Chronicles Early's loyalty to Roosevelt, their close but sometimes-tumultuous personal and professional relationship, from Roosevelts appearance as a New York delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1912 through his four terms as US President.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as president, the South was unmistakably the most disadvantaged part of the nation. The region's economy was the weakest, its educational level the lowest, its politics the most rigid, and its laws and social mores the most racially slanted. Moreover, the region was prostrate from the effects of the Great Depression. Roosevelt's New Deal effected significant changes on the southern landscape, challenging many traditions and laying the foundations for subsequent alterations in the southern way of life. At the same time, firmly entrenched values and institutions militated against change and blunted the impact of federal programs. In The South and the New Deal, Roger Biles examines the New Deal's impact on the rural and urban South, its black and white citizens, its poor, and its politics. He shows how southern leaders initially welcomed and supported the various New Deal measures but later opposed a continuation or expansion of these programs because they violated regional convictions and traditions. Nevertheless, Biles concludes, the New Deal, coupled with the domestic effects of World War II, set the stage for a remarkable postwar transformation in the affairs of the region. The post-World War II Sunbelt boom has brought Dixie more fully into the national mainstream. To what degree did the New Deal disrupt southern distinctiveness? Biles answers this and other questions and explores the New Deal's enduring legacy in the region.

Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal is augmented by fifty-eight photographs.

“The author has written a very interesting book... She did much research in primary sources, and held many interviews with those best acquainted with her illustrious hero. Born in Austria of a Jewish family, Felix Frankfurter read avidly from his youth. As a lad, he determined to be a lawyer and worked assiduously toward his objective. His ambition and his precocious mind kept him at the head of his classes in America, where he grew up. Soon after completing his legal training, he began to mix private professional services with public office holding. Although he frequently aided friends to win elective offices, Frankfurter never sought an elective office himself. From a United States District Attorney to an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, his public offices were all appointments. Frankfurter, as a young man, was attracted by Woodrow Wilson and his New Freedom. In Washington as a government employee, this Jewish lawyer contended, with great confidence, that the state, as well as the national government, had the duty and right to erect social legislation. In 1914, as a teacher at Harvard, Frankfurter contended that law was not a mere abstraction but that society, by breathing into law the ‘breath of life,’ made it a living soul. Disliking formal lecturing, the law professor much preferred to have his pupils in small groups in animated discussions... In World War I, Frankfurter became an attorney in the War Department... in charge of labor problems. He became a recognized leader in President Wilson’s Mediation Commission... A delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, he aided in drawing up the Balfour Declaration for the return of Palestine to the Jews. Once again Frankfurter returned to Harvard to train young lawyers to combine an academic with an active public life. For twenty years, the professor continued to teach. In 1939, at the age of 56, President Roosevelt, a long time friend, appointed him an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Here Frankfurter served for twenty-three years until invalidism overtook him some months before his death in 1965... [writing] 725 opinions of which 291 were dissents... Justice Frankfurter believed the United States Supreme Court should practice self-imposed restraint. He opposed judicial law-making in all courts. Likewise, he contended that the courts should never enter the political arena. The author discusses well the Brown v. Board of Education and other desegregation cases, as well as the Baker v. Carr and other reapportionment cases, and shows how Justice Frankfurter came to decide with the majority in these law-making and politically activated cases. While this is not the definitive biography of Justice Frankfurter, it is an excellent and timely one.” — George Osborn, Professor of Social Sciences, University of Florida-Gainesville, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “A worthwhile and complete compendium of the vital statistics of a great man in relation to the public life of the period... Two criticisms of Frankfurter often voiced during the latter part of his life were that in the great travail of the Jewish people he made no effort to help them, notwithstanding his profound influence on the President, and, that in spite of his great reputation as a ‘liberal’ before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he turned ‘conservative’ afterwards. The author treats both these subjects with balanced judgment.” — Mendes Hershman, Jewish Social Studies

By the author of acclaimed books on the bitter clashes between Jefferson and Chief Justice Marshall on the shaping of the nation’s constitutional future, and between Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney over slavery, secession, and the presidential war powers. Roosevelt and Chief Justice Hughes's fight over the New Deal was the most critical struggle between an American president and a chief justice in the twentieth century. The confrontation threatened the New Deal in the middle of the nation’s worst depression. The activist president bombarded the Democratic Congress with a fusillade of legislative remedies that shut down insolvent banks, regulated stocks, imposed industrial codes, rationed agricultural production, and employed a quarter million young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps. But the legislation faced constitutional challenges by a conservative bloc on the Court determined to undercut the president. Chief Justice Hughes often joined the Court’s conservatives to strike down major New Deal legislation. Frustrated, FDR proposed a Court-packing plan. His true purpose was to undermine the ability of the life-tenured Justices to thwart his popular mandate. Hughes proved more than a match for Roosevelt in the ensuing battle. In grudging admiration for Hughes, FDR said that the Chief Justice was the best politician in the country. Despite the defeat of his plan, Roosevelt never lost his confidence and, like Hughes, never ceded leadership. He outmaneuvered isolationist senators, many of whom had opposed his Court-packing plan, to expedite aid to Great Britain as the Allies hovered on the brink of defeat. He then led his country through World War II.

A collection of essays examine the terms of Chicago mayors, assess their accomplishments and weaknesses, and analyze the way they used the power of their office.