Mr. Halleck's New Deal: Congressman Charles Halleck and the Limits to Reform

ROBERT L. FULLER

Charles Halleck joked after his election in 1935 that, as the sole Republican representative from Indiana, he held his caucus in a phone booth. However, over time Congressman Halleck rose through party ranks in the House from "waterboy" to majority leader when Republicans regained control of Congress in 1946.1 Because the GOP also won a majority of seats in the Senate, and many Southern Democrats proved cooperative in advancing Republican policies, Republicans stood a very good chance of implementing their program for America. Congressman Halleck, who had railed against the New Deal since he first took a seat in the House, stood in position to do something about it in 1947. Yet, once in office, the Republicans and Southern Democrats, supposedly so dead set against the New Deal, made very few proposals and offered hardly any legislation to alter New Deal reforms in any significant way. Aside from changing labor laws, they made no effort to overturn the legislative achievements of the 1930s that lasted longer than the Depression. Majority Leader Halleck, his Republican colleagues, and their allies among the Democrats only tinkered with a few of the reforms that remained in place after the Supreme Court ruled them constitutionally sound, because by and large Halleck and other Republicans supported most New Deal reforms. When they lambasted "the New Deal," which they did loudly and often, they really targeted the frequently chaotic administration set into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to oversee the reforms and relief.	1
Charles Halleck Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University Bloomington
Roosevelt's "first New Deal," a series of laws intended to save America's banks and restore confidence in its financial institutions, sped through both houses in the early days of 1933. The laws proved generally popular and of varying effectiveness. Emergency acts intended to provide short-term employment for the jobless ultimately provided millions of jobs for the unemployed and boosted morale within the nation, but failed to "prime the pump" and restore prosperity as intended. Those laws that regulated the banking system and supervised the stock exchanges (passed in 1934) were welcomed by the public and met with mixed reactions among business interests. Republican reaction to the proposed bills paralleled public response: they voted overwhelmingly for relief and banking reforms, but had varying responses to the laws to supervise the securities markets.2 Laws that intervened in the market system—including the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which sought to curb business competition in favor of cooperation to keep up prices and wages; the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which hoped to curb farm output and raise prices; and the law authorizing the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which proposed to bestow a wide range of benefits upon the people of the Tennessee River Valley—met neither uniform hostility nor solid support. Regional reactions to such legislation proved stronger than partisan response.3	. . .