Discussion: Reshuffling the Roosevelt cabinet

In preparation for an upcoming timeline I'm going to be starting soon, I wanted to get the general opinion(s) of the Post-1900 forum on the possible effects of a (Franklin Delano) Roosevelt cabinet reshuffle from the get-go.

The two biggest changes I am proposing are going to happen relatively early on. Thomas Walsh, who was Attorney General-designate right up until the inauguration (before his death on the way to the capitol), is a bit healthier and survives long enough to take up the job of Attorney General. IOTL, the job eventually went to Homer Stille Cummings, a Democratic National Committeeman and former trial lawyer who helped prop up the early New Deal with vague, if sympathetic rulings on the constitutionality of major reforms that were enacted. Cummings is also the man partly responsible for pushing Roosevelt on down the road toward the 'Court Packing' debacle, so removing him is going to have some serious effects on the course of the administration.

On the introduction of Walsh specifically into the mix, what can we expect? I haven't been able to scrounge much up on Walsh (aside from the fact that he was Senator from Montana and a key figure in the breaking of the Tea Pot Dome scandal), and even with a POD keeping him alive until inauguration day, I'm not sure he'll last that long into the Roosevelt administration (He was 73 when he died in 1933, after all). The first major ruling Cummings gave FDR was telling him that the banks could be closed under the 1917 Trading with the Enemies Act, and that was pretty vague at best. Would Walsh agree/disagree? I'm inclined to think that he'd ascent to the move itself, with the circumstances surrounding the inaugural itself and the ever increasing runs on the bank.

If I keep Walsh on until 1937 (which I plan to, at this point), I want to try and avoid the Court Packing debacle that ruined much of Roosevelt's political capital in his second term and gave the conservatives a second wind in 1938-1939. To do this, I was thinking of having Roosevelt propose a constitutional amendment allowing for the Federal government to explicitly intervene in the economy, though I don't know exactly how I would word that. Either that, or have the SCOTUS not take up cases like Scheter Poultry Corp., etc.

The second big change I'm going to try and work in is the avoidance of the New Deal's arch-fiscal conservative, Henry Morgenthau, from becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Treasury Secretary William Woodin will resign as per OTL in 1934, though I want to replace him with someone more...malleable. I was thinking about putting Joe Kennedy in at Treasury and putting Morgenthau at the SEC, but I'm not exactly sure about how Kennedy would handle the job at the Treasury Department (this of course is probably where RogueBeaver comes in :cool:).

At any rate, my key goal in this proposed cabinet shuffle is to (a) provide for a swifter economic recovery and (b) keep the Court-packing plan from happening, and thus, dirtying up the Roosevelt administration's reputation.
 
Kennedy would be an interesting choice for the Treasury. FDR didn't choose him precisely because he had a spine and a pair:"Joe would want to run the Treasury in his own way, at variance with my views and plans." Roosevelt might choose him, but "watch him like a hawk, and fire him the first time he opens his mouth and criticizes me." If he keeps an economic job instead of the Ambassadorship, that means JPK Sr. won't be discredited. FDR might be more amenable to putting Kennedy on a ticket with him if the Catholic vote looks shaky. Also, you know that Dean Acheson was Undersecretary in 1934? Had Acheson not mismanaged his personal relationship with FDR, he'd have become SecTreas instead of Morgenthau.

Interesting because Acheson also hated Joe Kennedy (RFK popped a vein at ExComm when he heard Acheson had called his father an "Irish bootlegger"), and wasn't particularly enamoured with his sons either IOTL. Very colourful quotes from all sides.
 
Last edited:
IIRC, Acheson quit the Undersecretary job because he opposed Roosevelt taking the U.S. off of the Gold Standard, and by 1934, that had already happened, so I think Acheson in that position is a non-starter.
 
So that leaves Kennedy. That would be interesting to say the least.

Which leaves me wondering exactly how Kennedy would run the Treasury. He's well, to say the least, outspoken, and probably is going to try and run his own shop, much like Harold Ickes did at the Interior Department. I know that the elder Kennedy and JPK Jr. were both much more conservative than JFK, RFK, and EMK (IIRC, of course), which leads me to think that JPK Sr. might be not too different in the long run from the Morgenthau Treasury Dept.
 
Define conservative. On social issues (excepting CR) they were quite conservative except for Ted. Economically for JFK, I'll point you to Scott Brown's recent campaign ad. Economically for RFK, I'll point you to Bill Clinton's memoirs: "the first New Democrat". Only Ted was a traditional tax-and-spend liberal. Both Joes were regular fiscal conservatives in the Morgenthau mold.
 
Both Joes were regular fiscal conservatives in the Morgenthau mold.

