problem becomes so much more difficult. and as you'll see, fdr during his second term does directly address that issue. and finally, we've all talked about this, but just to sum it up, in terms of the politics, the president also makes politics more direct, more personal, more democratic, eliminating the two-thirds rule for democratic nominations, establishing the idea that the president personally goes to the convention and makes a speech everybody listens to on the radio, and then of course later on the television with his fireside chats, directly speaking to the american people. with the use of modern polling techniques, trying more directly as never before to take the pulse of the american people. so in these ways as well, fdr contributes to the evolution of presidential politics as more

direct, more personal as a politics that has a more immediate impact. in the old days we didn't see or hear very much of their presidents. certainly did not have this kind of direct personal relationship. but of course the tale of humanity is, great power and great heights lead to? great falls. i don't mean the place in virginia there. and fdr starts out his second term with certainly what appeared to be a great fall and in some senses was. and that was his court packing scheme. what was that all about and why was that an overreach? way in the back. >> he was -- i forgot the traditional number of judges but he increased the number of judges so they could vote for his power. >> he wanted to increase the number of judges, yeah.

>> he wanted to outnumber the conservative votes on the court by creating a bunch of new seats that he could then fill with liberal judges using some arcane paper filed by one of the justices. >> yes, yes, we all vote yes. the roosevelt yes-men on the court. anybody want to further expand that? so here's the idea. he is terrified the supreme court's going to do what? pretty much strike down, particularly the wagner act or the social security act, the two pillars of the new deal. right? these are the two most important things, both substantively and politically, and also the wpa, very substantively and politically, as well. the wagner act and the social security act are kind of the real strong, stout pillars of the new deal. one establishes labor power, the other establishes the new welfare state and entitlement programs.

he cannot afford to have those struck down. and he's very fearful the court's going to do that. and he thinks the only way he can stop it, look, i just got elected with 46 states, 4 in those years. 46 or 48 states. i've got three-quarters of the votes in the congress are democrats. i can do what i want. i can even go after the courts. we discussed another president who went after the supreme court, didn't we? who was that? thomas? yeah, and what happened to him? >> didn't work out. presidents don't do well when they adjust with the court somehow. it seems unseemly, you know. for the president to go after the courts. but roosevelt felt it was worth it. because he thought his whole new deal program was going to be brought down, you know, like samson bringing down the pillars of the temple and the whole structure crash.

so he proposed a scheme whereby for every justice who didn't retire at the age of 70 or more, which was a majority on the court, he'd get to appoint a new one. there was nothing sacred about nine justices. we started out with six. that's not a constitutional requirement. he felt in this way he could appoint, you know, five, six new judges and literally pack the court with his yes-men. what happened to the court-packing scheme and why didn't it work? >> well, he didn't include congress in any of this so they kind of felt blind sided so even his democrats disagreed with it. he couldn't even get an overwhelmingly democratic senate to go along with this. even democrats in congress thought this was overreaching, thought this was dangerous constitutional tampering, and this was fdr's first big political defeat. and was not a particularly good way or an auspicious way to start the second term.

what happened to the court, though? he loses the battle on court packing. but what happens? yeah. >> they don't vote on the more conservative line. thnd judges who was thought to be against him switched and the court upholds the major new deal programs. some call it the switch in time that saved nine. it was a pretty good line, although a little bit hard to say. he loses the court-packing battle but ultimately wins the battle over the court and ultimately comes to control the court the old-fashioned way. how? >> new judges. >> he winds up appointing a slew of new judges and basically by the time he leaves office, it's at entire roosevelt court although not all the judges turn out precisely the way he wants them. but basically he gets to reshape the court over time anyway. and this is really important because this constitutional fight, this transformation of the court, is critically important for the presidency and the political history of the

country. because it basically validates the notion that the government can adopt major social policy, like social security, like the wagner act, that fundamentally transforms the nation, and the supreme court is not now going to step in and stand in the way. so this really -- without, this you might, you know -- who knows how different the course of american history would have been. you might not have had some of the fundamental reforms of the new deal. and of later years. and ultimately, too, this new stance upon the court also allows latitude constitutionally for the civil rights laws of the 1960s. without this constitutional revolution, under old supreme court doctrines, the civil rights act of 1964 and the

voting rights act of 1965 might well have been struck down by the court. so roosevelt loses the battle over the court, takes a big political bruising, but wins the war over the court. and we have this huge fundamental constitutional transformation, which is absolutely essential to the further evolution of the liberal state. both in regard to economic and social policy, and then later on in regard to civil rights policy as well. same time, the crisis for jews in germany is getting worse and worse. as hitler's persecutions not only increase, but begin to spread to other areas, particularly after hitler takes

