of being involved in a worldwide Nazi conspiracy to promote insubordination in 380 00:29:56.119 --> 00:30:03.000 the military. And they difficulty finding any evidence that say there'd been ever an 381 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:07.960 effort to like send propaganda to people in the military, and they really never 382 00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:12.160 were able to find that, you know. So they're making this argument to 383 00:30:12.440 --> 00:30:15.759 tying these people together. And most of them they didn't even know each other. 384 00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:18.799 They didn't like each other, although they said once the trials started, 385 00:30:18.799 --> 00:30:22.000 they all start, all these crazy people started to get along well to each 386 00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:26.160 other. Each had their own lawyer. It was chaos. It was It 387 00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:30.799 was a bunch of some somewhat saying people, but a lot of wacky people. 388 00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:37.599 But these are there's no conspiracy here, right. And finally this is 389 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:41.960 recognized by the mainstream press. The Washington Post had been key in getting this 390 00:30:42.039 --> 00:30:47.240 thing off the ground, and they turned against it and compared it to the 391 00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:52.079 Moscow show trips. Why haven't we heard about because it went on forever. 392 00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:56.200 It went on for months. But what ultimately happened to judge I think got 393 00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:03.799 so flustered. He was sort of a good natured character, and he just 394 00:31:04.160 --> 00:31:07.640 he had a heart attack and he dropped dead. And they had a big 395 00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:11.480 discussion about, well, we're going to have a point a new judge, 396 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:15.000 and everyone just said, oh God, no, please, I mean, 397 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:18.359 that was the consensus opinion. So in a couple more years it was sort 398 00:31:18.359 --> 00:31:26.240 of appeals and procedure, but the trial stopped in when the judge died, 399 00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:32.440 which I think was late nineteen forty four, he just keeled over about we're 400 00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:37.759 about at the anniversary right now, and he and they just didnt appoint a 401 00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:41.599 new one and they ended up dismissing the charges. But guess what, the 402 00:31:41.640 --> 00:31:45.519 same law was used within a year and a half, I think, to 403 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:49.960 go after communists who had applauded the trial, who were universally for this sedition 404 00:31:51.079 --> 00:31:53.759 trial right now, they were the targets. It was under the Smith Act, 405 00:31:55.079 --> 00:31:59.599 and so there were sedition trials ramping up this time. The communists who 406 00:31:59.640 --> 00:32:05.240 had who had been all for prosecuting these right wingers were being prosecuted. So 407 00:32:05.319 --> 00:32:08.200 this is a pattern that we see throughout American history. One day you're a 408 00:32:08.200 --> 00:32:12.799 civil libertarian, next day you're a persecutor of civil liberties, and you know, 409 00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:15.559 you go back and forth. Yeah, well, I was going to 410 00:32:15.640 --> 00:32:19.000 ask, I mean, I'm going to ask a longer term continuity question. 411 00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:22.559 But I guess this kind of carries over into the Truman administration. He inherits 412 00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:27.240 some of these practices. I think I just have that general sense somehow. 413 00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:34.000 I think the Truman was a little bit more, you know, not as 414 00:32:34.119 --> 00:32:38.200 enthusiastic about this kind of thing. But there was really after Truman came back 415 00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:43.279 in forty eight, there was a good, big sense that the reason that 416 00:32:43.319 --> 00:32:47.519 the Democrats had lost the forty six congressional elections and was a bad defeat for 417 00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:57.240 them was these lobby groups. So there was another effort to investigate lobbies which 418 00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:02.759 used some similar methods. And this is sort of something that is interesting because 419 00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:08.920 it's ramping up at the time that McCarthyism is ramping up, and so there 420 00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:13.720 are a lot of people on the left that