Maury Maverick was possibly the first liberal United States Congressman from Texas to achieve national and even international stature. A dedicated Democrat, he was ready to attack Franklin D. Roosevelt whenever he felt that Roosevelt was flagging in his enthusiasm for reform. He was honest to the point of rudeness, and he belonged to the "damn the torpedoes" class that pulled ahead regardless of political consequences. He was at home with the literate—he was a prodigious writer and speaker—but always ready to puncture their pretensions. And he could cuss with sailors, pecan shellers, and any breed of saloon keeper. Put all that together with a short, stocky, bulldog frame, a fierce face and a voice to match, and you have one of the nation's more colorful political figures.
FDR -- the wily political opportunist glowing with charismatic charm, a leader venerated and hated with equal vigor -- such is one common notion of a president elected to an unprecedented four terms. But in this first comprehensive study of Roosevelt's leadership of the Democratic party, Sean Savage reveals a different man. He contends that, far from being a mere opportunist, Roosevelt brought to the party a conscious agenda, a longterm strategy of creating a liberal Democracy that would be an enduring majority force in American politics. The roots of Roosevelt's plan for the party ran back to his experiences with New York politics in the 1920s. It was here, Savage argues, that Roosevelt first began to perceive that a pluralistic voting base and a liberal philosophy offered the best way for Democrats to contend with the established Republican organization. With the collapse of the economy in 1929 and the discrediting of Republican fiscal policy, Roosevelt was ready to carry his views to the national scene when elected president in 1932. Through his analysis of the New Deal, Savage shows how Roosevelt made use of these programs to develop a policy agenda for the Democratic party, to establish a liberal ideology, and, most important, to create a coalition of interest groups and voting blocs that would continue to sustain the party long after his death. A significant aspect of Roosevelt's leadership was his reform of the Democratic National Committee, which was designed to make the party's organization more open and participatory in setting electoral platforms and in raising financial support. Savage's exploration of Roosevelt's party leadership offers a new perspective on the New Deal era and on one of America's great presidents that will be valuable for historians and political scientists alike.
Contains profiles, contextual essays, historical images, and appendices that provide information about the 229 women who have served in Congress from 1917 through 2006.
In Dollars for Dixie, Katherine Rye Jewell demonstrates how conservative southern industrialists pursued a political campaign to preserve regional economic arrangements.
Between the Great War and Pearl Harbor, conservative labor leaders declared themselves America's "first line of defense" against Communism. In this surprising account, Jennifer Luff shows how the American Federation of Labor fanned popular anticommunism but defended Communists' civil liberties in the aftermath of the 1919 Red Scare. The AFL's "commonsense anticommunism," she argues, steered a middle course between the American Legion and the ACLU, helping to check campaigns for federal sedition laws. But in the 1930s, frustration with the New Deal order led labor conservatives to redbait the Roosevelt administration and liberal unionists and abandon their reluctant civil libertarianism for red scare politics. That frustration contributed to the legal architecture of federal anticommunism that culminated with the McCarthyist fervor of the 1950s. Relying on untapped archival sources, Luff reveals how labor conservatives and the emerging civil liberties movement debated the proper role of the state in policing radicals and grappled with the challenges to the existing political order posed by Communist organizers. Surprising conclusions about familiar figures, like J. Edgar Hoover, and unfamiliar episodes, like a German plot to disrupt American munitions manufacture, make Luff's story a fresh retelling of the interwar years.
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