A Tale of Two Fine Roosevelts

Yet Roosevelt had more executive and political experience than Lippmann allowed, having served as Wilson's assistant secretary of the Navy for eight years, and as governor of New York since 1929. And FDR the future New Dealer was very much in evidence on the stump. While still aspiring to the nomination, he made his appeal for "bold, persistent experimentation" in combating the Depression. He also denounced, as squarely as his cousin had, "that small group of men" whose ideas about national well-being were "tinctured by the fact that they can make huge profits from the lending of money and the marketing of securities." Roosevelt became something more important than a crusader—he emerged as a national leader.

Roosevelt's experimentalism in the White House irked those on the left who thought it affirmed his allegiance to the capitalist status quo, as well as those on the right who thought it made him the avatar of anti-American collectivism. His political shrewdness confounded even some of his supporters. The establishment in 1934 of the Securities and Exchange Commission fulfilled Theodore Roosevelt's idea of protecting investors from monied predators, while also reducing the chances of another Wall Street upheaval. Yet surprise and dismay greeted FDR's appointment of the wealthy arriviste Joseph P. Kennedy as the SEC's first chairman. "Why did you pick that crook?" someone asked. "Takes one to catch one," Roosevelt replied. (Kennedy did an excellent job, winning praise for his reforms.)

In his classic study "The Coming of the New Deal," the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. succinctly described FDR's mission: "To save capitalism from the capitalists." That mission had been Theodore Roosevelt's as well. And until the Age of Reagan dawned in the 1970s, the underlying principle of the Rooseveltian mission—that left unchecked, the system could self-destruct—came as second nature to American policymakers. Then, after years of regressive tax cuts and deregulation, followed by the advent of the Newt Gingrich congressional Republicans, those principles began to fade—despite the stupendous costs of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, the Enron meltdown of 2001 and other depredations by capitalist buccaneers.

The sudden intrusion of reality in 2008 has been politically costly for John McCain. Supposedly chastened by his links to the S&L debacle, McCain had fashioned a reputation for independence and toughness, and proclaimed his admiration for TR. Yet to secure the nomination of a badly fractured Republican Party, McCain embraced Ronald Reagan's political legacy of tax cuts and small government—exactly as the Age of Reagan was coming to an end. Although he has tried to switch gears since the financial crisis hit by denouncing Wall Street greed and proposing government intervention, McCain's outrage is less than Rooseveltian, and his continued recital of Reaganite dogma makes him sound archaic, like a golden-oldies act. His running mate, although youthful and spirited, seems caught in the same time warp.

Last week in Toledo, Ohio, Barack Obama, after more than a year of campaigning, offered a specific plan of action for economic recovery and rescuing the middle class. He has even been willing to embrace proposals, such as Hillary Clinton's moratorium on house foreclosures, which he disdained during the Democratic primaries. It was an encouraging first step.

Yet Obama must adjust swiftly on other fronts as well if he is fully to update the Rooseveltian legacy.