^1. For general studies of state development, see Skocpol, Theda, “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research,” in Margaret Weir, Ann Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol, eds., The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton, N. J., 1988)Google Scholar; Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (New York, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Galambos, Louis, ed., The New American State: Bureaucracies and Policies Since World War II (Baltimore, 1987)Google Scholar. Studies of specific programs or agencies can be found in Derthick, Martha, Policymaking for Social Security (Washington, D.C., 1979)Google Scholar; Katznelson, Ira and Pietrykowski, Bruce, “Rebuilding the American State: Evidence from the 1940s,” Studies in American Political Development 5 (Fall 1991), 301–339CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Howard, Christopher, “The Hidden Side of the American Welfare State,” Political Science Quarterly 108, no. 3 (1993), 403–436CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Waddell, Brian, “Economic Mobilization for World War II and the Transformation of the U.S. State,” Politics & Society 22, no. 2 (June 1994), 165–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^2. Leuchtenburg, William E., Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York, 1963), 193Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Coming of the New Deal (Boston, 1958), 298Google Scholar; Schwarz, Jordan A., The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt (New York, 1993), xi, 86.Google Scholar

^3. “Federal Home Loan Bank Act,” Public Law 72–304; Hoover, untitled press statement, July 22,1932, in Myers, William Starr, ed., The State Papers and Other Public Writings of Herbert Hoover, vol. 2 (Garden City, N. Y., 1934), 238–240Google Scholar; Hearings Before the Temporary National Economic Committee (hereafter cited as TNEC Hearings), 76 Cong., 1 sess., part 11, 14 July 1939, 5380. See also Wallace, E. S., “Survey of Federal Legislation Affecting Private Home Financing Since 1932,” Law and Contemporary Problems 5, no. 4 (Autumn 1938), 483–489CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Colean, Miles, The Impact of Government on Real Estate Finance in the United States (New York, 1950), 91–93Google Scholar; Saulnier, R. J., Halcrow, Harold G., and Jacoby, Neil H., Federal Lending and Loan Insurance (Princeton, N.J., 1958), 293–297Google Scholar; Romasco, Albert U., The Poverty of Abundance: Hoover, the Nation, the Depression (New York, 1965), 191Google Scholar; and Barber, William J., From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921–1933 (New York, 1985), 179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^4. Abrams, , The Future of Housing (New York, 1946), 240Google Scholar; Temporary National Economic Committee, Monograph No. 8: Toward More Housing (Washington, D.C., 1940), 82Google Scholar; FHLBB, Second Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1935), 115Google Scholar; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 6 July 1939, 5085; 14 July 1939, 5383. See also Marvell, Thomas B., The Federal Home Loan Bank Board (New York, 1969), 27, 29.Google Scholar Fahey, a long-time businessman who got his start editing and managing newspapers, viewed savings and loans as the single most important source of mortgage credit, a belief that influenced the positions he took during his almost seventeen years as Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. See Colean, Miles L., A Backward Glance: An Oral History (Washington, D.C., 1975), 31Google Scholar; Who Was Who in America, vol. 3 (Chicago, 1960), 269–270Google Scholar. Chartering of federal savings and loans was authorized by the Home Owners Loan Act in 1933. The funds ($150,000) appropriated to “incite” communities to organize saving and loans had been a point of Congressional debate, with some Representatives fearful that these funds would be used to disseminate government “propaganda” that would give misleading impressions about the scope and functions of federal loan and credit programs. Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 1 sess., 28 April 1933, 2579–2581.

^5. Abrams, Future of Housing, 241–243; TNEC, Monograph No. 8, 82; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 14 July 1939, 5397, 5398; Congressional Record, 72 Cong., 1 sess., 6 July 1932, 14664; Fahey, John H., “The Federal Home Loan Bank Board,” Housing Yearbook, 1937 (Chicago, 1937), 14Google Scholar. To become a member of FHLBS, a thrift initially had to purchase only $1,500 of the capital stock of the Home Loan Bank in its region. This was eventually lowered to $500. See FHLBB, Second Annual Report, 1. Interest rate calculations are given in Rosenman, Dorothy, A Million Homes a Year (New York, 1945), 11.Google Scholar

