MANHATTAN DA | Liz Crotty on June 22

Liz Crotty for DA, June 22

The Democratic Primary in New York is on June 22. This primary will determine who will be on the Democratic line in November.

One of the positions up for a vote is Manhattan District Attorney. The incumbent, Cy Vance, has announced he is not going to run again. He has his hands full finishing up some high-profile cases.

This post is an endorsement of a candidate for the Manhattan DA nomination, Liz Crotty.

I am posting this endorsement for two reasons. 

First, I attended the endorsement meeting of my local club and I was not given an opportunity to vote. I still don’t understand how that happened. But it means I am a free agent here, which is a good thing, because I strongly support Liz Crotty.

Second, I have known Liz for many years and I think highly of her. She grew up in Stuyvesant Town, an egalitarian complex on the east side of Manhattan near Baruch College, where I used to be an assistant professor of finance. She is the centrist in this primary and I wish we had more candidates who were prepared to take that stance.

I got to know New York City pretty well in the mid-1970s through the mid-2000s as a finance professor, then the CEO of an urban-policy think tank, and then chief economist for three New York City Comptrollers. Liz Crotty grew up during that period in New York City, and she knows how big an impact crime and civil unrest had on the city during that period. Liz says she experienced the scare of having to run into a Safe Haven Program store. She had to escape predatory men. Someone she knew was the victim of a stabbing.

She graduated from Fordham Law School, and in 2000, she began her six-year career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office when Robert Morgenthau was Manhattan DA, until 2009.

I am a fan of the Morgenthaus, father Henry and son Robert. My Dad was hired by Henry Morgenthau, Jr. via a competitive civil service exam he took in 1933. Thousands of candidates took the test, and Morgenthau hired just three hundred for the Farm Credit Administration. Morgenthau was put in charge of that agency instead of being in the cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture, because the farm lobby objected to having someone Jewish like Morgenthau heading the agency. Instead, in 1934 FDR appointed Henry Morgenthau Jr. to the position of Secretary of the Treasury (there were also objections to that appointment, but FDR by then was on a roll and paid less attention to complaints about his appointments). I am writing the biography of Henry Morgenthau’s predecessor as Secretary of the Treasury, Will Woodin.

In her six-year stint as an Assistant District Attorney, Liz served first in the Trial Division. She worked on more than three thousand cases altogether. Her Trial Division cases involved street crimes, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault, burglary, robbery, and drug sales, as well as complex crimes like forgery, grand larceny, identity theft, and money laundering. Liz was known for investigating and resolving matters—whether by trial or plea, before both judges and juries.

After serving more than four years in Trial (Bureau 70), Liz moved into the Investigation Division, expanding her legal skills. For two years in the Investigation Division, Liz worked on complex white-collar cases on the local, national, and international levels.

After leaving the Manhattan DA’s Office, Liz worked in civil law on complex international investigations and litigations, involving aviation litigation, wrongful death, negligence, and product liability.

Liz started her own criminal-law firm twelve years ago. She and her partner built a law firm that, represents people throughout New York City and around the world, to help them receive justice. Liz represents people on crimes ranging from grand larceny, fraud, assault to rape, DWI, and weapons possession. A zealous advocate who fights aggressively for her clients, Liz is also well reasoned, approachable and personable.

She can see ways to make the District Attorney’s Office perform better. However, she understands the only way to improve the office is with a practical plan. Her plan starts with ensuring the office is prioritizing every New Yorker’s hope for public safety, because each neighborhood and community needs to feel that the District Attorney’s Office is tackling their concerns. That means it must be responsive to every community in Manhattan, as well as working with the police to ensure they are protecting us with dignity and honor.

Liz is admitted to New York State Courts and the Federal Southern and Eastern Districts of the New York. She currently serves as a board member for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Association, a not-for-profit alumni organization of the Manhattan DA’s Office. In addition, she serves on the New York City Bar Association’s Judiciary Committee, evaluating judicial candidates for election. Most recently, she was a judicial delegate to the NYC Supreme Court judicial convention.

She is a trained Mediator, having completed the Mediation Training at the NY Peace Institute. In addition, she volunteers with the CFI Project, which assists recent immigrant arrivals requesting political asylum and prepares them for their credible fear interview. Liz is also a volunteer on the pro-bono panel in New York’s Southern District.

On June 22, or possibly before, I plan to vote for Liz Crotty for DA.

WOODIN | FDR's First Treasury Secretary Calms the Bank Panic

Will Woodin (2nd from right) examines a sheet of
greenbacks. He had $2 billion in banknotes printed
and then had Pathé News film them being shipped.

March 9, 2021—On this date in 1933, which was the Thursday after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Inauguration, the Emergency Banking Relief Act was passed and signed. It may be some kind of legislative record. Congress was called into session with a few days' notice. The bill (EBRA or just EBA) was passed in the House in the first part of the day, in the Senate in the second part. It was then signed by the president.

It didn't go entirely smoothly. Copies of the bill didn't get to all the Members of Congress and it had to be read out in the House. Big pieces were yet to be added to what became the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, including the deposit insurance (FDIC) portion promoted by Rep. Henry B. Steagall and supported by many (not all) of the banks and the fencing off of insured banks from investment bankers, which was Senator Carter Glass's biggest interest.

