HW Brands

[00:00:00] Matt Blumberg: Welcome to Country Over Self, Defining Moments in American History. Each episode we welcome a notable historian to tell us the story of a president and the choice that president made to strengthen the country without regard to the impact of that decision on himself, his power, or his party.

Welcome to Country Over Self, Defining Moments in American History. I'm your host, Matt Blumberg, and I'm here today with H. W. Brands. Professor Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Senior Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a New York Times bestselling author. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to his Class.

His most recent book is America First, Roosevelt versus Lindbergh in the Shadow of War. Bill, it's great to see you and welcome to Country Over Self. 

HW Brands: Delighted to be joining you. 

Matt Blumberg: All right. So today we want to talk about the subject of your latest book and one of your earlier books. our 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR was our longest serving and certainly one of our most consequential presidents, probably one of our best known presidents.

He came to office, in a landslide victory over, Herbert Hoover in the depths of the great depression. His new deal was the most ambitious expansion of our federal government in our history. He led the country through World War II. He oversaw the development of the atomic bomb, set the stage for the post war world order, and ran for, successfully, an unprecedented third and fourth term of office.

So our subject is country over self, and I struggled a little in preparing for this episode to come up with. Great example, or examples of FDR choosing country over self, and in fact, kind of came up with a couple of the opposite. And I know you and I had some, some back and forth about that. I'd love to just have a conversation on the theme of exploring the concept of country over self with examples from his presidency, maybe a little bit about Eleanor Roosevelt as well.

And I guess I'll just start with the question of, do you agree with that struggle with respect to Roosevelt? 

[00:02:23] HW Brands: I think Roosevelt was typical of most presidents in not seeing much difference. between the interests of the country and the interests of themselves. To become president of the United States, to put yourself in the position where you can be nominated and then elected, you have to have a pretty healthy ego.

And so you have to think that you really have something to offer to your country. And even if you don't think that in an absolute sense, you are qualified to do all the things that the president has to do. Politics is never an absolute measurement. It's always comparative. Am I better than those other rascals out there?

And Franklin Roosevelt was certainly convinced in 1932 that he was better qualified to be president than Herbert Hoover. Voters agreed with him. Now, this was probably unfair to Hoover, but part of the calculus of presidential elections is that they're often inherently unfair. Because presidents get credit for stuff they didn't do and they get blamed for stuff that they're really not responsible for.

Presidential elections, elections in American politics for president, are as much a barometer of how voters feel about politics. themselves, how they feel about their prospects, how they feel about the country. And for the longest time, the last couple of go rounds might be an exception to this, there's too soon to tell, but generally speaking, if an incumbent is running in a presidential race.

The race becomes a referendum on not simply the incumbent, but the country during that incumbent's presidency. And given the sorry state of the economy, In 1932, there was no way Herbert Hoover was going to win and so Roosevelt could say, I'm a better person for the job than this. But I can't point to a time in Roosevelt's political career where he thought there was much daylight between what was good for the country and what would be good for him.

 Now he would have said, I see what's good for the country, and therefore I orient my interests in that direction. Not everybody agreed with him, by any means. And just on one point, you mentioned that he ran for and won a third and fourth term. the George Washington rule of two terms for president had stood the test of time for a century and a half.

And occasionally some of Roosevelt's predecessors had been tempted to test it, but they never really followed through seriously, and it became this de facto rule, because if you put yourself up for a third term, in effect, you would have to answer the question of Americans. So who do you think you are? You think you're better than George Washington? And you'd be asking them to say yes. Roosevelt was able to get around that by saying that there is this global emergency, and as he and his campaign supporters in 1930, in 1940, comparing Roosevelt to Wendell Wilkee, the Republican nominee, they said better, a third termer than a third rater.

So there were a lot of people who thought at that point that Roosevelt was putting his own interests ahead of the country's interest, because even if you made the case that at this particular moment. Experience at the helm is a good thing. But Mr. President, the presidency, America is going to go on long after this time.

And do you want to establish the principle that president should be president for life, which is actually what Roosevelt became. and the fact that Americans didn't like it was reflected in the decision that actually was almost universally supported by Republicans and Democrats shortly after Roosevelt's death.

Never again are we going to let somebody do this. And so they passed an amendment that said, Presidents only get two terms. 

[00:06:40] Matt Blumberg: Yeah, the third and the fourth term are an interesting case study and maybe we'll come back to that in a minute. But I want to go back to something you said a minute ago that I think was interesting, which is, not just that there wasn't daylight between what was good for Franklin and what was good for the country, but that you think there's a good chance he was trying to figure out what was good for the country and then make it good for him.

And the, the question I have is how did he, how do you think he went about doing that? I mean, taking office in the depths of the depression. Okay. It was obvious. that action needed to be taken, which we can also come back to a little bit, but he dithered quite a bit on entry into World War II and on the, even recognizing the Nazis horrors, and he was paralyzed and didn't travel, didn't get out the way contemporary presidents do.