^6. Abrams, Future of Housing, 242; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 14 July 1932, 5395; Fahey, John H., “Competition and Mortgage Rates,” Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics 15, no. 2 (May 1939), 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morton Bodfish, “Toward an Understanding of the Federal Home Loan Bank System,” Ibid. 15, no. 4 (November 1939), 424; FHLBB, Tenth Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1943), 16Google Scholar; Westerfield, Ray B., “An Analysis of F.H.LB. Lending Policies,” Bankers Monthly (July 1939), 387Google Scholar; Marvel, Federal Home Loan Bank Board 23. Building and loans had long argued that they needed to charge from 3 to 4–5 percent on mortgage loans, yet in 1931 actual interest rates were 8 percent. By 1936, federal savings and loans had lowered their rate to 6.3 percent, but much of the mortgage risk (calculated at 5 to 1 percent) had been absorbed by the federal government through FHA insurance. See TNEC, Monograph No. 8, 82–83. The public character of FHLBS was illustrated by the fact that in 1936, over $124 million (82 percent) of its capitalization came from the U.S. Treasury. By 1946, the government still held more thanhalf of FHLBS's assets. See FHLBB, Fourth Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1937), 15Google Scholar; Westerfield, Ray B., Money, Credit, Banking (New York, 1947), 1059–1060.Google Scholar

^7. Abrams, Future of Housing, 242–244. For another instance where Abrams felt that relatively large firms/corporations were not necessarily a liability, see Abrams, , “Homeless America: Illusions About Housing,” The Nation (December 21, 1946), 725.Google Scholar

^8. Abrams, Future of Housing, 243–244.

^9. Abrams, Future of Housing, 247–248; Federal Home Loan Bank Review (December 1943), 61; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 14 July 1939, 5382; Fahey, “The Federal Home Loan Bank Board,” 13; FHLBB, Ninth Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1941), 24Google Scholar; FHLBB, Tenth Annual Report, 2; Marvell, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, 23. Even Fahey admitted in 1942 that FHLBS had “not yet been called on to face the test of functioning successfully under the shock of a protracted economic crisis,” leaving Abrams among others to wonder if it would actually aid home owners in the event of another emergency. Fahey, , “The Federal Home Loan Bank Administration, 1942,” Housing Yearbook, 1943 (Chicago, 1943), 64Google Scholar. The inability of federal housing policies to insure economic stability and their role in creating inflationary pressures are discussed in Grebler, Leo, “Stabilizing Residential Construction — A Review of the Post-War Test,” American Economic Review 39, no. 5 (September 1949), 898–910Google Scholar; Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Economic Report (Anti-Inflation Program as Recommended in the President's Message of November 17, 1947), 80 Cong., 1 sess., 25 November 1947, 166–168.

^10. “Home Owners' Loan Act of 1933,” Public Law 73–43; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 14 July 1939, 5382; Roosevelt, Message to Congress, April 13, 1933, in Rosenman, Samuel I., ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 2 (New York, 1938), 135Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Public Papers); Congressional Record, 73 Congress, 1 sess., 27 April 1933, 2506; Colean, A Backward Glance, 22.

^11. TNEC Hearings, part 11, 14 July 1939, 5386; Roosevelt, “The Home Owners Loan Act is Signed,” in Public Papers, vol. 2, 233–237; U.S. Senate, Document No. 74 (The Home Owners' Loan Corporation), 73 Cong., 1 sess., 6 June 1933, 1–3; U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 55 (Loans to Home Owners), 73 Cong., 1 sess., 25 April 1933, 1–2; TNEC, Monograph No. 8, 84–85; Marvel, Home Loon Bank Board, 24. See also Harriss, C. Lowell, History and Policies of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (New York, 1951), 1Google Scholar; Wendt, Paul F., Housing Policy: The Search for Solutions (Berkeley, Cal., 1962), 149–150Google Scholar; Keith, Nathaniel S., Politics and the Housing Crisis Since 1930s (New York, 1973), 24–25Google Scholar; Olson, James S., Saving Capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the New Deal, 1933–1940 (Princeton, N. J., 1988), 45, 95.Google Scholar