When they arrived the previous weekend, Roosevelt and his first Treasury Secretary, William H. Woodin, got to work, supported by the "brain trust" led by Professor Raymond Moley and by some senior people from the outgoing staff of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System. Woodin and Moley were staying at the Mayflower Hotel, but they worked well into the night trying to nail down the procedures for opening up the banks after they were closed by the national "bank holiday." Banks were closed in all 48 states. 

Roosevelt left Secretary Woodin to handle the legislation and the details of reopening the banks. Roosevelt worked on his first Fireside Chat, which was delivered on the radio   on March 12, 1933. Announcing Woodin's plan to a fearful nation, he said:

The new law allows the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to issue additional currency on good assets and thus the banks that reopen will be able to meet every legitimate call. The new currency is being sent out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to every part of the country.

Woodin, as a corporate CEO for 15 years, handled the printing of $2 billion in banknotes like he would any deadline for one of his railcar factories. He was there and he worked late to make sure that all the shifts were cranking out the greenbacks. Woodin made sure that Pathé News was there to record the money coming off the presses and the trucks loading up and zooming off to the different clearinghouse banks.

People got back in line at the banks, this time to redeposit the money they had taken out. By the end of March, two-thirds of the money that had been taken out of the nation’s banks had been redeposited. 

BIDEN TRANSITION | Lessons from FDR (updated December 2, 2020)

                                           (Library of Congress)
Hoover traveling with FDR in silence to FDR'
inauguration, Saturday, March 4, 1933.  

November 12, 2020—The East Hampton Star just published my political-history notes on lessons from FDR's first transition.

—The article is updated with information on most-talked-about appointments here. Biden transition teams list is here.

—Some jobs are not coming back even when Covid-19 is over.

The photo of FDR and Hoover above, on their way to FDR's inauguration, is poignant. On the way, they didn't talk much. Hoover asked a favor of FDR for someone he appointed and would be left behind. FDR promised nothing.

Although FDR served as President for more than twelve years, until his death in 1945, the President and ex-President never met again. Transitions can be brutal in both directions. 

FDR faced a mountain of challenges that Hoover had never addressed. Hoover went from being the most powerful person in a devastated world into a total eclipse by someone who knew better than Hoover what to do with the job and power that Hoover left behind.

TRUMP | "Fitness" for the Presidency

Former Defense Secretary
James Mattis.

September 9, 2020—Today we learned that Donald Trump was described as totally “unfit” to serve as President by Former Defense Secretary James Mattis. 

This label appears in Bob Woodward’s soon-to-be-released book, Rage. Mattis was talking with then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, says  Woodward (https://bit.ly/32f6XVd). 

Mattis resigned his position in late 2018 because of disagreements with the president on defense policies. He told Coats that the President was “dangerous” and “there may come a time when we have to take collective action” against Trump, according to excerpts from the Woodward book reported on by The Washington Post this morning (https://bit.ly/35qM8rV). 

The “collective action” Mattis is referring to is presumably Article 25 of (25th Amendment to) the Constitution, which provides for either (1) a President declaring himself/herself incapable of carrying out his/her duties or (2) those around the President, i.e., the Cabinet, so declaring (https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv).

However, Article 25 was designed for addressing a disability rather than a mental or temperamental disorder. 

What Makes a President Fit or Unfit?

Two key factors make someone fit to be President, apart from general sanity. They are experience (including education) and temperament. 

Going back to the ten presidents before Trump, all had either legislative (four as Senators— Barack Obama, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Jack Kennedy—and one as a Representative, George H. W. Bush) or government executive (five Governors: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon). 

Trump had neither legislative nor government executive experience. He had some business experience, but one that viewed government as the enemy, an environment with little connection to the constraints of government administration and leadership.

Historically—The Best Presidents

C-Span has an interesting list of qualifications that make for the best presidents. It has an ongoing tabulation of the best ones ever, updated to 2017. In first place, consistently since 2000, is Abraham Lincoln. (If George Washington's presidencies created the nation, Lincoln's preserved it.) 

George Washington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt take the next two spots (they traded places between 2000 and 2009). Theodore Roosevelt comes in fourth. See https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/.

George Washington and Lincoln get respect for creating and preserving the United States. But the two Roosevelts had challenges more like the ones we have today. They needed a lead a team to address problems that the private marketplace was facing to address.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

FDR in particular inherited a country that was in a deep Depression, with bank failures panicking depositors and unemployment at 25 percent. It required political savvy and administrative skill to steer the country through that era and then through a World War.

FDR was well prepared to take on these challenges because he had both the experience and the temperament to do so. He had two terms as Governor of New York State, during which time he led the country in innovative responses to the Depression.

He gained important experience operating in Washington from his eight years as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Wilson. He was appointed by the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, who had been editor of the Raleigh News & Observer. He learned to work with members of Congress. He helped reorganize the Navy Department. He mastered the facts of the Navy Department and stuck to them at Congressional hearings. He learned to work with his party in Washington and in New York.

