Posted on 01/03/2018 1:57:13 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
My favorite quote is from legendary attorney Clarence Darrow. “History repeats itself. That’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.”
Want proof? Consider the perpetual shouting match between President Trump and the news media where they scream “Fake news!” and “Collusion!” at each other. It’s unpleasant, undignified, and unseemly. It’s also unoriginal. Because their tiff is nothing compared to the rocky relationship shared by America’s longest-serving president and the reporters who covered him.
Journalists of the 1930s and 40s willingly hid the extent of President Franklin Roosevelt’s physical disability. True, Americans knew he’d been paralyzed by polio. But news stories never mentioned the fact that FDR was completely wheelchair bound.
So, it may come as a surprise that Roosevelt had repeated knockdown, drag-out brawls with the same reporters who sheltered his secret.
In many ways, Roosevelt and Trump started out on a similar note with the news media. Both were wealthy New Yorkers with a knack for saying things that wound up in print. They were good copy, as editors used to say, and they played the media like a violin.
But things changed once each moved into the White House.
Roosevelt enjoyed an extended honeymoon with the press his first year as president. Yet, FDR’s legendary charm began wearing thin in 1934. By 1935, things were sliding into open warfare. He repeatedly griped about what he called “poisonous propaganda.” In the president’s mind, any reporter who wasn’t strongly for him was against him. Asking tough questions about his New Deal programs amounted to treason. Roosevelt took those questions as personal attacks and nurtured bitter grudges.
By the time he ran for re-election in 1936, he complained that 85 percent of the press was against him. (Although that didn’t prevent him from winning one of history’s biggest landslides.)
The Roosevelt administration especially played hardball with the new, and highly influential, medium of radio. When the FCC was created in 1934 (bringing broadcasters under federal regulation for the first time), FDR tapped the man who’d handled radio in his 1932 presidential campaign to head it. Radio networks got the message pronto: Don’t question Team Roosevelt, and nobody gets hurt. Henry A. Bellows, vice president of CBS Radio noted, “no broadcast would be permitted over the Columbia Broadcasting System that in any way was critical of any policy of the Administration.”
Things sunk to an all-time low in 1942. The first year of our involvement in World War II went badly for America. It was a rough way to start a war. During his Dec. 18 news conference at the White House, FDR shocked reporters by producing a Nazi Iron Cross medal, symbol of Germany’s dictatorial militarism, handed it to a New York Daily News reporter and instructed him to give it to columnist John O’Donnell at his paper. FDR said O’Donnell had earned it by giving aid and comfort to the enemy through his columns. And it didn’t stop there.
O’Donnell later covered the fighting in Europe. Returning home in 1945, he and another reporter had their White House credentials yanked due to “their isolationist, anti-British, anti-Russian pens.” A nasty spat followed, eventually becoming public when it spilled into the Philadelphia Record’s pages. It grew so nasty that Steve Early, the very first White House press secretary, threatened to resign if the men’s credentials weren’t returned. FDR grudgingly complied.
Consider this incident from 1937. When the New York Times’ Bob Post asked about reports that Roosevelt planned to seek an unprecedented third term in office in 1940, the president became visibly upset. “Oh, my God,” FDR snapped as he handed Post an invisible dunce cup. “Go into the corner over there and put on the dunce cap and stand with your back to the crowd.” Most reporters laughed, although they privately said Roosevelt had gone too far. Post was humiliated.
Fake news, an Iron Cross for perceived unfairness … the inherent conflict between journalists and the president has been going long before Trump arrived in Washington. History repeats itself, remember? That’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.
I thought this was interesting:
“O’Donnell later covered the fighting in Europe. Returning home in 1945, he and another reporter had their White House credentials yanked due to “their isolationist, anti-British, anti-Russian pens.” A nasty spat followed, eventually becoming public when it spilled into the Philadelphia Record’s pages. It grew so nasty that Steve Early, the very first White House press secretary, threatened to resign if the men’s credentials weren’t returned. FDR grudgingly complied. “
—
Just pointing out, that anti-British, and anti-Russian pens, were apparently a big thing for him.
