Decentralist Intellectuals and the New Deal

7/23/2019 Decentralist Intellectuals and the New Deal

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Decentralist Intellectuals and the New DealAuthor(s): Edward S. ShapiroSource: The Journal of American History, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Mar., 1972), pp. 938-957Published by: Organization of American Historians

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2/21

Decentralist

ntellectualsnd

theNew Deal

EDWARD

S.

SHAPIRO

kLMOST

a decade

ago

William

E.

Leuchtenburg

oted

that he full

n-

tellectual istory f the1930s hasyet o be

written.'

he

earliest reatments

of theRoosevelt rawereprimarilyheworkofhistoriansympatheticith

economic nd

political

collectivism.

heir studieshave

largely haped

his-

torical

understanding

f

the

ntellectual

istory

f the

New

Deal

era. Their

emphasis

was

upon

intellectualsuch

as

JohnDewey

and

Reinhold

Niebuhr

and journals

such as New

Republic,

Nation,

and Common Sense. Their

work

virtuallygnored

ntellectuals nd journalswith other

nterpretations

of the

economic

risis

of the

1930s.

Especially

unfamiliar

o

many

histori-

ans is

a

small

group

of

intellectuals ho,

calling

themselves

agrarians,

distributists, nd decentralists, rgued n behalfof a peaceful,middle-

class

revolution

eading to the widespreaddistributionf

property,

he de-

centralization

f economic

nd political

authority,nd the

decentralization

of the

city.

The decentralist

ntellectualsncludedSouthernAgrarians,

istorian nd

journalistHerbert

Agar, contributorso

Who

Owns

America?

A

New Dec-

laration

of

Independence nd Free

America, nd members

f the Catholic

rural

ife movement. he Southern

Agrarianswere famous

for 'll Take

My Stand: The South and theAgrarian Tradition,published n 1930 in

order

o dramatize he

plightof

southern

griculture,nd for

their pposi-

tion to

big business nd the

rapid

ndustrializationf the South.Agar, per-

haps

the most

important f

the

decentralist

ntellectuals, ad been influ-

enced

by

the

English

Distributistmovement f

Hilaire

Belloc

and

G.

K.

Chesterton hile

living

n

England during

he ate

1920s.

After

returning

to

the

UnitedStates,

he was

instrumentaln the

publication

f Who Owns

America?, collection f articles y agrarian nd non-agrarianecentralists

Edward S. Shapiro

is

associate

professor

f

history

n

Seton

Hall

University.

'William E. Leuchtenburg,

ranklinD.

Roosevelt and the New

Deal, 1932-1940

(New

York, 1963), 361.

The

argument

f this

paper s more

fullypresented n

Edward S. Shapiro,

The AmericanDistributists nd the

New

Deal

(doctoral

dissertation, arvard

University,

1968).

*938

-


3/21

Decentralistntellectuals

939

eager to formulate politicalprogram cceptable o all

varieties f decen-

tralist hought, nd in the founding f Free America,

he

first

magazine

devoted xclusively o the disseminationf decentralistdeas.

The most ig-

nificanttatementsf Catholicrural, ocial, economic, nd political hought

were made by JohnA. Rawe, Edgar Schmiedeler,nd

contributors

o

Cath-

olic Rural Objectives ublished n 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1944.2

The

decentralistntellectualswere primarily oncerned

with reversing

the

trend toward arge-scale ndustrializationor which

theyblamed the

dispossession f the propertiedmiddle class of shopkeepers

nd small

man-

ufacturers,he creation f a depersonalized nd propertyless

orking

lass,

and the

centralization f economic nd political power

into fewerhands.

They fearedeconomic iantismwas leading to an oligarchic r a socialistic

statewhich would carry conomic entralization nd the

dispossession f

the middle class to their ogical conclusion.Moreover,

heybelieved that

the federalgovernment's oliciestowardbig businessduring

he 1920s, es-

peciallyhigh tariffs nd rigged prices,had created

n imbalancebetween

production nd consumption hichwas responsible ortheDepression.3

Decentralists redicted hat iberal reformers ho

wished to retain he

basic structuref

large-scale

ndustrialization hile meliorating ome of

its

more unfortunateffects ould eventually ither e cooptedby the plutoc-

racy or become more radical upon recognizing he superficialityf

their

reforms. or the decentralistntellectuals, ven Marxism

was essentially

palliative.

As Allen

Tate, one SouthernAgrarian,wrote

to literary ritic

Malcolm

Cowley,

From

mypoint

of

view .. you

and

the other

Marxians

are not

revolutionarynough: you wantto keep capitalism

with he capital-

ism

left out.

Tate

claimed thatonly a program ooking to

a return

o

the

widespreadownership f property ad a chance to overthrowapitalism

and create

decent

ociety

n

terms f

American istory. 4

2

VirginiaRock, The Making

and Meaning

of I'll Take

My

Stand:A Study n

Utopian

Conservatism,925-1939 (doctoral

dissertation,

niversity f Minnesota,1961);

Herbert

Agar, Land of the Free (Boston,

1935); Raymond

Witte, Twenty-Five ears of Crusading:

A Historyof the

National Catholic Rural Life Conference

Des Moines, 1948).

'Herbert

Agar,

Introduction, erbertAgar and Allen Tate, eds.,

Who Owns America?

A New

Declaration of Independence Boston,

1936), vii; John

Crowe Ransom, What

Does the South

Want? ibid., 83-84; HerbertAgar, Private

Property r Capitalism,

American cholar,

II (Autumn

1934), 396-403; Luigi G. Ligutti

nd JohnC. Rawe,

Rural

Roads to Security:America's Third StruggleforFreedom (Milwaukee, 1940), 41; John

Gould Fletcher,

he Two Frontiers:

A

Study

n Historical

Psychology

New York,

1930),

297; Andrew

N. Lytle, The Backwoods Progression,

AmericanReview, (Sept. 1933),

434. The Southern

Agrarians,oncerned ver

the

threat f

industrial

ommunism,onsidered

calling

their

book

Tracts

Against

Communism. Rob Roy Purdy,

d., Fugitives'Reunion:

Conversations

t

Vanderbilt,May 3-5, 1956 (Nashville,

1959),

207.

'Daniel Aaron, Writers

n

the

Left (New York, 1961), 352-53,

458.

See also

Herbert

Agar,

The Ideal We

Share,

New

Masses,

XIX

(April 7, 1936), 27;

Herbert

Agar,

John


4/21

940

The

Journal

f

American

istory

The othermajor threat o a propertied ociety, he decentralistntellectu-

als argued,was urbanization. or

themthe distinctive eatures f the me-

tropoliswere a dispossessedworking

lass controlled y demagogicpoliti-

cal bosses, the popularity f ideologies emphasizing ollectivismnd class

conflict,nd the monopolization f private

roperty y

a

financial nd

busi-

ness

plutocracy.

atholic decentralists sserted

hat

urbanization

was

re-

sponsible

for

ncreasing

ecularism

mong Catholics,

he

declining

number

of

persons entering eligious

vocations, nd the growingdiscrepancy e-

tweenthebirthrate f American

Catholicswho were primarily rban and

the higher irthratef the moral,

ural-orientedrotestants.5

The

post

Civil

War growth

f factories nd cities

had, according

o

de-

centralists,harply ivided American ocietyntoopposingfactions.While

one

faction, entered n

the

Northeast, dmired conomic entralizationnd

generally oted Republican, he other

faction, trong mong

the

farmers

and small businessmen f the South

and Middle West, cherished he diffu-

sion of

property

nd looked to the Democrats s the

party

f

rural

Amer-

ica, of the farmer,

he

shopkeeper, he

artisan.

Decentralists

mphasized

the pervasiveness f conflict etween urban-industrial merica and rural

America.The

agrarianpoet JohnGould

Fletcher

declared Americacould

neverfulfill er

spiritual

nd

cultural

destinywithout ejecting the mock

cosmopolitan uropeanism of the

East, turning ts stancewestward, nd

becoming provincial,

ooted

in

the

backwoods, olitary

nd

remote,

s

were Thoreau and

Hawthorne. The

SouthernAgrarians tressed

he

ten-

dency

f

the

Northeast

o

transform

ther ections f the countrynto eco-

nomic olonies.

It is the

nature f industrial nterprise,orporatemonop-

oly and high finance, Donald

Davidson wrote, to devour, o exploit, o

imperialize.... JohnCrowe Ransomproposed n 1929 a political lliance

between

he

South

and

West since

both

sections

desire to defend home,

Strachey,Marx,

and

the

Distributist

deal, AmericanReview, V (May 1935), 168-84; and

HerbertAgar,

The Marxian

Myth:

A

Reply

to

Mr. Corey, Free America, (March 1937),

11-12. Marxistsreplied

thatdecentralistntellectualswere

hopelessmiddle-class eactionaries

for

believing arge-scale

ndustrialism,ould be destroyed nd the United Statescould return

to

a

bourgeoiseconomy

n which

most

people

owned

productive roperty. ranvilleHicks,

The Great Tradition: An Interpretationf AmericanLiterature ince the Civil War (New

York, 1935), 282;

Bern

Brandon, Metaphysics

f

Reaction, Marxist Quarterly, (Jan.-

March 1937), 125-33.