When the United States went to war with Germany on April 6, 1917, FDR got a taste of wartime decision-making. He presided over a four-fold increase in the Navy's strength in six months, involving the building of new ships and stockpiling of supplies.

Donald Trump did not have anything like this kind of preparation for his presidency.

CHARLIE MINER, R.I.P. | Grandson of FDR's First Treasury Secretary

Charlie Miner (R) enjoying his great-nephew and great-great-niece and her (unrelated) Angry Bird. (Photo by JT Marlin.) 

March 20, 2018 – Charlie Miner, Jr. interrupted his studies at Princeton (Class of 1943) to volunteer as a bomber pilot.

He died yesterday, according to his daughter, and Vero Beach resident, Charmaine Caldwell.

A memorial service in Vero Beach is planned for May 3 and possibly another subsequent one in East Hampton. 

The following is a slightly edited (with a sad new ending) version of an article I wrote about Miner for The Vero Portfolio, May-June 2015 issue, p. 24.

Charlie Miner was one of seven grandchildren of his illustrious grandfather, FDR’s first Treasury Secretary, Will Woodin. His mother was Woodin's eldest daughter, Mary, who married an infantry captain, Robert Charles (Charlie) Miner, Sr.

Charlie Miner, Jr. divided his time at the end of his life between Vero Beach and East Hampton. When his beloved cousin Anne Gerli died in 2016, he gave up spending time in East Hampton. 

At Princeton, Miner studied engineering and joined the war effort as pilot of a B-25 Mitchell twin-engine bomber, which had a crew of three or more. Miner flew many of the 17 bombing missions of his Air Force unit over northern Italy. [More about his contribution to the war effort here.]

He was lucky to have survived. Of 16 million American veterans of World War II, fewer than one in 16 survived as of 2015, only 80,000 in Florida. That year Miner was one of only about 250 World War II vets left in Indian River County, and may be Indian River County's oldest surviving European-theater WWII bomber pilot.

Miner told me how much he loves Vero Beach, Fla. Years ago in the 1950s and 1960s, he spent time with his mother (who divorced Charlie Sr. and did not remarry) in the Riomar social life. It  revolved, he said, around rotating dinners and celebrations among the original 12 houses. The 30 residents took turns throwing parties. The Riomar Inn came later. John's Island—where Miner and his late wife Maisie lived now—opened in 1970 and was at first resented because it drew people away from Riomar (and then it became successful and was imitated by the Moorings).

Charlie Miner’s grandfather, Will Woodin, was the man who dealt with the Wall Street and banking panic that started in 1929 and was not put to rest until FDR came into office in March 1933. FDR's first Treasury Secretary was given wide latitude in addressing the problem. 

Will Woodin was born in Pennsylvania and settled in New York after a successful career as the CEO of a huge business, American Car & Foundry (ACF) selling railroad rolling stock. It was called the "Car Trust" because back then a "car" was a railway car. From 1916 to 1928 he headed up a company whose stock was one of the 20 in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. A cousin of his headed up the locomotive company (ALCo) that was another of the 20.

Woodin had four children. The eldest and youngest settled in Vero Beach — Mary Woodin Miner and Libby Woodin Rowe. Libby’s husband, Wally Rowe, and a brother bought homes in Riomar. Mary and Libby eventually lived in Vero Beach most of the year. Charlie’s mother lived in John's Island after Riomar and died in 2007 at 102.

Charlie remembers not just the bridge that connected the two sides of the Indian River, "Beachland Boulevard" where Route 60 crosses, before the concrete-arch Barber Bridge.  He remembers the drawbridge that was built earlier, in 1995. Before that, back in the 1930s, there was a bridge made of wooden railroad ties and swung around horizontally to let boats through the Indian River. 

Back in those early days Beachland Boulevard was the northern edge of Vero Beach, and there wasn’t a Riverside Theater. Charlie says the money was raised in several ways. Rosie and Sterling Adams organized a dance every year. He and his cousin, Bill Rowe, used to sell season tickets and organized an auction of donated prizes to raise money for the theater. The Theater is, of course, now a major institution in Vero.

Charlie (R) and me in 2014. Photo by
Alice Tepper Marlin.

What Charlie Miner liked about Vero is that it is quiet. That was one of the original motivations of the developers, along with the availability of rail transportation and ocean beaches. There is no strip with night clubs, no airport. As Charlie says, “I’m not a teenager anymore.”

Charlie’s Advice for a Long and Happy Life:

• For a long life: Every morning a meal of two eggs and tomato juice or V-8 (with or without the hair of the dog). 
• For a happy life: “Enjoy life while you can. If you want to do something, don’t wait. Do it while you can because life goes by quickly. You may never get another chance.” He says his 93 years have “Gone… Boom!”

During the many recent years that I have been studying and writing about FDR's forgotten first Treasury Secretary, Charlie's grandfather, I and my wife Alice have been amused and impressed by Charlie's joie-de-vivre and his sharp recollections of his long life. Learning of his death at 96 years old was a sad moment.

ECONOMIC HOTSPOTS | by Dana Chasin

The U.S. Economy at Risk as Washington Debates.

My friend Dana Chasin sent me a summary of economic issues before the Congress at the end of the first quarter of 2017. 

With his permission, I have re-posted it below.