^12. Roosevelt, “The Home Owners Loan Act is Signed,” in Public Papers1, vol. 2, 234–236; Jackson, Kenneth, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York, 1985), 196Google Scholar; Weiss, Marc A., “Marketing and Financing Home Ownership: Mortgage Lending and Public Policy in the United States, 1918–1989,” Business and Economic History, Second Series, 18 (1989), 115Google Scholar. While Jackson argues that HOLC increased home ownership rates, he also identifies the patterns of segregation initiated by its appraisal practices. See Jackson, Kenneth, “Race, Ethnicity, and Real Estate Appraisal: The Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration,” Journal of Urban History 6, no. 4 (August 1980), 419–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^13. “Home Owners' Loan Act of 1933,” 130; FHLBB, Sixth Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1938), 70Google Scholar; Abrams, draft of an unpublished article for Life magazine, July 16, 1958, Reel 31, Charles Abrams Papers, Cornell University Archives (hereafter cited as AP); Abrams, Future of Housing, 245; Harriss, History and Policies of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, 50. A review of state mortgage moratoria can be found in Poteat, J. Douglass, “State Legislative Relief for the Mortgage Debtor During the Depression,” Law and Contemporary Problems 5, no. 4 (Autumn 1938), 517–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^14. Abrams, Future of Housing, 246; Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 1 sess., 27 April 1933, 2483; Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 1 sess., 5 June 1933, 4984; Westerfield, Money, Banking, Credit, 1068. Other Congressmen who publicly supported direct loan provisions included Representatives Ralph Lozier (D-Missouri), John MacCormack (D-Massachusetts), Andrew May (D-Kentucky), Marion Zioncheck (D-Washington), and Senators Sam Bratlon (D-New Mexico) and Lynn Frazier (R-North Dakota). See Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 1 sess., 27 April 1933, 2504–2505; 26 April 1933, 2570; Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 1 sess., 5 June 1933, 4975, 4981. Examinations of Congressional politics during the New Deal can be found in Patterson, James T., Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal (Lexington, Kentucky, 1967)Google Scholar; Porter, David L., Congress and the Waning of the New Deal (Port Washington, N.Y., 1980).Google Scholar

^15. Abrams, Future of Housing, 246; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 29 June 1939, 5044; 14 July 1939, 5404; FHLBB, Sixth Annual Report, 70; Roosevelt, “The Home Owners Loan Act Is Signed,” in Public Papers, vol. 2, 233. Initial data on HOLC operations confirm that adjustments represented mortgage debt relief of only 6.4 percent The average purchase price of HOLC mortgages was $3,027, while average indebtedness before refinancing was $3,233. See Fahey, “The Federal Home Loan Bank Board,” Housing Yearbook, 1937, 11. The growing sophistication of appraisal practices can be traced by comparing Fisher, Ernest, Principles of Red Estate Practice (New York, 1923), 114–132Google Scholar, to Babcock, Frederick M., The Valuation of Real Estate (New York, 1932), 129–156Google Scholar. The influence of HOLC's appraisal policies on the Federal Housing Administration can be seen in FHA, Underwriting Manual (Washington, D.C., 1938)Google Scholar, part II, sections 6, 8, 9. Also see Babcock, Frederick M., “Influence of the Federal Housing Administration on Mortgage Lending Policy,” Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics 15, no. 1 (February 1939), 1–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weiss, Marc, “Richard T. Ely and the Contribution of Economic Research to National Housing Policy, 1920–1940,” Urban Studies 26, no. 1 (February 1989), 122–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Abrams remained skeptical that real estate appraisal could ever become an exact science, arguing that the term “‘value”’ had become “a concept increasingly divorced from reality.” See Abrams, Future of Housing, 394–395.

