FDR's Budgeteer and Manager-in-Chief

Mordecai Lee

Description

In this book, Mordecai Lee provides a long-overdue examination of a key member of FDR's administration. Harold D. Smith was FDR's budget director from 1939 through to Roosevelt's death in 1945. In that capacity, he was also the de facto manager-in-chief of the federal government. During his tenure, he reformed and expanded the Bureau of the Budget (now Office of Management and Budget) into an elite cadre of apolitical experts dedicated to serving the institutionalized presidency. He pursued management reforms, reorganization, policymaking, economic planning, public relations, and a pinch of politics. In addition, Smith was a leader in professionalizing the emerging field of public administration, cofounding the American Society for Public Administration in 1939 and serving as its second president. A major figure in his time, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1943, and FDR considered him irreplaceable. In response to Smith's offer to resign in 1944, Roosevelt lightheartedly replied, "I would no more accept your resignation than fly by jumping off a roof. You are essentially persona grata and doing a grand job. If you talk any more about resigning, I will act. A Marine Guard from Quantico will be stationed at your side during every minute of every twenty-four hours."
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Preface

Introduction

1. FDR's "Great Reorganizer," April–July 1939

2. War in Europe, Empowering BOB, and First Budget, July–December 1939

3. Spending, Reorganization, Defense, and Third Term Campaign, 1940

4. Neither War nor Peace, plus Business as Usual, 1941

5. The First Year of the War, 1942

6. The Second Year of the War, 1943

7. The Third Year of the War and Fourth Term-Campaign, 1944

8. FDR's Fourth Term, 1945

Conclusion: FDR's Other Assistant President

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• National
• États-Unis
• Central
• History of the Americas
• World War II
• 20th century
• Public administration
• Central government
• United States of America
• USA