The issues add up to some strong challenges that will not be easy for the GOP to address. 

Having struck out on replacing Obamacare, Trump is facing the likelihood that the First 100 Days may go by without a single significant piece of legislation.

Here is Dana's guest post. I have added only a number to identify each of his five sections:

1. Dodd-Frank Action

One of the subtlest but surprising developments of the year to date is the sense that Wall Street itself (the financial industry) is not as warm to the idea of repealing the law as Trump is.  Several major firms and the Wall Street Journal -- yes, even its masthead editorial page -- have signaled caution when it comes to the president’s actions on Dodd Frank. More and more investors believe that the administration is unlikely to deliver any significant jolt to the economy. 

As Trump vowed again this week to “do a number” on Dodd-Frank, it’s expected that the SEC, under Jay Clayton who will likely be confirmed, will soften enforcement and rules that the 2010 law put in place.  That is not to say that rolling back Obama-era regulations will be easy for the SEC.  Per the Journal:  “The SEC doesn’t have the authority to revoke Dodd-Frank, which is an act of Congress.” 

Given that the vast majority of rules and regulations from the Dodd-Frank Act have already been implemented, the best that the SEC can do is amend them or grant exemptions on a case by case basis.  If legal objections were motioned as a result of the SEC’s actions, it would slow down the already drawn-out process.

2. Tax Reform

It seems that the already difficult tax overhaul process just got a lot more complicated for Trump.  The GOP in Congress are having trouble agreeing on a bill that Democrats won’t filibuster.  This all started when two senior economic officials who served in the Obama administration, David Kamin and Brad Tester, published an article that found that the much talked about Border Adjustment Tax will not produce the kind of revenue the President has suggested. If their report is confirmed by, say, the CBO, then it would throw the whole tax agenda off because they would not be able to produce a bill that wouldn’t add to the debt.

The Trump administration is working hard to ensure a legislative success before the year is up.  There are a lot of opportunities and a lot of road blocks (think Blue Dog Democrats and the Freedom Caucus). Recently, the President’s legislative director met with moderate House Democrats to propose working with them on the tax reform plan. One of the Democratic lawmakers who attended the meeting said that the legislative director declared the border adjustment tax dead on arrival.  If that is the case, then Donald Trump’s protectionist campaign promises will be broken, a prospective trillion dollars in revenue will be lost, and tax reform, lacking a pay-for, will limp forward, or not.  

There have been rumors this week that the White House is considering a carbon tax and a value added tax to make up for the loss of revenue that will be induced by the massive tax cuts Republicans are aiming for, both on the income and corporate side.  If the carbon tax is in the bill, the Freedom Caucus had have reason to vote against it.  

The White House has flip-flopped on the VAT and carbon tax, saying that it was considering them at first and soon after disavowed them completely.  Given the collective lack of experience this administration has, their negotiation efforts are very transparent and their tactics are easy to dodge so far.

This flip-flop shows that the Freedom Caucus should have reason to be cautious of their trust in the House leadership to put forth a plan with their inputs taken into account. This is precisely why the plan is showing signs of ripping apart at the seams.  This and the BAT may get debated extensively over the next few months.  Don't be deceived: they are dead letters in Congress. 

3. Infrastructure

For some reason, the administration decided to pick tax reform as its next big ticket item after the health care debacle, opting for the more difficult and partisan route.  The president may once have had a shot at working with Democrats who have been asking for infrastructure investment for a long time, but it seems that Trump is ditching that train for now.

The president’s infrastructure plan might, accordingly, also be too ambitions.  With a goal of a trillion dollars, Trump aims to pass large tax subsidies to investors willing to pour money into infrastructure investment.  There are many reasons this plan is risky, one of which is that large firms will be getting nothing short of massive government handouts for investments they are probably going to make anyway. 

Last year, Congressman Delaney came up with a plan that could give the president a pass around Democratic obstruction.  His proposed infrastructure bill combines infrastructure investments, which Democrats have been eying for quite some time, and international tax reform, an issue that Republicans have been keen to tackle.  And here’s the catch: it has strong bipartisan support with 40 Democrat and 40 Republican cosponsors. 

By going with tax reform first and seeking more money than Obama's stimulus package, this administration’s legislative agenda and self imposed August deadline suggests remarkable legislative incompetence.  

4. Budget

Despite being able to check off submitting a statutorily required budget to Congress from his to-do list, Trump can hardly consider this any sort of accomplishment at this point.  As it was not even dead on arrival -- Congress will not consider or even hold hearings on it -- and grossly increased the deficit, there is nothing to see here as an accomplishment. 

5. What the GOP Might Do

The biggest obstacle to a sweeping tax reform is the Democrats in the Senate, who could easily filibuster a bill if it adds to the national debt. The reason for that is that tax legislation that adds to the debt cannot be passed by a simple majority vote as per the reconciliation process that passed the budget resolution earlier this year.  That said, there are still ways around the filibuster with a model similar to the Bush Tax Cuts which passed in 2001. 

Per the Washington Post:  “Republicans could avoid Democrats in the Senate altogether by putting forward a plan that would expire after 10 years, the approach they adopted when they reduced taxes under President George W.  Bush. They could also rely on a different set of estimates than those produced by the JCT if that agency's analysis is unfavorable to their plan.” 