^16. Beney, M. Ada, Wages, Hours, and Employment in the United States, 1914–1936 (New York, 1936), 28–33Google Scholar; Weiss, “Marketing and Financing Home Ownership,” 115; Abrams, Future of Housing, 246. Wage figures given in the above study do not account for the millions of individuals who were unemployed during the Depression. One study made of the 530 families who lived in Sunnyside Gardens (a Queens housing development) indicated that before the Depression, 22 percent of family income was used for housing, while that figure had jumped to 44 percent by 1933. See U. S. Senate, Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee of Banking and Currency on S. 1317 (Home Owners' Loan Act), 73 Cong., 1 sess.,20 April 1933,27Google Scholar. An interesting suggestion on how mortgage premiums could be adjusted to reflect economic circumstances can be found in Wickens, David L., “Adjusting the Mortgagor's Obligation to Economic Cycles,” Law and Contemporary Problems 5, no. 4 (Autumn 1938), 617–624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^17. Abtams, Future of Housing, 246–248; Colean, A Backward Glance, 23; Fisher, Ernest M., “Speculation in Suburban Lands,” American Economic Review 23, no. 1 (March 1933), 161Google Scholar; Herbert D. Simpson, “Real Estate Speculation and the Depression,” Ibid., 163–167. For an early attempt to establish periodicity in real estate fluctuations, see Maverick, Lewis A., “Cycles in Real Estate Activity,” Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics 8, no. 2 (May 1932), 191–199CrossRefGoogle Scholar. HOLC, having liquidated all of its holdings, was dissolved in 1951. See Harriss, History and Policies of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, 6.

^18. “National Housing Act,” Public Law 73–479; Abrams, Future of Housing, Chapter 17; Roosevelt, “Recommendation for Legislation to Provide Assistance for Repairing and Construction of Homes,” in Public Papers, vol. 3, 232; Eccles, Mariner, Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections (New York, 1951), 148Google Scholar; Colean, A Backward Glance, 37. For Congressional acknowledgment that the bill was essentially an attempt to revive the building trades, see U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency on H.R. 9620 (National Housing Act), 73 Cong., 2 sess., 18 May 1934, 11; 28 May 1934, 137 (hereafter cited as Hearings on National Housing Act); Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 2 sess., 12 June 1934, 11191, 11194, 11198, 11205, 11210, 11222; 13 June 1934, 11383; Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 2 sess., 16 June 1934, 11973, 11981.

^19. Hearings on National Housing Act, 28 May 1934, 122; 31 May 1934, 225, 249; U.S. Senate, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency on S. 3603 (National Housing Act), 73 Cong., 2 sess., 18 May 1934, 109; 19 May 1934, 152; 22 May 1934, 254, 258, 271, 276–278; 23 May 1934, 294; 24 May 1934, 421–422, 424; Congressional Record, 73 Cong., 2 sess., 16 June 1934,11975; Eccles, Beckoning Frontiers, 148, 153, 155; Colean, A Backward Glance, 30, 50; Ewalt, Josephine Hedges, A Business Reborn: The Savings and Loan Story, 1930–1960 (Chicago, 1962), 144Google Scholar. In addition to interest, borrowers also had to pay a 1 percent (later reduced to ¼ - ½ percent) insurance premium that covered the operating costs and reserve requirements of FHA. For an early version of the National Housing Act that omitted national mortgage associations and key elements of mortgage finance, see U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 1922 (National Housing Act), 73 Cong., 2 sess., 4 June 1934, 1–4. The U.S. Savings and Loan League, along with the sympathetic support of John Fahey, was able to convince policymakers to include the provision in the National Housing Act dealing with federal deposit insurance for savings and loans.

^20. Abrams, Future of Housing, 224, 226–229; FHA, Second Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1936), 4Google Scholar; Fahey, “The Federal Home Loan Bank Board,” 6; Rosenman, A Million Homes a Year, 29, 264–265. While Abrams' concerns over FHA loan policies are difficult to evaluate precisely, his general reluctance to support positive assessments of FHA's influence on mortgage financing has received support from subsequent analyses of federal housing programs. Charles Haar argued that FHA interest rate ceilings might have provided an “excuse for lenders to charge at those rates,” while during periods of credit contraction, FHA policy seemed “unable to prevent a jump in interest rates on home mortgages.” Paul Wendt asserted further that FHA and VA programs had not demonstrably lowered interest costs during the immediate post-World War II period. FHA proponents also believed that its lower down payment requirements had been a significant spur to home ownership, though Henry Aaron concluded that these reductions did not significantly lower monthly mortgage premiums. As Abrams himself pointed out (after examining mortgage data for the West Coast), there was often a direct relationship between large down payments and the likelihood of defaults. See Abrams, Future of Housing, 225–226; Charles Haar, Federal Credit and Private Housing, 65; Wendt, Paul F., The Role of the Federal Government in Housing (Washington, D.C., 1956), 15Google Scholar; Saulnier, Halcrow, and Jacoby, Federal Lending and Loan Insurance, 361; Aaron, Henry J., Shelter and Subsidies: Who Benefits from Federal Housing Policies? (Washington, D.C., 1972), 8Google Scholar4; President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1932), 56Google Scholar. For a general discussion of FHA's effects on mortgage financing, see Frederick M. Babcock, “FHA Mortgage Risk Rating System,” Housing Yearbook, 1937, 90–96; and Babcock, “Influence of the Federal Housing Administration on Mortgage Lending Policy,” 1–5.

