Graphic edition in 2014. Host amity shlaes, who is the forgotten man . Guest president roosevelt spoke of the forgotten man as the man at the bottom of the pyramid so that would be the homeless man. But they were aware of another forgotten man in school and that was the man who pays for the government projects. The third party. There is even algebra about the other forgotten man saying a wants to help x but b wants to help x, too, but the problem is when they coherce c into it. It is the taxpayer. That is the question also today. Host in your book, the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression, you write the big question about the american depression is not whether war with germany and japan ended it. It is why it lasted from 19291940 from hoover to roosevelt Government Intervention helped to make the depression great. Guest thank you for quotes that introduction. This is a book i wrote about the 1930s because we all learned something about it in school and that was the new deal tried hard but it wasnt perfect, roosevelts government plan and hoover before him, but at least it was good and it was in the right spirit therefore, lets love it. But the new deal wasnt lovable economically speaking, nor were hoovers interventions because they hurt people. How can i say that . What is the measure . The most clearest measure is employment and unemployment didnt come down. What is the second measure . We are sitting here with the stock market at a record but the stock market in the 1930s didnt come back. So the new deal and hoover failed and that is evidence of the the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression. Host you list the Unemployment Rate in each chapter. 3. 3 in 1938, 1941, 18 . 1937 it was down to 13. 5. But then 1938, 17. 4 . What happened then in guest this was the depression within the depression. We had other depressions before that were not great but this was the dureration and severity. Just when it seemed everything was Getting Better the was a crash again. What is interesting you raise that because that is a controversial set of numbers. People will wonder why was the unemployment so terrible in the later 30s. Many economist have come to me saying they think they know why. The government policy made hiring people too expensive. Or the fair labor standards act or the National Recovery administration and davis bacon all pushed labor prices up and to level employers could not afford and therefore they failed to hire and the unemployment of the 30s was epic. Host what was the National Recovery association . Guest the governments deal that would stimulate the economy was given this giant plan to make the industrial sector booming again. Roosevelt signed it early on it in 33. When you look at law it is a bunch of political impulses expressed on a piece of paper, instatued and then enforced. So the impulses were economy of scale is good. Big is always better because at that time we are all hostage to fashion. The economy of scale, the bigger is better, was hot. Bigger is always better and you want to question that. I am not sure that is necessary for recover. And another premise was Consumer Choice is bad. And it is like what do you mean by that . If the Consumer Picks he slows up the assembly line. Every car should be black because it is uniform and uniform is faster and better. And they leave that is United States was failing because we were too diverse and chosey. You tell that to the starbucks shareholder because it is a product premised on chaoice. We can take that extra 18 seconds to pick what milk we want in our coffee. In a famous case we talked about in the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression, you could not pick your chicken from the coop anymore. That was just some of beginning principles. Host how dig did the government get during this period . What was the change in revenue . Guest the government got a lot bigger. Until the 1930s, the constituents states had a bigger government than washington. You could get sick there. There were swamps there. That is what coolidges family thought. There wasnt air conditioning. The state capital is what mattered. And president coolidge always said United States in plural. The states were what matters. And then under hoover and then Franklin Roosevelt and by 1936 if you look at the charts from the government you will see all of a sudden wow, the federal government is bigger than the states. That had happened before but only in war. Now in peace time. And we didnt go back. That was the changing. Was the spending as great as it is now . Nowhere near as great. Might be 510 of the economy not 3040 or whatever it is when you add it up. But it was bigger than before and more important was the expectation it was the redeemer or the savior. Host amity shlaes, who are the sheckters . Guest they are a good story. When you think about hobby lobby. We have great government law, some like, some others, hobby lobby has a religious concern about the health care law. Maybe it relates in their case to something that is important to the owners which is contraception or abortion. In the 1930s there was this nra and it was challenged by a case that had an element of religion. The sheckters were kosher butchers in brooklyn, new york. I like them very much. One of the great bits of fun was researching them because they didnt expect the government to come along and make them heroes but the government challenged them and indicted their chicken business for breaking rules including letting people pick their chicken. The government contended they had sold a sick chicken, they were paying the wrong amount of minimum wage or people were work different hours than the nra put in place. They had endless rules. They were indoicndicted and sel politically to be the case to test the nra because it did have to be tested. They felt quite ambivalent about it because they were for roosevelt. Host you write they were frustrated the government didnt understand the consequences of its own sick chicken allegations. To sell a sick chicken