So how did he, and he had a seemingly very, keen, innate, almost innate sense of, what was going on in the country. So how did he go about doing that? 

[00:07:38] HW Brands: the first thing, let me say, that Roosevelt's handicap, as it was known then, really didn't keep him from mingling with the people because he rigged up an open topped car and he would seat himself in the back and the car would drive among crowds and people could come up and shake his hand and all of this stuff.

A lot of Americans, either never knew or forgot that he actually didn't have the use of his legs. The fact that he came down with polio was a big story in 1921 when it happened. But Roosevelt sort of retired from politics for several years and so he was out of the limelight. And of course, by the 1930s, when he was president, there were a whole lot of people in America who hadn't been old enough to be politically aware and reading the newspapers at that time.

but this business of how does he decide what the national interest is? What, is the good of the country? Roosevelt was a really good student of politics. I mean, various people have said, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that he was a second class intellect, but a first class temperament. and I don't know, that's a little bit condescending, that's the kind of thing Holmes would say.

But he was, as I say, a very good student of politics, and he had been studying politics from the time he was in college, which, not coincidentally, was the time when his cousin was president of the United States. And Franklin Roosevelt used to hang out at the Theodore Roosevelt White House. And one of the ways that people choose their careers, I point this out to my students, I teach at the University of Texas, I point out to my students, if you think you want to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever you want to be, Try to follow somebody around, get to know somebody who does it, because at some level or other, you're going to have to kind of measure yourself against this person.

Do I, if this is a successful lawyer, do I have the skills that this person has? And so on. Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, when he would go visit the Theodore Roosevelt White House, he could kind of look at Teddy Roosevelt and say, And if he can do it, I can do it. And so he began laying his course to the White House.

[00:10:03] Matt Blumberg: I would say also the other thing you get out of going and watching it is do you want to do it, not just can you do it. 

[00:10:10] HW Brands: Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, there's that. 

[00:10:11] Matt Blumberg: And there was really that kind of early attraction to politics because of cousin Ted. 

[00:10:19] HW Brands: this is actually, I think, one of the most striking, interesting things about studying presidents.

I mean, I happen to study presidents, so I look at the presidency, but it applies to anybody who is seeking a position of power. Why do they do it? And in some respects, it's as simple as the Little League baseball player, who's a good Little Leaguer, So he's encouraged to keep playing. So he moves up the next level of the Pony Leagues, and maybe he plays in college, and then he plays in the pros.

So the ability to do something well is to many people its own reward. And you keep doing it until you run up against the maximum that your talents will carry you. And it turned out that Roosevelt's talents would carry him all the way to the White House. But, When I say he was an abstinence politician, he looked to see what had worked for Theodore Roosevelt, and he charted his path to the White House.

So Theodore Roosevelt had started off in New York state politics. So that's what Franklin Roosevelt did. And then he had worked for the national ticket. And so that's what Franklin Roosevelt did. And then he had taken the job of as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. And of all the positions in the federal government, that's the one Franklin Roosevelt wanted.

Then he came back to run for and win the governorship of New York. So that's what Franklin Roosevelt did. And then you'd get your chance. And so that worked for him. Probably more important in his political education was his close working with Woodrow Wilson during World War I. This is crucial what we were talking about because Woodrow Wilson, was the first American internationalist president.

He was the one who led the United States into World War I. And Wilson had this clearly articulated vision of what America's national interest was, and that was to take leadership of the world's democracies, and indeed, perhaps take leadership, sort of, of the world. When Wilson Urged Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917.

He said, we go to war so we can make the world safe for democracy. And he cast in that very high minded term. Now, it worked in the sense that the United States went to war and the American side won. But then there was a backlash against it because the peace treaty that came out of World War I was very unsatisfactory to Americans.

It was rejected by the Senate. The United States did not join the League of Nations. And in the 1920s and 1930s, Americans believed that American participation in World War I had been a grave mistake, and they would never repeat it. Now, Americans said this loudly. They said it officially. Congress passed neutrality laws saying, should another war break out, the United States must be neutral.

We will not leave this up to the discretion of the president. Roosevelt at the time was president and Roosevelt, during Wilson's administration, had imbibed this sense of internationalism that the United States needs to be the leader of the free countries of the world, but he had seen what had happened when Wilson had pushed the United States into World War One, and he said, I'm not going to do that.

And so he kept his mouth shut and there are people who have faulted him for this, because if he had spoken out more clearly against Adolf Hitler before Hitler really consolidated power, if the United States had joined the League of Nations and had taken measures to prevent Hitler's expansion, then things might have turned out differently.

But Roosevelt made this decision, and the decision was America's American opinion is not ready for this yet. Now, some of his critics then and critics since have said, that's what leadership is for. You change the mind of America. You tell them what America needs to do. But Roosevelt didn't.