^21. Abrams, Future of Housing, 224–225; Post, Langdon W., The Challenge of Housing (New York, 1938), 243, 246Google Scholar; Taylor, James S., “The Division of Building and Housing,” in Halbert, Blanche, ed., The Better Homes Manual (Chicago, 1931), 760, 765Google Scholar; Gries, John M. and Taylor, James S., How To Own Your Own Home (Washington, D.C., 1923), vGoogle Scholar; Tinkham, George Holden, “The Urgent Need for a Federal Bureau of Housing and Living Conditions in the Department of Labor,” American City 22, no. 3 (March 1920), 222–223Google Scholar; Hawley, Ellis W., “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat, and the Vision of an ‘Associative State,’ 1921–1928,” Journal of American History 61, no. 1 (June 1974), 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stein, Rose M., “More Home or More Mortgages?,” The New Republic (September 7, 1932), 90Google Scholar; Chase, Stuart, “The Case Against Home Ownership,” Survey Graphic 27, no. 5 (May 1938), 267Google Scholar. See also “The Second New York Own-Your-Home Exposition,” Building Age, 42, no. 6 (June 1920), 50–52Google Scholar; Holden, Arthur C., “The Home Sales Racket,” Survey, 68, no. 17 (December 1, 1932), 651–653Google Scholar; Lewis, Charles F., “Large-Scale Rental Developments as an Alternative to Home Ownership,” Law and Contemporary Problems 5, no. 4 (Autumn 1938), 602–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar07; Weiss, “Marketing and Financing Home Ownership,” 109; Leach, William, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York, 1993), 369Google Scholar. Hyperbolic statements by business interests suggested the validity of Chase's emphasis on the role “sentiment” and “emotion” played in home ownership appeals. In the midst of the Depression, Frederick Ecker, President of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, opined that “too much cannot be said about the value of stimulating home ownership because of its effect upon good citizenship and upon the strengthening of family ties.” Several years later, the U.S. Savings and Loan League declared that “the privately owned home is the safeguard of American liberties.” See Frederick Ecker, H., “Own Your Own Home?,” Review of Reviews 35, no. 2 (February 1932), 30Google Scholar; U.S. Savings and Loan League, “Government Ownership of Homes,” reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Report No. 3139 (U.S. Savings and Loan League), 81 Cong., 2 sess., 31 October 1950, 626 (hereafter cited as Report No. 3139). The “Better Homes” movement began in 1922 and its national office was in Washington, D.C. With close ties to the federal government, the Better Homes movement sponsored “Better Homes Weeks,” during which local committees set up exhibits on remodeling and construction methods, home improvement contests, and demonstration houses. See Ford, James, “How National Attention Was Directed to Better Homes,” American Civic Annual, 1929 (Washington, D.C., 1929), 37–43Google Scholar; Huchison, Janet, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect: Better Homes in America, 1922–1935,” in Wells, Camille, ed., Perspective in Vernacular Architecture, II (Columbia, Missouri, 1986), 168–178.Google Scholar

