JACK WIETZEL: Some Americans did not think it was wise, or even possible, to mix traditional free market capitalism with government intervention or socialism. Former Republican Treasury Secretary Ogden Mills put it this way:

"We can have a free country or a socialist one. We cannot have both. Our economic system cannot be half free and half socialistic. There is no middle ground between governing and being governed, between absolute rule and freedom.”

Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected to a second term in the White House by one of the largest victories in American history

Many leftists and socialists agreed with conservatives that it was impossible to mix capitalism and socialism. One leftist publication wrote:

"Either the nation must live with the sadness of capitalism or it must prepare to replace capitalism with socialism. There is no longer a practical middle path."

However, Roosevelt and his New Dealers happily rejected these arguments. They aimed the country between rightist and leftist extremes and created a whole new set of rules for government, the economy, and democracy.

HARRY MONROE: Most Americans supported Roosevelt and the Democrats as they experimented with new solutions to the problems of the depression. They elected Democrats to a large majority in Congress in nineteen thirty-four. Two years later, they re-elected Franklin Roosevelt to a second term in the White House by one of the largest victories in American history.