broke the nra code and that was all the government lawyers understood. But to suggest the chickens were unfit were to suggest something they viewed as far worse. That they were not good jews and to suggest their kosher slaughter house wasnt kosher and unworthy of customers so they did something worse than anger them they had offended their dignity. Guest you have two bodies of law. You have washington law and you have the higher power. In the census, we looked up the sectors and it said their father, rabbi and what does that mean . What it meant was he was a serious father when it came to religion. They would be shamed in their market if they sold a sick chicken. And today health is a big story. One baby is sick it is number one on the news. But they had no antibiotics so if meat was bad, it was common to be mad. Milk had tb all of the time. So this is a life or death allegation for them. You see one body of law up against another. They took their kosher law se seriously. There was a tension. There is an element to jewish law, this food law, that makes sense. It has its own health code. So they had one old law and one new law fighting with each other. Host who won . Guest the sheckters won. The Supreme Court found were them. And this is the overturning of the great centerpiece of the new deal. The nra by the high court. Host continuing to read from the the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression, clearing out the corruption seemed to be the new dealers best way to recovery. 1933 was a year of experiment and 1934 would be a year of prosecution. Guest thank you for reading that. It is so true. What happens when the recovery isnt of the quality you expect . Well the economy was definitely recovery year over year. You have amazing Growth Numbers but you are not getting back to where you started. The government got angry and began to assign blame and go after companies and prosecute in a new way. One was the poultry business. In the the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression, i talk about insul who made the opera house, and the ltrain, and he wired to city from the period after the columbia revolution. He was wiped out and people in chicago never heard his name. There was an erasing of people, of business leaders, of prosecution by the new deal. President roosevelt called businessmen princess of property. Host but, amity shlaes, was there conflict during this time . Was there people speaking out against this . Or was it pretty uniform that people were supporting fdr and his efforts . Guest people knew business had some responsibility in the crash. There were corrupt people. Mr. Whitney here in new york as an example. The economy isnt Getting Better so maybe we should blame them more. Roosevelt thought the public was on his side. He won 4650 states so a lot of people were on his side and didnt think it was so bad going after rich people. But there was decent, particularly in the newspaper, it was fun to read the papers, i read them every night through proquest, you could see a lot were leery of if prosecuting would help. They went after the treasury secretary and predecessors from the other area. They went after the treasure secretary from the 20s. They ordered the lawyers to go after mr. Melon because it felt good. Very brazen and political. One secretarys acts brings down another. The newspapers noticed this and they were less progressive and less leaning than they are today. The newspapers fought back quite a bit against the new deal. Host when you look at the 1930s how did the federal tax code change . Guest the great achievement was to bring down the war tax levels. During world war i they were pretty high. Coolidge brought them down to a top marginal rate of 25 . When you poll people that is what they think rich people should be paying now. When you poll people their answer is 25 on how much rich people should pay. Roosevelt pushed it even higher so that i dont know when our parents were younger it was in the 90 in the 1950s even. Roosevelt said no 25 the rich have to pay a lot more and lets push it 60 . He liked wealth taxes. The most preverse tax for tax fans of the new deal was an undistributed property tax. Lets eat at your essence. That was watered down but it was a big new deal. To get the rich people that are holding on to their money. Host here is a letter from fdr you include in your book the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression dear commissioner, i am inclosing my income tax return for the calendar year 1937 with a check for 15,000. I am unable to figure out the amount of tax for the following reas reasons and he goes on to list them because the president of the United States cant figure out the tax code. Guest i like this letter because roosevelt sounds so human. This book is now a cartoon book and he drew roosevelt and the artist tried to make the face of a president kind of mischievous and kind of lovable and that is an example of him playing lovable and a little bit humble i cannot figure out my taxes. But the dark side of that he could ask and not get in trouble but other people had to make a choice and a lot of us have dealt with the irs they dont also tell you what is right. There is a lot of uncertainty and that causes fear. They were going after people. So it was ironic that roosevelt himself couldnt figure out his taxes. Host welcome to our monthy indepth program with one authorer his or her body of work. This month we are in our new york studio with amity shlaes. She is the author of many books beginning with one based on her education in germany the empire within. The greedy hand is another book followed by the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression and then coolidge is her most recent book. And why a graphic novel . Guest this is a cartoon histhis history of the Great Depression. This is like movies. Not like art. They are not stupid. It isnt dumbing down. We took the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression man and made the whole story in pictures. And some of those are