The budget resolution passed earlier this year through a reconciliation process could give the GOP some leverage in the legislature. While it may miss on major reforms, the administration could push through several smaller tax reforms that could pave the way for the president’s infrastructure plan.  If Trump were serious about infrastructure, Republicans could look to Congressman Delaney’s plan and set a less ambitious goal than $1 trillion.

In regard to repealing Dodd-Frank, Republicans are having a much harder time than they had anticipated.  As noted, the intricate law has recently picked up an unlikely supporter base: Wall Street itself. The industries main newspaper has cautioned against repealing the law, and several key players have joined the Dodd-Frank chorus.  That won’t stop Republicans, however, from at least seeking to chip away at some parts of the law.  

This is just the beginning of what is going to be a drawn out process, with several wins and many losses.  The question is can the president pull a rabbit out of a hat and pass tax reform or will this administration be legislatively stillborn come August recess?  Money can buy many things and every administration  has a learning curve but it is already beginning run out of the one thing it keeps trying to buy: time.

Related Posts: Banking (Glass-Steagall) Act of 1933 . Dodd-Frank Act .
Hensarling's H2O Bill

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BLOG VIEWS | 340K—Top Ten Posts, Six on WW2 or Depression

Hitler Pays His (Last) Respects to
German Democracy, 1933.

The clicker has passed 340,000 views on this blog, about two million on all of them combined.

Thank you for checking in!

Here are the top ten most-viewed posts in the last month. Nos. 1, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10 all relate to the Great Depression, FDR, Hitler and the Holocaust.

1 HITLER | Mar 5, 1933 — Nazis Elected, End Democrac... Mar 5, 2017

2 NYC | Universities and City Invest in Tech Mar 22, 2017

3 BLS | "Phony Numbers" on Their Way? Jan 23, 2017

4 SPORTS BIZ | Fastest-Growing Game–Pickleball (Upda... Mar 2, 2017

5 HOLOCAUST | Remembrance Day–It Started with Words Jan 27, 2017

6 NEW JERSEY | Huge Fire in North Bergen Dec 21, 2016

7 OXFORD BLOG | 200K Views—Top 10 Most-Read Posts Si... Mar 18, 2017

8 FDR | March 4–Inauguration Mar 4, 2017

9 IMMIGRATION | Centennial of (Anti-)Immigration Act Feb 5, 2017

10 THE DEPRESSION | Causes Oct 16, 2014

FDR | Mar 12—First Fireside Chat

FDR Delivering a "Fireside Chat"

March 12, 2017—On this day, 84 years ago in 1933, eight days after his inauguration, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his first national radio address or Fireside Chat, broadcast directly from the White House.

In their way, they were as revolutionary as President Trump's Tweets.

FDR had told his Republican Treasury Secretary, William H. Woodin, that he didn't want to be bothered with the details of actions to solve the bank panic because he was going to concentrate on communicating the resolution to the public. FDR began his first address with the words:

“I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.”

Columbia Prof. Raymond Moley had been serving as FDR's adviser on the banking crisis, wanted to consult with FDR at every point. He was disappointed that FDR didn't want to be involved, but the President wanted to concentrate on honing his message.

Secretary Will Woodin had been a manager and a CEO a quarter of a century and knew exactly what he had to do. He went right to work. His contribution to calming the panic has never been adequately appreciated and remembered.

The Friday before FDR's inauguration, most banks had already been closed because so many states had initiated their own bank holidays, to give the banks some breathing room as depositors were lining up to withdraw all their money (outgoing President Hoover wouldn't act without FDR's agreement, and FDR's position was that he was not going to try to second-guess Hoover until he became President on March 4).

The local scenes of panic throughout the banking system were exemplified vividly in Frank Capra's movie It's a Wonderful Life (1947), starring Jimmy Stewart as small-town banker George Bailey, who is considering suicide as he sees his depositors destroying his bank, one depositor at a time, while others not in line were desperately worried about their deposits.

FDR's first act was to announce a Federal "bank holiday" – i.e., a presidentially ordered closing of all banks – pending examination of the banks, starting with the largest ones first. The idea was that only "sound" (solvent) banks would be reopened.

Secretary Woodin knew what to do as a top manager, because he had been Chairman of a locomotive company and President of a railway car manufacturer that in 1928 were two of the 20 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. He started working around the clock as if it were a three-shift factory, pushing government staff to:

• Print $2 billion more greenbacks for the banks to have on hand.
• Publicize the printing and packing of the greenbacks with filmed news clips for the cinemas, the equivalent of today's YouTube posts.
• Ensure that all the banks in the country were closed.
• Examine the banks one by one for solvency, with priority given to the largest banks.
• Reopen the sound banks.
• Take steps to close and liquidate the unsound banks.
• Prepare new legislation to prevent a recurrence of the banking crisis–the legislation being passed within months as the Banking Act of 1933, aka the Glass-Steagall Act, named for the bank-regulatory provisions proposed by Senate Banking Chair Carter Glass (D-Va.) and the deposit-insurance plan proposed by House Banking Chair Henry B. Steagall (D-Ala.).
• Prepare new legislation to provide oversight over non-bank financial institutions, which became the Securities Exchange Act of 1933.