eventually start saying, well, 421 00:33:13.839 --> 00:33:21.440 wait a minute, these techniques are these same techniques contempt charges and all sorts 422 00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:24.519 of things you know, are being used now against people that we think, 423 00:33:25.279 --> 00:33:30.319 you know, we want to defend their civil liberties. And so actually they 424 00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:38.480 start embracing some of the precedents from earlier cases which had defended the civil liberties 425 00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:44.920 of conservatives and saying pointing to this case, right Rumley was a big guy, 426 00:33:45.039 --> 00:33:49.079 that was a key figure that was being investigated on the right. Anyway, 427 00:33:49.200 --> 00:33:52.759 generate a lot of litigation, and so it ends up becoming a case 428 00:33:52.799 --> 00:33:58.880 that is cited not only by sort of critics of the prosecutions of communists, 429 00:33:58.880 --> 00:34:04.440 but also in civil rights cases. It is cited in the case when the 430 00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:12.760 in the Alabama's trying to get the membership lists of the NAACP and the court 431 00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:16.679 says you can't do that, they cite this earlier case where new dealers are 432 00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:22.320 trying to get membership lists and subscription information for right wing organizations, and they're 433 00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:28.079 latching down to that. So there are people like both Black interest Irony and 434 00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:35.440 Douglas who are both really strong civil libertarians during this period and are actually citing 435 00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:40.199 cases, you know, from these right wingers and Black own biographers said that 436 00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:45.000 Hugo Black would have been hostile of nineteen thirty six would have been very hostile 437 00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:50.639 to the Hugo Black of the nineteen fifties and vice versa. Right, you 438 00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:54.920 know they had a different agendas. Right, Well, let's done bring it 439 00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:58.920 up to the current time for what you know, lessons or parallels we can 440 00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:04.199 observe. You know, there's the famous quote attributed to Mark Twain that they 441 00:35:04.199 --> 00:35:07.719 apparently didn't say that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. But you 442 00:35:07.760 --> 00:35:09.679 know, the one difference it's in other words, the point is we still 443 00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:15.559 see this kind of harassment to use actually a mild term of civil liberties and 444 00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:20.920 individual freedoms from government, although it tends to be more bureaucratized today you don't 445 00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:23.840 have with some exceptions. I'll come to the direct fingerprints of the White House 446 00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:28.599 of the president very often. I mean under the Obama administration, we saw 447 00:35:28.639 --> 00:35:34.039 the Federal Election Commission and also the IRS harassing political roots the lobbies as we 448 00:35:34.079 --> 00:35:38.119 call them, back then and then, but then more directly here recently, 449 00:35:38.199 --> 00:35:42.840 and the Supreme Court has just granted cert on a case, the Missouri case, 450 00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:47.119 where the White House was deeply involved in intimidating social media companies to censor 451 00:35:47.559 --> 00:35:53.159 critics of COVID lockdowns and so forth. So it seems like what you observe 452 00:35:53.239 --> 00:35:58.599 of the Roosevelt years is still going on today. And so I'm not quite 453 00:35:58.599 --> 00:36:00.519 sure how to turn it into a question by to throw out that parallel for 454 00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:07.960 your thoughts and observations on where we are, there are very very close parallels. 