Smith hoped to deny Roosevelt the two-thirds support necessary to win the party's presidential nomination 1932 Democratic National Convention, and then emerge as the nominee after multiple rounds of balloting.

Analyzing the president's administrative style, historian James MacGregor Burns concludes: For his first secretary of state, Roosevelt selected Cordell Hull, a prominent Tennessean who had served in the House and Senate.

[5] The selections of Hull, Woodin, and Secretary of Commerce Daniel C. Roper reassured the business community, while Wallace, Perkins, and Ickes appealed to Roosevelt's left-wing supporters.

[25] Another agency, the Public Works Administration (PWA), was created to fund infrastructure projects, and was led by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, one of the most aggressive of the New Deal empire builders.

[27] The CWA was widely popular, but Roosevelt canceled it in March 1934 due to cost concerns and the fear of establishing a precedent that the government would serve as a permanent employer of last resort.

First and most important was to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had practically collapsed because of doubts about its internal integrity, and the external threats supposedly posed by anti-business elements in the Roosevelt administration.

The repeal of prohibition brought in new tax revenues to federal, state and local governments and helped Roosevelt keep a campaign promise that attracted widespread popular support.

Unlike his efforts in the first two years to be inclusive of all established interest groups, Roosevelt moved left and focused on helping labor unions, poor farmers, and the unemployed.

[99] Roosevelt was attracted to the general thinking behind Townsend's plan because it would provide for those no longer capable of working while at the same time stimulating demand in the economy and decreasing the supply of labor.

The case was widely seen as an important shift in the Court's judicial philosophy, and one newspaper called Roberts's vote "the switch in time that saved nine" because it effectively ended any chance of passing the court-packing bill.

[175] With Roosevelt's influence on the wane following the failure of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, conservative Democrats joined with Republicans to block the implementation of further New Deal regulatory programs.

Influenced by economists such as Keynes, Marriner Stoddard Eccles, and William Trufant Foster, Roosevelt abandoned his fiscally conservative positions in favor of economic stimulus funding.

In mid-1938, Roosevelt authorized new loans to private industry by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and he won congressional approval for over $4 billion in appropriations for the WPA, the FSA, the PWA, and other programs.

[198] Roosevelt was especially reluctant to clash with progressive Republicans senators like George Norris, Robert La Follette, Hiram Johnson, and William Borah, all of whom provided support for his domestic programs and favored an isolationist foreign policy.

[202] The United States and the League of Nations both condemned the invasion, but none of the great powers made any move to evict Japan from the region, and the Japanese appeared poised to further expand their empire.

[204] Hitler preached a racist doctrine of Aryan superiority, and his central foreign policy goal was the "Lebensraum" (acquisition of territory to Germany's east), which he sought to repopulate with Germans.

Overcoming the opposition of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh and other isolationists, Roosevelt won passage of the Neutrality Act of 1939, which allowed belligerents to purchase aircraft and other combat material from the United States, albeit only on a cash and carry basis.

Reviewer Richard S. Faulkner paraphrases Lynne Olson in arguing that, "Lindbergh was far from the simple anti-Semite and pro-Nazi dupe that the Roosevelt administration and pro-intervention press often portrayed him to be, but was rather a man whose technical and clinical mind had him convinced that Britain could not win the war and America’s lack of military preparedness meant that intervention was immoral, illogical, and suicidal.

"[249] Roosevelt enjoyed support among the traditional Democratic base of Northern Catholics and Southern whites, but his 1936 re-election depended on mobilizing new voters and retaining the votes of those who had been alienated by Hoover.

[261] Roosevelt supported policies designed to aid the African American community, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped boost wages for non-white workers in the South.

[262] In response to Roosevelt's policies, African Americans increasingly defected from the Republican Party during the 1930s and 1940s, becoming an important Democratic voting bloc in several Northern states.

Conservative Democrats, led by Al Smith, fought back with the American Liberty League, savagely attacking Roosevelt and equating him with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

[275] A group led by Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, and Francis Townsend launched a third party movement to challenge Roosevelt from the left in the 1936 election.

The New Dealers overcame determined opposition from Republicans, business organizations such as the US Chamber of Commerce, and disaffected Democrats like Al Smith who formed the American Liberty League.

[278] Roosevelt's New Deal policies were bolstered as Conservative Republicans suffered major losses across the country and several Democrats won in Northern, urban areas outside of the party's traditional base in the South.

[287][288] Democratic losses were concentrated among pro-New Deal, Roosevelt allies like Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas and Governor George Howard Earle III of Pennsylvania.

[267] When Congress reconvened in 1939, Republicans under Senator Robert Taft formed a conservative coalition with Southern Democrats, virtually ending Roosevelt's ability to get his domestic proposals enacted into law.

Roosevelt systematically undercut prominent Democrats who were angling for the nomination, including Vice President John Nance Garner[294] and two cabinet members, Secretary of State Hull and Postmaster General James Farley.

[297] Willkie's internationalist views initially prevented the issue of foreign policy from dominating the campaign, helping to allow for the Destroyers for Bases Agreement and the establishment of a peacetime draft.

[300] The Democrats retained their congressional majorities, but the conservative coalition largely controlled domestic legislation and remained "leery of presidential extensions of executive power through social programs.