employed all had come to count on the government for something -- aid or
regulation or both. Although New Dealers -- especially Roosevelt -- had
prided themselves on their realism and pragmatism in attempting to handle
the problems of the Great Depression, Right Wing Republicans such as
Noah Mason of Illinois claimed that the New Deal was a "brand of social-
ism." His House colleague Wat Arnold of Missouri went further: "It is diffi-
cult to distinguish between the New Deal and Communism." ³ Right-wing
columnist Westbrook Pegler saw no such order at work. "Actually the New
Deal is not a reform but a debauch," he said. ⁴ In GOP conservative eyes, the
New Deal was a disaster that had given the United States "the most extrav-
agant government ... on the face of the globe." ⁵

By 1945 Franklin Roosevelt represented the Right's major institutional
enemy -- the strong chief executive. The presidency and the entire executive
branch had mushroomed in size during the 1930 s and 1940 s, becoming sy-
nonymous with New Deal reforms and later the bureaucratic wartime intru-
sions. The new agencies of the executive branch, often mandated by Con-
gress, now frequently made policy -- hitherto a congressional prerogative,
thus destroying many fundamental safeguards through bureaucratic regula-
tions, decrees, and directives served up, said one Right Wing Republican, by
a "bunch of professors, theorists, nitwits and nincompoops." Basically, the
eradication of the New Deal was still the primary Old Guard hope in 1945.
"True a sudden and complete repeal of the New Deal legislation would sub-
ject the country to violent shock," conservative Representative Clare Hoff-
man of Michigan admitted, "but it would ... not be fatal and a recovery
would be comparatively quick and more important complete." ⁶

In contrast to New Deal "socialism," Republican Right Wingers offered
in 1945 "Americanism," a term that later made it easier for Republicans to
use "unAmerican" to malign their political foes. This was not the first use of
"Americanism" in America's political battles. In 1920 pennsylvania Old
Guardsman Boies Penrose had declared Americanism to be one of the main
issues in that year's presidential campaign. When asked to explain its mean-
ing, penrose replied, "Damned if I know, but you will find it a damned
good issue to get votes in an election." If, in 1945, Americanism was less
vote-worthy than in penrose's day, it was at least more clearly definable. ⁷

In opposing the New Deal, the Republican Right used "Americanism"
to mean a strict construction of the Constitution, fiscal sobriety, and local
control rather than federal regulation. Conservative Republicans staunchly
defended local rule and business from encroachments by Washington. The
Republican Right was most vociferous in resisting New Deal economic pol-
icies. Although the Old Guard normally squawked at the mention of gov-
ernment regulation, pure laissez faire was seldom advocated. For conserva-
tives, government was not the issue, big government was. It was a menace to
liberty and brought the United States that much closer to socialism. "Liber-

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