He took the position instead that we have got our hands full dealing with this depression at home. So we're not going to waste our energy thinking about what's going on overseas. But part of that, Again, this is true of all sorts of presidents. That very direction that Roosevelt is pointing, he says it's good for the United States, but it's also going to get him re elected.

And time and again, you will see presidents say, I got all these great ideas, but of course I can't put the ideas into effect unless I get elected or re elected. 

[00:14:38] Matt Blumberg: I think looking at the consequential decisions that he made, over the 13 years that he was in office, you can see somewhere he led from behind and you can see somewhere he led from the front and, sometimes he looked for compromise and sometimes he was a steamroller and he's always seemed to me, and I think you talk about this in the book several times as sort of what I would call like the great mobilizer, very powerful communication style, very good at moving public opinion, but probably good at picking his battles and picking his moments.

And it'd be interesting, to run through here, like a handful of examples of this. The one I'd like to start with is actually the transition to power. from Hoover. So Hoover, I was shocked the first time I read a Hoover biography of just how much he did to try to get the country out of the depression.

certainly relative to Republican orthodoxy at the time, but even just on an absolute basis. and of course, everyone says, Oh, he did nothing to get us out of the depression. Roosevelt came in and saved us, but Roosevelt really came in and built on and expanded a lot of the things that Hoover had started.

And yet he was. unwilling during his lengthy transition into the Oval Office, because of course, that's still when there was a four month window, not a two month window. He was seemed unwilling to collaborate, to be seen as someone that was even associated with Hoover, even though he had already won the election.

so I'm curious for your take on sort of how that fit into his calculus. 

[00:16:18] HW Brands: regarding the transition, in this regard, Roosevelt followed the example of Abraham Lincoln, and if one wants to complain against a president for not collaborating with a predecessor or for doing anything during this interregnum period, the finger of blame really goes to Lincoln, because between his election and his inauguration, seven southern states left the union and Lincoln kept silent and one would have thought, speak out.

You've been elected. Let the world know what's going to happen. Let these southern states know what's going to happen. Because if you keep quiet, they think nothing's going to happen if they secede. But Lincoln took the position, I'm not president. I have no authority. I can say something, but I can't follow through.

I will have authority, and when I do have authority, then you will hear from me. In the case of Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, part of Roosevelt realized how intractable the problem of the Great Depression was. He saw what Hoover had done. Hoover had done a lot exactly as you say, but Hoover was a technician.

He would have been the first to admit he was a technician. We put these policies in place. He was not someone who could convey a vision. He was not somebody who could connect with the emotions of Americans. So It's true that the programs of the new deal, especially the ones that came out of the first 100 days is blitz of new programs, major new programs. It was a lot. This new deal was a big deal, no question about it, but more important from the standpoint of the mindset of America was that Americans heard from Franklin Roosevelt. He was the one who introduced the fireside chats and he would go on the radio and people all around the country by the tens of millions would listen to Roosevelt He didn't overstay his welcome.

He did these fireside chats just three or four times a year on average during his 12 years. But when he came on, America stopped and they listened and people heard his voice and there's, and Roosevelt, he, I think he understood how radio works. It gets in the head of listeners in the way that the previous media didn't. Newspapers. Newspapers there on the printed page. And there's somebody, there's a writer, and there's an editor. There were photographs, of course, but, of course, photographs are photographs. But, when Roosevelt could connect directly to the American people, there was no editor between his microphone and the speakers in the radios.

People could think that he was speaking directly to them. This isn't true when you're on television or if you're, in front of 10, 000 people. If it's live, everybody in the audience knows I'm just one of 10, 000. But when you're lying there in your bed on a Sunday night, and it's probably dark, and you hear the voice over the radio, you think, he's talking to me.

In fact, when I was working on my book on Franklin Roosevelt, I was talking to some group and, I, I suggested that the listeners thought that Roosevelt must have sounded like, their beloved grandfather or a favorite uncle or something. And this, elderly woman came up after my talk. She said, I listened to those fireside chats and that was not the voice of my uncle or my grandfather.

That was the voice of God. So he forged this connection to the extent that even though the economy didn't improve much in his first term, in fact, and in his second term, it was a big recession in 1937 that gave back almost all the gains. But ordinary Americans believed that there was somebody in Washington looking out for them in a way that they never felt about Herbert Hoover. Oddly, Hoover was the orphan kid. Hoover was the ordinary kid who made good. Hoover was probably doing almost as much as Roosevelt was, but he couldn't convey it. Whereas Roosevelt could. Roosevelt, the patrician, the one who had sort of everything good handed to him on a silver platter, but he was the one who made the connection.