'Agar, Land of the Free, 13-20; Troy J. Cauley, Agrarianism:A Programfor Farmers

(Chapel Hill, 1935), 191;

Donald

Davidson,

review of Faith in

Living,

Free

America,

V

(Oct. 1940), 19; John

Donald

Wade,

Of the Mean

and

Sure

Estate, Agar

and

Tate, eds.,

Who Owns

America?

254-57; Edgar Schmiedeler,

Better

Rural

Life (New York, 1938),

1-12, 218-21, 234, 238, 246; Witte,Twenty-Five

ears

of Crusading, -6; Martin

E.

Schirber,

AmericanCatholicism nd Life On the Land, Social Order, 12 (May 1962), 201; Robert

D.

Cross,

The

Changing mage

of the

Cityamong

American

Catholics,

Catholic

Historical

Review,

XLVIII

(April

1962),

33-52.


5/21

Decentralist

ntellectuals

941

stabilityf life,the practice

f leisure,

nd the natural

nemy

f both s the

insidious

ndustrialystem. '6

The decentralistntellectuals

id

not believethey

were

economically

m-

practical nd technologically eactionaryorespousingthe cause of small

business

nd

ruralAmericaduring

he

1920s

and

1930s.

On the

contrary,

theystrongly

ontended hat their

goals and

ideas harmonized

withthe

dominant endencies

f modern echnology.

hey pointed

to

the

substitu-

tion

of

electricityor teampower.

Electricity,

ecentralists

redicted,

ould

lead to the dispersal

f industry

ecause therewas no longer

ny need

for

factories

o remain oncentrated

lose to sources

f coal, and because

elec-

tricity ould easily be

adapted to

the requirementsf small

factories

nd

home industries. lectricitylso promised o make farm ife less onerous

and more

attractive

nd, thus,help stemthe

drift f farmers

o the cities.

As

one

enthusiast roclaimed,

lectricityffered

n opportunity

to make

possible

a sweeping program of

decentralized

egional development n

terms f the mostadvanced

cience.

n addition,decentralists

laimed

the

introduction

f the automobile llowed

men to

move out of the city, o

ac-

quire land

and even

engage n part-time arming,

nd to

commute o their

urban obs.7

The nomination nd electionof FranklinD. Roosevelt n 1932 encour-

aged

decentralists.

hey hoped to

see an administration

mbarkupon

a

comprehensive

rogram

f

economic nd demographic

ecentralization

nd

aid for rural America. This expectation

esulted

from Roosevelt's

well-

knownopposition o

monopolies,

Wall Street,nd the decreasing

conomic

independence

f

the small businessman nd the

farmer, s

well as his at-

6

Herbert Agar, What Is America?

(London, 1936), 240-43; Fletcher,Two Frontiers,

178; Donald Davidson, The AttackOn Leviathan:Regionalism nd Nationalism n the United

States (Chapel Hill, 1938), 127; John Crowe Ransom, The SouthDefends Its Heritage,

Harper's Magazine, 159 (June1929), 117;

Andrew

Nelson Lytle,

The Hind Tit,

I'll

Take

My Stand: The South and theAgrarianTradition New York, 1930),

201-45; JohnDonald

Wade,

Old

Wine

in

a

New

Bottle, Virginia QuarterlyReview,XI (April 1935),

246;

David Cushman Coyle, The Irrepressible

Conflict:

Business vs.

Finance (Geneva, N. Y.,

1932), 12;

David

CushmanCoyle,Roads

to

a

New America Boston,

1938), 18-19. For the

widespread prevalence

of

the colonial economy dea among southern

ocial scientists

nd

politicians,

ee

George

Brown Tindall, The Emergence f the New

South,

1913-1945 (Baton

Rouge, 1967), 594-99.

'Peter Van Dresser, Will

Electricity ecentralizeUs? Free America, I (Nov.

1938),

15;

David

Cushman Coyle,

Electricity: chievements f

Civilization (New York, 1939),

14; David CushmanCoyle, Inefficientfficiency, irginiaQuarterly eview,XIV (Summer

1938), 368-79; Herbert Agar,

Pursuit

of Happiness:

The

Storyof

American

Democracy

(Boston, 1938), 50; HermanC. Nixon, Forty

Acres and

Steel Mules

(Chapel Hill,

1938),

72, 77-78; Donald Davidson,

Agrarianism

or

Commuters,

AmericanReview, I (May

1933), 240-41; Donald Davidson,

'Southern

Agrarians'

State Their

Case, Progressive

Farmer and Southern Ruralist,

LI

(June 1936), 5; Cauley, Agrarianism,

0; Ralph L.

Woods,

America

Reborn:

A

Plan

for

Decentralization

f ndustry New York, 1939), 81-99,

104-34.


6/21

942

The

Journal

f American

istory

tempts

o improve

ural

ife while

governor f

New

York and

some

of

his

1932

campaign

promises.

Moreover,

Roosevelt in the

1932

campaign

vowed,

f

elected, o

providerelief

for

farmers, o

discipline

Wall

Street,

and to systematicallyliminate pecial advantages, pecial favors, pecial

privileges

wherever

possible,

whether

they come

from

tariff

ubsidies,

credit

avoritism,

axation

r

otherwise. 8

The

major

nitial

ctsof

theNew

Deal,

however,

were far

different

rom

the

reforms

roposed

by the

decentralist

ntellectuals. hey

had

suggested

helping

the

small

businessman nd

the

consumer

by

lowering

tariffs,

strengtheninghe

government's

ntitrust

rogram,

nd

withdrawingll po-

Jitical

avors

given

big

business

nd high finance

ince

the

Civil

War.

The

National IndustrialRecoveryAct (NIRA) of 1933 instead uthorizedhe

suspension

f

antitrust

aws so

as to

permit

ndustry-wide

conomicplan-

ning.The

decentralists

redicted

hat

permitting

ndustrialists

o

establish

production

uotas

would

lead to

higher

rices nd

profits,

iminished

om-

petition,

ower

consumer

urchasing

ower, a

cartelized

conomy, nd

the

political,

moral, nd

intellectual

lavery

f the

ndividual

resulting rom

the

economic nd

political

planning

necessary

o

administer

uch a

law.9

The

farmer

ould best

be

aided,

decentralists

rgued,

hrough he

prohi-

bition f

land

ownership y

banks,

nsurance

ompanies,

nd other

orpora-

tions;

the

heavy

axation f

land

owned

by absentee

andlords;

ow-interest

loans;

meliorating

andlord-tenant

elations n

behalf of the

tenants; ural

electrification;

nd the

encouragementf farm

ooperatives.

he

keystone

of

the

earlyNew

Deal

farm

rogram

was the

Agricultural

djustment ct

(AAA) of

1933, which

proposed to

raise

farm

ncomesby

limiting

ro-

8John

Crowe

Ransom to

Andrew

Nelson Lytle,

Nov.

16, 1932,

Andrew

LytlePapers

(Tennessee State Library nd Archives); Lytle to Allen Tate, Feb. 23, 1933, Allen Tate

Papers

(Princeton

University);

Herman

C. Nixon to

Donald

Davidson,

March 17,

25, 1931,

Donald

DavidsonPapers

(Vanderbilt

University);

Frank

L. Owsley,

Scottsboro,he

Third

Crusade: The

Sequel to

Abolition and

Reconstruction,

mericanReview,

(June 1933),

274;

Daniel R.

Fusfeld,

The Economic

Thought of Franklin

D.

Roosevelt nd

the

Origins

of

the New

Deal

(New

York, 1956),

84-86,

123-30,203-05,

227-38,

245-46;

Frank

Freidel,

F.

D.

R. and the

South

(Baton Rouge,

1965),

6-18,64-66; R.

G.

Tugwell, The

Sources

of

New Deal

Reformism,

thics,LXIV

(July

1954), 266; R.

G.

Tugwell,

The

Preparation

of

a

President,

Western

olitical

Quarterly,

(June

1948), 132-33;

Franklin

D.

Roosevelt,

Growing

Up byPlan,

Survey

Graphic,LXVII

(Feb.

1, 1932),

483-84;

Franklin .

Roose-

velt,

Back

to theLand,

Review

of Reviews,

LXXXIV (Oct.

1931),

63-64; Franklin

D.

Roosevelt, Actualities of

Agricultural

lanning,

America

Faces the

Future, Charles

A.

Beard,ed. (Boston,1932), 331-38.

