Commerce Cabinet Crisis VII: Harry Hopkins
Harry Hopkins was born in Iowa. As a child, his family moved to Nebraska then to Chicago, then back to Iowa where Hopkins attended Grinnell College. After graduation in 1912 he took a job with Christodora House, a settlement house, in the pre-hipster Lower East Side of New York City. From there he shifted to a position at the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. In 1915, the mayor appointed him executive secretary of the Bureau of Child Welfare which administered what we would now call welfare payments to single mothers but at the time was understood as pensions for widows with dependent children. He then became the director of the Gulf Region of the American Red Cross, and then in 1921 the Gulf Region was merged with the Southeast Region and he ran the whole thing out of Atlanta. In 1922, he moved back to the city and took the helm at the New York Tuberculosis Association and helped expend the outfit and merge it with the New York Heart Association.
He stayed in this position for nine years until, in 1931, New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt but Jesse Straus in charge of an agency called the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration. Straus hired Hopkins as executive director, and about a year later Hopkins replaced Straus as President of TERA beginning his long association with FDR.
FDR, obviously, became president soon after this. Hopkins was a hugely important figure in the New Deal as the administrator relief and jobs programs such as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). He was also a hugely influential political adviser to Roosevelt to whom the apocryphal strategy “We will tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect” is typically attributed. In December of 1938, the post of Secretary of Commerce was added to Hopkins’ portfolio. In practice, however, his work in this job was largely overshadowed by his FERA/WPA gigs and his role as a political adviser. At this same period, Harold Ickes was dual-hatted as Secretary of Interior and head of the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Ickes/Hopkins clashes of the perogatives of Interior-PWA and Commerce-WPA were legendary.
Even before U.S. entry into World War II, FDR began to shift his attention from the New Deal to the fight against Nazism. As such, Hopkins was shifted out of the Commerce job and sent overseas as an unofficial emissary to Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin as well as to a key role in the Lend-Lease program.
26 Responses to “Commerce Cabinet Crisis VII: Harry Hopkins”
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February 21st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
FDR prudently waited to dispatch official adversaries until the U.S. declared war on the Allies.
February 21st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Ah, Harry Hopkins, one of my personal favorite New Dealers and a major subject in my dissertation-in-progress.
As Commerce Secretary, Hopkins’ main activity that I recall was expanding their economic research program, helping to spread Keynesian economic theory throughout the government and the media. It was also understood widely that Hopkins’ appointment was meant as a springboard for a vice-presidential run in 1940, to set him up to replace FDR in 1944. (This was also Henry Wallace’s plan: Ag Sec –> VP –> President) However, his tenure was cut short by stomach cancer and hemochromatosis, and likewise his presidential ambitions.
Some fun facts about Hopkins:
-Despite a background in public health work, Hopkins was a lifelong chain-smoker and coffee drinker – a classic A-type personality who lived in his office and usually looked “as though he had spent the previous night sleeping in a hayloft.”
-At various times, Hopkins was known as “Roosevelt’s Shadow,” or “FDR’s Deputy President.”
-Once described as a cross between a bookie and a priest, Hopkins was a huge fan of horse-racing, and used to hold staff meetings at the race-track.
February 21st, 2009 at 5:28 pm
As you say, “the apocryphal strategy “We will tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect” is typically attributed…” to Harry Hopkins, but it was made up out of whole cloth.
Hopkins denied saying it immediately after it was printed, and all the evidence suggests it was bullshit — too bad, in my view: it’s a great quote.
But the story goes that a Broadway producer named Max Gordon, the writer Heywood Broun, and Hopkins were at the track one day. According to Broun, Hopkins was mostly bored (which I would guess meant he was losing). Afterward, Gordon pushed the faked quote to FDR’s opponents in the media, notably Arthur Krock of the NYTimes, who made it famous. When challenged about the quote, Gordon explained ‘that’s not what he said but that’s what he meant’.
Broun backed Hopkins: he never said it. But Krock rather lamely explained attributing the quote to Hopkins and giving it wide circulation, by pretending that he had tried to determine if it was “an offhand remark”, which (he claimed) would have meant the NYT wouldn’t use it. [That Hopkins argued that he had never said anything like it seems to indicate a higher standard of proof would be in order, e.g., calling Hopkins to confirm it or getting somebody who was there to back it explicitly, as Gordon would not: but maybe that's just me.]
Tellingly, years later Krock had a similar story about Dwight Eisenhower saying something pithy in private, and in that case, he refused to print it BECAUSE “important men” shouldn’t be quoted in public with what they say in private.
The more things change….
February 21st, 2009 at 6:04 pm
adversary MSS, emissary Bentley
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Foods containing calcium such as cottage cheese, yogurt, carrots, etc are great for slowing down iron absorbtion.
Too much iron in the liver is worsened with booze.
Drinks that have tannins work very well also. Black tea and my favorite, green tea are very helpful. Most herb teas do not contain tannins.
Vitamin C enhances the absorption of iron. It is wise only to consume a moderate amount and not take Vitamin C tablets. Vitamin C has been known to precipitate heart palpitations in those with hemochromatosis.
The ingestion of black tea has been shown to decrease the absorption of iron. African tea which is becoming popular may contain iron so too much should not be consumed.
Patients with hemochromatosis should not take supplements unless there are documented deficiencies.
In severe HH the disorder manifests as potentially life threatening conditions such as septicemia, cirrhosis of the liver, liver cancer, diabetes, heart failure and heart arrhythmias.
Hemochromatosis sufferrers should drink lots of water every day to keep the blood thin for easier phlebotomies and to keep the kidneys nice and flushed out.
For people who are diagnosed and treated early, normal life spans are possible. If left untreated, HH will lead to critical organ damage and most likely death.
You can find lots of real life tips from Pat at his blog:
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