over austria in 1938. actually, his native country. brings in several hundred thousand more jews into germany. and hitler's anti-semitic policies are beginning to spill over into other countries where there are many more jews than germany, like poland, which had over 3 million jews. after his re-election, for the first time, you get a new roosevelt on the jewish issue. he does begin to do things. doesn't get up there and make big speeches about hitler, but he does finally loosen the restrictions for immigration after his re-election. so that the quota of 26,000 plus a couple thousand for austria does get filled during his second term. and his biggest initiative relates to his belief that you've got to extract the jews from germany, and perhaps extract the jews from other parts of europe as well. that he comes around to the

belief during his second term, freed of re-election pressures, that the only solution to the problem of the persecution of jews in germany, and as it's spreading more broadly in europe, is to get them out. there's nothing you can do to stop hitler and like-minded dictators from persecuting the jews. the united states has no leverage. we're not going to invade germany, we have no army anyway, you know, we have limited exports with them. as situation. so his idea is, let's extract the jews. and the problem is, you can't bring them into the united states. because the immigration quota's only 26,000 plus a couple thousand for austria. that's a drop in the bucket. what's the only way you could change the quotas? yeah? >> congress.

>> yeah, you have to go to congress. and is that a promising thing to do? why not? >> they weren't favorable. >> no. the depression is still going on. there's no chance in the world congress is going to open up the doors of america to immigrants. if anything, if you went to congress, what was the more likely result? >> they'd say to cut off all immigration. >> cut off all immigration or at least cut the quotas. so that wasn't an option. so you can't bring them into the united states except you know in small numbers. so what can you do? >> other nations. >> exactly. let other nations, particularly underpopulated nations take them in. and what's the big underpopulated area that could take in a lot of jews? i'm not talking about palestine, that's a whole other issue, that's under control of the british, i'm not going to get into that. what's an area under united states influence that's huge and sparsely populated? >> alaska. >> not alaska yet. alaska's tough. more hospitable than alaska. >> south america? >> latin america, exactly. latin america. you know, they could use, you know skilled labor. they're very underpopulated.

they have a lot of land. they're kind of under our influence. so roosevelt takes the initiative of calling a major international conference on refugees at evian in france and brings latin american countries there along with u.s. and canada and britain and france in an effort to try to get these latin american countries to step up and take hundreds of thousands, even millions of jews. what is the result? pardon? >> [ inaudible ]. >> i can't hear you. >> they say no. >> exactly. they all express their sympathy. but they all say, but. we already have enough. our econit.s there's a wonderful article in "the washington post" on the evian conference that called it,

the "but for" conference. yes, we would like to help the jews, but for. and fill in the blank. one country agreed to take in large numbers of jews. anybody know what that was? no? you know, a tiny fraction of the size of brazil. >> chile? >> pardon? >> chile? >> much tinier than chile. >> no, you're all guessing. the dominican republic. headed by whom? was he a nice guy? no, he was one of the most bloodthirsty dictators, in an era of bloodthirsty dictators. he didn't have the power of hitler, but if he did he might not have been quite as bad but he would have been mighty bad. he was responsible for the murder of certainly more than 10,000 haitians in the dominican republic simply because of their race. a horrible guy. why would he want to take in jews? >> so he could kill them? >> he wasn't going to do that, he wasn't quite that bad. think about it.

he'd just been -- what does he want to do? >> free labor? >> good skilled labor. but -- >> improve his image. >> improve his image. this bloodthirsty murderer. i'm going to curry favor with the u.s. i'm going to improve my image. i'm going to be the savior of the jews? and, of course, does it work out? no. a few hundred jews ultimately come to the dominican. but that's just an indication of how bad things got at evian. and you know, fdr tried but he was stuck. then ultimately the jewish problem would become merged with what problem? world war ii. and the lead-up to world war ii and this huge controversy that we're not going to try to resolve right now. you know, did roosevelt do enough, did he not do enough to help the jews and you know, the simple answer is, did he do everything possible? no.