'James

Truslow

Adams,The

Living

JeffersonNew

York,

1936), 382;

Coyle,

rrepres-

sible

Conflict,

3-16;

David

Cushman

Coyle,

The

Twilight

of

National

Planning,

Harper's

Magazine, 171

(Oct.

1935),

562-65;

Herbert

Agar,

The Task for

Conservatism,

merican

Review,

II

(April

1934),

10-12;

Cauley,

Agrarianism,

97-98;

Davidson,

Attack

On

Levi-

athan,

40;

Frederick

.

Kenkel,

Throwing

the

Small

Fry

to the

Lion,

Central-Blattnd

Social

Justice,

XVI

(Nov.

1933),

241.


7/21

Decentralist

ntellectuals

943

duction

and

providingbenefit ayments

o

participating

armers.

ecen-

tralists laimed

AAA

would curtailfarming t

the very

ime the

govern-

ment should

be

encouraging n expansion

of

the farm

population

nd, by

makingfarmerswards of the state,dangerouslyentralize oliticalpower

in

Washington.According o

AndrewNelson

Lytle,AAA was a

road to

agriculturalervility;t is

up to us

to diverthim

[Roosevelt]

towards

he

more stable

agrarian

ife.

Decentralists

raced

the source of

the

New

Deal's

agricultural

rogram o a

mistaken elief that

farmerswere rural

businessmen

who, just like other

businessmen,

eeded a

boost

in income.

They contended, owever,

hat he

farmersmostneeded a

more ecure

and

tenure nd a greater

degree of

economic

elf-sufficiencyather han

more

cash. No solution to the farmproblem,Davidson wrote,could ever be

achieved n

terms f the

industrial conomics

now

being applied by the

Tugwells and

Ezekielsof

theRoosevelt

Administration.

ven thosedecen-

tralistswho

recognized hat, s long

as

industry ad its tariffs nd

other

subsidies,AAA

benefit

aymentswere

necessary o

compensate he farmer

and

to create balanced

and stable

conomy, elievedAAA

to be no

substi-

tute

for

guaranteeingand

ownership nd

reducingfarm enancy. ecen-

tralists greedwith

Davidson that

the early

New Deal, by egislating

en-

efit aymentsnd ignoring heproblemof dispossession, ad done more

to

pacify he

farmers han

o save them. '10

This lack of

enthusiasm

orNIRA

and

AAA

extended

s well

to the

Trade

Agreements ct of

June1934.

This law authorized

he

President o

enter

nto

reciprocal

ariffgreements

ithother

nationswhich ould

even-

tuallyresult n the

owering f tariffs y as

much as 50

percent. ome de-

centralists, isappointed

hattariffs

ere not to be cut

even more,

laimed

the ndustrial ortheastwas stillexploiting armers ndconsumers. avid-

John

Crowe

Ransom,

Happy

Farmers,

American

Review, I (Oct.

1933),

534-35;

Ransom,

What

Does the

South

Want?

Agar and Tate,

eds.,

Who Owns

America? 189;

HerbertAgar,

Just

Why

Economics?

North

American

Review,240

(Sept.

1935),

200-05;

Herbert

Agar, What

Is the

New Deal?

Louisville

Courier-Journal,pril 22,

1936;

Herbert

Agar,

Why Help

the

Farmer?

ibid.,

Aug.

14, 1939; John

C.

Rawe,

Agrarianism:

An

Economic

Foundation, Modern

Schoolman,

XIII (Nov.

1935),

18; JohnC.

Rawe,

Agrari-

anism: The

Basis for

a Better

Life,

American

Review,

VI (Dec.

1935),

188-92;

Cauley,

Agrarianism,

4-103,

180-211;

Frederick .

Kenkel,

Rural

Economic

Welfare n

the

Light

of

Present

Conditions,

Central-Blatt

nd

Social

Justice,XXVI

(Nov.

1933),

236;

Edgar

Schmiedeler,

alanced Abundance

New

York,

1939),

21-25;

David

Cushman

Coyle,Uncom-

mon Sense (Washington, 1936), 77-79,97-101; Lytleto SewardCollins,May 17,Aug. 25,

1933,

SewardCollins

Papers (Beinecke

Library,

ale

University);John Gould

Fletcher o

Frank

L.

Owsley,

March

2,

1935,

Frank

Owsley Papers

(in possession

of Mrs.

Frank L.

Owsley,

Nashville,

Tennessee);

Allen

Tate,

The

Problem

of

the

Unemployed:

A

Modest

Proposal,

American

Review, (May

1933),

135;

Donald

Davidson, The

Restoration f

the

Farmer,

American

Review, II

(April

1934),

100;

Donald

Davidson, A

Case in

Farm-

ing, ibid.

(Sept. 1934),

530.


8/21

944

The

Journal

f American

istory

son argued that,

despite

the tradeact,

the goal of the New Deal

was

na-

tional self-sufficiency

hich could ruin

the South's

export rade

n cotton

and tobacco

and

reducethe Southern

tates

o the condition

f

pensioners

upon a socializedAmerica. FrankL. Owsley, fellow SouthernAgrarian,

agreed

with

Davidson, and in

1935 demanded

ubsidies

forthe

South and

West

on

the

export

f their

gricultural

roducts

hould

the

New

Deal con-

tinueto temporize

n

the tariffssue.

Other decentralists,

owever,

eared

that lowering

of

tariff

arriers

would increase

rade

in staple crops and

strengthen

ommercial

arming

t the expenseof subsistence

griculture.

Agar and economist

roy J. Cauley proposed

that

tariff eduction

e

com-

bined

with

the

fostering

f

subsistence arming

n order

hatboth

regional

and industrial xploitationnd commercial armingouldbe diminished.

The redeeming eatures f the

early

New Deal for

the

decentralist

ntel-

lectuals

were

the creation f

the

Tennessee Valley

Authority TVA)

in

1933

and the

Rural Electrification

dministration

REA)

in

1935. The

electricity

lowing

romTVA

and REA,

theypredicted,

would slow

down

the

movement f population o

the cities

bymakingrural

ife

more com-

fortable,

ncourage

he founding f

small-scale

nd owner-operated

ural

industries, acilitate

he

movement f businesses

nto rural reas,

break

he

stranglehold

f Wall

Streetholding

companies

over southern

owercom-

panies,

and

by

bolstering he

ruraleconomies

f the

West

and South

help

restore

conomic

alance

to thenation.

Decentralists

pprovedTVA's

reset-

tlingof farmers

n better

and, establishing

emonstration

arms,

roduc-

ing cheap

fertilizers,

eveloping nexpensive

armmachinery,nd

teaching

themost

recentmethods

f soil conservation.

ll of these, hey

felt,pro-

mnotedamily

farming nd

the individual ownership

f land. They also

commended VA's emphasison decentralized ecisionmaking nd grass-

roots

democracy

which

they

favorably

ompared

o the centralizationnd

bureaucratization

ound

in

many

of the otherNew Deal

agencies.

They

pointed

out

thatthe

setting

f

prices

nd

production uotas

by

NIRA

and

AAA

had resulted

n a vast

expansion

of

the

political

bureaucracy,

hile

TVA

merely

stablished

n

economic nd

social framework

ithinwhich

private

enterprise

ould

functionmore

effectively.

erman C.

Nixon

11

Donald

Davidson,

Where

Regionalism

nd Sectionalism

Meet,

Social

Forces,

13 (Oct.

1934), 28-29; Davidson,AttackOn Leviathan, 03-04,283; FrankL. Owsley, The Pillars

of

Agrarianism,

American Review,

IV

(March

1935),

533, 541-47;

Herman C.

Nixon,

Possum

Trot: Rural

Community,

outh

(Norman,

1941), 84-96;

H.

ClarenceNixon,

The

New

Deal and

the South, Virginia

Quarterly

eview,

XIX

(Summer

1943),

333;

Schmie-

deler,

Balanced

Abundance,

8-9; Agar,

Land of theFree,

272-73;

HerbertAgar,

Interna-

tional

Trade

and Cotton,

Louisville Courier-Journal,

ept.

20,

1935;

T. J. Cauley,

The

Integration

f

Agrarian

nd

Exchange

Economies,

AmericanReview,

V (Oct. 1935),

587-

602.


9/21

Decentralist

ntellectuals

945

termed VA the strongest

ard in the

New Deal....