Having grown up during the cold war myself, that seems an interesting frame of reference for the President. And now we seem to be getting along famously, with the country once again.
Times they do change.
I am incredulous. This sounds like revisionism. As a socialist FDR would have been a media favorite like Obama, not an adversary like Trump.
You forgot the FAKE NEWS alert.
Sounds as though there were a few honest people in the journalist profession until FDR shut them up.
Excellent article. Shows how Roosevelt used the power of government to shape the media toward the Progressive mediacracy it became.
Roosevelt got elected.
Government took over the airwaves and regulated radio in 1934, with the FCC.
The Roosevelt administration used the FCC to bring the media to heel and tamp down dissent.
Broadcast media became more and more Progressive, resulting in the Mediacracy that ruled the country for 50 years, starting in the mid 1960’s.
Maybe. But we have additionally seen an absolutely unprecedented number of Fake News stories (wishes / propaganda / goading / fishing) since Trump was elected. He doesn’t list any examples of Fake News run against FDR here.
Yeah apples, oranges and Marxists. A socialist president and a socialist leaning media with just a bit more capitalist news media. It was these Roosevelt attacked.
Oh and mr Marxist Roosevelt…there is no such American right as the freedom from WANT.
Actually Trump loves using the media as a wedge.
“This sounds like revisionism.”
Everything we know about FDR that’s nice, is pure lies. He was a right bastard and almost took down our country.
The Media at this point was in transition from the bastions of truth, honor and integrity (It’s commonly thought that by not mentioning his disability, the Media were not trying to push his feebleness into the world spotlight, making America look weak to our enemies). They didn’t start to go full-tilt until the 50s, 60s and finally complete in the 70s.
Remember that during the Vietnam war, where many US kids didn’t want to fight because they were learning how great Communism was, they turned to college as a way to stay home. Such programs as Liberal Arts kept them off the battlegrounds. When the liberal arts degrees were handed out, they were qualified to quickly infiltrate media in all forms.
It only took about 5-15 years for them to get power and position in the media outlets and they were allowed - nay, enabled - to push their communist agenda. It took only a few years for Communism to flourish in the US. And we didn’t detect it because they were flourishing in the media who is the exact industry who controls everything you see and hear.
Roosevelt enjoyed an extended honeymoon with the press his first year as president.
...
I’m already seeing a big difference between Trump and FDR.
I’m not so sure President Trump hates the media. Absolutely, they are the object of his derision. But, they (inadvertently) contributed a great deal to his being elected President. The media DOES hate him...but they’re so blinded by their hate that they don’t see they’ve actually helped him. .Trump understands the media...they have no clue about him.
I grew up during the Cold War myself, and took an avid interest in WWII history. Lots of war stories were printed and/or put on the Silver Screen in those days.But just as interesting is the political history of WWII. Things like the fact that Lindberg was not merely an isolationist, he was the public face of the movement. And isolationism was the mainstream of American political thought - before Pearl Harbor, involvement in WWII polled 80% against . . . which was precisely the feeling in Britain at the time of the infamous Munich agreement between Chamberlain and Hitler.
Dunkirk snatched the British Army from the jaws of annihilation, but not from the jaws of defeat. And the Soviet Union was allied with Germany. There was a belief, after the May, 1940 Fall of France, that Britain could not but come to terms with Hitler.
OTOH the idea of the Royal Navy under German control powerfully focused the minds of American strategic thinkers. The upshot was that FDR, acting about as constitutionally as Barak Obama’s “phone and pen,”
Two other interesting facts: Pearl Harbor was just about exactly 18 months after the start of the US military productivity buildup - and when FDR asked Bill Knudsen - the only man Bernard Baruch recommended for the job of arranging the bulidup, after himself declining on grounds of age - how long the buildup would take, he replied, "18 months.” And according to
- funneled as much military aid to Britain as he could manage, and
- instituted a frantic build up America’s capacity (in terms of buildings, and especially machine tools) to manufacture war materiel.
