Unsanctioned Voice; World War II, isolationism, wartime price and wage controls, Eugene Lyons, Red Decade, blacklisting, The Pathfinder, David Lawrence, wartime paper rationing

Click these links for discussions of the Writer's Note , Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3, Chapters 4-6, Chapters 7-10 , Chapters 11 and 12 , Chapter 13 , Chapter 14 , Chapters 15 and 16 , Chapters 17-19 , Chapter 20 , Chapters 21 and 22, Chapters 23-25 and Chapter 26 of Bruce Ramsey's Unsanctioned Voice.




Chapter 27 discusses Garrett's opposition to the U.S. joining the fight in World War II prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.

Garrett decried [p. 191] the "contrary way" that FDR proceeded toward war - alternating between open advocacy for war and retreating from such advocacy. Despite Garrett's opposition, Garrett praised FDR for his ability to follow that clever strategy (necessitated by America's general opposition to war). What the book does not discuss is the role of the shifting Soviet alliances on American foreign policy. From the mid-1930's through mid-1941, Soviet policy toward Nazi Germany shifted several times (that is an understatement). The American left's attitude toward war and Germany shifted with it. Such shifts influenced FDR's foreign policy (though not completely). Eugene Lyons' definitive book-length study of these parallel shifts appears in Red Decade (1941). [These shifts also influenced Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 and precipitated Orwell's break with leftism.] Any discussion of American attitudes regarding war during the 1930's that ignores the left's parallel shifts with Soviet policy will necessarily be incomplete and misleading.



Ramsey notes that Garrett advocated preparedness despite his anti-war position. [pp. 191-192]. Garrett thus stands in contrast to today's anti-war activists, who oppose the very concept of preparedness.

Garrett viewed Lend-Lease as the real declaration of war, even though it wasn't called by that name. A large part of Garrett's objection to FDR's policies was that FDR was committing the country to war without identifying his objectives. [pp. 193-194]. America was creeping toward war without realizing it.

"Garrett's sympathy was never with the dictatorships." [p. 194]. [Thus providing another contrast with the cold war peace movement.] Garrett attempted to raise money for Finland during this period, as Finland had been invaded by the U.S.S.R.

Garrett reluctantly supported wartime price and wage controls. [p. 195]. I believe that the architects of such controls had more ambitious goals in mind than the justifications that motivated Garrett. Ramsey references a 1943 book that takes the opposite view. While I might agree with Garrett's position as far as it goes, those who proposed and enforced the wartime price controls went much further than was necessary for prosecution of the war. The war was an excuse for further government crackdowns in the economy.

Garrett (and others) were purged from the Saturday Evening Post in March 1942, despite supporting the war after Pearl Harbor (p. 196). (Such support would also contrast Garrett with today's "progressives," many of whom would find any excuse to oppose American war efforts no matter how severely the U.S. was attacked). Page 197 describes Garrett's work as a laborer in a naval shipyard, other manual labor Garrett performed in his later years and cites correspondence with Bernard Baruch.

In chapter 28, we see that Garrett was blacklisted following his termination from the Saturday Evening Post, and that other groups and publications were unfairly labelled as pro-Nazi [p. 201]. As Ramsey writes, "The anti-New Deal newspapers - and there had been a lot of them in the 1930s - were mostly cowed by the government." [p. 201].

Ramsey describes Garrett's plan to buy The Pathfinder in 1943 (because an existing newspaper was permitted a paper allotment by the government, which a new publication would not have). [pp. 201-202]. The plan was thwarted by David Lawrence of U.S. News, who bought The Pathfinder first. As Garrett wrote to Herbert Hoover, Lawrence planned "to strangle The Pathfinder to death and use its paper for his own magazine and charge it all off on his tax sheet." [quoted by Ramsey, pp. 202, 203 n. 8]. How Lawrence's use of the wartime paper allotment in this way helped the war effort has never been explained. This incident helps explain how Garrett's theoretical justification for wartime controls [p. 195] falters in practical application. (Even though Garrett wrote of price and wage controls instead of rationing, all such controls are of a kind).