The

nationneedsa

series

f

the grandprojects

f the TVA

type

. . but

t

seemsfortunate

hat

the erodedSouthbecame he sceneof the firstxperiment.'2

The decentralistntellectualswere disappointed hroughout oosevelt's

first ermby the New Deal's failure

o

develop

into the radical economic

movement heyhad originally xpected. n August 1933, Owsley looked

forward o Rooseveltreducing the plutocrats o ranks

s far

as control f

the

government oes. New

York is to

be

trimmed

f

its

complete

inancial

control

f

he

has his

way. Fletcher, emusedby

the

Hundred

Days,

com-

plimented

hePresident

or

putting

he

speculators

here

hey elong-in

the

wastebasket many

of

them

belong

on

lamp-posts),

and

anticipated

eagerlyfurther ttackson Wall Street.The economistDavid Cushman

Coyle hopefully

described

he

New

Deal

in

1934

as the

quest

of

the

American eople

for a

way to

free hemselves rom he

octopus

of

finance

that has been strangling heir

free

business

for several

generations. ut

the nability

f the

New

Deal

to destroy ompletely nd quickly he power

of

high

finance

isillusioned

he

decentralists.

hey

accused

he

New

Deal-

ers of temporizing

nd

leaving

the

power

of

plutocracy ntouched.The

standpatRooseveltians,

Fletcher

omplained

n

1934,

seem to

be ac-

complishing

ittle

beyondbeclouding

he real issues.

Despite taking

the

country

ff he

gold standard, assing

two

major

acts

regulating

he

stock

Fletcher to Davidson, July27, 1933,

Davidson

Papers;

Frank

L. Owsley,

Mr. Daniels

Discovers

the

South,

Southern

Review,

IV

(Spring 1939), 670; David Cushman

Coyle,

Land of Hope:

The

Way of Life

in the Tennessee

Valley (Evanston,

1941);

David

Cush-

man Coyle,

Electric

Power on the Farm: The

Storyof Electricity,

ts

usefulness

n

farms,

and

the movemento

electrify

ural

america

(Washington, 1936);

David Cushman

Coyle,

Planning

Is

a

Fighting Word, Harper's Magazine, 192 (June 1946),

555-56;

Woods,

AmericaReborn,233-36, 306-12; Ralph

L.

Woods,

review

of God's

Valley,

Free

America,

III (July 1939), 19-20';HerbertAgar, TVA and Socialism, Louisville Courier-Journal,

June 9, 1937;

Herbert

Agar,

A Boost

for

Democracy, bid.,

March

7, 1939;

R. F.

Bessey,

National Planning

nd

Decentralization,

ree

America,

VII

(Summer 1943),

14; Thomas

Haile, Agriculture

nd

The

TVA, ibid.,

V

(Nov. 1941), 3-6; Ransom,

What Does the

South Want? Agar

and

Tate, eds.,

Who

Owns

America?

189; Charles Rumford

Walker,

The

Farmer

Harnesses

the

Kilowatt,

Free

America,

V

(June 1940), 3-5;

Ligutti and

Rawe, Rural Roads

to

Security, 83, 309; Edgar Schmiedeler,

he

Rural South:

Problem or

Prospect? New York, 1940), 7; Nixon, Forty

Acres and

Steel Mules, 80-81.

For a criticism

of

TVA,

see R.

G.

Tugwell

and

E. C.

Banfield,

GrassRoots

Democracy-Myth

or Reality?

Public

Administration

eview,

X

(Winter 1950),

47-55.

For a

decentralist

riticism f

TVA,

see Davidson,

Where

Regionalism

nd Sectionalism

Meet,

Social

Forces,

25-27;

Donald

Davidson,

That

This Nation

May

Endure:

The

Need

for

Political

Regionalism,

Agar

and

Tate, eds., Who OwnsAmerica?124-25;Donald Davidson, Regionalism s Social Science,

Southern eview,

II

(Autumn 1937), 219-20;

Donald

Davidson,

On

Being

in

Hock to

the

North,

Free

America,

II

(May 1939), 4;

Donald

Davidson,

Political

Regionalism

nd

Administrative

egionalism,

Annals

of

The American

Academy f

Political

and

Social Sci-

ence, 207 (Jan. 1940), 138-43;

Donald

Davidson,

The Tennessee.

The New

River-CivilWar

to

TVA

(New York, 1948), ii;

Donald

Davidson, Regionalism,

Collier's

1954

Year

Book,

William

T.

Couch,

ed.

(New York, 1954), 509.


10/21

946

The

journal

of

American

History

exchanges,

nd

enactingegislation

ivorcingnvestmentanking

rom

commercial

anking, gar

defined

he

New

Deal as

finance-capitalism

with

tsrewards

ore

irmlyistributed,

nd ts

knaveryurtailed.'3

Decentralistsegretfullyoncludedhat heNew Dealersbelievedhey

could

restore

rosperity

ithout

estroying

ndustrialnd

financialentral-

ization.

his was attributedo a

naivefaith

n

tinkering.he New

Deal,

Agarwrote,

as

evidently

mere risis

egislation,

ere

xtemporizingn

the

hope

hat

omething

..

will turn

p.

Tate

blamed

Roosevelt or he

New Deal's

degeneration

nto diffuseumanitarianism:

he

President as

an honest

man,

but

horriblyimple;

he

best

he can

do

is

to think he

whole

problem

ill

be

solvedwhen little

f

the

big

income

s

restored

andall menhave nougho eat. Other ecentralists,owever,scribedhe

New

Deal

floundering

o a collectivistic

hilosophy

atherhan

o

any

rag-

matic,

on-ideological

utlook.

he

example

f

NIRA

and

the

presencef

Rexford

.

Tugwell

nd

other

ollectivistsithin

he

New

Deal

caused

Davidson o

accuse

he

New Dealersof

merelyeeking

to

repair ur

fal-

tering

conomic

ystem

nd

to

guarantee

modicum f

comforto

thehu-

man asualties

f

ourfalse

way

f ife.

But

hey

re

doingnothingorepair

the false

way

of

life.

Rather

hey

eem o want

o

crystallize

t

in

all

its

falsity. videntlyheNew Deal did notaccept hedecentralist'sonten-

tion

that

permanent

conomic

ecovery

nd

lasting

ocial

reform

ould

come only

with

economic

ispersal

nd

the

widespread wnership

f

property.14

Owsley

to

Davidson,

Aug.

5, 1933,

Davidson

Papers;

Fletcher

o

HenryBergen,

Aug.

18,

Nov. 15,

1933,May 11,

12,

July , 13,

Nov.

19,

Dec.

3,

1934,

Henry

BergenPapers

(in

possession

of

Eugene

Haun,

Ann

Arbor,

Michigan);

Fletcher o

Tate,

July22,

1934,

Tate

Papers;

David

Cushman

Coyle,

Recovery

nd

Finance,

Virginia

Quarterly

Review,

X

(Oct. 1934), 489-93; Coyle,Uncommon ense, 123-34; JohnCrowe Ransom, A Capital

for the New

Deal,

American

Review,

I

(Dec.

1933),

142;

Lytle,

The

Backwoods Pro-

gression,

431;

TroyJ.

Cauley

and

Fred

Wenn,

A

Debate:

Resolved:

That

the

United

States Should

Return to

the Gold

Standard,

Bulletin

of Emory

University,

X

(June

1934),

59-61;

Richard

B.

Ransom,

The

Private

and

Corporate

Economies,

American

Re-

view, VI

(Feb.

1936),

392-99; John

C.

Rawe, Agriculturend

the

Property

tate,

Agar

and

Tate,

eds., Who

Owns

America?

46-48; Agar,

The

Task for

Conservatism,

0-11.

14

Herbert

Agar

to

Tate,

Nov.

7, 1933,

Tate

Papers;

HerbertAgar,

Private

Property r

Capitalism,

American

cholar,

II

(Autumn

1934),

397;

Tate

to

Agar,

Nov. 17,

1933,

Tate

Papers; Richard

B.

Ransom,

New

American

Frontiers:A

Plan for

Permanent

Recovery,

American

Review,

V

(Sept.

1935),

386-90;

Andrew

Nelson

Lytle,

John

Taylor

and the

Political

Economy

of

Agriculture,

art

III,

American

Review, IV (Nov.

1934), 96.

T. J.

Cauleycriticized heNew Deal stockmarketegislation s probablywell conceivedwithin

its

limits, but

essentially

directed

gainst

symptoms ather

han

fundamental

auses. It

will

prosper

ccordingly.

Cauley,

Integration

f

Agrarian nd

Exchange

Economies,

602.

Donald

Davidson,

'I'll

Take

My

Stand':

A

History, American

Review,V

(Summer

1935),

320-21; Edd Winfield

Parks,

On

Banishing

Nonsense,

American

Review,

(Oct.

1933),

574-76;

FrederickP.

Kenkel,

New

Deals,

Past and

Present,

V,

Central-Blatt

nd

Social


11/21

Decentralist

ntellectuals

947

In

1935,

the courseof

the

New

Deal

shifted.

he Public

Utility

Holding

CompanyAct,

the

Wealth

Tax

Act,

the establishmentf the Resettlement

Administration,

nd

the

Banking

Act and Revenue

Act

of

1936

reflected

changefrom ooperation etweengovernmentnd business nd theaccep-

tanceof consolidation nd

planning

o

an

emphasis

n

the free

market

nd

a

distrust

f

concentrated

conomic

nd

political

power.15

The

decentralist

intellectuals

elcomedthis

reversal

n

New

Deal

strategy.

s

Agar

wrote

Tate,

for

the first

ime

n

a

long

timewe

have friends n

highplaces.