Now, there were a lot of people, and I'm, I think I'm among this group, who said that one of the things that made Roosevelt able to connect the way he did was precisely the disability that he incurred when he was an adult. Because until the age of 39, everything had been going Roosevelt's way, and then all of a sudden, this athletic guy, this guy who liked to run around, couldn't even walk. And, it made him realize, and this is critical for understanding the great depression, it made him realize that bad things can happen to good people through no fault of their own. Because that's why so many Americans were utterly flummoxed by the depression. They didn't do anything wrong.

They worked hard. They didn't play the stock market. They put their money in banks were supposed to be safe. And then the banks collapsed. And the business that they worked for went under. And they were out of work, they were out of homes, they were out of food, they were out of everything. So When Roosevelt says, I hear you and we're going to do something for you, that made all the difference in the world, despite the fact that the gross statistics of the economy weren't that much better under Roosevelt than they were under Hoover, right?

[00:21:40] Matt Blumberg: let's explore, an episode where he failed. so let's talk about trying to pack the Supreme court. So the Supreme court, a bunch of old guys. It's very conservative. Most if not all appointed by Republicans, you start striking down new deal legislation, left and right. And he comes back and he says, okay, let's pack the court, and couldn't get it done.

What was the error there? Was it an error in mobilization? Was it an error in reading sentiment? 

[00:22:18] HW Brands: the term packing the court is the label commonly applied to what Roosevelt tried to do to expand the number of justices. He didn't use that term. His critics use that term, and it's not meant to be a compliment to what Roosevelt was trying to accomplish.

But first of all, Roosevelt believed that he was justified in doing this because he believed in democracy. The legislature, one of the branches of democracy, had approved the New Deal legislation. The president, elected by the people, had signed this legislation, and the Supreme Court had struck it down.

And the Supreme Court typically lags a decade or a generation behind popular opinion. And Roosevelt believed that he was living through, the country was living through, a national emergency. In fact, in his first inaugural address, we need to teach We need to treat this emergency as though it's a war, and during a war, you might, make exceptions to things that are standard during peacetime.

But he also noted that there's nothing in the Constitution that says that there should be nine justices. There might, I mean, there had been different numbers of justices previously in American history, so there was nothing sacred about nine. . And he thought, okay, I was elected president and the constitution says I can appoint justices and if the Senate will approve them and we got it.

So he thought it was legitimate. Now, to some degree, he might very well also have been treating this as a kind of shot across the bow of the Supreme Court. So even if this plan doesn't succeed, you will know that I'm watching you and you guys better put your ear to the democratic ground and heed what's going on.

[00:24:02] Matt Blumberg: Which seems to have been successful. 

[00:24:03] HW Brands: That's it. that's exactly it. Roosevelt never thought that his so called packing the court initiative was a failure because within several months of when he did it, the Supreme Court changed its mind and then it changes personnel. So he got what he wanted.

But the reason, that it really tarnished, it took the shine off his landslide reelection in 1936. And this, because There was a constituency within his own party that was distrustful of Roosevelt. These were southern conservatives. Southern conservatives were Democrats, not because they agreed with what a northern liberal like Roosevelt believed.

They were Democrats because they hated the Republican Party as the party of Abraham Lincoln, of the Civil War, of Reconstruction, and all of this. They were simply, the Democratic Party was this odd coalition, and they were willing to sort of bite their tongues during Roosevelt's first term, say, okay, he got elected, we'll go along with him.

But they weren't happy with much of the New Deal legislation, and they, in many cases, approved of the Supreme Court's veto. Of overturning some of the New Deal programs and they thought, okay, that's fine. We, our system won't become unbalanced. What they feared with Roosevelt and the court packing plan was that the judiciary would just become a rubber stamp that every time a president ran up against a decision they didn't like, it just adds in justices and get the thing overturned.

So they thought it was bad on principle. There was something else. And that was. The South had not elected a president since before the Civil War, with the partial exception of Woodrow Wilson, who was born in the South, but did his professional life in the North. He was governor of New Jersey when he was elected in 1912.

Southerners didn't want Roosevelt to think that he could stay in the White House regardless of what he did, couldn't stay there forever. John Nance Garner, his Vice President, in his second term as Vice President, Garner, distrusted, didn't like Roosevelt's policies, and had some questions about Roosevelt himself.

He was from Texas. And he figured, if I serve loyally, then Roosevelt's going to have to step aside in 1940 and, then I'll get the nomination, become president. When Roosevelt talked about packing the Supreme Court, about changing the nature of America's constitutional government, some of them got the idea, maybe he's not going to step aside in 1940.

If he thinks he can steamroll the Supreme Court. I mean, because that's steamrolling the Constitution. Well, he can certainly steamroll this de facto rule against third terms. And Garner, was one who broke with Roosevelt. When Roosevelt decided in 1940 he was going to run for third term, he felt personally betrayed.

And he also felt that the interests of the country were endangered by this. 

