PrintFebruary 24, 2011
They'd Rather be Right
I hardly expected to find the musical version of Amity Shlaes' bestselling critique of New Deal economic policies playing in a 99-seat theater on New York's Upper West Side.
But, in a very real sense, I did.
Now, I do mean that to be taken literally. Ms. Shlaes published The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression in 2009. The play in question, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's I'd Rather be Right originally debuted somewhat before that -- in November 2, 1937 to be precise.
Ms. Shlaes' book and Burton W. Folsom's 2008 study New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America propound the following scenario: that, while piling deficit upon deficit, a confounding array of ill-conceived and intrusive government measures only prolonged America's Great Depression.
Ms. Shlaes' book and Burton W. Folsom's 2008 study New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America propound the following scenario: that, while piling deficit upon deficit, a confounding array of ill-conceived and intrusive government measures only prolonged America's Great Depression.
The production that Friday evening was a revival of the original 1937 production, featuring not merely words and music by Mssrs. Rodgers and Hart, but also a book by the inimitable George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
If there is a Republican (or even a RINO) in that quartet I (and probably they) would be most surprised, but, in fact, this relic of FDR second term gently but firmly buttresses the arguments of both Ms. Shlaes and Mr. Folsom. The New Deal never did quite figure how to either end the Depression or set aright the nation's finances.
I'd Rather be Right's premise is the stuff and fluff of pure musical comedy.
A boy.
A girl.
A problem that separates them.
A happy ending.
It seems that young Phil and Peggy, though quite in love, cannot get hitched. Phil can't afford it. He can't get promoted because his boss can't expand because the economy is uncertain. No new branch office for Phil to oversee until the Administration balances the budget.
Goes the dialogue:
PEGGY: But why, Phil? Didn't they give any reason?PHIL: Oh, it seems they want to wait till they know what's going to happen, or something - to the country. Is the dollar going down, and are prices going up, and is the budget going to be balanced, or what is going to happen?PEGGY: But I thought things were better.PHIL: Well, all I know is, they don't know what's going to happen . . . and that means I stay right where I am.
The evening's action occurs in a dream sequence. Not a bad idea, really, for the device enables us to finally exclaim, "Ah, ha! That's why FDR is so dexterous!" In any case, Phil and Peggy run across FDR (ironically originally played by the anti-Roosevelt George M. Cohan) in Central Park and opportune him to shape up and balance the federal budget. Their plight touches his heart. He vows to balance.
Alas, aside from raising taxes, he really hasn't a clue how. "The trouble with this country," he admits, "is that I don't know what the trouble with this country is."
And neither does his cabinet.
Says Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau: "I have achieved, you must admit, the biggest goddam deficit."
Nor is Wall Street in much better shape thanks to the New Deal. "I'm really quite a hero," opines FDR, "I only have to say 'My friends . . .', and the stocks go down to zero."
All the while, though, the patronage mills keep running, the federal payroll keeps rising. Sings Postmaster General Jim Farley:
I keep my popularity forever hale and hearty
By finding jobs for everyone in the Democratic Party.
A job for every uncle and a job for every niece-
I give a job for every vote, and how the votes increase!
Some guys are such good voters they get twenty jobs apiece!
Three cheers for the land of F. D.!
In fact, nothing seems to function. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (who wants to tax federal offices to balance the budget) laments: "I fight for the workmen and fight for the bosses, And the more that I fight, the bigger their losses."
The newly-formulated Wagner Labor Relations Act doesn't seem to work at all. FDR attempts to settle a strike at an Italian-American-run ferris wheel but all he can accomplish is yet another government take-over. "We worka for the Government!" rejoices one paisan, "That meansa we're rich!"
Along the way, I'd Rather be Right skewers the multitude of job-killing new taxes, as well as that grand ancestor of PBS, NPR, and the Federal Endowment for the Arts -- the Federal Theatre Project. Kaufman and Hart's send-up of a Federal Theater production presages the worst of Prairie Home Companion.
There's even a reminder that hapless 1936 GOP sacrificial lamb Alf Landon (now reduced to being FDR's overbearing mother's butler) could balance his budget.
In the end, Kaufman and Hart punt on a happy ending. In a life-will-imitate-art sequence, all they can offer is the vague hope that FDR will somehow balance the budget (and end the Depression) in a third term.
If they only knew.
So there you have it. A play ripped from yesterday's headlines offering more than a little evidence to validate a duo of modern conservative critics' contention that FDR's New Deal was a deficit and boondoggle-creating, patronage-packed failure that extended-not cured-the Great Depression.
Now...aside from that, there were more than a few stirrings of eerie parallels to certain current budgets and deficits and cabinets and presidents.
...but that's a story for another dream sequence.
David Pietrusza is the author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents and Silent Cal's Almanack: The Homespun Wit & Wisdom of Vermont's Calvin Coolidge.
