Go North, Hillary
“What a great country we have here when it decides to be.” — John Updike
“We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt
In September 1932, Franklin Roosevelt crossed the country to San Francisco to give a speech that contributed mightily to his landslide election to the presidency six weeks later. I yearn to hear the likes of it today from Hillary Clinton.
The United States, F.D.R. said, needed a new social contract. Throughout most of our history, anyone willing to work could earn a good living. If a depression came along, all you had to do was climb into a covered wagon and head west, where free land and jobs were plentiful.
But, F.D.R. continued, by the start of the 20th century the free land was gone and our corporate and financial leaders had become “malefactors of great wealth” and “princes of profit” — exerting “uncontrolled and irresponsible powers” akin to “the feudal barons of old.” We were becoming an “economic oligarchy.” Equality of opportunity no longer existed. The government had to expand its role in the economy to facilitate creation of jobs and otherwise ease the burden on the great numbers of people who were suffering.
Backed by Congress and prodded by his determined wife, Eleanor, F.D.R. moved swiftly. He created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which recruited millions of unemployed young men to work on public land development and conservation. The Works Progress Administration constructed public buildings and oversaw the Federal Art Project, which paid a monthly stipend to struggling writers and artists, among them East Hampton’s de Kooning, Krasner, and Pollock.
The Tennessee Valley Authority provided low-cost electricity to poor rural areas. The Agricultural Adjustment Act firmed farm prices that had so thoroughly collapsed, tens of thousands of farm families abandoned their land and, impoverished, set off to find work. The National Labor Relations Act, at present under attack in Congress, reduced obstacles to workers forming unions and in doing so paved the way for the amazing mid-20th-century growth of our middle class. The Social Security Act of 1935 thrives today as a source of economic stability for our elderly and disabled and for the country as a whole. And, until its repeal, led by Bill Clinton in 1999, the Glass-Steagall Banking Act stood as a bulwark against investment industry shenanigans that were to rock the country with the financial trauma of 2008.
Some of F.D.R.’s princes of profit called him a socialist and traitor to his class, the old wealth that then prevailed on Wall Street. “They are unanimous in their hate for me,” he said while campaigning for re-election in 1936, “and I welcome their hatred.” He carried 46 of the 48 states and all but 8 of the 531 electoral votes.
I believe that in order to be elected president in 2016, Mrs. Clinton must commit to a new, similarly focused social contract that signals her independence from the magnetism and influence of great wealth. The country needs this, as it did in the 1930s, to recover from its economic and spiritual funk. And she needs it, personally, as a mission for a prospective presidency and to reinforce the Clintons’ legacy.
The similarities between now and 1932 are startling — the decline of equal opportunity and the morale of working families, the narcissistically applied power of the very rich, the deification of money and those who make mountains of it by fair or foul, while our leaders seem unable to provide a safe financial system and enough jobs offering opportunity and livable income. Now as then, this demands a strong, compassionate leader directing strong, compassionate policies who can stare down the 21st century’s malefactors of great wealth.
Such a social contract could also mend cracks that have appeared in the Clintons’ credibility, notably from perceptions of excessive closeness with the “.1 percent” and a preoccupation with attaining personal wealth. The routing of speaking fees — upward of $200,000 per speech for Hillary (and $700,000 for Bill) — to the Clinton Foundation rather than the Clintons personally, though apparently legal, diminishes trust in her statesmanship and provides a potent weapon for her opponents, which can best be countered by a potent program of her own.
F.D.R.’s site choice to unveil his social contract was inspired — San Francisco, a youthful city, symbol of optimism and vigor, traits the country needed to survive and that F.D.R. feared the Depression was crushing. Mrs. Clinton needs a similarly telling site to introduce her 21st-century social contract. That site is East Hampton, nexus of Clinton campaign money-raising and symbol of the country’s gaping economic apartheid.
To highlight her focus, the presentation should be delivered north of the highway, a part of our town James Brady, author of “Further Lane,” called “the other Hamptons.” East Hampton High School would be a good place. So might Studio 3 at LTV, our local television station. The audience should be predominantly north of the highway — our parks and highways workers, farmers, traditional and organic, fishermen, nurses, waiters, engineers, chefs, the seniors and working families in our town’s affordable-housing homes and apartments.
Mrs. Clinton needs to show that to restore fairness, a healthy economy, and balanced budget she will risk, as F.D.R. did, being labeled a socialist and traitor, that she is not knitted to a coterie of superrich financiers. Rather, she is a potential leader of our democracy who, if we elect her, will make certain that the people who profit hugely from our financial casino are no longer pampered by our tax and regulatory codes and a presidency that frets at the prospect of their displeasure.
Richard Rosenthal is author of “The Dandelion War,” a satire on class warfare in the Hamptons.