[00:27:08] Matt Blumberg: And he was not alone, in feeling that way. So 

[00:27:11] HW Brands: That's right. That's right. and one of the, it's rare that you can get the two parties to agree on anything at the same time, but both parties are Republicans. The Democrats agreed, the president should not have third and fourth terms after Roosevelt died. And when I first heard about this long ago, I thought that's kind of weird. I understand why the Republicans wouldn't want this to happen, you know 4 term democratic president, but the Democrats. the reason was, as once you think about it, it makes perfect sense.

There are lots of Democrats who are waiting patiently in line for Roosevelt to step down. And when he never stepped down, they, don't, they lose their chance to be president. 

[00:27:51] Matt Blumberg: Altruism at its finest. 

HW Brands: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt Blumberg: I'd love to talk about World War II a little bit and zero in on two very, different, episodes in World War II to talk about, this concept of Roosevelt and, country over self or what was going on at that time.

let's talk about Lend Lease. which, you know, sort of before our entry into the war, the prelude of our entry into the war. and, a little bit of an executive power grab, with a lot of bitter opponents, in the country. and then I'd love to move and also talk about the Japanese internment, which is, one of the darkest chapters in, in not just Roosevelt's presidency, but in the country's history.

so however you'd like to start. 

[00:28:37] HW Brands: So Lend Lease was this program that was sponsored by Roosevelt and he proposed it to Congress right 

[00:28:45] Matt Blumberg: now by Churchill. 

[00:28:48] HW Brands: Right. Right. Yeah. So that's a whole related but different story. But right after his third inauguration, he presents his bill to Congress saying, give me authority to give the anti fascist forces anything that they need so that they can keep fighting.

Now, Roosevelt said, This is the best way to keep American soldiers out of fighting. If we can keep the British fighting, if we can keep the Chinese fighting as the Japanese in Asia, if we can keep other enemies of the fascist powers, right, then we won't have to go. 

[00:29:23] Matt Blumberg: All right. The echo, a lot of echoes right now in today's environment about the Ukraine.

[00:29:28] HW Brands: Oh, yeah. And, but there were people who didn't believe what Roosevelt was saying. They said, rather than being a measure to keep Americans out of war, this is a measure more likely to draw Americans in. because the president, Roosevelt, was making the case for aid to Britain. We'll focus on them first.

On principle. So Britain is a democracy. actually it was an empire, but for the purposes of his argument, he said it's democracy. He was democratic at home more or less, and so he's making the case that the United States needs to go the aid of beleaguered democracies. if you make the case far enough so you can send weapons to those beleaguered democracies, if the weapons don't look like they're gonna cut it.

Do you just say, no, that's as far as that principle extends. No, if a principle is a principle, then the next step will be, okay, we need to send American ships that are operated by American sailors and they might get hit and sunk. Or we might send American aircraft piloted by American pilots. Or we might send American troops.

Now, Roosevelt, again and again, in fact, in just days before his, the election of 1940, this record breaking election, he said, I will not send American boys to fight in foreign wars. he was called out on this later by his adult son, James Roosevelt, who said, Dad, why did you say that? You knew that wasn't the case.

You knew that something was going to happen. We were going to get in the war. And he says, yeah, Jimmy, I, yeah, I knew that, but I couldn't say it because if I did my opponents, all they would say is he's going to take us to war. He's going to take us to war. And of course he was going to take America to war, but Roosevelt was willing to sort of shade the truth a little bit in the interest of.

sort of this, what he considered this higher good because he really did believe that Nazism would be stopped only if the United States got in the war, put troops on the ground and defeated the German forces. And so at that point, Roosevelt was willing to do almost anything that would bring that end closer.

But at the same time he was saying this was just the opposite. So the anti war move, the people who said, We made a mistake the first time around. We're not going to make the same mistake the second time around. 

[00:31:46] Matt Blumberg: The Lindberghs of the world. 

[00:31:48] HW Brands: The Lindberghs of the world, the America First Committee. They were just tearing their hair because here he's saying one thing and he's doing something else.

And they pointed out when he asked for the repeal of sending arms, the arms embargo of the original neutrality legislation. He said that this is more likely to keep us out of war. Well Mr. President, we warned you then that it wasn't. It was going to take us further toward war, and it's taken us further toward war.

And when you gave all those destroyers to Britain in 1940, you said this is to keep us out of war. It didn't keep us out of the war. It's taking us closer to the war. So why should we believe you this time? And you pointed to something about this greatly increased the executive branch's authority, because all of these measures left it to the judgment of the President of the United States as to whether this country should get weapons or not. And this really came to a head in the summer of 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Because the Soviet Union had been America's public enemy number one from 1917 until almost this moment. And there were people in the United States in the 1930s When they saw that the Nazis and the Communists were bitterly opposed to each other, and they fought a proxy war with each other in Spain during Spain's civil war, that they had the view that was articulated by Harry Truman, then a senator from Missouri.

