Marriner Eccles Quotes
[When FDR was considering appointing Eccles, there was a great deal of opposition. Many Democrats opposed the nomination as Eccles had been a banker and was a Republican. Many Republicans saw him as a 'traitor to his class.' The President shared the information on the formidable opposition but told Eccles he 'didn't give a damn.' Well, Mr. President, if you don't give a damn, I don't see why I should.
Marriner Eccles, 1890-1977, Federal Reserve Board Chairman (Republican), Reply to Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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Ironically, the Republican Presidents who had no business experience did much better with the American economy—Nixon, Eisenhower, and Reagan than the Republican businessmen. And the one Democrat who was a successful businessman—Jimmy Carter—presided over a terrible economy. The key variable seems to be business experience which gives leaders a false sense of being able to control things more than is real and develops an empathy with a narrow slice of the electorate—other businessmen—who are much more interested in short term profits rather than the health of the economy as a whole.
Those who did were ostracized by Delay (who was then the Republican Majority Leader) and some other leading Republicans. His extreme and sometimes illegal partisan tactics got him into criminal difficulty and he was a major part of the great Republican Scandal of 2005-2006. He then was convicted of criminal activity for his extreme and illegal political activities.
Eccles had been a wealthy Republican banker before masterminding much of the New Deal economic policies. He was pilloried by many of his fellow wealthy businessmen and financiers.
There was a norm that Cabinet members had the prerogative of Appointments in their own states. Senators still have such influence.
The presidential nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896 split the Democratic party. Governor Hill was a strong party man, but couldn't abide Bryan's "free silver" and other positions, so when a reporter asked him if he was still a Democrat, and would campaign for Bryan, the governor answered:
Hope cracked this joke after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected for an unprecedented fourth term as president:
The Ambassador was not on the best terms with FDR. He met with the Luces, key Republicans on Wendell Willkie's team regarding his delivery of the Catholic vote.
The justice so hated the President, that he not only made intemperate insulting remarks in private as this one but he even made intemperate insults in Supreme Court proceedings. See {585241}. McReynolds was an extreme racist and detested every thing that FDR and the New Deal stood for. Although an elderly man when FDR came into office, he lived long enough so that Roosevelt was never able to appoint his replacement. McReynolds was one of the reasons that FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court.
Marriner Stoddard Eccles was an American banker, economist, and member and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
