Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party

by Susan Dunn

In his first term in office, Franklin Roosevelt helped pull the nation out of the Great Depression with his landmark programs. In November 1936, every state except Maine and Vermont voted enthusiastically for his reelection. But then the political winds shifted. Not only did the Supreme Court block some of his transformational experiments, but he also faced serious opposition within his own party. Conservative Democrats such as Senators Walter George of Georgia and Millard Tydings of Maryland allied themselves with Republicans to vote down New Deal bills.Susan Dunn tells the dramatic story of FDR’s unprecedented battle to drive his foes out of his party by intervening in Democratic primaries and backing liberal challengers to conservative incumbents. Reporters branded his tactic a “purge”—and the inflammatory label stuck. Roosevelt spent the summer months of 1938 campaigning across the country, defending his progressive policies and lashing out at conservatives. Despite his efforts, the Democrats took a beating in the midterm elections.The purge stemmed not only from FDR’s commitment to the New Deal but also from his conviction that the nation needed two responsible political parties, one liberal, the other conservative. Although the purge failed, at great political cost to the president, it heralded the realignment of political parties that would take place in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. By the end of the century, the irreconcilable tensions within the Democratic Party had exploded, and the once solidly Democratic South was solid no more. It had taken sixty years to resolve the tangled problems to which FDR devoted one frantic, memorable summer.

Genres: Politics, American History, History, Nonfiction

382 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 15, 2010

About the author

Susan Dunn is Professor of Literature and the History of Ideas at Williams College and Senior Scholar and the Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. She is the author of several books, including the critically acclaimed Sister Revolutions

Academic Degrees
* A. B. cum laude, Smith College, 1966. Phi Beta Kappa.
* Ph.D. Harvard University, 1973

Professional Experience
* Williams College, Preston S. Parish '41 Third Century Professor in the Arts and Humanities, 1973 to present
* Wellesley College, Instructor, 1971-1973
* Harvard University, Extension Division, Instructor, 1970-1973
* Harvard University, Teaching Fellow, 1967-1970

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

American presidents fortunate enough to enjoy two terms invariably find their second term more difficult than their first one, but if there was a president who could have bucked the trend it was Franklin Roosevelt. Enjoying one of the most massive reelection victories in history, he could claim a clear mandate from the voters, one reflected not just in his own overwhelming numbers but the enormous majorities enjoyed by the Democratic Party in both houses of Congress. Yet despite this Roosevelt was unable to accomplish anything approaching his triumphs in his first term, when he was able to pass through Congress legislation that transformed the nation. Instead Roosevelt squandered his political capital in ill-advised confrontations that diminished his standing and eroded his support. Though the first of these battles, over the Supreme Court “packing plan”, is well known, far less so is his subsequent effort to purge conservative Democrats from office during the 1938 midterm election. Susan Dunn’s book is a history of this effort, providing an examination of its origins, its consequences, and its subsequent impact on national politics.

Dunn argues that the origins of the purge lay in Roosevelt’s desire to reshape the American political landscape. In the early twentieth century, American political parties were mainly coalitions of regional political groupings, often ideologically disparate. Roosevelt aimed to change that by forcing the conservatives out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican one. His immediate motivation, however, lay in his frustration with the failure of his legislative agenda in Congress. Despite large Democratic majorities in both houses, his court-packing and executive reorganization bills were thwarted and his wages and hours legislation faced similar hard going. Roosevelt sought to target the conservative Democrats up for reelection in 1938 who had succeeded in stymying his agenda.

In spite of his enormous national popularity, Roosevelt’s plans faced considerable obstacles. Foremost among them was the political support these congressmen and senators enjoyed at home, even when that support clashed with their constituents’ approval for the New Deal programs their elected representatives often opposed. Many of the targeted politicians took advantage of this, turning Roosevelt’s attacks to their advantage by decrying national interference in their local elections, thus playing to voters’ sense of their independence. Nor was Roosevelt’s own camp completely on board, as Roosevelt’s handpicked party leader and former campaign manager, James Farley, conspicuously absented himself from the effort out of skepticism of its success and concern for the impact of such internecine warfare on the party’s prospects in November. Yet perhaps the greatest impediment to the president’s plans lay in Roosevelt’s own half-hearted efforts in his own cause. Often he seemed hesitant about his own campaign, starting out late in launching it and often pulling his punches in speeches. Opponents of Roosevelt’s targets often could not even count on outright endorsements, leaving them with little counter to the advantages provided by incumbency. As a result, Roosevelt’s efforts and the publicity surrounding them translated into few successes but many open wounds, confirming further the limits of even the president’s political ability.

