Scroop, Daniel. Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal, and the Making of Modern American Politics

International Social Science Review, Spring-Summer, 2007 by Dean J. Kotlowski

Scroop, Daniel. Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal, and the Making of Modern American Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006. x 275 pages. Cloth, $29.95.

Stebenne, David L. Modern Republican: Arthur Larson and the Eisenhower Years. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006. xi 363 pages. Cloth, $35.00.

In an age when campaign strategists, such as Karl Rove, have become household names, and when former congressional aides, such as Chris Matthews, are now television pundits, these two biographies of political lieutenants from the not-so-distant past merit close attention. Daniel Scroop's Mr. Democrat examines the life of James A. Farley, the architect of Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide triumphs in the elections of 1932 and 1936. David L. Stebenne's Modern Republican resurrects Arthur Larson, the principal theoretician of Republicanism--1950s-style. Despite depicting political actors from different parties, eras, and White Houses, these two studies share many similarities. Farley and Larson were both secondary figures who, in their own ways, shaped American politics. The former helped to construct the New Deal coalition while the latter adjusted to its accomplishments. Interestingly, each man left public life not entirely satisfied with his handiwork.

Scroop's book admirably fills a gap in the literature of the New Deal. Although Farley published two memoirs, Behind the Ballots (1938) and Jim Farley's Story (1948), he heretofore has not received a scholarly biography. Scroop has done his homework, examining not only Farley's memoirs but also his papers at the Library of Congress as well as various collections at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Scroop's writing is clear, crisp, and focused on a straightforward thesis: Farley, although trained as a political boss of the pre-1930s era, is best understood as a transitional figure, someone who accommodated the New Deal's stress on liberal issues and interest-group politics which, ironically, eroded the state party organizations whose prerogatives Farley had once defended. Accordingly, the author considers Farley "less a hapless victim of change than its Trojan horse" (p. 100).

Scroop's argument is persuasive. He depicts an energetic leader who rose through the ranks of New York State politics, believed in the importance of party unity and organization, and rewarded faithful supporters with patronage. Farley's talents shined during FDR's reelection campaign as governor of New York in 1930, in Roosevelt's capturing of the Democratic nomination for president in 1932, and in his triumphant reelection in 1936. Furthermore, throughout FDR's first two terms in the White House, Farley served simultaneously as chair of the New York State Democratic Party, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and postmaster general in the president's cabinet. "Farley," Scroop emphasizes, "oversaw the expansion of the Democratic National Committee's special divisions for women, African Americans, ... and labor" (p. 100). But his embrace of issue-oriented and pluralist politics, New Deal-style, was never unqualified. He disliked FDR's courtship of Republican progressives, resisted Roosevelt's effort to replace Democratic conservatives with liberals in the 1938 primary elections, and opposed the president's maneuvers toward securing a third term. Frustrated, isolated, and, eventually, defeated, Farley left the DNC and the cabinet in 1940.

Scroop's nuanced portrait of Farley, the man, is likewise compelling. Farley was a straight-shooter who adhered to a set of core values about politics: honesty, frankness, and party regularity. When FDR and others, most notably New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Indiana Governor Paul V. McNutt, failed to uphold these standards, Farley turned against them. His vindictiveness became evident in 1942, when Farley, as chair of New York's Democratic Party, thwarted the nomination of a New Deal-approved candidate for governor of the Empire State. Scroop, while generally sympathetic to his subject, is too shrewd to take Farley at face value, however. As he illustrates, the personal likes and dislikes of "Mr. Democrat" were as much the product of Farley's own unfulfilled ambitions for the White House.

Larson, in contrast, had no ambitions for the White House and endured no "falling out" with the president whom he had served. Unlike Farley, Larson hailed from the Midwest rather than the urban Northeast, found his home within the ivy-covered walls of academe rather than inside party organizations, and saw ideas, practically applied, more than convention delegates as the principal tools of politics. Yet, just as Farley could not escape the New Dealers, Larson, a Republican, had to confront the legacy of the New Deal. He was, as Stebenne maintains, well-equipped to do so. After all, Larson's home state of South Dakota had, in part, developed through federal largess. Larson also was an optimistic, well-educated person, tolerant of new thinking and flexible in temperament. While a student at Oxford University, he preferred neither the British Left--the Labour Party--nor its Conservative alternative, but the Liberals who, as he put it, "are not bound to any political principles, but just sensible government" (p. 37). Seeing FDR's policies as examples of such governance, Larson, during debates at the Oxford Union, identified himself as a "Republican who supported the New Deal" (p. 38). He later became a professor of law, specializing in workers' compensation, and held three positions in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower: undersecretary of labor, director of the United States Information Agency, and chief presidential speechwriter.