January 26, 2007
FDR in His Own Time Posted by John Steele Gordon at 09:25 AM EST Hardly anyone these days, except my old classmate Jim Powell, regards Franklin Roosevelt as anything but an American icon, the greatest, and certainly the most consequential, President of the twentieth century.
But he was, of course, a deeply controversial figure in his own time and sometimes raised a firestorm of opposition. This year, for instance, is the seventieth anniversary of his “court-packing” plan, where he proposed allowing the appointment of extra justices to the Supreme Court, up to as many as fifteen, one extra justice for every one on the bench over 70 years of age. The result was a huge political uproar and, in August 1937, a stunning defeat for the man who had won 46 of the 48 states just 10 months earlier.
Professor Alasdair S. Roberts of Syracuse University has put together a fascinating slide show of political cartoons regarding the plan.
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