On the Wall Street Journal editorial page, George Bittlingmayer and Thomas Hazlitt remind us that FDR's radical policies--regulating the banking system, abandoning the gold standard, abandoning the goal of balancing the short-term budget, and committing the government to an anti-laissez faire program of interventionist social democracy--were an extraordinary and immediate success:
GEORGE BITTLINGMAYER and THOMAS W. HAZLETT: [Roosevelt's] first step was to stem the banking panic with a national bank holiday (many states had already imposed their own). He closed troubled institutions, injected capital into the healthy ones, and reassured Americans that their deposits would be safe. His approach met with quick success. The New York Stock Exchange, closed during the bank holiday, opened up 15% on March 15. By July 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 93% above its close on March 3, the day before Inauguration Day in 1933...
