Reply #69: Context

[Traveling_Home]

Fiirst my original post was to ask for help in remembering the detail and the name of the act that both FDR and B* had suspended i the face of Labor opposition. Thats all. If I couldn't remember the name, I'm hardly the one to look to for more then basic facts. Better knowledgable folk here (you included) and better historians elsewhere.

I'm much better at trying to find simple facts and much less confident in my interpretations. With that warning so that you understand I make no claims to expertise and little claim to the knowledge of facts of the suit that ended up at SCOTUS, since you asked....

I'm not sure it's opinion to say FDR thought he was right and that Labor was wrong. In trying to stop FDR from suspending Davis-Bacon, I also think it's pretty safe to say Labor thought they were right and that FDR was wrong. I can accept it though if that is the basis for your statement that my last paragraph in my previous post was just interpretation and analysis and not the "facts".

Here's my very simplistic analysis.

As most others (you too I think) have said it was FDR's job to look at the overall national picture; in doing so he believed that Davis-Bacon would hinder his plan to use the WPA to help the country out of the deppression.

The job of the Labor Unions was to protect the interest of their membership in maintaining a wage base. They believed that this would in the long run benefit the nation's workers more. Both thought they were right and the other wrong. Labor tried to get SCOTUS to determine that FDR couldn't suspend Davis-Bacon. SCOTUS said he could.

I tend to think FDR was correct but find no fault with Labors protecting their interests.

That's the best I can do for my simplistic opinion. I'm sure there was lot more behind Labor vs FDR, but that's about the limit of my interest and knowledge.

Again, my original point was simply to try and recall the name and action taking by FDR which I thought an oddity worthy of the list spouted by the original poster. Prior to B* suspending Davis-Bacon also, I had not heard of FDR's action when he also suspended Davis-Bacon. I presumed many others also hadn't heard of it.

I don't think we disagree, except maybe on my limited knowledge of the context. I am only a bare amateur at history of the Depression.