Book by Jonathan Alter - The Defining Moment

Summary

One of two books Barack Obama read about FDR to prepare for the presidency at a time of national crisis, The Defining Moment is the thrilling story of how a president lifted the nation out of despair, restored hope, and transformed America.

This is the story of a political miracle�the perfect match of man and moment. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March of 1933 as America touched bottom. Banks were closing everywhere. Millions of people lost everything. The Great Depression had caused a national breakdown. With the craft of a master storyteller, Jonathan Alter brings us closer than ever before to the Roosevelt magic. Facing the gravest crisis since the Civil War, FDR used his cagey political instincts and ebullient temperament to pull off an astonishing conjuring act that lifted the country and saved both democracy and capitalism.

Who was this man? To revive the nation when it felt so hopeless took an extraordinary display of optimism and self-confidence. Alter shows us how a snobbish and apparently lightweight young aristocrat was forged into an incandescent leader by his domineering mother; his independent wife; his eccentric top advisor, Louis Howe; and his ally-turned-bitter-rival, Al Smith, the Tammany Hall street fighter FDR had to vanquish to complete his preparation for the presidency.

"Old Doc Roosevelt" had learned at Warm Springs, Georgia, how to lift others who suffered from polio, even if he could not cure their paralysis, or his own. He brought the same talents to a larger stage. Derided as weak and unprincipled by pundits, Governor Roosevelt was barely nominated for president in 1932. As president-elect, he escaped assassination in Miami by inches, then stiffed President Herbert Hoover's efforts to pull him into cooperating with him to deal with a terrifying crisis. In the most tumultuous and dramatic presidential transition in history, the entire banking structure came tumbling down just hours before FDR's legendary Inaugural Address ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself").

Instead of circumventing Congress and becoming the dictator so many thought they needed, Roosevelt used his stunning debut to experiment. He rescued banks, put men to work immediately, and revolutionized mass communications with pioneering press conferences and the first Fireside Chat. As he moved both right and left, Roosevelt's insistence on "action now" did little to cure the Depression, but he began to rewrite the nation's social contract and lay the groundwork for his most ambitious achievements, including Social Security.

From one of America's most respected journalists, rich in insights and with fresh documentation and colorful detail, this thrilling story of presidential leadership resonates through the events of today, and deepens our understanding of how FDR restored hope and transformed America.

Praise for The Defining Moment

"Alter�s account has a refreshing buoyancy, not unlike its protagonist. . . . Succeeds in bringing a remarkable man back to life."
�New York Times Book Review

"Alter is a true scholar of politics. . . . Here is how politics is done, he seems to be saying. Did you forget?"
�New York Sun

"Eloquently captures the fevered, frightened state of the nation in 1933. . . . Superbly researched and well-written."
�Booklist

"Fascinating. . . . Alter's writing is deft. . . . A remarkable achievement. . . . This is indeed a defining book."
�BookPage

"If you read The Defining Moment, you�ll have to agree that FDR may have been the most interesting president ever."
�St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"The birth of the New Deal, capably recounted. . . . Well-written."
�Kirkus Reviews

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Timeline: FDR's Hundred Days (March 4-June 16, 1933)

March 4

Roosevelt inaugurated president. Asserts his "firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself�nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

March 5

Roosevelt declares a national "bank holiday" to prevent a run on the banks.

March 12

FDR gives first "fireside chat." Begins:

"My friends: I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking -- to talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of deposits and the drawing of checks. ..."

March 31

Congress passes the Reforestation Relief Act, establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC); it provides work immediately for 250,000 young men (18-25) in reforestation, road construction and developing national parks. Work camps begin to spring up. By the time it eases in 1941, two million people have worked on its projects.

April 19

FDR takes the nation off of the gold standard.

May 12

Congress passes the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which authorizes immediate grants to states for relief projects. Unemployment has reached 14 million-over one quarter of the nation's work force.

Roosevelt signs the Agricultural Adjustment Act to provide immediate relief to farmers by setting prices for agricultural products and paying subsidies to farmers for curtailing production of certain crops that were in surplus.