Meanwhile, FDR worked on the public-communications groundwork for all these steps. He did not have a Twitter or YouTube outlet, or even television, but he did have the radio.

In his first radio Fireside Chat, FDR explained the closure of the banks as necessary to stop a surge in withdrawals by depositors afraid of losing their savings. Many banks would be reopening within days, FDR said, and he thanked Americans for their  “fortitude and good temper” during the period of the bank holidays.

When FDR took office, the United States was at the low point of the Great Depression, with the unemployment rate between 25 and 33 percent (the reporting of unemployment became more precise during the next decade).

The Fireside Chat got its name from radio journalist Robert (Bob) Trout, called "the Iron Man of Radio" for his ability to keep up a patter during a breaking news story when new information arrived in dribs and drabs.

FDR's purpose was to inspire confidence in himself and in the nonfunctioning banking system. While the chats sound folksy, FDR took great pains to make them that way, using simple vocabulary and anecdotes. Presidents had previously communicated with their citizens almost exclusively through journalists. The Fireside Chats were without precedent and they were effective because radios were still magical and were owned by 90 percent of U.S. households. They were the 1933 equivalent of what Tweets are in the very different America of 2017.

GERMAN ELECTIONS, 1933 | How a Democracy Was Destroyed

Elections to the Reischstag, by party, 1928-1933—Nazis got 38 percent of
seats in July 1932, 34 percent in November 1932, 45 percent in the
manipulated election of March 1933. By November 1933 all parties
 other than the Nazis were banned. https://bit.ly/2FIAuMZ

March 5, 2017 — This date in 1933 (it was a Sunday then and is again this year) was the day after FDR took the reins as President of the United States.

It was also, chillingly, the day German voters elected 288 Nazi Party members to the Weimar Republic's parliament, the Reischstag.

Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor by German President Paul von Hindenburg, the formal head of the German Government since 1925. An aristocrat (in Germany, the von prefix signifies that someone has the title at least of Baron), von Hindenburg did not think much of upstart Adolf Hitler. However, he was at his wit's end dealing with Hitler's appeal to a totally demoralized German people. Hindenburg hoped to establish control over the Nazis by bringing Hitler into his tent.

Hitler swiftly trashed the tent...

He laid out his 1933 campaign early in the year, in a radio Appeal to the German People on February 1. He wrote most of the text of the Appeal himself. He said:

• The Weimar coalition that ruled the country since Nov. 9, 1918, generated 14 years of "Marxist" rule (i.e., under the largest party, the Social Democrats) that dominated the other parties in the Weimar coalition. 
• Unless the German People reacted against this "Bolshevism" there would be anarchy. 
• Germany's fate was in the hands of Almighty God and German voters.

Here is some of the language of Hitler's Appeal. See if you don't think this sounds contemporary. Check off the buttons he is pressing:

It is an appalling inheritance which we are taking over. The task before us is the most difficult which has faced German statesmen in living memory. But we all have unbounded confidence, for we believe in our nation and in its eternal values. Farmers, workers, and the middle class must unite to contribute the bricks wherewith to build the new Reich. The National Government will therefore regard it as its first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our state. Standing above estates and classes, it will bring back to our people the consciousness of its racial and political unity and the obligations arising therefrom. It wishes to base the education of German youth on respect for our great past and pride in our old traditions. It will therefore declare merciless war on spiritual, political and cultural nihilism. Germany must not and will not sink into Communist anarchy. [Bold face added. That Hitler claimed Christianity was the basis of his morality was a shocker to me. On the racial front, he turned out to be as evil as he promised he would be.]

Hitler pays his (last) respects to 
democracy in 1933.

That 1933 election was the last that West Germans were able to vote in until 1949, and it was the last free election in a united Germany until 1990.

The March 1933 election made the Nazis not only the largest party, but a party large enough to exceed comfortably any likely coalition. With just 33 percent of the German voters, the Nazi Party gained 44.5 percent of the votes in the Reichstag.

Hitler's Nazi Party had previously gotten nowhere, with less than 3 percent of the German electorate before the Crash of 1929 (see table above). Between 1928 and 1930, the Nazi Party grew from the ninth-largest party to the second-largest, with 18 percent of the vote in the Reichstag.

Two years later, the Nazi Party was the largest. The reason was a series of financial disasters that became global with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929. The disasters crushed the  German economy and the Weimar Government seemed powerless to do anything about it. When the cost of rampant speculation in the 1920s is evaluated by history, the rise of Hitler, the Holocaust and the Second World War should be put on the ledger sheet.

Nazi "Ballot", 1938 edition. Vote "YES"
[Ja] for Hitler, or "No" [Nein] for 
Trouble. [Vote No, and we will find you.]

To gain absolute power after the March 5 election, Hitler engineered the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933. This made Hitler dictator of Germany, subject only to the approval of President von Hindenburg.

Approval of the Reichstag became unnecessary. Within months Hitler banned all parties other than the Nazi Party. As of November 1933, the Reichstag became a vestigial assembly of Nazi party members.