The

New Deal was at last

seeking

o findhow to make us once

more a

nation

in which

the averageman is a small

proprietor,

wninghis

farm, hop, or

business.

And

yet they

remained

dissatisfied

ith the

New

Deal,

com-

plaining,for example,that the Wealth Tax Act should have graduated

taxes even more

sharply.

America

will

not start

o

recover

ts

lost

free-

dom,

Coylestated,

until

t

can

enactand

enforce

pper

bracket axrates

thatwill

stop

the

growth

f

great

fortunes

nd make them

tart

o shrink

away.

As

a result

f

political

imidity,

he

tax

policies

of the

New Deal

have been

wavering

nd

uncertain.

And

Lyle

H.

Lanier

claimed

hat, fter

four

years

of the

New

Deal,

the

nation

was

still

afflicted ith

economic

fascism.'

1

Many decentralists ould have votedRepublican n 1936 had

the Re-

publicans nominated

prominent

rogressive uch as

Senator

William E.

Borah

of Idaho. The

nomination f

Alfred

M.

Landon,

however, on-

firmed heirdistrust f the

Republicans s the

party f

big

business, nd

they

supported

Roosevelt n

the

hope

that a

decisive

Democraticvictory

would

lead

to a showdown

with

plutocracy.

ate

summarized

or

the

New

Republic

he sentimentf the decentralists.

I shallvoteforRoosevelt.

.

. There revery ewof thePresident'solicies

that

like,

but

he

has

been

ware hat

crisis

xists,

nd

there

s

at

east

strong

probability

hathe will

take

firmer

nd more

oherentround,

n his

second d-

ministration,gainst

rivilege

nd

Big

Business.

hould

Landonbe

elected e

would

ertainly

ring

n a

revolution

f

violence

n

his effortso

restore

hegood

Justice, XVII (June

1934),

77; Rawe,

Agrarianism:

he

Basis

for a Better ife,

Amer-

ican

Review, 176-88.

ArthurM.

Schlesinger, r.,

The Politics

of Upheaval

(Boston,

1960), 385-95.

1 Agar

to

Tate, Sept.

29, 1935,

Tate

Papers;,

Herbert

Agar,

Share-Our-Wealth, ouis-

ville

Courier-Journal,

ug. 16, 1935;

Herbert

Agar,

'A

CockeyedTax?'

III, ibid., Oct.

21, 1936; David CushmanCoyle,WhyPay Taxes (Washington,1937), 79-80,91-96; David

Cushman

Coyle, Map

of the New

Deal,

Scribner's

Magazine,

XCIX

(April 1936),

224;

David Cushman

Coyle,

The

Fallacy

of Mass

Production,Agar

and

Tate,

eds., Who Owns

America?

11;

Rawe, Agriculture

nd the

Propertytate,

bid.,

49-51;

RichardB.

Ransom,

Corporate

nd Private

Persons, bid.,

77-79; Lyle

H. Lanier to

Tate,

Dec.

7, 1936,

Tate

Papers.


12/21

948

The

Journal

f American

istory

old days

f

finance-capitalism.

f I were

Communist,

think should ote

for

Landon.:7

Roosevelt's overwhelming ictory ncouraged

decentralists,

nd

they

anxiously nticipatedheNew Deal acceleratingtscampaign gainstrural

poverty.

or

decentralists,

ural

poverty, specially

s

it

pertained

o

dispos-

session

and

the

growth

n farm

enancy,

as

the

most

mportant

ocial and

economic

problem

of

the

1930s. They

believed

that t

was

responsible

or

the creation

f

a

mobile

farm

proletariatackingpersonal nitiative

nd

so-

cial

responsibility,

he

erosionof

human and

natural

resources,

he

rise of

ruralpoliticaldemagoguery,nd

the

general pirit

f

hopelessness nd

deg-

radationpermeating ide portions f the

rural

South. The New Deal's

at-

tack

on rural

poverty

had

begun

in

1933

with a

programestablishing

25,000

families

n

subsistence omesteads.

ecentralists

trongly ndorsed

farmcolonization, rguingthat t enlarged

the

rural population,reduced

industrial

nemployment,

ecreased

he

amount

f

money pent

for

relief,

and did

not

necessarily

ave to

lead

to

an increase n

political

centraliza-

tion.

They

were

critical,nevertheless,

f a

program

iding only 25,000

families

t

a timewhen millionsof Americanswere

unemployed.As Lytle

asserted, hesubsistence omesteads are a move n theright irection, ut

how

timid

nd

coy

are

their

teps....

Our

hope

for

he

betterment

f coun-

try

ife demands

hat

thesecasual

experiments e turned

nto

a

real offen-

sive.

Decentralists

lso

disliked

the

New Dealer's

paternalistic ontrol

over

the homesteads,

nd

theywere greatly ismayed

when Tugwell's Re-

settlement

dministration

bsorbed hehomestead

rogram n 1935.18

The

Resettlement dministration'sperationof the subsistence ome-

steads

reflected

ugwell's opposition

o

the

back-to-the-land

ovement, is

beliefthatthefamily armwas a technologicalnachronismwhichwould

inevitably ive way

to the

factory arm,

nd

his

distrust f

individualism

and

political

nd

economic

decentralization.

t

encouraged ommercial nd

mechanized

griculture,ntroduced rogressive chools

n order to aid in

7

Agar to

Collins,

Dec.

10,

1934,

Collins

Papers;Herbert

Agar,

'Blind Mouths'-Notes

on the

Nominating

Conventions,

outhern

Review,

II

(Autumn

1936), 231-33;

John C.

Rawe, Corporations

nd Human

Liberty:

A

Study

n

Exploitation-II. Regaining he

Rights

of the

Individual,

American

Review,

V

(Feb.

1935), 481;

Allen

Tate, How

They Are

Voting: IV,

New

Republic,

LXXXVIII

(Oct. 21,

1936),

304-05.

James A. Byrnes, Foreword, CatholicRural Life Objectives,11 (1936), 3-6; Edgar

Schmiedeler,

A Review

of

Rural

nsecurity, bid.,

II

(1937), 51-52; John

Crowe

Ransom,

The

State and

the

Land,

New

Republic,

LXX

(Feb.

17, 1932), 8-10; Andrew

Lytle,

The

Small

Farm

Secures

the

State, Agar

and

Tate,

eds.,

Who Owns

America?

239;

Woods,

AmericaReborn,

297-30Y2;

ree

America,

V

(April

1941), 2,

11; Ligutti

nd

Rawe, Rural

Roads to

Security,

71-73,

255-56;

William H.

Issel, Ralph

Borsodi

and

the

AgrarianRe-

sponse

to Modern

America, Agricultural

istory,

XLI

(April 1967),

159-64.


13/21

Decentralistntellectuals

949

the transitionrom

competitive

o a cooperative ociety, nd attempted o

reform he

homesteaders long

collectivistines.

All of thiswas, of course,

anathema o decentralists

ho saw

Tugwell as the prime

example of

those

New Dealers who use the terminologyf industrial conomists nd ne-

glectto emphasize he

humanvalues

of an unincorporated

grarian

ystem.

They

would control

productionn the field

n the same

way as in thefac-

tory, stablishhomesteads

nly

by way of temporary elief,

nd allow

the

further apitalization

f joint-stock

nterestsn extensive

and holdings. '9

Troubled

by Tugwell and the

verymodest

New Deal approach to

rural

poverty nd agrarian

dispossession,

ecentralists ecame

ncreasingly

more

vocal in demanding

a public

policy that will transform

he family-farm

operatorntoa farm wner nsteadof transformingwners ntotenants r

day laborerson a corporation

arm. Ransom and others

who

had sup-

ported

AAA as

a

stopgap measure

to tide farmers ver

until

a

program

dealing

with

dispossession

ouldbe developed

were

especially

isappointed

and disturbed.20

The

growing

discontent

f

farmers,

he threat of

socialistagitation

among

tenants nd sharecroppersn the South,

nd the

decisiveDemocratic

victory

n

1936

focused ttention n the problem

f farm

enancy nd the

Bankheadproposal.

This was a

bill introduced y Senator

JohnH.

Bank-

head of

Alabama providing

ong-term

oans at low interest

o enable

share-

croppers

nd

tenants

o

become

farm

wners.