^22. Notes following Roosevelt, “A Letter on the Progress Made Under the National Housing Act,” in Public Papers, vol. 4, 94–95; FHA, Better Selling of Better Housing (Washington, D.C., 1935), 1Google Scholar; FHA, Selling Better Housing (Washington, D.C., 1935), 8Google Scholar; FHA, First Annual Report (Washington, D.C., 1935), 10–11Google Scholar; FHA, How to Have the Home You Want (Washington, D.C., 1936), 3Google Scholar; McGehee, C. C., “Significance of New Title I Provisions and Regulations to Realtors,”Proceedings of the Realtors' Housing Conference Discussing the National Housing Act(Washington, D.C.,1938),5Google Scholar; “Nation-Wide Home Building Drive Planned to Aid Private Business,” American Builder (December 1937), 32; “Models Build a Subdivision,” Architectural Forum 69, no. 4 (October 1938), 304–305; “Realtor Builders on the Newsfront,” Freehold 5 (September 1, 1939), 152; F. L Newton, “Using Movies in Selling Homes,” Ibid., 8 (September 1, 1941), 21; Dean, John, Home Ownership: Is It Sound? (New York, 1945), 51Google Scholar. Unlike FHA, the National Resources Committee cautioned against the risks involved in home ownership and advocated increased construction of rental housing. See National Resources Committee, Housing: The Continuing Problem (Washington, D.C., 1940), 3.Google Scholar

^23. Abrams, Future of Housing, 229–230, 237; FHA, “How to Have the Home You Want,” 9; Dean, Home Ownership, 55. For a discussion of shifting attitudes towards consumer spending, including the emergence of “modern moralism,” see Horowitz, Daniel, Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875–1940 (Baltimore, 1985), 162–169Google Scholar. Another aspect of FHA's activities that might have troubled Abrams was the belief that home ownership sharply reduced the mobility of wage earners, thus limiting their bargaining potential with employers. For a discussion of this point, see TNEC Hearings, part 11, 6 July 1939, 5090–5091.

^24. Abrams, Future of Housing, xviii, 322, 400; Democracy in Crisis, unpublished manuscript, 1950, Chapter VII, 21, 38–39, Reel 36, AP; “How Sound Are Our Institutions?,” speech, The League for Mutual Aide, March 6, 1954, 9, Reel 30, AP; untided speech, Conference on Urban Design, Harvard University, April 10, 1956, 2, Reel 31, AP.

^25. Abrams, Future of Housing, 240, 317; “How Shall We Train the Planners We Need?,” speech, American Society of Planning Officials, Pittsburgh, October 15, 1951, 4, Reel 28, AP; untitled speech, Convention of the National Public Housing Conference, March 24, 1944, 1, Reel 26, AP; Abrams to Herbert U. Nelson, March 3, 1947, 1, Reel 14, AP; U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings Before the Select Committee on Lobbying Activities (Housing Lobby), 81 Cong., 2 sess., part 2, 19 April 1950, 20, 21, 25; Cake, Ralph H., “The Future of Real Estate,” Savings and Loans, 18, no. 3 (March 1943), 17–19.Google Scholar

^26. For opposition to FHLBS by mortgage bankers, see U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings Before a Sub committee of the Committee on Banking and Currency on H.R. 7620 (Creadon of a System of Federal Home Loan Banks), 72 Cong., 1 sess., 16 March 1934, 36; 25 March 1932, 360.

^27. Romasco, Albert U., The Politics of Recovery: Roosevelt's New Deal (New York, 1983), 246Google Scholar; McCraw, Thomas, “The New Deal and the Mixed Economy,” in Sitkoff, Harvard, ed., Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated (New York, 1985), 37–67, 58.Google Scholar

^28. Abrams, Future of Housing, 243; “How Sound Are Our Institutions?,” speech, The League for Mutual Aide, March 6, 1954, 11, Reel 30, AP; TNEC Hearings, part 11, 6 July 1939, 5084–5085; U.S. Department of Commerce, National Associations of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1949), 353Google Scholar; Bodfish, Morton, History of Building of Loan in the United States (Chicago, 1931), 1Google Scholar; “Between the Housers and the Planners: The Recollections of Coleman Woodbury,” in Krueckeberg, Donald A., ed., The American Planner: Biographies and Recollections (New York, 1983), 327Google Scholar; Eccles, Beckoning Frontiers, 153–154. For discussions of how agencies can be “captured,” see Lowi, Theodore J., The End of Liberalism: Ideology, Policy, and the Crisis of Public Authority (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Heclo, Hugh, A Government of Strangers (Washington, D.C., 1977)Google Scholar. Bodfish was actively involved in the U.S. Savings and Loan League (which changed its name from the Building and Loan League in 1939) for more than two decades. He also helped draft the legislation creating FHLBS, and was one of the five members of the FHLBB from 1932 to 1933; Vice-Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1934 to 1938; and a member of the Federal Savings and Loan Advisory Council from 1935 to 1939. National Cyclopedia of American Biography, vol. 52 (New York, 1970), 601–601.Google Scholar