That left in Hitler's way just von Hindenburg, who in July 1934 was 86 years old and dying of lung cancer. On August 1, Hitler's cabinet passed the "Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich," which stipulated that upon the death of von Hindenburg, the offices of president and chancellor would be merged. Hitler would then be accountable to no one, becoming Führer und Reichskanzler des deutschen Volkes.

In 1922 Hitler's anti-Semitism was
dismissed as "not so genuine or violent..."

Then Hitler flew to Neudeck, to the bedside of von Hindenburg.

Conveniently, the President died the very next day. Hitler consolidated his dictatorship and that was the end of democracy in Germany until the Bundestag was formed in West Germany after the war. 

Democracy for all of Germany did not return until reunification in 1990.

In the United States, meanwhile, FDR took office and quickly turned around the financial panic with the round-the-clock help of his Republican Treasury Secretary, William H. Woodin.  U.S. financial markets were restored to stability, and economic recovery was started.

Unfortunately, it was too late to change the dim view in Europe of American democracy and capitalism since the Crash. Desperate German voters were an easy mark for Nazi demagogues. In the wake of the Panic and Depression, a mad hater had taken control of that country. FDR and other world leaders would have to confront this for the rest of his presidency.

Hitler's assumption of sole power had not been expected in the United States. On Nov. 21, 1922, The New York Times reported that Hitler's anti-Semitic propaganda was just "a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic and in line[...]" (see clip). The New York Times story refers to the "Hitler organization" as a violation of the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty, and refers to "its predecessor" — the Orgesch.

The Orgesch was named after a forgotten forerunner of Hitler, Georg Escherich (1870-1941). Escherish was a forester and politician with the Bavarian People's Party, which had 18 members elected to the Reichstag on the last ballot in March 1933 (see table at top). Since 1919 he headed the Bavarian Einwohnerwehren, the anti-communist home guard groups. In 1920 Escherich organized his supporters into the Orgesch (from "Organization Escherich"), an anti-Semitic paramilitary group, which violated the Versailles Treaty limit on the size of the German army to 100,000 troops referred to in the NY Times clip. The Orgesch established links with the Heimwehr in Austria, an early harbinger of the Anschluss. The Orgesch was disarmed and disbanded on the orders of the Allies in 1921 as part of wider moves against private armies that had sprouted up in Germany since the Armistice.

But as one devil was killed, seven new ones rose to take its place – the militias of the right, such as the Sturmabteilung and the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, which grew in size until they were disbanded in 1933 in favor of Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard, the super-sadistic Schutzstaffel or S.S.

One year ago, Timothy Egan's Op-Ed column today, "The Beast Is Us," suggests why everyone alive today who is concerned about keeping American democracy should remember March 5, 1933 — the day one-third of Germans voted and elected a dictator bent on a world war, enough voters to end contested elections while Germany took the world into war.

Postscript, April 2, 2017: Christopher R. Browning, Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, reviews a 998-page book by Volker Ullrich in the April 20 issue of The New York Review of Books (pp. 10, 12, 14). The book, Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 (Knopf), shows how Hitler rose out of a weak democracy to become Germany's Führer. While noting major differences, Browning also notes some disturbing similarities between the Weimar era in Germany and American democracy in 2016-2017. He concludes:

Weimar parliamentary government had been supplanted by presidentially appointed chancellors ruling through the emergency decree powers of an antidemocratic president [Paul von Hindenburg] since 1930. In 1933 Hitler simply used this post-democratic stopgap system to install a totalitarian dictatorship with incredible speed and without serious opposition. If we can still effectively protect American democracy from dictatorship, then certainly one lesson from the study of the demise of Weimar and the ascent of Hitler is how important it is to do it early. (My emphasis.)

A Time Line on Hitler's ascendancy to power shows the erosion of Germany democracy over many years.

FDR | March 4–Inauguration

The Brains Trust with President-elect FDR.
L to R: Cary Grayson, Norman Davies, Raymond
Moley, Redford Tugwell, Will Woodin, FDR.

On this day, March 4, 1933, at a climax of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd U.S. president.

For his rained-on Inaugural Address outside the east wing of the U.S. Capitol, FDR had to ascend the steps to the podium to take the oath of office.

To do this, an elaborate series of wheelchair-accessible ramps was constructed and hidden. FDR walked the last few yards leaning heavily on the arm of his son James.

FDR then outlined his New Deal–an expansion of the federal government to create jobs and improve the quality of life for Americans. He told Americans that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” His Inaugural March, composed for the occasion by FDR's Treasury Secretary, William H. Woodin, was played in the rain. Despite the downpour, FDR delivered a speech that conveyed an upbeat, can-do spirit.

The President then had to face serious the bank panics and gold outflows. He turned that job over entirely to Treasury Secretary Woodin so that he could focus on the message that he wanted to deliver to his country.

Woodin immediately focused on printing more bills, getting them to the banks to solve the liquidity problem, publicizing the generation of liquidity, opening solvent ("sound") banks, and closing down banks that were insolvent. Meanwhile, Woodin worked on the passage of the Banking Act of 1933—the Glass-Steagall Act—and the Securities Exchange Act of 1933. The turnaround in the financial markets was almost immediate and endured.