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438485355
• Langue: English

Extrait

FDR’S BUDGETEER AND MANAGER-IN-CHIEF
From TIME. © 2021 TIME USA LLC. Time.com . All rights reserved. Used under license.
FDR’S BUDGETEER AND MANAGER-IN-CHIEF
Harold D. Smith, 1939–1945
MORDECAI LEE
Cover image: Harold D. Smith, Director, Bureau of the Budget (1939–1946), undated. Image 51-P-27, Folder 51.14, Portraits of BOB and OMB Directors, Still Pictures 1921–77 (General), Record Group 51 (Office of Management and Budget), Still Pictures Branch, National Archives II, College Park, MD. Credit: National Archives.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Lee, Mordecai, 1948– author.
Title: FDR’s budgeteer and manager-in-chief : Harold D. Smith, 1939–1945 / Mordecai Lee.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021024216 | ISBN 9781438485331 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438485355 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Smith, Harold D., 1898–1947. | Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882–1945. | United States. Bureau of the Budget—Officials and employees—Biography. | Budget—United States—History—20th century. | Finance, Public—United States—History—1933- | World War, 1939–1945—Finance—United States. | United States—Politics and government—1933–1945.
Classification: LCC HJ2051 .L398 2021 | DDC 352.4/80973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024216
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In grateful appreciation for two decades at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and its terrific Golda Meir Library. A professor could not want for more.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
1 FDR’s “Great Reorganizer,” April–July 1939
2 War in Europe, Empowering BOB, and First Budget, July–December 1939
3 Spending, Reorganization, Defense, and Third Term Campaign, 1940
4 Neither War nor Peace, plus Business as Usual, 1941
5 The First Year of the War, 1942
6 The Second Year of the War, 1943
7 The Third Year of the War and Fourth Term-Campaign, 1944
8 FDR’s Fourth Term, 1945
Conclusion: FDR’s Other Assistant President
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Figure 1 Smith taking oath of office, April 15, 1939
Figure 2 Smith in his office in the Executive Office Building, February 1940
Figure 3 Smith and William Knudsen, Director General of the Office of Production Management, preparing to testify at Senate hearing on funding Lend-Lease
Figure 4 Smith at his desk in the Executive Office Building, March 21, 1942
Figure 5 Smith headstone as a veteran
Figure 6 Smith headstone as Bureau of the Budget director
Abbreviations AA Administrative Assistant, formal title of the six presidential aides authorized by the 1939 Reorganization Act. Also a generic personnel category for a staff aide to a senior federal executive. AP Associated Press (news wire service) APSA American Political Science Association APSR American Political Science Review ASPA American Society for Public Administration BOB Bureau of the Budget (renamed Office of Management and Budget [OMB] in 1970) BS Baltimore Sun CCPA Committee for Congested Production Areas CR Congressional Record CSC Civil Service Commission CSM Christian Science Monitor (afternoon newspaper published in Boston) CT Chicago Tribune CwP Conferences with President, HDSP DFP Detroit Free Press DM Daily Memoranda, HDSP DR Daily Record, HDSP EO Executive Order EOP Executive Office of the President FDRL Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park (NY) FY Fiscal Year. Note : The traditional fiscal year in the American public sector starts on July 1 and ends on June 30 of the next calendar year. FYs are titled by the year they end in. For example, FY 1941 started on July 1, 1940, and ended on June 30, 1941. In the 1970s, Congress bumped federal fiscal years forward by a quarter, beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30. Most other governments retained the traditional fiscal year. GPO Government Printing Office (a federal agency, formally part of the legislative branch) HC Hartford [CT] Courant HDSP Harold D. Smith Papers, FDR Library LAT Los Angeles Times NDAC National Defense Advisory Commission NRPB National Resources Planning Board NYA National Youth Administration NYHT New York Herald Tribune NYT New York Times OCD Office of Civilian Defense OEM Office for Emergency Management (agency in EOP) OES Office of Economic Stabilization OFHDS Office Files of Harold D. Smith, Central Files, OMB Records, Record Group (RG) 51, National Archives II, College Park, MD OOI Office of Information, BOB 1941–51, Central Files, OMB Records, RG 51, NA II OPM Office of Production Management OWI Office of War Information PACH Public Administration Clearing House PAR Public Administration Review PCAM President’s Committee on Administrative Management SPAB Supply Priorities and Allocations Board UP United Press (news wire service) WHM White House Memoranda, HDSP WP Washington Post WPB War Production Board WS Washington Star (afternoon newspaper except on Sunday, when it was published in the morning) WSJ Wall Street Journal
Preface
It was November 1944. President Franklin Roosevelt had just, incredibly, been reelected to an unprecedented fourth term. As was the custom for presidential appointees, Budget Director Harold D. Smith submitted a pro forma letter of resignation. This routine act derived from the traditional political custom giving a reelected president a clean slate to reconstruct and revitalize his administration in preparation for a new term in office. 1 FDR promptly rejected Smith’s offer. He wrote back: “I would no more accept your resignation than fly by jumping off a roof. You are essentially persona grata and doing a grand job. If you talk any more about resigning I will act. A Marine Guard from Quantico will be stationed at your side during every minute of every twenty-four hours. Enough said!” 2 That was not the first time FDR had complimented Smith. When declining an invitation to attend a Bureau of the Budget (BOB) staff party two years earlier, he wrote, “Your three years of service as Director of the Budget may not have added to your life expectancy, but I can assure you that your faithful work has increased mine.” 3 Yet Smith has become a largely forgotten figure in contemporary history.
The motivation for this book was curiosity and proximity. The curiosity came from hearing so much about Smith during my doctoral studies in public administration in the 1970s at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. His writings about the importance of budgeting seemed to be reprinted in so many anthology textbooks and on nearly every course reading list. Then he seemed to largely disappear from literature. I wondered about that. The sense of proximity came from running across him so frequently in my previous examinations of some of the other original entities of the new Executive Office of the President (EOP), which FDR had created in 1939 based on the recommendations of the Brownlow Committee. Without any particular grand design, I had profiled the Office of Government Reports and its director, Lowell Mellett (2005); the Liaison Office for Personnel Management and its head, William McReynolds (2016a); and the Office for Emergency Management and its officer, Wayne Coy (2018a). In all three cases, the close working relations that these three officials had with Smith stood out as one of their key levers of power. Their names appeared regularly in Smith’s daily calendars for meetings, phone calls, and working lunches. If Smith and BOB were working on something relating to their jurisdictions, whether these be budgets, reorganizations, executive orders, or the like, Smith made sure his EOP counterparts would always be consulted. Generally, if any had a major reservation, Smith and BOB would hold off on any final action until their concerns were dealt with. I wanted to know more about him and the agency he had molded nearly from scratch. Again, I wondered why he seemingly became largely overlooked in the more recent literature. With this inquiry into Smith and his BOB, I have now unintentionally profiled the leaders of four of the six original units of FDR’s Executive Office of the President. The other two were the White House Office (consisting of the six administrative assistants [AAs] to the president who were expected to have a passion for anonymity) and the National Resources Planning Board (NRPB). The former entity would be impossible to profile because it was not an agenc y and had no head or director. It was simply the organizational identifier and budget salary line for these presidential aides. The workings of the latter agency have been relatively well covered in the historical literature, in particular by Clawson (1981).
The list of archival sources in the bibliography identifies the collections cited in the text. I also greatly benefited from answers to my queries from the Luther Gulick Papers at the Newman Library of Baruch College (NY), Archives and Special Collections of American University’s Library (Washington, DC), Archives of the