did he do more than any other world leader, including winston churchill? yes. far more than any of them. could he ultimately have stopped the holocaust? no. united states didn't have troops on the ground in europe, except for italy, until when? come on. you all know. june you have 1941. it took months to consolidate. but we'll talk a little more about this when we get to the world war ii period. so by 1937, 1938, attention is beginning to shift. you know, the first term is all about the great depression, domestic policy, changing the fundamental politics and policies of america. by the time you're getting towards the middle of the second term, foreign policy is becoming extremely important, and would soon come to dominate domestic policy.

but in the meantime, as roosevelt is going into the midterm election year of 1938, he suffers another setback on top of the court-packing setback. and it's evident from this chart. what's the setback he suffers in '37, '38? >> he starts cutting government spending which leads to a drop in gdp. >> right. kind of -- what's called -- today we term it the double-dip recession. this is the recession during the depression. you can see up to that point, to '37, recovery is extremely robust. you're right around again the levels of 1929. basically the economy had recovered from the great depression. the myth is, only world war ii brought the united states out of the depression. that's not true. we're pretty much out of the depression, look at that line, by 1937.

but then you get the recession within the depression. because most economists think and you know, who knows if they're right. in washington, d.c. there's an economist on every street corner and none of them agrees with any other so you never know what the right economic wisdom is. but most who studied this believe the cutbacks that were part and parcel hesagrd. what did they say the problem was with the economy? and things never change. spending beyond the budget and? too much side taxes and spending. too much regulation. exactly. this is what you'd expect. of course, it hadn't happened for four years, five years. this is what you'd expect in an overtaxed, overspent government that overregulates. arguments never change.

of course, the liberals said it's because of cutbacks in spending and because, you know, concentrated in the rich, who weren't spending enough. but this was a huge problem because in this new era, who gets the blame? the president. this is heading right into the mid-term elections of 1938. what happens in the mid-term elecs? democrats take a huge pasting. lose scores of seats in the house and many seats in the united states senate. not enough for republicans to come anywhere close to the majority again, but enough to make the republicans, for the first time in the roosevelt presidency, a very consequential majority, particularly given the fact that who -- what group of democrats is now beginning to

sour a bit on the new deal? >> southerners. >> the southerners and they're particularly souring on what's the last big piece of new deal legislation, kind of the final act. what is that piece of legislation that's very important at this period in '38 that the south hates? it's nothing to do with civil rights, although it has a lot to do with race. one of you mentioned it previously. i think you did. what wouldn't republicans like the government to do? the fair -- yeah? go ahead. >> fair labor standards. >> and that did what? >> it created the national labor relations board. >> no, no. that was earlier. what did standards create? something that again, we've had lots of arguments over. >> the minimum wage. >> the minimum wage and the maximum hours. and why did the south hate the minimum wage? >> because they could pay

whatever they felt without any regulation. >> exactly. had to do a labor market, one for whites, one for blacks. and as low as it was, the minimum wage at least established a minimum floor. although, again, many blacks who were in domestic labor or farm labor were excluded. but you know, but the fair labor standards act, you know, the south was beginning to sour a bit on the new deal. so you now had republicans as a consequential majority and southerners in the congress upon whom the president could no longer fully count. so by 1938, the president's power in congress had been weakened. the new deal, as a major domestic form, had pretty much run its course. attention was being shifted to foreign affairs. you know, by the mid- to was being shifted to foreign

affairs. you know, by the mid to late 1930s. what was happening abroad? what were some of the huge events that the president had to respond to in the mid to late '30s? >> japan had declared war on china. >> invaded china, exactly. i'm not sure they declared war. they certainly invaded. there was a horrible, bloody war. germany was expanding. first in austria then in czechoslovakia. what else was going on in the world. those were two huge things. >> civil war in spain. >> civil war in spain that seemed to pit russia against germany and italy. italy's invasion of ethiopia, the pretty much demise of the league of nations as an effective mechanism of international relations. and what was the reaction of the congress of the united states to this eruption of world crises? >> they were still very

isolationist. >> so what did they enact? >> neutrality act. right, basically designed to keep the united states, what? >> out of war. >> out of war. basically uninvolved with these quarrels in europe. you know, critics at the time said these were acts perfectly designed to keep the united states out of world war i, but which this time most americans thought it was a mick take for the united states to get involved in world war i, and most americans wanted to keep america out of foreign crises. time and time again, starting in 1935 through 1938, against roosevelt's wishes, congress passed a series of neutrality acts, pretty much tying the hands of the president, making it very difficult for the president to respond to foreign crises because he couldn't make distinctions between aggressors and victims. and the congress had also rejected something else

