FDR's Children

I had the good fortune to be born into FDR's America.

It was a time of depression - the year I was born was the beginning of the second dip - but it was also a time that working people pulled together. If a family had a roof over their heads, that roof was available to anyone else in the family, and also friends. "Just make me a pallett on the floor" was more than just a line from a song. It was the way people lived.

If someone had a plot of land, he shared the produce with others. We helped each other at harvest time. If your field caught fire, all the neighbors came with wet gunny sacks to beat it out. If the school gym needed a new floor, we all worked together to install it.

People who needed a ride just stuck out a thumb. Often as not, a complete stranger offered a ride.

It isn't that we were naive. We knew the world was a dangerous place. But we didn't let ourselves be intimidated.

At Sunday School and in church, ministers and leaders of all kinds emphasized a Christianity dedicated to helping others. Even the "hard shell Baptist" church in my rural Oklahoma community focused on the parable of the prodigal son, the Sermon on the Mount, the sayings of Jesus calling for the abandonment rather than the pursuit of wealth. Such passages were often quoted, and incorporated into the religious and public morality usually referred to as the "social gospel."

In the past half-century, though, something has happened both to religious and public morality. The acrimony in political and other public discourse has taken a vicious turn. Can't we just get along?

Maybe not.

At least we need to have a clear understanding of what the struggle is about and what is at stake. In today's New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman attributes the acrimony to the struggle between two moralities.

If Krugman is right, we are not faced just with a lack of politeness. This isn't just a "family squabble." It is a struggle over who we are.

Those of us who remember FDR were born into a world where adults worked together to alleviate suffering, to defeat fascism, and to build a prosperous future free of fear and want. Those of us born during FDR's twelve years in office never had a war of our own. WWII and Korea belonged to our fathers and older brothers. Vietnam belonged to our younger brothers. We imagined a world at peace, or at least free of major wars.

We need to recapture that vision.