(Harold) Ickes Named U.S. Oil "Dictator"

(PDF Direct Download) Idaho Times ^ | May 31st, 1941 | T. F. REYNOLDS

[ProgressingAmerica]

HYDE PARK, N. Y., May 31 (U.R) - President Roosevelt today began implementing his proclamation of an unlimited national emergency today by naming Secretary of Interior Harold. L. Ickes virtual dictator of the $10,000,000,000 American oil industry.

Designating Ickes as petroleum coordinator for national defense, Mr. Roosevelt ordered him to formulate a program to insure "that the supply of petroleum and its products will be accommodated to the needs of the nation and the national defense program."

The move followed Mr. Roosvelt's warnbig in a letter to Speak­er Sam Rayborn that oil rationing in the east is a "distinct possilbility" in the next tew months and Ickes’own prediction that gasoline-less Sundays in eastern states may shortly become an actuality.

Mr. Roosevelt, in a letter to Ickes, gave him power only to "make specific recommendations" to federal or state governmental authorities and, to the petroleum industry. But under the state of unlimited emergency proclaimed by Mr. Roosevelt last Tuesday night, there was little doubt that the "recommendations" of the new coordinator or matters of petroleum dispersion and use would amount to a virtual ukase.

[jttpwalsh]

Thank you for the courtesy of your reply.

[ProgressingAmerica]

I see the point you’re making. You are correct.

Media titles aside, there’s still a question as to where FDR got the idea from:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2905842/posts

[SunkenCiv]

May 31st, 1941 — thanks ProgressingAmerica.

[justiceseeker93]

It's pretty obvious that some people at the Obama White House have studied the history of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration quite extensively and are emulating it whenever feasible. So we are today reliving in many ways the tyrannical government actions that occurred then, with slight changes in the government vocabulary, perhaps, like Obama’s “czars” instead of Roosevelt's “dictators.”

[null and void]

Um, Nixon appointed Czars.

[justiceseeker93]

Um, Nixon appointed Czars.

I don't remember them, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did, because Nixon was a big government Republican. And he didn't have to study history to emulate Roosevelt because he himself lived through the Roosevelt era.

But that's beside the point I was making, namely that there is a lot of Roosevelt redux in the Obama era, primarily in the areas of government takeover of the economy and Keynesian stimuli and massive deficit spending, all of it accruing to the benefit of political pals of the regime and little or none to the benefit of the economy in general.