455 00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:13.039 I mean, you mentioned we've got sedition trials, you got a sort 456 00:36:13.079 --> 00:36:21.239 of a government direct and indirect attempts to prosecute the press or to intimidate the 457 00:36:21.280 --> 00:36:24.559 press. So you have parallels. I will say one parallel that I find 458 00:36:24.760 --> 00:36:29.599 less well, I find it discouraging. I mean the others I guess they're 459 00:36:29.599 --> 00:36:36.719 discouraging too, is that there isn't as much pushback, bipartisan pushback. And 460 00:36:37.239 --> 00:36:42.199 this is one of the messages I'd like my book to provide people with examples 461 00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:46.360 of people on the left and on the right too, who are defending civil 462 00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:52.400 liberties for people they disagree with. One of the most consistent civil libertarians, 463 00:36:52.079 --> 00:37:00.079 well, two of them are Norman Thomas, Socialist Party candidate. He was 464 00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:06.239 actually ejected from going to Jersey City to give a speech by this pro now 465 00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:15.079 Deal mayor there jobs, Yeah, who forced him out, and he got 466 00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:21.760 a fan letter from his Republican opponent in nineteen thirty six, Alfred Landon, 467 00:37:22.159 --> 00:37:25.199 and the two became lifelong friends and they linked it together. They say, 468 00:37:25.239 --> 00:37:30.800 we're for civil liberties, for Norman Thomas and against Mayor hay was Mayor hay 469 00:37:30.119 --> 00:37:35.199 name escape me for a second. Who's putting people down? But we're also 470 00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:38.840 against all these Senate committees and what they're doing to conservatives. And so you're 471 00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:44.679 starting to get you get a lot of examples like that where people are saying, 472 00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:47.719 I don't agree with these people, but boy, I'm going to stand 473 00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:52.480 up for their civil liberties. We don't see that to the same extent now. 474 00:37:52.599 --> 00:37:59.400 People are narrowly focused on their own group and then they become civil libertarians 475 00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:01.920 and their own group is threatened, and I could you know, give you 476 00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:06.960 we all could be aware of many examples of that, and we need more 477 00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:12.000 people that will sort of cross the eude. And there were many people that 478 00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:15.800 did that at the time, including in the Roosevelt administration. This is a 479 00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:17.800 big difference. There's I guess you, I don't know if you call it 480 00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:22.840 a deep state or not, but there's there's there's hostility to what he's trying 481 00:38:22.840 --> 00:38:29.039 to do in terms of civil liberties coming pushback coming from lower level, mid 482 00:38:29.159 --> 00:38:32.320 level ranks, high level ranks in the Department of Justice, for example, 483 00:38:34.039 --> 00:38:37.400 don't like what he's doing. And I think there's a civil liberty sensibility that's 484 00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:40.119 come out of World War One. A lot of these people are educated. 485 00:38:40.440 --> 00:38:45.719 Don't do World War One again and then prohibition where they see all the violations 486 00:38:45.719 --> 00:38:52.239 and civil liberties so sufficiently strong that you're getting pushback that you didn't get, 487 00:38:52.559 --> 00:38:55.639 you know, with Woodrow Wilson. Yeah, let's draw. Let's draw to 488 00:38:55.639 --> 00:38:59.320 an end here with a little bit of a few minutes of biography. I 489 00:38:59.360 --> 00:39:01.519 actually meant to do this at the beginning. I always like to ask people, 490 00:39:01.920 --> 00:39:06.360 especially for my non academic listeners who may not be familiar with you at 491 00:39:06.360 --> 00:39:08.239 all, did you give a little bit of biography? And by that, 492 00:39:08.360 --> 00:39:12.119 I mean tell me a little bit about where you're from, where you grew 493 00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:15.440 up and ultimately not simply formal education, but how you came to form your 494 00:39:15.480 --> 00:39:21.119 views. I mean, is it fair to describe you as chiefly a libertarian 495 00:39:21.760 --> 00:39:24.159 or do you have a particular you know, people said they don't like label 496 00:39:24.239 --> 00:39:28.679 sometimes, but how do you describe yourself and how did you arrive at your 497 00:39:29.280 --> 00:39:32.039 disposition towards the world. Well, I won't run away from that label, 498 00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:37.119 so I think that that label fits me pretty well. You know. I 499 00:39:37.159 --> 00:39:42.639 don't really know how it happened exactly. My parents were Hubert Humphrey Democrats, 500 00:39:43.559 --> 00:39:47.719 but were very very open minded, very much encouraged education. And I came 501 00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:52.440 across some books in my library. One was a critical book by kind of 502 00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:58.840 a libertarian about iin Rant. It's called usually begins with iin Rant. This 503 00:39:58.880 --> 00:40:05.079 is really interesting, Yeah, and it's just not a very UNPC book now, 504 