Betrayal of the American Right - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Betrayal of the American Right - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Betrayal of the American Right - Ludwig von Mises Institute
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24 The <strong>Betrayal</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>American</strong> <strong>Right</strong><br />
when <strong>the</strong>y discovered that <strong>the</strong>ir former, and supposedly knowledgeable,<br />
allies, <strong>the</strong> socialists and progressives, instead <strong>of</strong> joining in<br />
with this insight, had rushed to embrace and even deify <strong>the</strong> New<br />
Deal, and to form its vanguard <strong>of</strong> intellectual apologists. This<br />
embrace by <strong>the</strong> Left was rapidly made unanimous when <strong>the</strong> Communist<br />
Party and its allies joined <strong>the</strong> parade with <strong>the</strong> advent <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />
Popular Front in 1935. And <strong>the</strong> younger generation <strong>of</strong> intellectuals,<br />
many <strong>of</strong> whom had been followers <strong>of</strong> Mencken and Villard,<br />
cast aside <strong>the</strong>ir individualism to join <strong>the</strong> “working class” and to<br />
take <strong>the</strong>ir part as Brain Trusters and planners <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> seemingly new<br />
Utopia taking shape in America. The spirit <strong>of</strong> technocratic dictation<br />
over <strong>the</strong> <strong>American</strong> citizen was best expressed in <strong>the</strong> famous<br />
poem <strong>of</strong> Rex Tugwell, whose words were to be engraved in horror<br />
on all “right-wing” hearts throughout <strong>the</strong> country:<br />
I have ga<strong>the</strong>red my tools and my charts,<br />
My plans are finished and practical.<br />
I shall roll up my sleeves—make America over.<br />
Only <strong>the</strong> few laissez-faire liberals saw <strong>the</strong> direct filiation between<br />
Hoover’s cartelist program and <strong>the</strong> fascistic cartelization imposed<br />
by <strong>the</strong> New Deal’s NRA and AAA, and few realized that <strong>the</strong> origin<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se programs was specifically such Big Business collectivist<br />
plans as <strong>the</strong> famous Swope Plan, spawned by Gerard Swope, head<br />
<strong>of</strong> General Electric in late 1931, and adopted by most big business<br />
groups in <strong>the</strong> following year. It was, in fact, when Hoover refused<br />
to go this far, denouncing <strong>the</strong> plan as “fascism” even though he had<br />
himself been tending in that direction for years, that Henry I. Harriman,<br />
head <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> U.S. Chamber <strong>of</strong> Commerce, warned Hoover<br />
that Big Business would throw its weight to Roosevelt, who had<br />
agreed to enact <strong>the</strong> plan, and indeed was to carry out his agreement.<br />
Swope himself, Harriman, and <strong>the</strong>ir powerful mentor, <strong>the</strong> financier<br />
Bernard M. Baruch, were indeed heavily involved both in drafting<br />
and administering <strong>the</strong> NRA and AAA. 1<br />
1<br />
See Murray N. Rothbard, America’s Great Depression (Princeton, N.J.:<br />
D. Van Nostrand Co., 1963), pp. 245–51.