He said, we ought to help the Germans kill as many Russians as possible, and the Russians kill as many Germans as possible. So that would be the best outcome, but now Roosevelt is sending American weapons, American money to Joseph Stalin, the leader of the communists. What's going on, said Lindbergh and the anti war group, but they recognize they had to recognize that Roosevelt had very skillfully led Americans into this position where he was portraying all of this as a way of preserving democracy as a way.

It was remarkable how. Roosevelt cast this as America's destiny. This was something America must do. America must take leadership of the world. And he said things like, if we don't defeat the Germans in Europe, they're going to come after us in America. And that was a real stretch of the imagination.

[00:34:00] Matt Blumberg: Until it wasn't. 

[00:34:02] HW Brands: the Germans never came to America. And and that's what he was speaking of at the time. anyway, but he was really good. He understood the temper of the American people. He understood that you can flatter Americans by saying, we've got the greatest country on earth and we need to act like the greatest country on earth.

okay, we'll do it. One last thing on this, and this really often isn't remarked on much. While he was saying all this, while the country was getting closer and closer to war. The depression in the United States was ending for the first time. Americans were no longer worried about the economic future.

And Americans, some subconsciously, some sort of actively and directly, they linked The possibility of war with a revival of prosperity. And Americans look at their own situation, which is getting better and better the closer the country goes to war. And then, to jump ahead a little bit, when the United States does go to war, Americans, for the first time in decades, are all pulling in the same direction.

This is what you have to do during wartime. So even today, Americans of that generation look back on World War II as the good war. Quite a striking label, given the fact that World War II is the most destructive war in human history. 

[00:35:11] Matt Blumberg: Right. Yeah. And of course, for Roosevelt, as you alluded to earlier, it was sort of the fulfillment of the Wilson destiny that never, he was never, he was, he finished the job that Wilson couldn't get done.

Right. Yeah. let's talk about the Japanese internment camps a little bit. 

[00:35:27] HW Brands: Okay. So in the moment, it seemed to make sense to Roosevelt that particular provisions might be made to prevent a Pearl Harbor. In California or a Pearl Harbor on the soil of the American mainland, because the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came literally and figuratively out of a clear blue sky, and he wasn't expecting it.

Nobody was expecting it. And one of the first things that anybody said at the time is, how could they do that? How could they accomplish that? part of it was that there were Japanese living in Hawaii. And they, some of them were acting as agents of the Japanese government, or informants of the Japanese government.

And so they could explain, okay, here's where the ships are and all this stuff. there were a lot of Japanese living on the west coast of the United States. and we're speaking now in December 1941, January, February 1942, because nobody knew at this point what the capacity of Japan was, where the Japanese would strike next, who was loyal and who wasn't, then Roosevelt listened to people who said, as a precautionary measure, we need to relocate japanese nationals, Japanese immigrants, and Japanese Americans away from the coast. We will move them inland. So from California, we move them to Nevada, from western Oregon to eastern Oregon, and so on. And these became the relocation camps. Now, not in Roosevelt's mind, but in the minds of many of the people in California who were all in favor of this, there was the idea, Boy, if the Japanese have to leave all of a sudden, they're going to have to sell their business and their homes at fire sale prices.

So we will be able to take their market niche. We will be able to get their property for cheap. So there was a certainly cynical end to this 

Matt Blumberg: deeply cynical. 

HW Brands: Yeah. I mean, for some people there was, and this was. a good opportunity. But even those people would say, during wartime, all sorts of civil liberties are suspended.

Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the United States. And a lot of American nationals who got caught in Japan and in Germany, they were locked up. Now, of course, there's a big difference here because some of the people being locked up in America were American citizens. These weren't foreign nationals.

So that's a big difference. And Roosevelt At this point, didn't want to take on the people in California on the West Coast who would say, boy, you got to do this for national security, especially because he had no idea if there would be or any way of telling if there was gonna be another such attack.

Now, you will remember. After the terrorist attacks of 9 11, U. S. Congress responded with the Patriot Act, which suspended a lot of things that Americans consider their constitutional rights. And so the feds could look and see what books you checked out of the library and all sorts of other things. So in emergency, especially when there has been the loss of American life inflicted on Americans by foreign people by surprise, then Americans are much willing, much more willing to tolerate the intrusion on what are ordinary civil liberties. Now, the fact that Japanese Americans were singled out. I mean, some people saw racism in this, and there certainly was on the part of some people, but it really was response to the fact that Japan had attacked the United States.

So that's who you're going to be on the lookout for maybe the more damning aspect of this was that the Supreme Court, after time had passed for tempers to cool said, yeah, this was okay. Didn't declare it unconstitutional. So that was, that did not reflect well in the United States. Now it's, It was pointed out that America was doing the same thing to the Japanese on the West Coast that Hitler was doing to the Jews in Germany. Yes, up to the point of moving people and putting them in the camps, but that's where the similarity is in the death camps. They didn't come out alive. 

