John T. Flynn > Quotes

“But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities in American public life. The danger lies not so much in the would-be Fuhrers who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certainly deeply running currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun there.”
― John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America

“Fascism is not the result of dictatorship - dictatorship is the product of fascism.”
― John T. Flynn

“The mere New Dealers, as that term came to be understood, comprised those wandering, vague dreamers who held to a shadowy conviction that somehow the safety of humankind depended upon the creation of some sort of ill-defined but benevolent state that would end poverty, give everybody a job and an easy old age, and who supposed that this could be done because they had discovered that money grew in government buildings.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“Little by little the government must be made stronger, the rights of the citizens before the government must be reduced. Little by little, if the Planned Economy is to be made to work, the free republic must wither. These two ideas—the idea of a free republic and the idea of a Planned Economy—cannot live together.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“If you would know, therefore, who are the fascists in America, you must ask yourselves not who are the men and women most vocal in their denunciations of Hitler and Mussolini. The most ardent enemies of those two leaders were some of their rival fascist dictators in Europe. The test of fascism is not one's rage against the Italian and German war lords. The test is—how many of the essential principles of fascism do you accept and to what extent are you prepared to apply those fascist ideas to American social and economic life? When you can put your finger on the men or the groups that urge for America the debt-supported state, thee autarchial corporative state, the state bent on the socialization of investment and the bureaucratic government of industry and society, the establishment of the institution of militarism as the great glamorous public-works project of the nation and the institution of imperialism under which it proposes to regulate and rule the world and, along with this, proposes to alter the forms of our government to approach as closely as possible the unrestrained, absolute government—then you will know you have located the authentic fascist.”
― John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America

“We have now managed to acquire bases all over the world—islands distant as the Australian Archipelago which President Roosevelt seized in 1938 without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress. There is no part of the world where trouble can break out where we do not have bases of some sort of which, if we wish to use the pretension, we cannot claim our interests are menaced. Thus menaced there must remain when the war is over continuing argument in the hands of the imperialists for a vast naval establishment and a huge army ready to attack anywhere or to resist an attack from all the enemies we shall be obliged to have. Because always the most powerful argument for a huge army maintained for economic reasons is that we have enemies. We must have enemies, They will become and economic necessity for us.”
― John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America

“The “spendthrift” Hoover was in California at his Palo Alto home putting his own affairs in order, while the great Economizer who had denounced Hoover’s deficits had now produced in 100 days a deficit larger than Hoover had produced in two years.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“There was indeed a good deal of tolerance for the idea of planning our capitalist system even in the most conservative circles. And a man could support publicly and with vehemence this system of the Planned Economy without incurring the odium of being too much of a radical for polite and practical society. There was only one trouble with it. This was what Mussolini had adopted—the Planned Capitalist State. And he gave it a name—fascism. Then came Hitler and adopted the same idea. His party was called the Nazi party, which was derived from the initials of its true name,”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“The destruction of representative government and private capitalism of the old school was complete when Hitler came to power. He had contributed mightily to the final result by his ceaseless labors to create chaos. But when he stepped into the chancellery all the ingredients of national socialist dictatorship were there ready to his hand…

The aim in which Bismarck had failed was accomplished almost at a stroke in the Weimar Constitution – the subordination of the individual states to the federal state. The old imperial state had to depend on the constituent states to provide it with a part of its funds. Now this was altered, and the central government of the republic became the great imposer and collector of taxes, paying to the states each a share. Slowly the central government absorbed the powers of the states. The problems of business groups and social groups were all brought to Berlin. The republican Reichstag, unlike its imperial predecessor, was now charged with the vast duty of managing almost every energy of the social and economic life of the republic. German states were always filled with bureaus, so that long before World War I travelers referred to the ‘bureaucratic tyrannies’ of the empire. But now the bureaus became great centralized organisms of the federal government dealing with the multitude of problems which the Reichstag as completely incapable of handling. Quickly, the actual function of governing leaked out of the parliament into the hands of the bureaucrats. The German republic became a paradise of bureaucracy on a scale which the old imperial government never knew. The state, with its powers enhanced by the acquisition of immense economic powers and those powers brought to the center of government and lodged in the executive, was slowly becoming, notwithstanding its republican appearance, a totalitarian state that was almost unlimited in its powers.”
― John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America