00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:07.760 I think, but it is. It is a book that brought me 505 00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:14.400 into sort of libertarian ideas but from a more critical perspective and got me gave 506 00:40:14.440 --> 00:40:19.920 me a sense maybe to not take it too seriously. And then I so, 507 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:22.000 I don't know how that happened. I just sort of drifted into it, 508 00:40:22.039 --> 00:40:28.760 I guess, and became involved and then got my degrees from University of 509 00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:34.119 Minnesota and then my PhD from University of Wisconsin. And I did my dissertation 510 00:40:34.239 --> 00:40:37.679 on tax revolts in the nineteen thirties, which ended up getting published as a 511 00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:40.800 book. So that sort of brought me into this period. But I've done 512 00:40:40.880 --> 00:40:45.679 stuff on all kinds of things, on civil rights, on the you know, 513 00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:49.239 one of the founders of the modern civil rights movement, a lot of 514 00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:54.639 black history. But that's sort of my background, and I'm a generalist in 515 00:40:54.679 --> 00:40:59.519 the sense that I do a lot of I've done a lot of different kinds 516 00:40:59.559 --> 00:41:02.599 of tops in American history. What am I moved to do, like, 517 00:41:02.639 --> 00:41:07.159 for example, our autobiography of a civil rights leader named T. R. 518 00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:09.400 M. Howard because they just read a little bottom, I said, nobody's 519 00:41:09.440 --> 00:41:14.000 written about this guy, and I put everything aside, and that led me 520 00:41:14.039 --> 00:41:16.800 in a whole different direction. But it all ties together, I kiss in 521 00:41:16.840 --> 00:41:22.199 some sense. Well, yeah, you've been at the University of Alabama for 522 00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:24.599 I know you're Americas now, but you've been there for most of your academic 523 00:41:24.599 --> 00:41:28.599 career, is that right, Yes, since the nineteen nineties. I was 524 00:41:28.639 --> 00:41:31.760 at UNLV for a while before that. Oh, okay, right, but 525 00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:37.400 back when Murray Rothbard was there. Yeah, it was a coincidence. He 526 00:41:37.519 --> 00:41:39.559 was in the economics department, I was in history. So that was an 527 00:41:39.559 --> 00:41:45.519 interesting coincidence that so we ended up serving on committees together, and he would 528 00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:49.920 hold court at a restaurant called JoJo's every afternoon. Anyone can go there and 529 00:41:50.199 --> 00:41:53.480 sit down next to him and whatever, and it's fun to be around in 530 00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:57.480 that sense. Right. But uh, yeah, I yeah, I've been 531 00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:00.360 at Alabama for a long time and I to know someone I think you knew. 532 00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:02.719 I don't know if you knew him, but Forrest McDonald. Yeah I 533 00:42:02.760 --> 00:42:06.679 knew him some not well, but but some always. Yeah, he was 534 00:42:06.719 --> 00:42:09.960 instrumental in getting me a job here because I was really low on a search 535 00:42:10.519 --> 00:42:15.719 and he he gave recommendation and they got me up to seven and every one 536 00:42:15.760 --> 00:42:17.400 of them didn't work out for some reason. They worked their way down to 537 00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:21.280 me, so I got good. But yeah, he was he was. 538 00:42:21.519 --> 00:42:22.920 He was. He was a character. He was, he was a man 539 00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:29.679 that His wife is also very one of the best editors. The best editor 540 00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:32.239 ever is his wife, Ellen, who edited some of my work. It 541 00:42:32.280 --> 00:42:36.119 was She was just remarkable. But they were kind of a team. You'd 542 00:42:36.119 --> 00:42:38.360 say they always see them together, right, Is it true? I've always 543 00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:42.800 heard this and read this. Is it true that he actually liked to you 544 00:42:42.840 --> 00:42:45.679 know, right in the nude and even write his track on his farm in 545 00:42:45.719 --> 00:42:50.639 the nude? I believe that's true. I never saw that, but I 546 00:42:50.679 --> 00:42:52.719 but I I know people that went to his farm and you know he was 547 00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:57.360 out mowing the lawn and the two something. But I mean, apparently that's 548 00:42:57.440 --> 00:43:01.519 all true. Right, Yeah, Donald said things like that. Yeah, 549 00:43:01.639 --> 00:43:06.679 you they were probably true. You would say outrageous things. Go he's not 550 00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:10.400 