Bankhead

maintained assage

of

his bill

would

enlarge

the

yeoman

lass,

rectify

n

part

the

population

imbalance

between

country nd city,and

reduce relief

payments.2'

he

')Joseph Dorfman,The EconomicMind in American Civilization

(5 vols., New

York,

1959),

V, 502-15;Arthur

M. Schlesinger,

r.,The

Coming

oft13e

New Deal (Boston,

1958),

369-71;

Paul K.

Conkin,

Tomorrow

a New World:

The New Deal Community

rogram

(Ithaca, 1959), 186-213. In 1930, RexfordTugwell defined farm s an area of vicious,

ill-tempered

oil with

a not verygood

house, inadequate

barns,

makeshift

machinery,ap-

penstance

tock, tired,

verworkedmen

and women-and

all the pests and bucolic

plagues

that

naturehas evolved

. . a

place whereugly,brooding

monotony, hathauntsby

day

and

night,

nseats he

mind. Sidney

Baldwin,Poverty

nd Politics:

The Rise and Decline of

the

Farm Security

Administration

Chapel

Hill, 1968),

88; Rawe, Agrarianism.: n

Economic

Foundation,

Modern

Schoolman,

18.

'

Edwin V.

O'Hara,

A Spiritual nd

Material

Mission toRuial America, Catholic

Rural

Life Objectives,

(1935),

6; H. Clarence

Nixon,

Farm

Tenancy to the

Forefront, outh-

west

Review,

XXII (Oct. 1936),

11-12;

Nixon, FortyAcres

and

Steel Mlules, 6-57;

Chard

Powers

Smith,

Something

o Do Now,

Free America,

(Feb. 1937),

8; Coyle,

Uncommon

Sense, 97-101; Ransom, Happy Farmers, AmericanReview,522-23; and JohnCroweRan-

som,

Sociology

nd the Black

Belt,

American

Review,

V (Dec. 1934),

153-54.

22

JohnH. Bankhead,

The

One Way to Permanent

National

Recovery, iberty,

(July

22, 1933),

18.

Owsley believed

the SouthernAgrarians

had

been

one of the

formative

n-

fluences ehind

the

introduction

f the Bankhead

bill.

Frank L.

Owsley,

The

Agrarians

Today, Shenandoah,

III (Summer

1952),

27; Bankhead

to Owsley,

March

15,

1935,

Owsley Papers.


14/21

950

The

Journal

f American

istory

Bankhead bill quickly

became the major politicalconcern f decentralists.

Owsley claimed it was the best proposal so far brought

orth

during

the

New

Deal. Most of the

otherRoosevelt egislation

has dealt

with

the

dis-

tribution f income; this is the distribution f capital. Decentralists re-

dicted he Bankhead bill

would invigorate ew Deal soil

conservation

ro-

gramsby givingfarmers

personal take n the and and, by ncreasing

he

numberof economically ndependentfamilies,undercut he

attempts

f

Norman

Thomas

and otherradicals

o

win

over

the

dispossessed

ural

lass

of

the South and West. In

addition, t would be cheaper

than farm

relief

since the loans would be

paid back, and the recipientswould

not

become

dependent n the state s had occurred nderAAA. The Bankhead

bill

was

not anotherpalliative,decentralistslaimed; it was an efforto solve the

most fundamental ocial

and economicproblemof the

twentieth entury,

the drasticdecline in

property wnership.Commonweal, hen under the

editorship f Michael

Williams, recommended he Bankheadmeasure to

everyonewho

desired the

reestablishmentf the principle f

private rop-

erty, nd of the principle f personaland family

iberty-which s depen-

dent

for

ts

practical

ealization

pon the possession f real

personalprop-

erty

n

land

by greatnumbers

f

individuals, nd

not

upon the possession

of

vast

holdings

n

land,

and

great

wealth

of other

orts, y

a

small minor-

ity

f the nation. 22

The

Bankhead

bill

became aw in 1937 and a new agency, he Farm Se-

curity

dministration

FSA),

was

established o administer multi-faceted

program f land

purchasing y tenants nd sharecroppers,

etirement f

submarginal and,

and rural

rehabilitationf needyfarm

families hrough

short-termoans and

grants

for the

purchase f livestock,

quipment, nd

supplies. Will Alexanderwas appointedhead of FSA succeeding ugwell,

who

had

opposed

the

Bankhead

Act,

as

chief

of

the

New Deal ruralpov-

erty rogram.Tugwell

did

not

believe the land

could

absorb a

significant

number f the

urban

unemployed,

or

did he

believe

the

preservation f

the

family

arm

hould

be an

object

of

public policy.The

Bankhead Act,

he warned,would

create

ittle

more

than

a

contented nd

scattered eas-

antry. 23

he decentralist's

valuationof the

Bankhead Act

was diametri-

22

Owsley

to Marvin M.

Lowes,

March

16,

1935, Collins

Papers;

John

C. Rawe to

Edward

Day Stewart,Feb. 7, 1937, Owsley Papers; Fletcher to Owsley, May 25, 1935, Owsley

Papers;

HerbertAgar,

A Substitute or

Share-Our-Wealth,'

Louisville

Courier-Journal,

Aug. 20, 1935;

Nixon, Farm

Tenancy

to

theForefront,

outhwestReview,

12-15;

Coyle,

Uncommon

ense, 97-101;

Free

America, (Aug.

1937),

5;

In

Support

of the

Bankhead

Bill,

Commonweal, XI

(April 26,

1935), 719.

28

Schlesinger,

oming of

the New

Deal,

380;

Bernard

Sternsher,

exfordTugwell

a;1d

the

New Deal (New

Brunswick, 964),

306.


15/21

Decentralistntellecttuals

951

cally opposed

to

Tugwell's

assessment.

Primarily heyobjected

to

the

appropriation f only $50

million

for

FSA.

As Free America

remarked,

The thing should be attacked

n

terms

f billions

of

dollars.

Then

only

can the drift nto tenancynd degradation e stopped nd reversed. 24

Decentralists ttributedhe

meekness f the New Deal's approach

o ru-

ral poverty o its insistence

n saving a diseased agriculturalconomy

n

order to achieve economic recovery. inkeringwith

farm

subsidies

and

acreage imitations,hey rgued,

had resulted n the nation paying

hrough

the

nose to perpetuate system

f commercial griculture hichmightbet-

ter

be allowed to fall of its

own weight. They emphasized hatthe New

Deal had not reformed he

tax structureo as to weigh

most heavilyon

absentee andlords,had not enacted egislation nding and speculation r

guaranteeing asic rights o

tenants, nd had not started large and pur-

chase program.Althoughthe New Deal had possibly ncreased

farm n-

come and helped rectifyhe

mbalancebetween griculturend industry,t

had been

at the

expense of

pushingmanypoor farmers ff

he land and

keeping he remaining armers

ightlyontrolled y a distant ureaucracy.25

The decentralistntellectuals laimed the New Deal response

to wide-

spread industrialunemploymentxhibitedthe same superficiality

s its

farmprogram. Relief throughharitable oles, Ransomhad observed n

1932, may be humanitarian ut t is not economic .. this

month's ole is

of no

effectn preventing

ext month's. Decentralists ealizedthat, ven

though ndividual nitiative

mightbe undermined nd reliefrecipients e-

come

dependent

n

the

state, emporary

elief

measures

nd government

jobs

were needed to

preventwidespread uffering. his was

the price the

nationhad to pay fornot being

a decentralized nd propertied ociety. ut

alongside

hese here

hould be

other

measures

esigned

o make the unem-

ployed economically ndependent,

nd it

was

the lack of

the latterwhich

made

the

New

Deal's relief

rogram ppear ncreasingly

rtificialnd

inad-

equate.

As

Free America

editorialized

n

1937,

At

the outset

he govern-

ment

had no alternative

ut

to care for the immediate eedy. . . But all

that

hould

now

be replaced

by othermeasures ending o makethe citizens

24Free

America, (March 1937), 7; ibid., I (May 1937), 3-4; Edgar

Schmiedeler, ur

Rural

Proletariat

New York, 1939),

22-25;

T.

J. Cauley,

The Public Interest n the

Use

of

Rural

Land, Southwestern

ocial Science Quarterly, XX (March 1950), 252.

25

FrankMoney, Agricultural aradox, Free America, (Aug. 1937), 1; ibid., II (Aug.

1939), 2, 7; Ralph Borsodi, Democracy,

lutocracy, ureaucracy, bid., II (Aug. 1939),

11; Donald Davidson,

review

of

Agriculturen Modern Life, ibid., III (Dec. 1939), 18;

Thomas H. Haile, Free Men

and the Market, bid., V (June 1941), 12; FrankL.

Owsley,

Pellagra Diet, SouthernReview, VI

(Spring 1941), 751-53; JohnC.

Rawe, The Home

on the Land, Catholic Rural Life Bulletin, I (Feb. 20, 1939), 24;

Edgar Schmiedeler,

Vanishing

Homesteads

New York, 1941), 23-25.