[00:40:01] Matt Blumberg: it's interesting talking about these two things that the common element is executive power grab. Lend Lease,. And the internment camps and that's... 

[00:40:12] HW Brands: So this is a common feature of the American presidency during wartime. Because presidents during wartime, they are the commander in chief and they play this to the hilt.

Every president during wartime expands American power. The extreme example of this was Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, where he seized 4 billion worth of Southern property. And there's nothing in the Constitution that says he can do that. He was really stretching the Constitution to do it, but he knew that he would be supported at least In the North, in the Union, because this was treated as a war measure.

And so presidents do this. Woodrow Wilson ordered the nationalization of American heavy industry. presidents, the United States doesn't run a socialist economy, but it did during World War I, and this at the behest of Woodrow Wilson. So presidents have all sorts of power during wartime, if only because Presidents know that, they can say we're going to do this and somebody has to challenge it.

They can challenge in court or they can challenge in Congress, but somebody who challenges the president during wartime sets himself or herself up for allegations that you're disloyal, that you are supporting the enemy. And we were, you mentioned Charles Lindbergh. So these were arguments that were thrown at Charles Lindbergh, and this even before the United States entered the war.

So members of the Roosevelt administration called Lindbergh a traitor, a fifth columnist, a copperhead referring to the Civil War, for merely saying, I think it's a bad idea for the United States to go into the war. And so he was being trailed by the FBI. And in politics. This stuff happens, and in wartime, politics develops even sharper elbows than otherwise.

[00:42:07] Matt Blumberg: that, that's an interesting takeaway for me with this project of country over self is that wartime is different. so I'm going to, I will take some notes about that. Yeah. before we do our closing questions, let me take a quick detour and ask about, the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

So I think in the pantheon of first ladies, most people would agree that Eleanor Roosevelt stands out as kind of the most deeply engaged in public policy in a public life in her own right. maybe even more so than Hillary Clinton, even though she was, didn't actually serve, as a, in the capacity that Hillary Clinton served in, it's not elected.

but, certainly people would agree that those are probably the top two. and she did so much while Franklin was president. And in many ways, even more after his death, around the founding of the UN and everything else that she did, and all of this in the backdrop of a very troubled marriage.

And, the question for you is, do you feel like she demonstrated country over self, either in the way she handled herself during the presidency? Cause she could have really clouded the presidency, or in her work kind of continuing the fight, after his death. 

[00:43:18] HW Brands: So here again, I'm a little bit reluctant to take this as an either or, because Eleanor Roosevelt had her own ideas about what the interests of America required.

She was more sensitive to the plight of ordinary people, of poor people, of people who were left behind. She was what we would call further to the left than her husband Franklin was. And she was this way, sort of, this was one of the contributors, or what should I say, she became so political, in part because she and her husband were essentially estranged, personally, they sometimes live together, but there was a mock headline in one of the Washington papers.

First Lady sleeps at the White House because she was gone so much all the time and she was, but Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt, they used their differing positions strategically. Eleanor Roosevelt would go out to groups who advocated, for example, that, the federal government ought to pass an anti lynch law.

There were state laws, but there were no federal anti lynch law at the time. And she would say, my husband is all in favor of this, but he can't come out publicly and say it because he has to keep those southern conservatives on board and they will never stand for it. So she would get kind of the advantage of being the first lady.

She would have more clout by virtue of that. And he would be able to use her as someone who would keep the left wing of the Democratic Party in line. she would go talk to them and he would say when he was, when she did something that he might be criticized for, he'd say, what are you going to do about your wife?

so, it worked very well for both of them, but they both had political agendas. And their political agenda is pointed generally in the same direction, but on certain issues, hers was going faster than his was. You mentioned her post FDR's death career. it also meant that it's her post First Lady career.

And Eleanor Roosevelt is a very good example of a post career Can do a whole lot to shed retrospective light and glory on the time in office. Because when Eleanor Roosevelt was the first lady, she was a lightning rod. Because yes, the, progressive wing of the Democratic Party liked her, but the Republicans, they were going out of their minds.

Nobody elected her to anything. Why does she, have a right to do this? Exactly what they did to Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton sort of learned the lesson, okay, now you got to back off.but then he dies and she lives for another 17 years and she becomes a very well respected world figure.

She was America's ambassador to the United Nations. And one of the great things about Eleanor Roosevelt was that She was a living example of don't take yourself seriously, take the job seriously. She never, obviously, she never spent any time on makeup or hair or anything like that. She was always all business and all work.

And she didn't expect perks or anything because she had been first lady. She just was really devoted to the causes she was devoted to. So by the time she died, even conservatives really had to give her a nod of respect. 

[00:46:47] Matt Blumberg: There's some elements of country over self in what you just said. 