Unsanctioned Voice; U.S. Steel; Cinder Buggy; Where the Money Grows; Bernard Baruch; Federal Reserve gold notes; Henry Ford; World War I; Japan predictions

Click these links for discussions of the Writer's Note , Chapters 1 and 2 and Chapter 3 of Bruce Ramsey's Unsanctioned Voice.



Chapter 4 continues the narrative of Garrett's early career, including his move to Washington and then to New York in 1900, where he worked for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers.

On page 21, (footnote 2) Ramsey cites to the unpublished manuscript of Garet Garrett's Journal by Richard Cornuelle. This Journal is another piece that I hope will one day be published. My only knowledge of it comes from the citations in Unsanctioned Voice. [Cornuelle is the only person that Ramsey found (50 years after Garrett's death) that knew Garrett well.] (p. x).

Ramsey speculates (p. 21) that the discussion in Chapter XLI of Cinder Buggy reflects Garrett's presence during the initial public discussions of the creation of U.S. Steel Corporation shortly after the turn of the century. Garrett wrote of these events prior to Cinder Buggy in two published articles. p. 26, n. 5. (I had been vague earlier in this blog about the facts of Chapter XLI so as to avoid plot spoilers.)

Ramsey refers (p. 22) to articles Garrett wrote in this era, including "fly on the wall" pieces. One such article related a fictional conversation between a banker and his speechwriter. It is my hope that these articles are eventually republished in book form, as I would enjoy overhearing any conversation where one talks candidly to his speechwriter - especially given the conduct of modern politicians.

Ramsey provides the background for the articles that comprised Garrett's Where the Money Grows (pp. 23-24).

Chapter 4 concludes with a discussion of Garrett's friendship and association with Bernard Baruch. Ramsey provides detail and sources more numerous than what I cited last month in this and other posts.

Chapter 5 contains many references to Garrett's columns and articles in the years 1909 - 1913. Ramsey makes the following comment about a Garrett piece on the income tax (which had been passed in 1913):

Years later his verdict on the income tax was that it had allowed government to grow into a giant. In 1913 his concern was narrower.

p. 31

This statement reflects Garrett's increased focus in the wake of the New Deal. I wrote about this greater focus in relation to Cinder Buggy:

The story will seem less focused than we might expect, as the New Deal was still a decade away at the time Garrett wrote Cinder Buggy. The New Deal drew the battle lines that define the eight decades (and beyond) that have since elapsed. From 1933 onward, economics and politics have been little more than a battle between those who favor greater government control over the economy and those who oppose such control. The battle takes many forms and is fought in many arenas, but the goals of the opposing sides remain the same (even though the opponents of gevernment control have substantially watered down their message as the decades have dragged on). A decade before the New Deal brought this battle to Washington D.C. (and beyond) in a permanent way, writers like Garrett wrote more generally and without the urgency and focus that we would expect of one who was trying to stop a government takeover.

I also wrote about the same thing with regard to Blue Wound (this post also quotes Jeffrey Tucker sounding a similar theme).

1913 was also the year of the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. Ramsey reports (p. 31) that Garrett's concerns were pacified when the final bill provided that Federal Reserve Notes would be backed 40% by gold and would be redeemable.

Chapter 6 begins (p. 35) with a discussion of a 1914 Garrett article about Henry Ford. The article was based on an interview, part of which was ultimately included in Garrett's 1952 biography of Henry Ford - The Wild Wheel.



Page 37 summarizes another 1914 article in which Ramsey writes, "Garrett explained that money is not wealth, but a claim on wealth, and that you do not add to wealth by creating more claims to it."

Upon the outbreak of war later that year, Garrett wrote, "War is a sudden and imperious customer in the world's markets, and will not wait its turn." Garrett went on to make accurate predictions about the economic effects of the war. [p. 37].

Garrett would make additional war predictions. In a 1915 article for Everybody's he wrote following:

. . . if the Unied States should seem to Japan to be thwarting her economic and political ambitions in Asia she would quickly fight us, not in sorrow for having to do it, but joyful of the opportunity. Then she would seize the Phillipines and then might California be afraid.

(as quoted by Ramsey on p. 39.)