Per Wikipedia, "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939 . . . “
- Freedom's Forge:
- How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
Arthur Hermanthe US Navy harassed the German U-boats before Pearl Harbor - intensifying its activity “throughout the summer of 1941” - and, of course, the first day of summer was exactly when Hitler invaded the USSR.
- The New Dealers' War:
- FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas FlemingThe thing is, Russia as a beleagered - conventional wisdom was that the USSR was no more of a match for the Wehrmact than France allied with Britan had proved to be in Europe - enemy of Hitler was a different kettle of fish than the USSR in alliance with Hitler. FDR’s right hand man, Harry Hopkins, was in Britain at the time of the invasion of Russia, and he went to Moscow to evaluate the situation. Stalin told Hopkins the USSR would be able to fight Hitler for a year, if unaided, and indefinitely with aid. Hopkins was convinced - and the US became an ally of the USSR, and would remain so until the death of Hitler.
The US had not recognized the USSR after the Bolchevik Revolution, but doing so was FDR’s first diplomatic initiative. You can say all you want about Sen. Joseph McCarthy, but the US government was riddled with Soviet sympathizers by the time Truman retired.
Thanks Oshkalaboomboom.
Roosevelt enjoyed an extended honeymoon with the press his first year as president. Yet, FDR’s legendary charm began wearing thin in 1934. By 1935, things were sliding into open warfare. He repeatedly griped about what he called “poisonous propaganda.” In the president’s mind, any reporter who wasn’t strongly for him was against him. Asking tough questions about his New Deal programs amounted to treason. Roosevelt took those questions as personal attacks and nurtured bitter grudges. By the time he ran for re-election in 1936, he complained that 85 percent of the press was against him. (Although that didn’t prevent him from winning one of history’s biggest landslides.) The Roosevelt administration especially played hardball with the new, and highly influential, medium of radio. When the FCC was created in 1934 (bringing broadcasters under federal regulation for the first time), FDR tapped the man who’d handled radio in his 1932 presidential campaign to head it. Radio networks got the message pronto: Don’t question Team Roosevelt, and nobody gets hurt. Henry A. Bellows, vice president of CBS Radio noted, “no broadcast would be permitted over the Columbia Broadcasting System that in any way was critical of any policy of the Administration.” Things sunk to an all-time low in 1942. The first year of our involvement in World War II went badly for America. It was a rough way to start a war. During his Dec. 18 news conference at the White House, FDR shocked reporters by producing a Nazi Iron Cross medal, symbol of Germany’s dictatorial militarism, handed it to a New York Daily News reporter and instructed him to give it to columnist John O’Donnell at his paper. FDR said O’Donnell had earned it by giving aid and comfort to the enemy through his columns. And it didn’t stop there. O’Donnell later covered the fighting in Europe. Returning home in 1945, he and another reporter had their White House credentials yanked due to “their isolationist, anti-British, anti-Russian pens.” A nasty spat followed, eventually becoming public when it spilled into the Philadelphia Record’s pages. It grew so nasty that Steve Early, the very first White House press secretary, threatened to resign if the men’s credentials weren’t returned. FDR grudgingly complied.
General William Tecumseh Sherman despised the press. He banned them from traveling with his troops, and even had one reporter court-martialed for defying his order. I recall in a book I read that one time, General Sherman found a reporter in his camp, had him arrested, and told him that there was a train leaving at a certain time, and that he’d better be on it. And like the press today, they made up stories, and called Sherman names as revenge for his being so anti-press.
President John Adams had the Alien and Sedition Acts to prosecute newspapermen and had at least one conviction.
President Thomas Jefferson let the Alien and Sedition Acts lapse, but he still prosecuted newspapermen anyway.
No badmouthing Uncle Joe!
Good post.
When FDR took office there were a number of influential Republican newspapers. The Chicago Tribune feuded with him his entire time in office. It wasn't until after WWII that the press began its transition to Democrat dominance.
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