[At least according to the WSJ]
September 26, 2002
PAGE ONE
>From Economic Crises of Yore,
There's Hope -- and Harbingers
By BOB DAVIS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
<snip>
The Populist '30s
In 1935, with the economy in turmoil, Wall Street in disrepute and the Supreme Court hostile to his programs, Franklin D. Roosevelt turned sharply left. Attacking "economic royalists," he endorsed a soak-the-rich plan to raise taxes on the wealthy, a bill to protect workers' right to organize and legislation to break up utility holding companies.
Today's business scandals have also produced strong anticorporate sentiment. The president and the Treasury secretary have denounced wayward executives. Congress has toughened criminal penalties on executives who mislead shareholders. About 71% of Americans think "more should be done" to crack down on corporate fraud, according to a September Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll.
But to translate such sentiments into political change requires effective and charismatic politicians. FDR was prodded to action by challenges from Louisiana Sen. Huey Long and a fiery radio priest known as Father Coughlin, who warned his millions of listeners about "predatory capitalism." Historian Alan Brinkley says a secret poll the Democrats took showed Sen. Long might win up to 10% of the presidential vote if he ran as a third-party candidate in 1936, possibly handing the White House to the Republicans. Sen. Long was scoring points with a "Share Our Wealth" plan that would limit individual fortunes to about $4 million and take the rest in taxes.
Sen. Long was assassinated in September 1935. But by then, FDR had proposed his own wealth tax and other measures to pre-empt the challenge. He won in a landslide the next year.
Today, no national leader is pressing an anticorporate crusade that might force the political establishment to embrace FDR-style changes. Ralph Nader's Green Party has only 225,000 members. The Reform Party started by Ross Perot is riven by factionalism. Antiglobalization protesters haven't been able to agree on a specific agenda for change.
The Democratic Party tries to tap into the discontent but also wants to show it is pro-growth. Liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, in a re-election struggle, had his attacks on corporate misbehavior turned against him when a GOP leader accused him of being soft on the failings of unions. "People are upset with business, but do they think the country is run by big companies? No, they don't," says Ruy Teixeira, a liberal Democratic pollster.
Much of the public is outraged over the behavior of some corporations, accountants and executives. But without a captivating populist, the anger may not translate into deep economic changes.
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