Jeff Shesol, the author of Supreme Power: Roosevelt v. United States, takes a different spin on this event in history, which sets him apart from other writers of historical events. While he was not the first to chronicle the Roosevelt controversy, Shesol does so in the most detailed way. For a topic that is very dense and full of information, he takes a lighter approach and makes it engaging, while still providing historical knowledge. He clearly demonstrates a deep understanding of the topic, of politics, and about the players involved in this case. The book begins with Roosevelt’s first inauguration and reviews important historical context before the narrative begins. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected into office in 1933, just four years into the Great Depression. Almost immediately upon taking office, he implemented the New Deal in order to respond to, and hopefully rebuild, the worst economic time in United States history. These proposals were met with very wide public support at first, which later would subside.
The New Deal was Roosevelt’s way of getting the country out of the depression by involving the federal government. This included a set of federal programs to achieve economy recovery; bank reforms, work relief programs, public work projects, and many more. The Supreme Court, who at the time was very conservative, opposed the New Deal and its proposals because it gave too much power to the legislative and executive branches. Many of FDR’s proposals were being rejected because of the right-majority of the court and the liberal agendas of the proposals, which greatly frustrated the president. He felt that the court had declared war on him, as all justices were determined to prevent substantial growth of federal power that he was trying to implement. He also felt that the reasoning was because of the justices that had been on the bench for over a decade and were out of touch with the times. He wanted to propose a solution to the majority of the court being out of touch with the times by beginning to plot with his staff and allies to do something about these “Nine Old Men” of Congress and the much skewed conservative judicial power.
Something very useful that Jeff Shesol does throughout his book is put detailed descriptions about the important people that are being discussed, including the “Nine Old Men” of the Supreme Court. This helped me follow along with the story and understand the context of those involved, before continuing with the story. Shesol continues with the most crucial part of the book, Roosevelt’s proposal of a reform that would allow him to add an additional justice to the Supreme Court for every current justice that is above 70 years old, giving him the power to choose six justices who would support his ideas. This quickly became known as the court-packing plan and, even quicker, became the most controversial proposal of his presidency. In the beginning, Roosevelt’s proposal was supported by his administration and some of the Democratic Party. Shortly after the initial proposal, however, it was clear that this was an error.
Roosevelt faced widespread hatred and opposition, even from his own party, because of the excessive presidential power that this proposal would provide. Many people also felt that the courts had become far too conservative. However, they did not think the answer was to add more presidential power to fix this. Newspapers all universally condemned the idea, Nazi-press in Germany had published their support of the deal, and Roosevelt’s own vice president did not approve of it himself. In my opinion, the book does not include enough details in regard to this period of time and what was happening economically. Shesol could have provided the reader with more details about the Great Depression and the New Deal. Coming from a person who is not fully knowledgeable in American history, and particularly Roosevelt, I still found the book generally easy to follow and interesting. However, Shesol could have built up this era of the complete economic turmoil in order to provide better understanding, for readers who weren’t as familiar, to how dramatic this crisis was. Shesol was successful in writing a historical book that was still full of suspense and interesting to read.
