Episode 8: The Inheritance | The Kingmakers

Time came when the ticker tape in the broker's office told a new story.

It was panic.

16 and a half million shares of stock sold in a single day.

Sold hopelessly, desperately, at any price.

Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 as the Great Depression hit rock bottom.

Banks were collapsing.

The Great Depression left millions of able and willing Americans bewildered and jobless.

Roosevelt believed the US government needed to act fast and on a scale it never had before.

To fix the problem, FDR insisted that the executive branch must take a proactive role and that the federal government must expand the power of the president who controls it.

Roosevelt did kind of the opposite of Doge.

Instead of tearing apart federal agencies, he built new ones from scratch.

And he did so by pushing the boundaries of executive authority.

With his power, he regulated banks and the financial markets.

He established federal protections for workers, support for the unemployed, the elderly, and children, electricity for rural communities, hospitals and modern infrastructure, thousands of new schools, roads, and bridges.

FDR's New Deal showed us what the government could accomplish for the good of its citizens if someone in power was brave enough to take action and stand up to the opposition.

When a conservative Supreme Court began striking down parts of the New Deal, Roosevelt threatened to remake the court itself.

In the eyes of his supporters, FDR was using presidential power to save the country.

These are the things that indicate better times and show that under Roosevelt's leadership, America is going forward.

But to his enemies, President Roosevelt was using a national emergency as an excuse to become a dictator.

The president has seized the power to alter all wages, all prices, all debt, all savings at his will.

And is not this very increase of personal power the very suicide rule upon which every democratic government has died from the time of Greece and Rome down to the dozen liberal governments that have perished in Europe during this last 20 years?

Roosevelt was unfazed.

He didn't apologize for what he was doing or relinquish power.

They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred.

And today, more than 90 years later, it's hard to imagine the US government without the institutions that FDR created.

Time came when the ticker tape in the broker's office told a new story.

It was panic.

16 and a half million shares of stock sold in a single day.

Sold hopelessly, desperately, at any price.

Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 as the Great Depression hit rock bottom.

Banks were collapsing.

The Great Depression left millions of able and willing Americans bewildered and jobless.

Roosevelt believed the US government needed to act fast and on a scale it never had before.

To fix the problem, FDR insisted that the executive branch must take a proactive role and that the federal government must expand the power of the president who controls it.

Roosevelt did kind of the opposite of Doge.

Instead of tearing apart federal agencies, he built new ones from scratch.

And he did so by pushing the boundaries of executive authority.

With his power, he regulated banks and the financial markets.

He established federal protections for workers, support for the unemployed, the elderly, and children, electricity for rural communities, hospitals and modern infrastructure, thousands of new schools, roads, and bridges.

FDR's New Deal showed us what the government could accomplish for the good of its citizens if someone in power was brave enough to take action and stand up to the opposition.

When a conservative Supreme Court began striking down parts of the New Deal, Roosevelt threatened to remake the court itself.

In the eyes of his supporters, FDR was using presidential power to save the country.

These are the things that indicate better times and show that under Roosevelt's leadership, America is going forward.

But to his enemies, President Roosevelt was using a national emergency as an excuse to become a dictator.

The president has seized the power to alter all wages, all prices, all debt, all savings at his will.

And is not this very increase of personal power the very suicide rule upon which every democratic government has died from the time of Greece and Rome down to the dozen liberal governments that have perished in Europe during this last 20 years?

Roosevelt was unfazed.

He didn't apologize for what he was doing or relinquish power.

They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred.

And today, more than 90 years later, it's hard to imagine the US government without the institutions that FDR created.