The NRA and the Blue Eagle

Today’s  Daily Article of Henry Hazlitt’s cogent (and still timely) analysis of the NRA reminded me of the following excerpt from John T. Flynn’s The Roosevelt Myth [San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1998, pp. 40-41].  Flynn’s description of the Blue Eagle program, meant to intimidate private business to comply with NRA regulations, sounds eerily like the if-you’re-not-with-us-you’re-against-us mentality that pressures business to this day. 

[General Hugh Johnson] began with a blanket code which every business man was summoned to sign--to pay minimum wages and observe maximum hours of work, to abolish child labor, abjure price increases and put people to work.  Every instrument of human exhortation opened fire on business to comply--the press, pulpit, radio, movies.  Bands played, men paraded, trucks toured the streets blaring the message through microphones.  Johnson hatched out an amazing bird called the Blue Eagle, which was a badge of compliance.  The President went on the air: “In war in the gloom of attack,” he crooned, “soldiers wear a bright badge to be sure that comrades do not fire on comrades.  Those who cooperate in this program must know each other at a glance.  That bright badge is the Blue Eagle.”  “May Almighty God have mercy,” cried Johnson, “on anyone who attempts to trifle with that bird.”  

... But little by little the spell began to fade.  In spite of all the fine words about industrial democracy, people began to see it was a scheme to permit business men to combine to put up prices and keep them up by direct decree or through other devious devices.  The consumer began to perceive that he was getting it in the neck.  Professor William F. Ogburn of Chicago University resigned as Consumers’ Counsel because he said the job was futile.  Bitter slurs were flung at the Blue Eagle as a fascist symbol.  A senator called it the “Soviet Duck.”  Silk workers stoned the Blue Eagle in the shop windows.  Labor suddenly discovered it was getting mostly fine phrases.  A wave of strikes swept the country.  A battle for control of NRA between labor and capital broke out.  Roosevelt went on the air and pleaded for peace.  Farmers were indignant at the rising prices. 

But the NRA continued its folly in a succession of crazy antics which could proceed only from people who had lost their bearings and their heads.