^29. Abrams, Future of Housing, 243; Ewalt, A Business Reborn, 141; Weiss, Marc A., The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York, 1987), 146.Google Scholar

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^32. Dillon, Mary Earhart, “Pressure Groups,” American Political Science Review 36, no. 3 (June 1942), 481CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herring, Pendelton, Group Representation Before Congress (New York, 1929), 268Google Scholar. For other supportive assessments of lobbying, see Odegard, Peter, The American Political Mind (New York, 1930), 187Google Scholar; Galloway, George B., Congress at the Crossroads (New York, 1946), 310Google Scholar; Binkley, Wilfred E. and Moos, Malcolm C., A Grammar of American Politics (New York, 1949), 153Google Scholar; Breitel, Charles D., “A Commentary on the Legislative Process,” Syracuse Law Review 1, no. 1 (1949–1950), 66Google Scholar. For one of the few negative views of lobbying activities, see Coffin, Tris, “The Slickest Lobby,” The Nation (March 23, 1946), 340–342.Google Scholar

^33. Galbraith, John Kenneth, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (Boston, 1952), 111Google Scholar, 113, 136, 151. Galbraith's views are in marked contrast to the conclusions that the TNEC reached a little over a decade before. In examining a wide range of interest groups, the TNEC noted: “In essence, the New Deal has tried to equalize the bargaining power of business, fanners, and labor vis-a-vis government. Even after 8 years, an adequate method for doing so has not been worked out, although some progress has perhaps been made.” The strongest pressures, the TNEC asserted, came from business. TNEC, Monograph No. 26: Economic Power and Political Pressure (Washington, D.C., 1941), 10, 187.Google Scholar

^34. Rodgers, Daniel T., Contested Truths: Keywords in American Politics Since Independence (New York, 1987), 207–211Google Scholar; Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), 50, 51Google Scholar, Chapter 16; Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government (Cambridge, Mass., 1908)Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, 1956)Google Scholar, Chapter 3. Dahl later developed his arguments in Who Governs? (New Haven, Conn., 1961)Google Scholar. See also Key, V. O., Politics, Parties, Pressure Groups (New York, 1942)Google Scholar. For an early dissent against the theoretical equality of interest groups, see Zeller, Belle, “Lobbies and Pressure Groups: A Political Scientist's Point of View,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 195 (January 1938), 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Subsequent scholarship has produced a vast amount of literature that identifies and analyzes the differences among competing interest groups. Key works include Bachrach, Peter, The Theory of Democratic Elitism (Boston, 1967)Google Scholar; Domhoff, G. William, Who Rules America (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967)Google Scholar; Miliband, Ralph, The State in Capitalist Society (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Greenberg, Edward, Serving the Few (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Nagel, Mark, Corporations and Political Accountability (Lexington, Mass., 1976)Google Scholar; Garson, David, Power and Politics in the United States (Lexington, Mass., 1977)Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert and Lindblom, Charles, Politics, Economics, and Welfare (Chicago, 1976).Google Scholar

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^37. Leon Keyserling to Abrams, March 24, 1945, Reel 26, AP; Abrams, “The Threat to Public Housing,” 50; Abrams, Future of Housing, 216. The importance of consumption in the early post-World War II period is discussed in Conference on Economic Progress,Consumption: Key to Full Prosperity(Washington, D.C.,1957).Google Scholar

^38. Abrams, Future of Housing, 216; The phrase “fiscal revolution” comes from Stein, Herbert, The Fiscal Revolution in America (Washington, D.C., 1969).Google Scholar

^39. Abrams, Future of Housing, 16; Lewis H. Brown, “Using Private Business Agencies to Achieve Public Goals in the Postwar World,” American Economic Review 33, Supplement, part 2 (March 1943), 74–75.