The Ghosts Of '33

摘要

The president-elect rode the rails to his Inauguration, his normally buoyant spirits muted by a passing landscape of shuttered factories and municipalities in default. A quarter of the nation's workforce was unemployed; what remained of its credit system was on life support. By the time Franklin Roosevelt reached Washington on the evening of March 2, local hotels were refusing to accept out-of-state checks. Eleanor Roosevelt wondered how her family would pay its tab at the Mayflower. If he succeeded in reversing the economic death spiral, a friend told F.D.R., he would be remembered as America's greatest President. "And if I fail," replied Roosevelt, "I will be remembered as the last one."