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 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 e those years. 46 or 48 states. i've got three-quarter t 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. they end up supporting him. >> exactly. one of the 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

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. they don't respond to moral an 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? >> 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. thinfle nce. 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 economies are too struggling, we can't afford it. 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 hit 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 ro

we're not going to try to resolve right now. you know did, roosevelt do enough, he did not do thou 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. 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 of the downturn. the conservatives disagreed. 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, we still have this problem of income being so heavily 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 elections? 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 de? >> 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 the fair labor standards create in the 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 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 late-1940s. -- late 1930s. what were 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. >> or had 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 where? czechoslovakia. what else was going on in the world? those were two huge things. >> civil war in spain. >> civil war this 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 crisis? >> they were still very isolationist. >> so what did they enact? >> neutrality act. >> neutrality acts. 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 to the time said these were acts perfectly designed to keep the united states out of world war i, which by this time most americans thought it was a mistake for the united states to get involved in world war i and most americans wanted to keep america out of foreign crises. and 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 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. congress keeps trying to handcuff him with restrictive legislation. it's 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. he barely gets it through the house. it's very, very narrow passage of reform revision to give the preside president. greatly increase the power of the presidency and the able to respond to foreign crisis. it was a close call. who knows how u.s. and world history might have theed be the united states hat not repeal the neutrality laws which gave the president some

freedom to intervene on behalf of the tims of natzi aggression in germy. this issue would become much, much more important in a presidential year. 40 after germy does what in the string and summer of 1940? >> invade poland. >> invaded early. then things changed. when they kept across. lightning advantage. this lightning screen advance. they marched into paris by june.

a whole new nation of crisis is facing f.d.r. he wasn't neutral. wo woodrow said we'll will now tral in pact or spirit. it's quite clear that germany and its allies welcome a fundamental threat. not only to europe but to latin america. there's no question that fdr wanted the power and ability to aid the victims of aggression. he faced a powerful isolation sentiment into congress and the american congress and a very

important isolationist organization known as the america first committee. >> foernl fly across the atlant atlantic. >> that made him? >> famous. >> yeah. he was the great american hero. he was famous. more people knew lindbergh. he became the public voice of the isolationist movement. his arguments were very, very

racial. anybody know how lindbergh was making a racial involvement about america's involvement in world war ii? he made several of them. >> the danger is not germans. the danger is asia. >> exactly. 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 do not want to get involved in that and have more white civilized christian people slaughtered. what a horrible thing. that's really where civilization is going to stand and that was represented by japan and russia. russia was considered the menace

of communism. he made a racial argument as to why america should stay out of the war and a religious argument. what was his religion argument? who america to war? >> he believed that the jews was pushing a boil that wasn't good. >> he even said that. it was the jews that were pushing the united states into involvement in these european quarrels. the republicans, however, how much time is left? 11 minutes. perfect. get right to pearl harbor. the republicans didn't dominate an isolationist. there were isolationist running but they didn't have much

popular appeal. then they nominate this guy. one of the few true dark horse nominees. remember dark house nominee is someone who unexpectedly getting the nomination. who is this guy? >> wendall wilkey. >> what was he? >> a businessman. not an isolationist and represented the business sietd of opposition to the new deal but not an isolationist. as other nominees began to falt falter, he was supported. came out of nowhere to win the republican nomination. the campaign in 1940, did not

become an out right battle between roosevelt, the internationalist and republican isolationist because of the nomination of wilkey. meanwhile, roosevelt took unilateral action as president. does anybody know what he did unilaterally? that would be after the election. >> he gave them submarines. >> exactly. they were shipping. he gave them destroyers in return for some bases that great britain has nod caribbean. he