The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

At the dawn of the Great Depression in 1929, America’s fate as a democracy hung in the balance. Meacham writes, “Would the nation save itself or, like Italy and, as the ’30s unfolded, Germany, seek comfort in totalitarianism? Or might it choose the path of the Soviet Union, casting its lot with Communism?” (138).

By the time of his first presidential election win in 1932, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt identified the two most dangerous individuals in America as Senator Huey Long and General Douglas MacArthur. Long, he feared, might launch a coup from the political left, while MacArthur might launch one from the right. In an indication of the country’s appetite for a political strongman, the author points out that the biggest applause line from Roosevelt’s 1933 inauguration was not the much-quoted “Nothing to fear but fear itself” line but a declaration to expand the power of the executive office to combat the Great Depression. Meacham also details the so-called Wall Street Putsch, an alleged attempt by the financial elite to install two-time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler as a military dictator.

Long, meanwhile, voiced not the concerns of the financial elite but those of the poor and middle class. Irrepressibly pugnacious and unscrupulous in his attacks on fellow senators, the populist Long prodded Roosevelt and his New Deal program to take more dramatic steps in redistributing wealth.