I thought as much. I do, however, feel like giving JPK Sr. a more prominent role than IOTL. Maybe I'll have Roosevelt mute him a bit more than he might have with Morgenthau (if that's even possible :p). The two certainly weren't as close as Roosevelt and Morgenthau was, so there's the added effect that FDR might not take Kennedy as seriously about balancing the budget (or not; Roosevelt himself sought a balanced budget and spending cuts as early as he passed the Economy Act). I get the feeling I might have to get a different POD than simply keeping Morgenthau out of the Treasury Department to make sure that Roosevelt doesn't stop the 'pump-priming' around 1935-1937.

Maybe he takes Keynes' letter to him more seriously? I'm at a loss for this one. Any ideas?

I thought you might find this proposed amendment itnresting, in light of the court's struggle: http://books.google.com/books?id=T0I...201936&f=false.

Thank you! That definitely helps a lot. :)
 
If JPK is shown "light at the end of the tunnel", such as promising to help his kids into the Democratic Party (as FDR did IOTL) on the condition that he obeys FDR, then he can be shut up. My favourite FDR-JPK moment (apart from FDR asking him to remove his pants to check for bow-leggedness before appointing him to London :p) was this snippet. "Listen to me boy, or we're all going down the fucking tube!"- JPK to FDR. Fortunately, FDR took that in good spirits.
 
A huge likely butterfly of the 1st choice AG living and getting the job is JE Hoover getting the push before he became really powerful.
 
DJ: I don't think so, IOTL FDR was the one who gave Hoover all his powers, enjoyed reading the X-files Hoover sent him, etc. FDR was the only President to whom Hoover gave his full cooperation.
 
Without the recession and the court packing draining much of his political capital, would FDR try for some big new domestic initiatives? What would he go for?
 
Without the recession and the court packing draining much of his political capital, would FDR try for some big new domestic initiatives? What would he go for?

From what I've read, I get the feeling that he was going to shoot for more 'TVA' type projects across the country, as well as start a sort of 'proto'-Great Society, though with perhaps better structured anti-poverty programs.
 
TNF: But by 1938 his attention will be on the war, and the GOP will still make gains, if not as dramatic as IOTL in 1938. Even in 1942, they came within a whisker of losing control of the House. Had Lyndon Johnson not run the 1940 Congressional campaign, Roosevelt would've had a GOP House, or at the very least a SoDem-GOP coalition as per OTL.
 
At any rate, my key goal in this proposed cabinet shuffle is to (a) provide for a swifter economic recovery and (b) keep the Court-packing plan from happening, and thus, dirtying up the Roosevelt administration's reputation.
Swifter economic recovery and avoiding the deficit does mean getting Morgenthau out or something of the equivalent. What you'd want is essentially to reverse the order of the '37 and '38 pow-wows, where FDR first listens to Morgenthau and tries to balance the budget and listens to the "Spending Caucus" (Ickes, Perkins, Hopkins, Wallace, and Means/Currie/Henderson as their intellectual firepower) after it all goes to hell. The key thing will be to see if the WPA keeps growing past its 3.5 million OTL peak, and instead reaches CWA levels of over 4 million. In terms of the Court-packing, what you'd need is something like what Schlesinger speculated - don't pack the Court, instead get the Congress to pass a resolution condemning the Court's decision to undermine America's economic recovery and override the thrice-stated will of the people (1932, 1934, 1936). Then pivot to re-authorizing the AAA, and use that to log-roll the Dixiecrats into supporting other liberal agenda items.

In terms of agenda items, FDR's big hopes for the 75th Congress were:

- Fair Labor Standards Act - min wage, max hours, ban child labor, the last bit of the old NRA to get reauthorized. Passes in OTL, but with large exclusions and at a low level. Probably will be a higher and more inclusionary standard with less defection.

- Executive Reorganization Act - this was FDR's big ticket and historically it got killed off because it was introduced right at the same time as the court-packing bill. OTL, gets killed off in '37, and weakened but passed in '39, establishes the Executive Office and allows for the hiring of Assistants to the President, moves the Budget Bureau and the National Resources Planning Board into the White House, but stops rationalization there. If the original version passes, then rationalization goes much further, many agencies are consolidated within the departments and independent agencies are brought under the departments, Harry Hopkins becomes the Secretary of the Social Welfare Department (so HEW is established way ahead of schedule) and either Hopkins or Ickes becomes the Secretary of the Public Works Departments, and the Office of Personnel Management is moved within the White House. This may seem like nerdy bureaucratic talk, but it has real implications. The Executive Branch would be much more streamlined, and the President would have a lot more direct administrative control over the various departments through OPM. More importantly, Hopkins and the jobs folks would get a big boost in power, which might mean the WPA survives the war.

- Hospital Insurance Bill - FDR by 1938 was strongly behind the idea of universal insurance, and backed Senator Wagner's Hospital Insurance Bill, which would have funded hospital construction, and provided a two-tier Federal/state health coverage system, with "health care assistance" for the poor along the lines of Old Age Assistance, and a system of health insurance on the Unemployment Insurance model. OTL, this gets killed by the AMA after the midterms. Before the midterms, still really iffy. But without a recession or the court-packing, might squeak through.

So there you go.
 
Top