Harold L. Ickes and the New Deal

Harold L. Ickes was a U.S. socialist born in Pennsylvania in 1874. In 1933, he was appointed the 32nd Secretary of the Interior by President Roosevelt. He became a figure in the New Deal administration that would make lots of headway in terms of reform.

For his early life, Ickes worked in a settlement house and took civil liberties cases as a lawyer for free, believing he was doing the right thing. Given his care for social reform, he often flipped between the two major political parties, Republicans and Democrats, and was eventually the perfect choice for President Roosevelt when he was looking for a progressive Republican for his cabinet. Once he became the Secretary of the Interior, Ickes was very prominent in his New Deal support as he fought to preserve natural resources from private companies who wanted to use them for their personal advantages.

One of the major programs of the New Deal, the PWA, was headed by Ickes. It was in charge of any environmental programs created by the federal government. He was very conservative in the creation of projects and spending, and though his programs were often slow to get rolling, they rarely contained flaws in their designs due to the precision of Ickes. One of his crowning achievements was the creation of "yardsticks". These services were for electric power-rates through power projects of both the national and state level governments.

In comparison to today's election, Harold L. Ickes for President Roosevelt was much like Elizabeth Warren for Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton. While differences exist, such as Warren only being a senator from Massachusetts and defending a candidate running from their first term, while Ickes was a member of incumbent President Roosevelt's cabinet during the elections, there are more similarities. Ickes was considered "Roosevelt's hatchet man" by many, as he constantly attacked the Republican candidates throughout Roosevelt's elections. Just like Ickes, Elizabeth Warren has constantly taken to twitter to write strong messages that promote anti-Donald Trump sentiment. She has been a prominent figure in the media due to the popularity that her tweets gained for being so abrasive against Trump.

After President Roosevelt was assassinated, Ickes was kept in the cabinet by President Truman. But just one year after President Truman took office, Ickes resigned from his position due to controversy surrounding his testimony in the Senate confirmation hearing of Edwin W. Pauley for the Secretary of the Navy. He felt that President Truman was pressuring him to lie on the stand for the sake of the party and to get Pauley confirmed easily.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Harold-L-Ickes