Raymond Moley

Raymond Moley (born September 27, 1886 in Berea , Ohio , † February 18, 1975 in Phoenix , Arizona ) was an American journalist , political scientist and political advisor, the head of the Brain Trust of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the preparation of the New Deal was.

Life

Moley studied at Oberlin College with a master’s degree in 1913. Originally he wanted to study law, but under the impression of Woodrow Wilson switched to political science, in which he received his doctorate in 1918 at Columbia University under Charles Beard . He directed the Cleveland Foundation , for which he researched the city's judicial system. In 1923 this earned him a professorship at Columbia University. He got into policy advice through Roosevelt's confidante, Louis Howe. In 1928 he was on the campaign team for Roosevelt's candidacy as governor of New York and then advised them on the judicial system. For the 1932 presidential election , Moley organized the Brain Trust (as Howe and journalists called him) of presidential advisors, consisting of himself and his colleagues at Columbia University, Adolf Augustus Berle and Rexford Tugwell .

They recommended government job creation and close collaboration with business, and Moley himself wrote many of Roosevelt's campaign speeches and later speeches, including important parts of the inaugural address as president with the famous passage, “The only thing we have to fear is fear self ” ( the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ), the Forgotten man speech (1932) and the first“ Fireside chats ”, radio speeches by Roosevelt from 1933. He became its leading political advisor and was his assistant Secretary of State . From him the term New Deal comes for the new policy with which Roosevelt wanted to liberate America from the Great Depression . After Roosevelt's election victory, he was instrumental in the implementation. For the first hundred days of government he mediated between the President and Congress and was one of the most important men in government.

By the end of 1933, however, there was increasing dissent in the economic and social policy of the New Deal, which was too radical for him. He clashed with Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Roosevelt turned down his proposal to peg the dollar back to the gold standard. He resigned from his official position, but initially advised Roosevelt further. In 1936 he broke completely with the Democrats and Roosevelt and henceforth supported Republicans , initially in 1940 Wendell Willkie . He did not take part in any other election campaigns, but was active as a political writer and journalist. From 1937 to 1968 he had a column for Newsweek . He has written for The Freeman , who campaigned for free markets, and the conservative National Review . At the end of the 1930s he had changed from a proponent to an opponent of the New Deal, with which he settled in his book After Seven Years 1939.

In 1970 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Richard Nixon .

Fonts

• Lessons in Democracy, for use in adult immigrant classes , Macmillan 1919 (with Huldah Cook)
• Commercial Recreation , The Cleveland Foundation 1919
• Politics and criminal persecution , Minton Balch 1929
• Our criminal courts , New York, Minton Balch 1930
• After Seven Years , New York: Harper and Brothers 1939 pdf
• 27 masters of politics, in a personal perspective , New York: Funk and Wagnalls 1949
• The Hays office , Indianapolis, New York 1945
• How to Keep Our Liberty. A program for political action , New York: Knopf, 1952, pdf
• The First New Deal , New York: Harcourt Brace 1966 (with Elliot A. Rosen)
• Realities and illusions, 1886-1931: the autobiography of Raymond Moley , New York, Garland Publ. 1980 (editor Frank Freidel)

Web links

• Encyclopædia Britannica
• Biography with photo