Salvos Against the New Deal: Selections from the "Saturday Evening Post" 1933-1940

by Garet Garrett, Bruce Ramsey (Editor)

In response to the Great Depression,FDR rolled out the collection of sweeping reforms known as the New Deal - and few dared to oppose them.  However, Saturday Evening Post columnist Garet Garrett believed that the reforms would permanently alter and damage the American way of life - so, at great risk to his own career - oppose them he did.

Genres: Economics, History, American

200 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2002

About the author

Garet Garrett was born in 1878 in Illinois. By 1903, he had become a well known writer for the Sun newspaper (1833–1950) in New York. In 1911, he wrote a fairly successful book, Where the Money Grows and Anatomy of the Bubble. In 1916, at the age of 38, Garrett became the executive editor of the New York Tribune, after having worked as a financial writer for The New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, and The Wall Street Journal. From 1920 to 1933, his primary focus was on writing books.
Between 1920 and 1932 Garrett wrote eight books, including The American Omen in 1928 and A Bubble That Broke the World in 1932. He also wrote regular columns for several business and financial publications.

Reviews

[Davy Bennett]

Look at Garet Garrett's Peoples Pottage review on GR for more info.
One commentor said the New Dealers were about to shut down the Saturday Evening Post over these jabs.

[Stuart Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Garet Garrett wrote a series of articles for the Saturday Evening Post during the Great Depression concerning the New Deal. Needless to say, he wasn't a fan. Garrett explains how during a time when unemployment was at 30% and people couldn't afford to feed themselves the government was paying farmers not to grow crops and burning what they considered surplus. When many people had no income the government's stated goal was inflation of prices. Garet was less interested in the economic effects of these and other policies than he was in the erosion of freedom and the growth of government power. When Roosevelt broke his promise immediately after being elected and took the U.S. off the gold standard Garrett believed that to be the death of the republic and the beginning of the march to Socialism.

Garrett's comments proved prescient, as five years into the New Deal the U.S. lagged well behind the other industrialized nations of the world in recovery, having barely gotten back to 1929 levels. At this time there began an economic crash that was worse than Black Tuesday. Garrett laments the loss of freedom and the departure from laissez-faire economics in favor of the failed policies of Old World planned systems.