Garrett made additional predictions regarding Japan in 1921 in Blue Wound.

Pages 39-40 contain quotes of Garrett's inconclusive thoughts on war and Christianity. I mention it here because Garrett seldom discussed religion.

Click here for a discussion of Chapters 7-10.

Bernard Baruch, Garet Garrett and The Driver

Click here and here for previous posts on Garet Garrett's association with Bernard Baruch (as well as references to Baruch's career as a Wall Street financier and presidential advisor).

Bernard Baruch read and reviewed Garrett's novel, The Driver. Next to the title page of my 1924 edition of Satan's Bushel, E.P. Dutton & Company placed some blurbs about Garrett's prior works, including excerpts from Baruch's endorsement of The Driver:

I feel as did Mark Sullivan, who said: 'Garet Garrett has written one of the great novels of the day.' . . . That is beside the point to one who wants to study man and his works. . . . The thing that impresses me is its fidelity to life.

Click here for my quotation of Time's 1923 review of The Driver.

Bernard Baruch, Garet Garrett and Herbert Hoover

Bernard Baruch was a well known Wall Street financier and presidential advisor for much of the 20th century. I wrote previously here of Bernard Baruch's discussion of Garet Garrett in Baruch's autobiography, Baruch, The Public Years. That discussion frequently included Baruch's interaction with major historic figures. The following passage appears on page 233 of Baruch's book and takes place (probably in 1931) in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street collapse:

Shortly after the collapse, Garet Garrett called to say that he wanted to see me urgently. I told him I was taking the train to Albany to see Governor Roosevelt and that he could ride along with me. He came as far as Poughkeepsie, and on the way talked at length about the economic situation. We were old friends, and could talk freely, but I could see that Garet was holding something back.

As the conversation went on, I kept looking at him questioningly. Finally he flushed and said, "All right, I'll tell you the truth. Hoover asked me to get your thoughts." I told him I'd be glad to give the President any help I could; he had only to ask.

p. 233

Baruch was a financial contributor to Woodrow Wilson and, as the passage indicates, an advisor to other presidents of both parties. He praised the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. (p. 10). While he criticized particular policies of the Federal Reserve Board in the years leading up to the crash, such criticism was limited to particular interest rates and did not challenge the underlying assumptions that allow a central bank to manipulate the national currency. (p. 221). Baruch's criticism on page 221 is useful if placed in the context of a broader analysis of Federal Reserve policy throughout the 1920's and a thorough explanation of business cycle theory. Such analysis is found in Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression.



Baruch's book seems to be written through the prism of the accepted establishment explanations as to the causes and political implications of the stock market collapse. Individual facts contained therein are useful once the right context is known.

Garrett's affiliation with an obvious "insider" might place him in a bad light, but I will let Garrett's own writings serve as his defense against any suspicion of being sympathetic to the establishment agenda.

Bernard Baruch and Garet Garrett

Bernard Baruch was a well known Wall Street financier and presidential advisor during the 20th century. Garet Garrett's name appeared prominently in Baruch's autobiography. Baruch, The Public Years (1960).



Garrett's name first appeared on page 2 (a page after Baruch mentioned his dealings with the likes of "Harriman, Rockefeller, Morgan, and the Guggenheims"), where Baruch discusses the events of 1917, as he contemplated his own move from Wall Street to Washington politics:

Garet Garrett was a frequent visitor on those late afternoons. This small, round, intense dynamo of a man was then with the New York Evening Post. Later he was to continue his distinguished journalistic career with the Tribune and the Saturday Evening Post. Garrett was one of the few men to whom I could unburden myself. Once, after hearing me express my restlessness with Wall Street, he remarked: "I keep telling you, B.M., you don't belong in Wall Street; you should be in Washington." I don't remember my reply; I probably laughed at him. But I thought about his words from time to time, not because they stirred any political ambition but because that phrase, "you don't belong in Wall Street," nourished my discontent.

p. 2

This passage provides more evidence of Garrett's influence and experience at that time. The book itself may provide another clue as to the source of the Wall Street portions of the stories in Cinder Buggy and Driver.