Alice of MalicernThe Other Side of Rooseveltismrnby Bill Kauffmanrn^i«-l%^rnThe true nature of the New Deal was revealed in one ofrnthose brilliant ironies that flash lightning-like in a midnightrnstorm. It happened September 13, 1933, the Nativity ofrna new secular holiday: NRA Day. An interminable parade uprnNew York’s Fifth Avenue celebrated the National RecoveryrnAdministration, which was to set prices, fix wages, control production,rnand otherwise cartelize the economy. More thanrn250,000 cheerful serfs marched; many carried the Blue Kagle,rnemblem of the NRA. Wolves whistled at the comeU duo ofrnMiss NRA and Miss Libertv, whose bathing suits encouragedrnmonopolistic fantasies.rnYes, there was no doubt about it, the People were in chargernnow! The plutocrats were on the run; the common man, ledrnby his paladin Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose publicists merrilyrnadmitted him to be a “traitor to his class,” was ascendant.rnT’he canaille cortege filed past the reviewing stand. And lookingrndown on the happy masses from high atop the platform ofrndignitaries stood the New York coordinator of the NRA, thatrnnotorious scourge of the money-changers, W. Averell I larriman.rnThe revolution was on.rnNo family did more to facilitate our passage from republic tornempire than the Rooseelts, both the Hyde Park and SagamorernHill branches. Our pious canting imperialism, the favfjringrnof big over small business, the bloating of the executive.rnBill Kauffman is the author of a novel, Every Man a King; arntravel hook, Country Towns of New York; and the forthcomingrnAmerica First! Its fiistory. Culture, and Politics, from whichrnthis essay derives.rnthe centralization of power in Washington, permanent involvementrnin the affairs of Europe, conscription, confiscatoryrntaxation: the kissing cousins Roosevelt hammered gilt nails inrnour coffin.rnYet the Roosevelt coin has a reverse side, which we would dornwell to consider: it is patrician dissent, the self-assured radicalrncriticism begat of proprietary patriotism, and it has no morernvivid incarnation than the Roosevelt stra who terrorized herrnkinfolk with frivolity and wittv malice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth.rnAlice, daughter of Theodore, is today remembered, if at all,rnas a tart-tongued termagant tossing off hom mots boiled in acid.rnHer remark to an unattached woman at a dinner party—”If yournhacn’t got anything good to say about anyone, come and sit bvrnmc”—was a nugget mined from the Philip Barry/Noel Cowardrnquarry, and indeed, a thinly disguised Alice was the heroine ofrna crackling George S. Kaufman-Katharine Dayton play, F;V.s^rnLac/v(1935).rnBut there yvas much more to her than martini wit. Like allrnthe best dissidents, she believed that this country belonged tornher. As an old woman, she said that she could still “hear my fatherrnand Cabot Lodge talking about Jefferson as if he were anrnobnoxious neighbor of theirs.” She was unimpressed byrnpower, impervious to the discreet charms of the Potomacists.rn/Mice had a Ilamiltonian bloodline, and she lacked, to put itrnkindly, the demotic touch, but her horror of internationalismrndrove her into the arms—literally, gossip had it in a couple ofrncases—of an Old Republic remnant that included such buckskinrnpopulists and reactionaries as Senators James Reed ofrnMissouri. William E. Borah of Idaho, and Thomas P. Gore ofrn26/CHRONICLESrnrnrn