FDR was born in 1982 to an old Dutch family in Hyde Park, NY, the fifth cousin of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, who served two terms as the 26th U.S. president in 1901-1909. In 1905, FDR, then a student at Columbia University Law School, married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt's niece. After three years practicing law, FDR followed his cousin Teddy's lead and campaigned for, and won, election to the NY State Senate in 1910 as a Democrat. He soon earned a reputation as a reform-oriented charismatic politician.

After supporting progressive N.J. Governor Woodrow Wilson in his successful 1912 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, FDR was appointed assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy, a post that Teddy Roosevelt once held. In 1920, FDR won the Democratic nomination for vice president on a ticket with James Cox. The Democrats to Republicans Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, and FDR returned to his law practice and some  business ventures.

In 1921, FDR was stricken with polio and became nearly totally paralyzed. His wife, Eleanor, kept the Roosevelt name alive in Democratic circles. In 1924, partly recovered (although he could never again walk unaided), FDR returned to politics, nominating NY Governor Alfred E. Smith for the presidency with a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention.

In 1928, he again nominated Smith, and the outgoing New York governor urged Roosevelt to run for Governor. Roosevelt campaigned across the state by automobile and was elected even as the state voted in the presidential election against their favorite son and for Republican Herbert Hoover.

As governor, Roosevelt worked for tax relief for farmers and in 1930 won a resounding electoral victory just as the economic recession brought on by the October 1929 stock market crash brought on the Great Depression. Governor Roosevelt mobilized the state government to play an active role in providing relief and spurring economic recovery. His aggressive and effective approach to the economic crisis won him the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932.

The contrast between FDR's activist response in NY State to the Depression and President Hoover's laissez-faire inaction nationwide couldn't have been greater, and FDR had no trouble defeating Hoover in 1932. Many blamed Hoover for the Depression, and FDR carried all but six states. During the next four months before the inauguration, bank panics increased, the economy continued to decline. When Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933, most banks were closed, farms were suffering, 13 million workers were unemployed, and industrial production stood at just over half its 1929 level.

FDR's Treasury Secretary, Will Woodin, was a Republican industrialist who had once run for Congress on a hard-money program. He was a fan of Teddy Roosevelt and helped FDR with his Warm Springs Foundation and with fundraising for his runs for Governor and President.

Woodin was a key player during the financial reforms of the first 100 days of FDR's presidency. Aided by a Democratic Congress, Roosevelt took prompt, decisive action, and most of his New Deal proposals were approved during these 100 days. Most important for the financial sector were the Banking Act or Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a trade of tough bank regulation for a limited deposit insurance program sought by the banks, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1933. Woodin as Treasury Secretary was deeply involved in the passage of these laws.

Job-creating programs also passed in the first 100 days included the Agricultural Adjustment Act, National Industrial Recovery Act, and the Public Works Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority.

Although many in the business community stubbornly criticized FDR's regulatory and job-creating programs—both FDR and Secretary Woodin were called traitors to their class—the programs unquestionably improved America’s economic climate and FDR was reelected handily three more times. Woodin became sick from the long hours and stress of his job, and died in May 1934; FDR called him a "martyr to public service."

PIGOU TAX | Good Tax on Sugary Soda (Updated May 29, 2016)

Illustration of "Taxing Sugar to Fund a City",
Op-Ed, NY Times, May 25, 2016

An Op-Ed by Mark Bittman, who co-founded The Purple Carrot and is a Fellow with the Union of Concerned Scientists, argues that the Berkeley, Calif. popular vote (3 to 1) to tax sugary soda drinks is the wave of the future.

Four other cities in Northern California are also considering such a tax, including the biggest, San Francisco.

So is Philadelphia.

Bernie Sanders opposes such taxes on grocery items because he says they are regressive, i.e., their burden falls on the poor more than the rich.

That is so, not only because poor people spend more of their income on groceries, but also because they are less educated and don't realize how bad for their health is a large intake of sugary drinks.

All the more reason why this tax is especially important for poor people.

Mayor Jim Kenney faces Bernie Sanders' concern about the regressive nature of soda taxes. He is pledging the revenue from the new tax to fund community amenities, especially those for children–universal pre-kindergarten (Head Start for All), community schools, libraries and parks.

So it is win-win for the poor. Either they continue buying the unhealthy soft drinks and support their community projects, or they give up buying the sugared drinks (Pepsi and Coke are offering many  alternatives) and they reduce the demand for health care services.

Comment

So far I have mostly just summarized Bittman's essay. Let me say that I think Bittman is right on this issue. While Bernie Sanders is on target with many of his financial proposals, he is I think wrong on the question of taxing sugary soda.

The illustration to Bittman's essay, of a soda can siphoning into a piggy bank is apt on its own, and is doubly apt when we consider that it is a PIGou Tax.

A tax on things raises their price and reduces their consumption. If the items are potentially socially deleterious, like gambling, tobacco and alcohol, then reducing their usage is a good thing. A Pigou Tax, named after British academic Arthur Cecil Pigou, is one that falls on socially undesirable goods. FDR quickly understood that it was better to permit alcohol and get revenue from it through a "sin tax" than to continue to try to prohibit it.