16/21

952

The

Journal

f

American

istory

self-reliantnd responsible.

Agar questioned he long-range

mplications

of the New Deal's public

works agencies hiring millions of

the

unem-

ployed.

Great ublicworks,arriedorwardy he tatenperiodswhen nemployment

in private usinesss high,

maybecome permanentart

f the conomy. hey

may rove blessing,nd a solution o theproblem

f unemployment.hey

will

never rove solution o theproblem f iberty.he men

whowork or

he

tate

can

only emain ree f a determining

ajorityf their ellow

itizens o notwork

for he

tate utkeep

their wnpower

ver heir wn

will

n theonlyway

t can

bekept:byearning

heir wn

ecurity.

hecitizens howork or hemselves

an

see to

t that he itizens

howork or

he

tate

renot

deprived

f freewill.They

can

guard heguardians;hey

anwatch hewatchmen.ut fthe ime

omes

when

thebig majority,r thewhole,s working or he tate,ibertys dead.26

Decentralists pproached

he Social Security

Act of 1935 and the

Fair

Labor StandardsAct of

1938 in the same ambivalentmanner s theydid

reliefmeasures.They recognized

hatan overly entralized ndustrial oci-

etycontainedpersonsunable to provide for theirold

age and unemploy-

ment, nd yettheyfeared

federal ocial security rogram

would further

concentrate

olitical uthoritynd make the people

look to the state,

ather

than to themselves, or security. he 1935 act would be unnecessary, f

course,

n a

propertied ociety.

Accordingly, gar justified he Social Secu-

rityAct as something o temporarily ide the

nation over until property

could be widelydistributed. e believedthe New Deal

actuallywanted a

defense

of Americanfreedomn the onlyway

it can

be

defended-by the

preservationf real property. 27

The Fair

Labor

StandardsAct establishedmaximum

ours nd minimum

wage

standards

nd

was

the major New Deal factory

measure.Factory eg-

islation,decentralistsontended,was a makeshift lternativeor the more

basic

reforms.

hey arguedthat, lthough

he

employees

f

large-scale ac-

tories

must

be

protected

gainst conomichazards, thegreater he need for

such

protection

he

deeper

the

illness of the

society. uch legislationwas

merely alliative

nd could

lead to

a

paternalistictate.Davidson declared

2'Ransom,

The State and

the

Land, 9-10;

Free

America, (Sept. 1937), 4; Ralph Bor-

sodi, Planning:

ForWhat?

ibid.,

II

(Dec. 1939), 16-18; Cauley, Integration

f

Agrarian

and Exchange Economies, 587; Tate,

The

Problem of the

Unemployed, 130-32, 135;

HerbertAgar,

A Time

for

Greatness

Boston, 1942), 252.

2

HerbertAgar, EveryMan a King, Louisville Courier-Journal,ug. 14, 1935. Several

decentralists

riticized he Social

Security

Act's failure

to include farm

aborers and farm

tenants

within ts

provisions.They

accused the

New

Deal of

needless discriminationgainst

rural America, particularly

he

South with its large agrarian proletariat. avid Cushman

Coyle, Roads

to a New America

(New York, 1937), 335-43;

Herman

C.

Nixon,

Social

Security or Southern

armers

Chapel Hill, 1936), 6-7; Schmiedeler,

Better

Rural Life,

249-64.


17/21

Decentralist

ntellectuals

953

the Fair

Labor Standards

Act illustratedhe New

Deal's desire

to

retain,

while reforming, entralized

ndustrialism.

vidently he New

Deal had

chosen to

leave social

and economic endencies s

they re, and

apply a

certain mount f humanitarianorrectionrom bove, to make the results

of

those endencies

asier

o bear. 28

For

the

decentralistntellectuals,

hemajor mportance

f factory

egisla-

tion was its

effect n economic

decentralizationather

han he amelioration

of

the working

onditions

f the industrialaborer.

Coyle, in

particular,

fearedthatmany mall

businesseswould

go bankrupt ecause of

inability

to pay the

minimumwage and thatthe

1938 act would

impede the move-

ment of industry

rom he Northeast

o the low-wage

areas of the South

and West. Free America, lthough uspicious f theFair Labor Standards

Act, did

anticipate ome

good comingfrom t. The

magazinebelievedclose

supervision

was neededover businesses

uch as utilities

nd railroadsun-

able to decentralize. erhaps

this act

would be the prelude to democratic

control ver

such property,

nd perhapsbusinesses

not wishing o

fall un-

der

ts

provisions

would

voluntarily

ecentralize. ree America

proposed:

the

government

eddle

ll it

ikeswith

ig nation-size

ndustry,

ndustry

o

large

that

esponsibility

etween

mployer

nd

employee

s

impossible.

ut et

t

keep

its handsoff ittle ndustryerving nly fewhundredmenand inwhich er-

sonal

contact

etween mployer

nd

worker

s

not

onlypossible

but

unavoid-

able.29

Decentralists enied

that he urban and industrial

worker ould

ever se-

cure

economic

nd

social

justice

within a centralized ndustrial

conomy.

Even

labor

unions could not

gain

for

him the economic

ecurity

nd

per-

sonal independence

whichwould

be

his if

he owned

a

piece of

land or con-

trolled small business.Labor unions, hey sserted,

were

simply

ecessary

evils

undermodern

working

onditions.

If

we

cannot lter heconditions

for the

better,

f we cannot

get

ahead

in our

race

with

collectivism,

ree

America

commented, then we cannot complain

thatthe workers roceed

in a

theoretically

ollectivist irection. New

Deal effortso

aid

the abor

movement, lthough

desirable

n

orderto create countervailing

orce o

oppose

big

business,

ailed to answer he

more pressing

need

of economic

'

John C. Rawe,

The

AgrarianConcept

of Property,

Modern Schoolman,

XIV

(Nov.

1936), 4; Donald Davidson, Where Are the Laymen?A Study n Policy-Making, mer-

ican

Review,

IX

(Oct. 1937),

478;

Richmond

Croom

Beatty,

Lord

Macaulay:

Victorian

Liberal (Norman,

1938),

286.

29

Coyle,

Roads

to

a

New

America,292-95;

Free America,

(July

1937),

3-5;

Davidson,

AttackOn

Leviathan,282.

Nixon

and

Agar,

in

contrast,

avoredwage

and hour legislation

because

it would

prevent

rapid

and ruthless ndustrialization

f

the South. Nixon,

Possum

Trot, 155-56;

Herbert Agar,

The New Carpetbaggers,

,

Louisville

Courier-Journal,

April 9, 1937.


18/21

954

The Journal

f

American istory

decentralization.

egislation

uch

as

Article7 (a)

of NIRA

and

the

Na-

tional

Labor

Relations

Act

of 1935 was

an

irrelevant

matter

f great

nter-

est

[to

the

workers]

but

only

a source

f confusion

n the

morevital

strug-

gle to rearrangeheeconomicmachineryo that twould not

am.' 30

The

National

Housing

Act of

1937 disturbed

ecentralists

more

than

any other

New Deal

measure

with

the

possible

exception

of

NIRA.

This act authorized

he United

StatesHousing

Authority

o extend

ong-

term,

ow-interest

oans

to local

public

agencies

to clear

slums

and build

housing

projects.

Decentralists

rgued

hat

buildinghousing

on the sites

of

old slums

merely ncouraged

eople

to remain

n the

city nd offered

o

incentive

orindustry

o decentralize.

And to

make

mattersworse,

there

was nothingntheactproviding orhomeownership.Outside ofgiving

few people

moredecent

iving

quarters,

ree

America

omplained,

noth-

ing is

to

be

done toward

ranslating

ur

ever-increasing,

xpropriated,

e-

pendent

proletariat

nto an independent

nd

responsible

itizenry.

ublic

housing

ppeared

o

be

a

gigantic

ubsidy

ourbanized

ndustry

ince t

en-

abled urban

abor

to

be

decently

oused without aving ndustry ay

for

t

through

igher

wages.

Decentralists roposed

that, f

possible,

public

hous-

ing be single

dwellings,

hat

uburban

uilding

be givenpriority,

hat ach

separate welling nclude n acreof tillable and,and that he occupants e

educated

n the

principles

f

subsistence

griculture.3'

The

decentralist

ntellectuals

erethus

generally

isappointed

with the

various

New

Deal programs

o reform

ndustrial

nd

urban

ife. For

them,

relief,

ocial

security,

nd

publichousing

eft

untouched

conomic

entral-

ization,

financial

ggrandizement,

nd dispossession.

here

were,

neverthe-

less,

some

measures

duringRoosevelt's

second

termwhich

bore

moredi-

rectly

n

the issue of

economic

entralization.

n

March 1938,

Thurman

Arnold was

appointed

ttorney

eneral n

charge

of the Antitrust

ivision

of the

Department

f Justice,

nd

he soon

became

he

most ctive

rustbust-

0FreeAmerica, (Feb.