May 18

Congress establishes the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to construct dams and power plants along the Tennessee Valley; electricity will go to residents, many of whom lacked it previously, and fertili ... continue reading >

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Editorial Reviews

Review: The Defining Moment (New York Times Book Review)

Review by Ted Widmer

Lately Franklin D. Roosevelt has seemed strangely vulnerable, and not merely because of our new inclination to memorialize him in his wheelchair. The percentage of Americans who can truly remember him is small and dwindling. A few years ago, House Republicans tried to remove his profile from the dime and replace him with Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, a recent spate of books from the right, including Jim Powell's "FDR's Folly" and Thomas E. Woods Jr.'s "Politically Incorrect Guide to American History," have accused him of prolonging the Great Depression and generally screwing up America. But memory of the New Deal has not entirely flickered out, thanks to a flurry of literary activity on the other side, including recent pro-Roosevelt books by academics (Cass Sunstein, Alonzo L. Hamby) and, surprisingly, a conservative press lord (Conrad Black). Their ranks are now joined by a new defender: Jonathan Alter, a senior editor at Newsweek. Since writing a paper on the 32nd president when he was 11, Alter has nurtured a schoolboy crush on F.D.R., chatting about the New Deal with politicians (the acknowledgments thank Presidents Ford and Clinton) and digging through assorted archives. The result is a most readable book�not quite a biography or a detailed policy study, but a reflection on the way that Roosevelt reinvented the presidency during his first hundred days in office, through bold policy innovations, brilliant speeches and broadcasts and a personal connection with the American people that has not been equaled since. ... (Read the full review)

Review: The Defining Moment (Boston Globe)

It's hard to imagine these days, but during the first months of 1933, when the Great Depression held the nation in a perilous grip, serious voices were urging the incoming president to consider an unprecedented and unconstitutional seizure of power. "The situation is critical," Walter Lippmann told Franklin Roosevelt privately. "You may have no alternative but to assume dictatorial powers." Lippmann, the nation's most influential columnist, was hardly alone. In 1931, the esteemed president of Columbia University, Nicolas Murray Butler, told students that totalitarian systems produced "men of far greater intelligence, far stronger character and far more courage than the system of elections." As Roosevelt approached office, even Eleanor spoke favorably of benign dictatorship. To show how a true leader would respond to the economic crisis, publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst decided to make a movie. He sent a script to FDR, who scribbled some suggestions, and, in 1933, "Gabriel Over the White House" was a hit. Its hero was a president who disbanded Congress, created an army from the unemployed, and sent his enemies before a firing squad. ... (Read the full review)

Member Reviews

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annaf	Posted on Mar 24, 2009 2:02 PM
love the timeline Alter's timeline is a really fantastic breakdown of events. Lays them out very clearly and makes reading this book so enjoyable.
sfriedman	Posted on Mar 9, 2009 1:35 PM
good enough for obama, good enough for you many books, articles and columns have compared obama to FDR. there are many books out there that laud FDR for the great president he was. and there are, and will continue to be, many about obama. here is a book about FDR that obama himself has read. if he's picking it up, shouldn't you?
Page 1

Biography

Jonathan Alter is a senior editor and columnist at Newsweek and a contributing correspondent at NBC News. He is the author of The Defining Moment: Franklin Roosevelt and the First Hundred Days and Between the Lines: A View Inside American Politics, People, and Culture.

Author Interview

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Progressive Book Club Interview with Jonathan Alter
The noted journalist discusses FDR's "defining moment" -- and President Obama's.
Jonathan Alter is a senior editor and award-winning columnist at Newsweek and a contributing correspondent at NBC News. He is the author of The Defining Moment: Franklin Roosevelt and the First Hundred Days, Progressive Book Club's "PBC Pick" for January 2009.

Q. Describe the state of the nation in the winter of 1932-33?

A. Well, they called it "the interregnum of despair." In those days the president wasn�t sworn in until March 4, and it was a very long period of time as the country slipped lower and lower. The crash had taken place of course in 1929, but it had taken a while before we were mired in the Depression. And at its bottom, which it was in this period, unemployment was 25 percent, but that actually underestimated it. You had the stock market down about 90 percent at the bottom. You had farm foreclosures and home foreclosures all over the country. Most of all you had a banking crisis, which had built slowly and then erupted after the first of the year, 1933. Pretty much every day when you picked up the newspaper banks were folding and closing their doors. About 10,000 banks went out of business. Many of these were small banks, but people depended on them, and there was no deposit insurance, so you were wiped out if you happened to put your money in the wrong bank.

There was a mental depression that was every bit as bad as the economic one. I think we�re starting to understand now what that feels like�this sense of tremendous fear and uncertainty about the future. Without food stamps, there was also rampant fear about putting food on the table. So in some ways, when Roosevelt said �The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,� it wasn�t quite right. It was a wonderful line, but it wasn�t right because if you were worried about putting food on the table, that was a real fear, not an imaginary one.

By the time Roosevelt took office, the banking crisis, which had really taken a serious turn fo ... continue reading >

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Video

Obama's Defining Moment

Author Jonathan Alter talks to Harry Smith on CBS about what Barack Obama could take from FDR's first 100 days, after Obama admitted to reading Alter's The Defining Moment.

Obama's Defining Moment