that roosevelt wanted, and that was american participation in the world court. we were not members of the league of nations, but we could still be members of the world court. roosevelt, who understood the dangers abroad and was not an isolationist, was an internationalist and wanted america more involved, gets rebuffed. congress won't ratify america joining the world court and keeps trying to handcuff him with restrictive legislation. it is not until the outbreak of world war ii in september of 1939, after that, that roosevelt is finally able to persuade congress to at least in some limited way revise the neutrality laws. and he barely gets it through the house. he's got pretty adamant

republican opposition and some isolationist democrats opposed as well. very, very narrow passage of the reform, revision to give the president more discretion with respect to the neutrality acts and greatly increase the power of the presidency and the ability of the president to respond to foreign crises. but it was a very close call. again, who knows how u.s. and world history might have shifted in fundamental ways if the united states had not repealed the neutrality laws, which gave the president some freedom. not full freedom as yet to intervene on behalf of the victims of nazi aggression in germany, and this issue would become much, much more important

in the presidential year of 1940 after germany does what in the spring and summer of 1940? >> invades poland. >> invaded poland earlier. you had the so-called phony war for a while. then things changed. right. when they swept across -- what did they call that lightning quick advance? >> the blitzkreig. >> the blitzkreig. france thought they were protected by, what? the imaginal line. the series of fortresses. germans said, we'll go around that. who cares? they march into paris, you know, by june of 1940, so a whole new phase of crisis is now facing dfr who's got to stay neutral. he can't get involved in the war, but he wasn't neutral. you know, woodrow wilson said we'll be neutral both in fact and in spirit, and fdr said, you

know, we'll just be neutral in fact. we're not neutral in spirit. it's quite clear, you know, that germany and its allies represent a fundamental threat, not only to europe but to latin america, where there's a lot of nazi subversion going on. ultimately, if the united states becomes isolated to the united states itself and to the survival of democracy all over the world. so there's no question, you know, that fdr wanted the power and the ability to aid the victims of aggression, but he faced a very, very powerful isolationist sentiment in the congress and in the american public and a very important isolationist organization known as the america first committee, which took shape in 1940 to kind of push for american isolation. their position was we must

never, under any circumstances, become involved in the european war. we don't care if britain is going to go down along with france. that's not our quarrel. and their chief spokesperson was this guy, charles lindbergh. who is he, and why did americans care about him? yeah. >> first person to fly across the atlantic solo. >> and that made him? >> famous. >> yeah, he was the great american hero. he was famous. maybe except for roosevelt, the most famous of all americans. more people knew lindbergh probably than anyone else. people listened to him. he became the public voice of the isolationist movement, and his arguments were very, very racial. anybody know how lindbergh was making a racial argument about america's non-involvement in world war ii? he made several of them. yeah? >> that the danger is not

germans. >> correct. >> the danger is asia. >> exactly. look, this is a quarrel among the white civilized people of europe. it's really unfortunate that the white civilized people of europe should be fighting one another. we certainly do not want to get involved in that and have more white civilized, christian people slaughtered. what a horrible thing. when we face -- and he called them the asiatic hordes. those are the real dangers. that's really where civilization it going to stand. that was represented by japan and by russia. you know, russia was considered an asiatic country, of course, and the menace of communism. and so he made a very racialized argument as to why america should stay out of the war, and he also made a religious argument with respect to the war. what was his religious argument? who was pushing america to war?

>> he was basically anti-semitic, and he believed the jews were pushing a policy that wasn't good for americans. and he segregated -- >> he even said that, that this may be good for the jews, but it's not good for america, saying jews weren't real americans. it was the jews that were pushing the united states into involvement in these european quarrels for their own selfish and non-american purposes. much time is left? >> 11 minutes. >> 11 minutes. perfect. get right to pearl harbor. the republicans, however, didn't dominate an isolationist, somewhat surprising. there were isolationists running, but they haven't did much popular appeal. so then they nominated this guy, one of the few true dark horse nominees in america. a dark horse nominee is someone who unexpectedly gets the nomination. who's this guy?

wendell willkie, who held what political office? trick question. >> none. >> none. what was he? >> businessman. >> businessman. and not an isolationist. he's a businessman who had kind of represented the business side of opposition to the new deal but not an isolationist. as other nominees begin to falter, he was supported by the non-isolationist northern financial wing, "time" magazine and wall street. and came out of nowhere to win the republican nomination. so the campaign in 1940 did not become an outright battle between roosevelt, the internationalist, and republican isolationists because of the nomination of willkie. meanwhile, roosevelt took