little. You can see little andrew melon in there being disparing because his tax rate has been overruled. A lot is about people not getting what they wanted. We tried to capture the human of them figure out their policies are not working. In the back of the book there is a cast of characters and they are all drawn beautifully. People have used it as a learning tool or a gift for clients who they want to poke out because it is a fun take on it. Host there is a super hero, though. Guest it is windle murky. I said there is a hero in the story who gives voice to everything i was hoping i might say myself if it were accurate. Windle was the electricity man who thought he would light up the south and they were working hard and he was confidant and a good company. And the government came along and he was a reasonable man and a good diplomat and he said i will work with south and divide it up and instead and the government trashed his company. And he got angry and what is is wonderful is he wrote so much you can use his language. He became angrier, and he says by putting our stock in the tank you are hurting the whole country because we cant hire people. He did it well because he wasnt bitter. So i love drawing him or seeing paul draw him and he comes out in the end with a girlfriend, a lois lane, who really existed. That was fun to draw her, too. And thank you to the family who helped me learn about him. There is a brother of his who is a great attorney. If this book is a dean and it isnt roosevelt and i guess it is henry morganfall and he was like rom emanual. He had the boldest things the government was too afraid to say. He is the demon in the cartoon version. A demon who is lovable, though, because he was thrown out of government. Host he was head of the secretary of agriculture . Guest he didnt make it to agriculture even but he was very smart. He was thrown out when roosevelt ran for reelection because he was too far left and he went off looking for a job. We are all human and i admire people that serve even if i dont agree. Host 202 is the area code. 2583880 eastern and central 2583881 for the mountain and pacific time zone. Also send a tweet to us or make a comment on our Facebook Page and finally also email is an option. Amity shlaes, you seem to be working your way backwards through history. Started with the 30s and your last book is coolidge. Guest if they can make a prequal in a movie they can do it in a book. I like positive stories. The the forgotten man a new history of the Great Depression could be called how they blew it. How they wrecked our economy. They being democrats and republicans. Paoliticia politicians through policy. I wanted to write a book on how you fix it. In Eastern Europe they say it is easy to make fish soup from an aquarium but it is hard to make a living aquarium from fish soup. But in the 20s they fixed the economy. It is an inspiring story and i looked at harding and he had a terrible reputation and coolidge who doesnt have much better reputation and you look at who is misviewed by economy. Coolidge made the economy better. And that became a life work for me restoring this hero. Cspan gives coolidge time but most people dont. Lets see if a week on the concord and merrimack rivers give him the rating he deufsh deserves. His tax rate was lower than reagan, he balanced the budget, he cut the budget and today you have so many guest on cspan and they talk about cutting the budget and they mean reducing the rate of increase. Coolidge cut the budget. You can see to the same government tables in the National Accounts that he cut had budget. Why didnt we know about this silent, quite guy. I became intrigued and wrote his bio. Host in your book coolidge, you write coolidge quote wasnt proud of being president in the sense of being vein about it. He walked around quitely and still wore suspenders and that made him a quaint site in the great corridors. Starring saw col coolidge wasnt afraid. Guest that is right. There are different notions of how you use an office. Bully pulpit, right . That means fun. It is my pulpit and i will enjoy it. We know people who do their job like they are driving a race car. Coolidge was more respectful and said i am serving. I am here as a servant. Of course i am vein but i am going to try to suppress it in the name of service. I was attracted to this. A lot of others are attracted. At coolidges birthplace i took a snapshot in Plymouth Notch, vermont where he is from. When you look at his grave the head stone isnt bigger than the others. The harding monument is huge. Ms. Harding is probably to blame for that. He wasnt comfortable with mount rush more. Maybe their heads are too big. He didnt believe in the great man of history. He was all about service. I very much like you think of cal ripkin junior always showing up. Cals are about service so i dont think it was an accident. When coolidge fixed the bad environment because there was scandal from harded is he was meticilous about cleaning up. I think he did make a living aquarium from fish soup. We rarely meet people like this. He waited hated scandal and expectation of the president. We would cut his name after his suit because someone would sell them as a the president and make profit. He was hard on his family on what they accepted from gifts. He made his son dress up for children. He children didnt play around the whitehouse like it was a playroom. But it was like we are serving the public. We are not here because of ourselves. Host how did he become warning hardings Vice President and what was the relationship between the hardings and the coolidges . Guest i think he wanted to be president ial candidate and he had a good argument he could be. He was governor of massachusetts and as now there was a big issue of how far should Public Sector unions go and maybe very far and take over cities. That happened in seattle where there was a strike. There was turmoil after world war i with inflation and the government wasnt paying them enough and the workers were angry and went on strike. The policeman of bost