1937), 3-5; ibid., I (July

1937), 5-6; Coyle,

Twilightof Na-

tional Planning, 557-62;

Beatty,

ord Macaulay, 286; Rawe, Agrarian

Concept of

Prop-

erty, ; Allen

Tate, A View of the Whole South,

AmericanReview,

I

(Feb. 1934),

418-

19; Graham

Carey, Sufficiency,ecurity

nd Freedom,

Free America, II (Feb.

1939),

10-11; Ligutti

nd

Rawe,

Rural Roads

to Security, 8-39; HerbertAgar,

Farm Owners

or

Farm Unions?

Louisville

Courier-Journal,ept. 28, 1936.

tFree America, (Sept.

1937), 7;

ibid.,

I

(April 1937), 4;

ibid., I (Aug. 1937),

9;

Ralph L. Woods, Defense and Decentralization, ree America, V (Sept. 1940), 3-5;

These Men:

The Biggest

LittleMayor n

the

World,

Free America,

V (Nov. 1940),

6-8;

Ligutti and Rawe, Rural

Roads to Security,

09-11; JohnC. Rawe,

The Modern

Home-

stead: A

Vital

Economic nstitution, Modern

Schoolman,XV (Jan.

1938), 34-35; David-

son, Regionalism

s Social

Science,

224.

Agar

was almost

pologetic

forsupportingublic

housing.

HerbertAgar,

Federal

Housing, II,

Louisville

Courier-Journal,

arch

27,

1939;

Herbert

Agar,

Free

and

Independent,

bid.,

Feb.

8,

1938.


19/21

Decentralist ntellectuals

955

er in Americanhistory. ne month ater,Rooseveltrequested

undsfor

an

investigationf monopolieswhichresulted n the

three-yearnquiry y the

TemporaryNational EconomicCommittee. herewas also the selection f

Hadan Alldredgeof Alabama, a vigorousfoe of regionalrailroadratedif-

ferentials, s a commissioner f the InterstateCommerce

Commission

(ICC), and the passage of the Transportation ct of 1940, empowering

ICC to aid farmers y reducing ailway ates n agricultural roducts.

Decentralistshailed these modest successes,32

ut they remained

con-

vincedthe New Deal had not tamedplutocracy. ate,

who in 1936 looked

forward o theNew Deal attacking privilege nd Big Business, described

the United States n 1938 as a plutocratic egimemasked s a democracy.

Agar, who in 1936 predicted hatRoosevelt ntended o push the struggle

against plutocracy through o a conclusion, sserted

n 1938 the New

Deal had been a failurebecause thad triedmerely o ameliorate he worst

effects

f

moderncapitalism- the resulthas been

a permanent risis of

unemployment

nd a

ten-year-longepression.

Coyle, who in 1936 saw

the New Deal as the early tage of the finaleffort

f the American co-

nomicand political ystem o throw ff he shackles f big business, on-

tinually alled formore vigorous ttacks

n

economic

entralization

uring

the ate 1930s. The growth fpolitical entralizationlso dismayed he de-

centralist

ntellectuals, development hey

aw

as

unnecessary

ince

t

had

not resulted

n

the disciplining f big business r

the creation f a proper-

tied

society.According

o

the

utopian agrarian

Ralph Borsodi, the New

Deal

had

made it

virtuallympossible

or

anyone

o own

property,

o en-

gage

in

business

small or

large,

without

paying

constant nd

obsequious

tribute o bureaucracy. 83

Decentralist's

criticisms of the

New

Deal

for

merely tinkering

32Nixon,

New

Deal

and the

South, 329-33; Davidson,

On

Being

in

Hock

to

the

North, 5; Joseph

L.

Nicholson,

The Place of Small

Business,

Free

America,

V

(June

1940), 9; Herbert

Agar,

Roosevelt

and

Collectivism,

ouisville

Courier-Journal, ay 7,

1938; Agar, A Time

for Greatness, 71, 176;

Ellis

W.

Hawley,

The New

Deal

and

the

Problem

of

Monopoly:

A

Study

n EconomicAmbivalence

Princeton, 966), 439.

Allen Tate,

review of Pursuit

of Happiness,

Free

America,

I

(Oct. 1938),

16-18;

Her-

bertAgar, Mr. Roosevelt nd a Free

Economy,

Louisville

Courier-Journal,une29, 1936;

Herbert

Agar,

Pump-Priming,I, ibid., Aug. 3, 1938;

Herbert

Agar, Dorothy

Thompson

and

the New

Deal, II, ibid., Aug. 13, 1938;

Herbert

Agar,

The

Right

to Private

Prop-

erty,

Free

America,

II

(June 1939), 7; Coyle,

Map

of the

New Deal,

220-21;

Coyle,

Inefficientfficiency, 76-78; Borsodi, Democracy,Plutocracy, ureaucracy, 1; Ralph

Borsodi,

Decentralization,

ree

America,

I

(Feb. 1938),

12;

GrahamCarey,

Sufficiency,

Security,

nd

Freedom, ibid.,

III

(Jan. 1939), 5; Beatty,Lord Macaulay,

371; Chard

Powers

Smith,

In

Defence of Democracy, Free

America, (April 1937),

5-7;

Francis P.

Miller,

Democracy:

A

Way

of

Life, ibid., I

(Nov. 1937),

1-2;

Stoyan

Pribichevich,

Modern Leviathan,

bid.;

II (Aug. 1938), 13;

Frank L. Owsley, review of

The Social

Philosophyof

John Taylor of Caroline, bid., IV (Feb. 1940), 18-19; Ligutti

and

Rawe,

Rural

Roads

to

Security, 55-56.


20/21

956 The

Journal

f American

istory

with capitalism nd

for failing to recognize

he

need for

drastic eforms

were surprisingly

imilar

to

the

complaintsof collectivist

ntellectuals.

Common Sense,

Nation,

and New

Republic,

the

three

major journals of

liberals and collectivistsn the 1930s, all criticized he New Deal forat-

tempting

o patch up capitalism

rather han moving

toward collectivism.

According o

Common Sense, the

New Deal was whirligig eform

ed

by

a

President more

renowned or

his artisticuggling hanforrobust es-

olution.

Max

Lerner, n editorof Nation, attributedhe

New

Deal's

er-

rors to Roosevelt's

ack of a clearly rticulated

ocial philosophy,

nd

predicted e would

be better emembered orhis

inadequacies hanfor

his

achievements.

he

historian harlesA. Beard

censured

he

New

Deal for

notnationalizing hebanks and railroads, nd for notacceptinghis vision

of an

integrated

conomy

irected

y government lanners.

At the end

of

the

depression,f it ever

ends, he grumbled

n

1935,

the

concentrationf

wealth

n

the

United Stateswill

doubtless

mark a

new high point

n

the

evolution f American

conomy.

The

problem

for

the Marxisthistorian

Louis

M.

Hackerwas not

how to sustain n edificewhose

foundation

s

slipping nd whichhas displayed

vital flaws

n

most

of the partsof its su-

perstructure: ot where to continue

patching

farther

r even what to sal-

vage, but

what

to substitute. y

calling

a truce o class

conflict

n

thehope

purchasing ower

could be

restored,

he

New

Deal

had been unable

to

effect

ny enduring hanges

n

the

class

relations

n

American

conomic

society.

The

English socialistHarold

J.

Laski

also disliked

Roosevelt's e-

luctance

to

diagram

a

long-range

ollectivist

rogram.

Laski

regretfully

concluded

hat

Roosevelt

imply id

not

recognize

hat the

social

system

n

America oday s

bankrupt. 34

The weaknesses f theNew Deal, according o decentralistntellectuals,

stemmed

rom

he

pragmatic pirit

nd intellectual

labbiness f

American

liberalism.

Refusing

to

contemplate

fundamental

ocial

and

economic

change,

he New

Deal had

merely

ttempted

o

ameliorate he

worst

spects

of

large-scale apitalism

hrough

welfare

programs

nd federal

spending.

The

basic problemsof

dispossession, ectional

mperialism, nd economic

centralization,

ecentralists

laimed,

had remained

relatively

ntouched

34 Frank A.

Warren, II,

Liberals and

Communism: he

Red

Decade

Revisited

Bloom-

ington, 966), 41-42; GeorgeWolfskilland JohnA. Hudson,All butthePeople: Franklin

D. Roosevelt

nd His

Critics, 933-39

(London, 1969), 135-36;

Max Lerner, Roosevelt nd

History,

Nation,

CXLVI

(May 7,

1938), 534;

Charles

A.

Beard,

National Politics

and

War,

Scribner's

Magazine,

XCVII

(Feb.

1935),

69-70;

Louis

M. Hacker,

The

New Dea

Documents

Decentralist Intellectuals and the New Deal