kidding, that's right. Yeah, No you care? You know you have 551 00:43:10.440 --> 00:43:13.920 you got any other projects on the drawing board right now? Or are you 552 00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000 enjoying your your transition to retirement. Oh no, I'm not transitioning at all. 553 00:43:19.039 --> 00:43:22.440 It seems like I mean I'm doing it by I'm doing a book. 554 00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:27.760 My next book, it's going to be a podcast series coming uh. It's 555 00:43:27.800 --> 00:43:31.239 about the history of an all black town called Mound Bayeu. And Mound Bayou 556 00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:36.079 was all well. It was a black controlled town in Mississippi where the mayor 557 00:43:36.119 --> 00:43:39.639 and the police chief and everyone in it could vote and then they were The 558 00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:45.519 leadership was black. It was founded by former slave of Jefferson Davis Wow and 559 00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:51.639 it ended up being a hub of kind of self help and civil rights and 560 00:43:51.920 --> 00:43:57.079 entrepreneurship in Mississippi. So if you anyone's heard of the Ammatel trial, that's 561 00:43:57.119 --> 00:44:00.199 where the reporters stayed. There was an investigation led by the guy I've written 562 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:06.599 about also, TRM. Howard, an informal interracial investigation trying to find evidence 563 00:44:06.639 --> 00:44:10.360 in that case coming out of Mound Bayou. It was a place that I 564 00:44:10.400 --> 00:44:16.960 think sends a message about what one little place can do that does respect where 565 00:44:16.960 --> 00:44:23.360 you do have individual rights in a place naming the Mississippi that was probably the 566 00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:29.639 most hostile to the rights of African Americans in the country. It's right in 567 00:44:29.679 --> 00:44:30.920 the middle of that and it's right in the middle of the area of that 568 00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:36.400 state. Wow. And it's becoming a kind of center of resistance, or 569 00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:39.360 became a center of resistance, and very few people know about it. And 570 00:44:39.840 --> 00:44:44.440 if I'm getting more and more pushed into the direction, I've done three articles 571 00:44:44.440 --> 00:44:46.599 about it that are up now if people want to google them. But that'll 572 00:44:46.599 --> 00:44:50.159 give you a sense where I'm going with this. Oh good, well, 573 00:44:50.159 --> 00:44:53.480 that sounds well, David, Thanks very much, and congratulations on the New 574 00:44:53.639 --> 00:44:58.199 Deals war on the Bill of Rights, and we'll look forward to that next 575 00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:06.880 work you put out. All right, thank you, Well, there you 576 00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:09.679 have it, as I like to say, And while happy days are here 577 00:45:09.719 --> 00:45:15.320 again, the Great New Deal anthem plays in the background. Longtime listeners may 578 00:45:15.320 --> 00:45:19.280 recall that Lucretian I had the great Conrad black On Oh I don't know, 579 00:45:19.280 --> 00:45:22.519 a year and a half ago now, to give his defense of Franklin Roosevelt, 580 00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:24.239 and we rouffed him up a little. But we like Conrad, and 581 00:45:24.280 --> 00:45:27.559 so we didn't rough him up too much, and we didn't bring up the 582 00:45:27.599 --> 00:45:31.280 issues that David Bito does here on civil liberties. Meanwhile, I am working 583 00:45:31.320 --> 00:45:38.039 on a long essay about the recent conservative interest in Roosevelt among the national Conservatives. 584 00:45:38.400 --> 00:45:42.800 I've had a lot of trouble getting to a conclusion, and new things 585 00:45:42.880 --> 00:45:46.239 keep popping up, like Saraba Maari's latest book, for example. Maybe this 586 00:45:46.280 --> 00:45:49.960 will prompt me to get off my rear end and finish the essay, which 587 00:45:50.039 --> 00:45:52.440 is already quite long in draft form, and then I'll do a podcast with 588 00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:57.360 myself. Perhaps I don't know, but any event, thanks for listening. 589 00:45:57.440 --> 00:46:00.800 We'll be back this weekend with another edition of the three Weeks Sky Happy Hour. 590 00:46:00.199 --> 00:46:05.440 John You is reporting in person from the APEC conference in San Francisco right 591 00:46:05.480 --> 00:46:08.400 now, and we'll see what light he can shed on the conversations between Joe 592 00:46:08.440 --> 00:46:14.119 Biden and President G of China. No one's looking forward to that outcome with 593 00:46:14.239 --> 00:46:16.679 baited breath. In any case, don't forget to milk the soft power dividend. 594 00:46:17.079 --> 00:46:54.639 We'll see you all this weekend. Everybody, Bye bye Ricochet. Join 595 00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:55.400 the conversation.