Raymond Charles Moley (September 27, 1886 – February 18, 1975) was an American political economist.[not verified in body] Initially a leading supporter of the New Deal, he went on to become its bitter opponent before the end of the Great Depression.
Moley supported then-New YorkGovernorFranklin Roosevelt, and it was Moley who recruited fellow Columbia professors to form the original "Brain Trust" to advise Roosevelt during his presidential campaign of 1932. Despite ridicule from editorial and political cartoonists, the "Brain Trust" went to Washington and became powerful figures in Roosevelt's New Deal, with Moley writing important speeches for the president.
For example, he wrote the majority of Roosevelt's first inaugural address, although he is not credited with penning the famous line, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was responsible for FDR's use of the term "the Forgotten Man" in earlier speeches.[2] He claimed credit for inventing the term "New Deal,"[3] though its precise provenance remains open to debate. Moley also wrote various pamphlets and articles on the teaching of government. Praising the new president's first moves in March 1933, he concluded that capitalism "was saved in eight days."[4]
Move to the right
In mid-1933 Moley began his break with Roosevelt, and although he continued to write speeches for the president until 1936, he became increasingly critical of his policies, eventually becoming a conservativeRepublican. He wrote a column for Newsweek magazine from 1937 to 1968, and became an early contributor to the free market publication The Freeman, and, later, the nation's leading conservative periodical, National Review.[5] In these roles, he became one of the best known critics of the New Deal and liberalism in general. Moley's After Seven Years (New York: 1939) was one of the first in-depth attacks on the New Deal. However he was also a trenchant critic of fascism, as his participation in a March 1934 mock-trial event in New York City condemning Nazi Germany, titled “The Case of Civilization Against Hitler,” indicates. It was attended by 20,000 New Yorkers and featured Mayor La Guardia, Rabbi Wise, Governor Alfred E. Smith.[6]
^Moley, Raymond. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. 1997 Jul 21. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
^Shlaes, Amity, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Harper Collins, 2007.
^Three phonotapes of interviews of Raymond Moley, 1970, relating to Franklin D. Roosevelt and The First New Deal and Moley's diary; Raymond Moley papers; Audio-Visual file; Hoover Institution Archives.
Wells, Rob. The Insider: How the Kiplinger Newsletter Bridged Washington and Wall Street (U of Massachusetts Press, 2022) online review of this book; Moley secretly provided inside news about New Deal plans to the widely read newsletter.
