Settlers - San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center

Millions of settlers believed that only an end to
traditional capitalism could make things run again. The
new answer was to raise up the U.S. Government as the
coordinator and regulator of all major industries. To
restabilize the banking system, Roosevelt now insured consumer
deposits and also sharply restricted many former,
speculative bank policies. In interstate trucking, in labor
relations, in communications, in every area of economic
life new Federal agencies and bureaus tried to rationalize
the daily workings of capitalism by limiting competition
and stabilizing prices. The New Deal consciously tried to
imitate the sweeping, corporate state economic dictatorship
of the Mussolini regime in Italy.
The most advanced sections of the bourgeoisie -
such as Thomas Watson of IBM and David Sarnoff of
RCA - backed the controversial New Deal reforms. But
for most the reaction was heated. The McCormick family's
Chicago Tribune editorially called for Roosevelt's
assassination. Those capitalists who most stubbornly
resisted the changes were publicly denounced by the New
Dealers, who had set themselves up as the leaders of the
anti-capitalist mass sentiment.
The contradictions within the bourgeoisie became
so great that a fascist coup d'etat was attempted against
the New Deal. A group of major capitalists, headed by
Irenee DuPont (of DuPont Chemicals) and the J.P.
Morgan banking interests, set the conspiracy in motion in
1934. The DuPont family put up $3 million to finance a
fascist stormtrooper movement, with the Remington
Firearms Co. to arm as many as 1 million fascists. Gen.
Douglas MacArthur was recruited to ensure the passive
support of the U.S. Army. The plan was to seize state
power, with a captive President Roosevelt forced to officially
turn over the reins of government to a hand-picked
fascist "strong-man."
shals, collector of customs, and over 400 other Federal
positions.
Irish workers in the neighborhood got raises from
the new Federal minimum wage and hours law. Unemployment
benefits went to those who were still jobless. 300-500
Irish youth earned small wages in the National Youth Administration,
while thousands of adult jobless were given
temporary Works Progress Administration (WPA) jobs.
Forty per cent of the older Irish were on U.S. old-age
assistance. 600 families got ADC. Many received food
stamps. Federal funds built new housing and paid for park
and beach improvements. The same process was taking
place with Polish, Italian, Jewish and other European national
minority communities throughout the North.
It was not just a crude bribery. The Depression
was a shattering crisis to settlers, upsetting far beyond the
turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s. It is hard for us to fully
grasp how upside-down the settler world temporarily
became. In the first week of his Administration, for example,
President Roosevelt hosted a delegation of coal mine
operators in the White House. They had come to beg the
President to nationalize the coal industry and buy them all
out. They argued that "free enterprise" had no hope of
ever reviving the coal industry or the Appalachian communities
dependent upon it. 80
As their would-be Amerikan Fuhrer the capitalists
selected Gen. Smedley Butler, twice winner of the Congressional
Medal of Honor and retired Commandant of the
U.S. Marine Corps. But after being approached by J.P.
Morgan representatives, Gen. Butler went to Congress and
exposed the cabal. An ensuing Congressional investigation
confirmed Gen. Butler's story. With the conspiracy shot
down and keeping in mind the high position of the inept
conspirators, the Roosevelt Administration let the matter
just fade out of the headlines.
During the 1936 election campaign one observer
recorded the New Deal's open class appeal at a Democratic
Party rally in Pittsburgh's Forbes Field. The packed crowd
was whipped up by lesser politicians as they expectantly
awaited the Presidential motorcade. State Senator Warren
Roberts recited the names of famous millionaires, pausing
as the crowds thundered boos after each name. He orated:
"The President has decreed that your children shall enjoy
equal opportunity with the sons of the rich. " Then Pennsylvania
Gov. Earle took the microphone to punch at the
Republican capitalists even more:
"There are the Mellons, who have grown
fabulously wealthy from the toil of the men of iron and
steel, the men whose brain and brawn have made this great
city; Grundy, whose sweatshop operators have been the
shame and disgrace of Pennsylvania for a generation; Pew,
who strives to build a political and economic empire with