Values and the morals of democracy
A few weeks after Christmas late in the 1930s, the president of the United States addressed himself to the problems attendant to “maintaining the morals of democracy.”
It was not the first, and it wouldn’t be the last time, that Franklin Roosevelt spoke of civic virtue. He pretty regularly cast his policies in ethical or even religious terms; Roosevelt was an Episcopalian, a “simple Christian,” as his wife said.
One of the greatest of FDR’s biographers, James MacGregor Burns, has written, “Probably no American politician has given so many speeches that were essentially sermons, rather than statements of policy…. He wanted and expected his sermons to serve as practical moral guides to his people.”
And so it is hardly surprising to find Roosevelt drawing a moral bead on something as secular as business monopolies, as he did on the night of Jan. 8, 1938, while speaking to a Democratic Party audience in Washington, D.C.
Attending the annual Jackson Day Dinner, held in commemoration of the birthday of Andrew Jackson, Roosevelt referenced the struggles of Democratic presidents Jackson and Thomas Jefferson against the powerful, vested interests of their days.
(Both men are now out of favor with Democrats; they owned slaves and Jackson mistreated American Indians. Their falling away in disfavor is maybe a column for another day.)
“These men – Roosevelt included Republicans Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt – “stand out because of the constructive battles they waged, not merely against things temporarily evil but battles for things permanently good – battles for the basic morals of democracy, which REST ON RESPECT FOR THE RIGHT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT AND FAITH IN MAJORITY RULE.” (Emphasis mine.)
Taking dead aim at his days’ business tycoons, Roosevelt said, “At heart, some of the small minority on the other side … oppose our American form of government.
“That is the cause of the great struggle that we are engaged in today – a struggle for the maintenance of the integrity of the morals of democracy.”
The president expressed confidence that “we are in the process of winning” the battle.
Facing a far sterner domestic challenge to the “basic morals of democracy” than Roosevelt did in 1938, President Biden seems hamstrung in making the case for democracy against the anti-democratic instincts of today’s Republican Party – not least because he appears reluctant to argue consistently on moral or ethical grounds.
As regards the filibuster, which effectively hands over power to a Senate minority, there’s plenty of agency in Roosevelt’s “faith in majority rule” as one of the foundation stones of American democracy.
It can’t get much clearer where Roosevelt might have stood on abolishing or drastically modifying the modern-day filibuster rule. Biden has so far failed to take a definitive stand.
From the first moments of his 12 years in the White House, Roosevelt assumed the role of pastor-in-chief.
In his inaugural address, FDR spoke of applying “values more noble than mere monetary profit” to solving the problems of the Great Depression.
As bad as the depression was, and it was plenty bad, Roosevelt said, “These dark days will be well worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow man.”
He concluded by saying, “With the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values … we aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.”
To be clear, Roosevelt was no saint. Democratic politicians can’t be. Political leadership, unlike religious stewardship, demands dexterity; trimming and compromise come with the territory.
A pastor or priest may seek the safe harbor of the cloister. Not so the politician. “I have had to work through many people whom I do not like or even trust,” Roosevelt told a fellow politician, “but I have worked with them, in order to obtain the ultimate goal.”
For decades, liberals have stood aside while conservatives took on the role of the guardians of American values. All of that sounds increasingly hollow and self-serving as politicians on the right embrace Mar A Logo-style authoritarianism.
Not just out of conviction but because it’s good politics, it’s time Democrats begin, as E.J. Dionne Jr. recently put it, to “pay attention … to the values reflected in which problems” they “choose to confront” and conversely, which problems Republicans choose to ignore or make worse (such as their war on expanded heath care coverage and opposition to the child tax care credit).
FDR knew he could not continually sound the highest note in his rhetorical arsenal. Moralizing wears people down. But he had the virtue of being consistent about virtue in politics and public life.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.