[00:46:50] HW Brands: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because, I mean, she could have, asked for perks from the Democratic Party. She could have, lived a higher life. but here again, I think maybe, and I don't mean to undermine the general project, But for people who are in this position, I'll take Eleanor Roosevelt. She thought that the greatest thing that she could do was do good things for her country.

And so she didn't think she preferred doing what she was doing to going, spending time on a yacht in the Mediterranean. So it wasn't that she was depriving herself of something. No, she was doing exactly what she wanted to do. And you see this in people who found corporations and you do all this other stuff.

You really get into this and you come to identify your interests with the interests of the larger organization, in the case of the President of the United States, with the country. 

[00:47:43] Matt Blumberg: That doesn't undermine the project that may help define the project. Let's close with four rapid fire questions. . If you had to pick a president who either embodied or most closely embodied country over self, who would it be?

[00:47:56] HW Brands: Oh, boy. I'm going to say John Adams. Because John Adams, loser, the first time an incumbent president lost a contested election, he was urged by some members of his own Federalist Party, because of the strange outcome of the 1800 election, where the two Republican VP and presidential candidate, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, they were technically tied, and the race went to the Federalist house of Representatives and Adams refused to give any support to an attempt to deprive Jefferson of the presidency. So he could have people were saying, you could just. Basically, run this thing out, the inauguration day will come, there will be a new president, you can still be the president. So he set an example for the rest of us.

And the example is, when you lose an election, the appropriate response, the constitutional response, the patriotic response, is not to contest the election. It's to say, okay, I'm going to try hard to win the next election. 

[00:48:56] Matt Blumberg: now let me ask the opposite. Which president, and you could say Roosevelt if you want, but which president is least country over self?

[00:49:06] HW Brands: Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon. Now, Richard Nixon, I'm sure, went to his grave thinking that all the stuff he had done during Watergate was for the good of the country. People can talk themselves into all sorts of stuff, but this is a good example of how when you have that kind of power, you have to be very careful that you don't do that, that you don't talk yourself into believing that your interest is identical to the interest of the country as a whole.

And so he should have stepped aside and let the investigation of the Watergate break in happen and all that other stuff, but he tried to cover it up. He's the one that we have the best evidence on for this sort of thing. 

[00:49:44] Matt Blumberg: Let's talk about Biden's withdrawal from the race very briefly. And my question to you is, how do you think history will view that 

[00:49:54] HW Brands: in the first place, I will say that there's no such thing as history of viewing things.

It's us historians. What are we going to say about it? And I will say this that I don't know the answer, but I will know the answer on November 5th of this year, whenever the election finally gets resolved, because if Kamala Harris wins, then great move, Joe, you did a patriotic thing. And this would be a really good example of a kind of, I'll call it a selfless kind of thing.

Because you could have stuck in there, you could have tried, and, but you didn't. Now, he didn't do it quite willingly, he was sort of pushed off the edge of the ship. But still, he did it. But that's the outcome if his decision proves to be a good one. But if Donald Trump wins, then he can be criticized.

you beat him before. He could, he might very well continue to say, I could have beat him, but you made me jump. So this is one where. 

[00:50:53] Matt Blumberg: Too soon to tell, but we know and we'll know. 

[00:50:56] HW Brands: Don't ask me to weigh in on things that haven't happened yet. 

[00:50:59] Matt Blumberg: All right. So my last one is, is more of a clairvoyant question.

so knowing everything, about our history, our politics, our system of government, if you could wave a magic wand and you could change one thing in our system to strengthen it, what would that be? 

[00:51:17] HW Brands: If I could do it, I would eliminate the Electoral College because the Electoral College has deprived presidents of a lot of legitimacy.

Now, of course, Democrats, for good reason, complain that Donald Trump didn't accept the results of the 2020 election. But Democrats have come pretty close to denying the legitimacy of the elections of George W. Bush and Donald Trump in 2016. Because They didn't get a majority of the popular vote and this the electoral college is one of those things where if it didn't already exist, nobody would invent it.

So you gave me a magic wand and I'm going to un invent it. Every other country does it. The person who gets the most votes wins. This wasn't entirely appropriate in 1787 when the Constitution was drafted because the idea of democracy hadn't caught on anywhere, even in the United States. But within 50 years it had.

And we've been in this age of democracy where the people are supposed to rule and the electoral college really Defeats that purpose under certain conditions. So that's the thing the one thing I would change 

[00:52:19] Matt Blumberg: Bill, thank you so much for joining me today. great conversation. Congratulations on your new book, America First Roosevelt Versus Lindbergh in the Shadow War.

[00:52:29] HW Brands: Thank you, Matt. It's good to talk to you.

[00:52:34] Matt Blumberg: Thank you for listening to the country over self podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to give us five stars and leave us a review. If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email podcast at country over self. com.