Dunn’s book is an enjoyable narrative of the campaign. Drawing upon contemporary press coverage and other published sources, she sheds considerable light into an overshadowed aspect of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. Yet her narrative is based upon a flawed premise. The political realignment that her book attempts to establish had its origins not in 1938 but in the political campaign of another Roosevelt – his cousin Theodore, whose Progressive bolt form the GOP in 1912 was the true beginning of the recasting of party politics of ideological lines. Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency was only one – albeit very important – step down a road that the country was already on by the 1930s. By overlooking this Dunn overstates the importance of the Roosevelt purge in American political history and limits her achievement with this book, which ultimately chronicles more of a premature push than the dawning of the political landscape Americans know today.

[alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book detailing FDR's 1938 attempt to push conservative--largely Southern and Western--Democrats out of the party in order to ensure that the Congressional Democratic base was comprised of New Dealers. Dunn does a good job of setting up the story in the historical context, highlighting how the purge was a major aberration from FDR's well-known and very successful tactic of pushing New Deal policies through Congress via peacemaking and consensus. A large portion of the book details, race by race, how FDR and his inner circle largely failed to push conservative Democrats out during the primary process. While interesting, this portion of the book could easily have been reduced to make way for more of the type of analysis that fills the final quarter of the book. In this section, Dunn aptly addresses not only how and why FDR's purge failed, but goes on to detail the path through which Southern and some Western Democrats would largely leave the party by the late 1960s. This purge, however, wasn't based on New Deal politics, but on the politics of race.

[Leigh Koonce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this book had spent more time discussing the actual contests in which FDR attempted to purge conservative Democrats. Instead, the first half of the book discussed his administration and goals, a topic in which I have been swimming for two years thanks to Directed Readings research. All of that aside, the book is well written and includes some nice photographs of FDR through the late 30s.

[Dylan Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

An example of a book where you get the sense the author realized midway through writing that there simply wasn’t enough material to support a full book length treatment.

FDR’s “purge” of conservative Democrats, such as it was, amounted in Dunn’s telling to a pretty half-hearted effort to back liberal challengers to a three or four Senators. In one case, Georgia, he actually appeared in person to endorse his man (Lawrence Camp) — awkwardly the conservative incumbent, Walter George, was present too and had to listen in silence as the president called for his defeat. But in all the others, Dunn depicts FDR as barely intervening, or at best awkwardly wading. His waffling over supporting Otha Wearin in Iowa seemed characteristic: other than in Georgia, he never showed up personally to push for his man, instead choosing roundabout tactics like sending his son James to say kind words.

It all failed, of course. Camp lost to George, and managed to get third behind the racist demagogue Ernest Talmadge. (This book is, among other things, a catalog of the various obscene and creative ways in which 1930s Southern politicians used the N-word.) Wearin was crushed. Poor old Davey Lewis in Maryland gave up a safe House seat only to get walloped by incumbent FDR enemy Millard Tydings, who I previously only knew as beloved in the Philippines for his role in independence.

And that it failed wasn’t, as Dunn herself notes, surprising. The effort was poorly organized, FDR didn’t commit significant financial or persuasive resources behind it, and no effort was made to recruit optimal candidates in these states and others. That in turn makes it hard to draw broader lessons. Is the takeaway that FDR was wrong to try to accelerate partisan sorting along ideological grounds? I mean, maybe. But a halfway competent attempt might have gone further. It’s difficult to learn about the merits of an idea when it’s only half-executed.

So Dunn fills up much of the book with irrelevant anecdotes about Roosevelt (he caught a shark!) and a final chapter that just rehashes every presidential race from 1948 to 2008. Once we were talking about Obama’s surprise victory in Indiana, the natural question was “what exactly is this book even about?” It’s especially frustrating because there are still details of the purge it fails to explore. North Carolina’s Robert Reynolds was challenged unsuccessfully by New Dealer Franklin Hancock in 1938, and Dunn simply doesn’t mention it at all. That would’ve been a worthier inclusion than the hundredth rehashing of Nixon’s Southern Strategy.

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read about FDR's largely failed efforts to remake the Democratic Party into *the* progressive party in 1938. Incensed by conservatives' rejection of court-packing, executive reorganization, and a minimum wage increase, President Roosevelt undertook varying degrees of action in competitive Democratic primaries. He lost most of these efforts, and mysteriously decided against supporting certain progressives like Congressman Maury Maverick. Dunn gets props for bringing to light political history that doesn't get talked about enough, although it could use better organization and she goes off on an unnecessary partisan tangent at the end.