“He began with a blanket code which every business man was summoned to sign—to pay minimum wages and observe the maximum hours of work, to abolish child labor, abjure price increases and put people to work. Every instrument of human exhortation opened fire on business to comply—the press, pulpit, radio, movies. Bands played, men paraded, trucks toured the streets blaring the message through megaphones. Johnson hatched out an amazing bird called the Blue Eagle. Every business concern that signed up got a Blue Eagle, which was the badge of compliance.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“who would rebuild from the very bottom.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“In America, the American Federation of Labor, which included most of organized labor, specialized in organizing only craft unions. That is, carpenters, plumbers, masons, painters, machinists, etc., were organized in unions representing these separate crafts. They constituted only a small part of the labor force. The vast majority of workers were unskilled and were employed in factories or single industries and were unorganized. There were three large industrial unions—the United Mine Workers of John L. Lewis, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union of David Dubinsky and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Sidney Hillman.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“But the scene in the great wide country had changed vastly. The nation was having its disasters, but they were natural ones—rivers swollen and farms inundated—but no great economic disturbances were in sight. Roosevelt appeared before the throng as the great physician who had healed the nation. True, the patient was not wholly recovered. The national income, payrolls, industrial production were still 20 per cent under the 1929 figure and building was only about one-third of what it had been in 1929. Farm commodities were still under their 1929 price. But things were moving up.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“In obedience to the program worked out by Woodin and Moley that the banking solution must be followed by a bold assertion of the policy of economy, his first message to Congress called for the passage of the economy act cutting salaries of government employees 25 per cent.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“The tremendous victory of the President at the polls had done something to his enemies”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“banks increased from five to fifteen million dollars a day. In two weeks $114,000,000 of gold was taken from banks for export and another $150,000,000 was withdrawn to go into hiding. The infection of fear was everywhere. Factories were closing. Unemployment was rising rapidly. Bank closings multiplied daily.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“When Roosevelt took office there were 19,000 banks in the country, mostly closed, all closed when he issued his decree. By March 16, about 9,883 were reopened fully and 2,678 on a restricted basis. But over 6,000 remained closed, many of which might have been saved in whole or in part if Roosevelt had been willing to open the way for the government to act after the crisis became acute in February.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“Lewis was interested in bringing into existence industrial unions like his own, in which he had always believed. Roosevelt was interested in bringing into American labor unions as many voters as possible and in capturing their leadership to be used to build up a powerful labor faction which could control the Democratic party and which he and his allies could control through the vast power of the government and the vast powers of the labor leaders, along with the immense financial resources that so great a labor movement would have. The Communists were interested in getting into the unions, into key positions as union officers, statisticians, economists, etc., in order to utilize the apparatus of the unions to promote the cause of revolution. I think we have to be fair in saying at this point that neither Roosevelt nor Lewis realized the peril to which they were exposing both the unions and the country. This thing called revolutionary propaganda and activity is something of an art in itself. It has been developed to a high degree in Europe where revolutionary groups have been active for half a century and where Communist revolutionary groups have achieved such success during the past 25 years.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“were in no unions at all or separated into as many unions as there were plants. Aside from affording the unions protection,”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“Actually the one thing he did that was based on a very definite philosophy was the program that consisted of the NRA and the AAA. This was a plan to take the whole industrial and agricultural life of the country under the wing of the government, organize it into vast farm and industrial cartels, as they were called in Germany, corporatives as they were called in Italy, and operate business and the farms under plans made and carried out under the supervision of the government. This is the complete negation of liberalism. It is, in fact, the essence of fascism.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“on Hoover in 1932. By 1935 the expenditures of the Hoover administration had been more than doubled by Roosevelt and the debt had increased by 16 billion dollars. Mr. Roosevelt’s strident, staccato attacks upon Hoover as the world’s greatest spendthrift were being shot back at him.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“this way “is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit... I am not willing that the vitality of our people be further sapped by the giving of doles, of market baskets, by a few hours of weekly work cutting grass, raking leaves or picking up papers in the public parks.” He declared for useful public works—roads, highways, reforestation.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“We have no managed to acquire bases all over the world—islands distant as the Australian Archipelago which President Roosevelt seized in 1938 without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress. There is no part of the world where trouble can break out where we do not have bases of some sort of which, if we wish to use the pretension, we cannot claim our interests are menaced. Thus menaced there must remain when the war is over continuing argument in the hands of the imperialists for a vast naval establishment and a huge army ready to attack anywhere or to resist an attack from all the enemies we shall be obliged to have. Because always the most powerful argument for a huge army maintained for economic reasons is that we have enemies. We must have enemies, They will become and economic necessity for us.”
― John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching: A Biting Indictment of the Coming of Domestic Fascism in America

“But the NRA continued to exhibit its folly in a succession of crazy antics which could proceed only from people who had lost their bearings and their heads. A tailor named Jack Magid in New Jersey was arrested, convicted, fined and sent to jail. The crime was that he had pressed a suit of clothes for 35 cents when the Tailors’ Code fixed the price at 40 cents. The price was fixed not by a legislature or Congress but by the tailors. A storm of indignation swept through the country. The name of Jack Magid became for a week as well known as Hugh Johnson’s. The judge hastily summoned the tailor from his cell, remitted his sentence and fine and offered to give the offender his own pants to press. The purged tailor proclaimed the NRA a beautiful thing. Each town had its own horrible examples.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“Reserve officials demanded a proclamation closing the banks, but Hoover refused unless Roosevelt agreed to back him up.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth

“But in 1933 he was a towering figure who was supposed to have discovered something worth study and imitation by all world artificers everywhere. Such eminent persons as Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler6 and Mr. Sol Bloom,7 head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House, assured us he was a great man and had something we might well look into for imitation. What they liked particularly was his corporative system. He organized each trade or industrial group or professional group into a state-supervised trade association. He called it a corporative. These corporatives operated under state supervision and could plan production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc. The NRA provided that in America each industry should be organized into a federally supervised trade association. It was not called a corporative. It was called a Code Authority. But it was essentially the same thing. These code authorities could regulate production, quantities, qualities, prices, distribution methods, etc., under the supervision of the NRA. This was fascism. The anti-trust laws forbade such organizations. Roosevelt had denounced Hoover for not enforcing these laws sufficiently. Now he suspended them and compelled men to combine.”
― John T. Flynn, The Roosevelt Myth