Franklin Roosevelt's 'Forgotten Man' of 1932

May 17, 2010 Michael Streich

FDR's April 8, 1932 speech focused on millions of Americans who were unemployed, about to lose their homes and farms, and without recourse to federal help.

By the end of 1932, 1,453 banks had closed during that year. In the previous two years, 3,646 banks closed. The nation’s farmers were particularly suffering as their costs soared and credit was unavailable. Many faced foreclosure. This was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Forgotten Man,” coming out of his April 8, 1932 radio speech and from this would come the New Deal. This meant, according to Francis Perkins (Secretary of Labor from 1933 -1945) that “the forgotten man, the little man, the man nobody knew much about, was going to be dealt better cards to play with.”

Roosevelt the Progressive

Although the “Forgotten Man” speech signaled FDR’s intent to secure the Democratic nomination, it did not represent a departure in ideology. Historian Albert Fried, discussing Roosevelt’s moral ideals, states that they “kept faith in turn with the genteel mugwumpery of his youth and adolescence.” In the speech, Roosevelt refers to “These unhappy times…” and called for putting faith in “…the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”

Roosevelt focused on restoring the buying power of small farmers, relief for homeowners and small – generally rural, banks, and the elimination of high protective tariffs. FDR took issue with the Hoover Administration’s solutions: “Here should be an objective of government itself, to provide at least as much assistance to the little fellow as it is now giving to the large banks and corporations.”

For Roosevelt, the economic picture was like a domino effect. “No nation can long continue half bankrupt.” If consumers could not buy the products that they were able to produce, unemployment would never be conquered. According to Roosevelt, “Main Street, Broadway, the mills, the mines will close if half the buyers are broke.” The 1929 Crash and subsequent depression created massive layoffs. Consumer credit was extinguished. Other than private charities, no federal assistance existed for Roosevelt’s “forgotten man.”

Reaction to the Forgotten Man

Al Smith, competing for the Democratic nomination, accused Roosevelt of being a demagogue and attempting to ignite class warfare. “I will take off my coat and fight to the end against any candidate who persists in…setting class against class and rich against poor.” (Jean Edward Smith, New York Times, May 14, 2007) Republicans also took issue with the “forgotten man” image and the promise of a New Deal. In September 1932, Hoover’s Secretary of War, Patrick J. Hurley, stated that President Hoover had “not forgotten any man of woman in America.” (New York Times, September 23, 1932)

Origin of the ‘Forgotten Man’

A September 18, 1932 New York Times article, “The Forgotten Man,” stated that the phrase “owes its genesis to an older decade: Professor William Graham Sumner of Yale, a noted opponent of socialism and protectionism…” In a National Review interview (June 12, 2007), Amity Shlaes also pinpoints the Yale philosopher while discussing her book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. According to Shlaes, “During the Great Depression many people still recalled Sumner’s forgotten man.”

Will there always be a “Forgotten Man?”

Some argue that the New Deal never managed to affect all of the forgotten in American society. Blacks and other minorities experienced no relief nor, for that matter significant advances. FDR owed much of his support to the Southern political machines and was not about to confront segregation. Shlaes argues that the 1935 Schechter Poultry Corp. v United States Supreme Court decision was actually a victory for “the little man.” The case, which declared FDR’s National Recovery Act (NRA) unconstitutional, was a unanimous decision.

The American “forgotten man” may still exist. Timothy Eagan (New York Times, August 28, 2008) compared Barak Obama to FDR. Of Roosevelt, he wrote, “…with one speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt put himself on the side of a huge majority of Americans eager to throw out a president.” Eagan draws a parallel between the appeal of Obama and that of FDR. It may have been a reason Senator Obama was elected: voters that felt powerless in 2008 agreed with the phrase, “yes we can.”

References other than those noted in the article:

• Anthony J. Badger, FDR: The First Hundred Days (NY: Hill and Wang, 2008)
• Albert Fried, FDR and His Enemies (Palgrave: St. Martins Griffin, 1999)
• Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (NY: The Viking Press, 1946)

© 2010 Michael Streich The copyright of the article is owned by Michael Streich and any attempt to republish in print or digitally requires written permission.