Franklin D. Roosevelt: Campaign Address at Madison Square Garden

Context

The devastation of the worst depression in U.S. history and the inadequate response to it of the Republican president Herbert Hoover led to Roosevelt's 57.4 percent popular vote victory in 1932 and sizable Democratic majorities in Congress. The Roosevelt administration's provision of significant help to millions of Americans of all classes and the president's engaging personal style made him a popular president. However, the expansion of federal power to aid nonbusiness groups and a major strike wave in 1934 led to opposition from big-business interests and conservatives of both major parties in the American Liberty League. Roosevelt also faced opposition by panacea movements led by Louisiana's Senator Huey Long; Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest from Michigan; and the California physician Francis Townsend. When the Democrats defied precedent by picking up seats in the 1934 congressional election, Roosevelt and the Democratic Congress moved further to the left, enacting a set of far-reaching Second New Deal measures in 1935. The Social Security Act established a federal social welfare system that provided unemployment compensation for workers, old-age pensions for the elderly, and assistance to the needy elderly, disabled persons, and dependent children. The National Labor Relations Act created a system of federal regulation of industrial relations in which workers received support in exercising their right to form unions and to engage in collective bargaining. Troubling to Roosevelt and his supporters, however, was a series of conservative Supreme Court decisions nullifying early New Deal legislation, but Roosevelt said little in public about the issue.

Public opinion polls at the beginning of 1936 indicated that the presidential election would be close. A third party composed of the three panacea movements was expected to aid Republicans by drawing votes from the Democrats for not going far enough. The Republicans nominated Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, a moderate-to-liberal figure who could appeal to independent voters. The Republicans also had most newspapers on their side and $14 million to spend compared with the Democrats' $9 million.

Roosevelt campaigned aggressively as a champion of workers, farmers, and the unemployed and effectively communicated his caring philosophy in person and on the radio. The Democrats ran a well-organized grassroots campaign, and the economy was on the upswing. Right-wing charges that Roosevelt was communistic fell flat. Republicans' ability to campaign as defenders of the Supreme Court was undermined by the highly unpopular Morehead v. Tipaldo (1936) decision nullifying a state minimum-wage law for women. Conservative Republicans resorted to attacking the Social Security Act, claiming that every worker would be required to wear a metal dog tag. As the campaign drew to a close, scientifically conducted polls indicated that Roosevelt would easily win.

Landon spoke at Madison Square Garden just two nights before Roosevelt spoke there. When Landon's campaign failed to gain traction, he shifted to embracing the anti–New Deal critique of the right wing. He demanded that Roosevelt answer a set of questions about what he would do in a second term, charged that the president was planning to undermine the Constitution, and joined in an attack on Social Security launched days earlier by employers who inserted a misleading message about the program in workers' pay envelopes. Roosevelt, angry about the distortions, decided to use his October 31 address to respond to the Republican misinformation and reaffirm his campaign themes.