Thread by @delong

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John Maynard Keynes (1938-02-01): Private Letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Private and personal

Dear Mr. President,

You received me kindly when I visited you some three years ago that I make bold to send you some bird’s eye impressions which... 1/

...I have formed as to the business position in the United States. You will appreciate that I write from a distance, that I have not revisited the United States since you saw me, and that I have access to few more sources of information than those publicly available. But... 2/

...sometimes in some respects there may be advantages in these limitations! At any rate, those things which I think I see, I see very clearly.... Personally I think there is a great deal to be said for the ownership of all the utilities by publicly owned boards. But if... 3/

...public opinion is not yet ripe for this, what is the object of chasing the utilities around the lot every other week? If I was in your place, I should buy out the utilities at a fair price in every district where the situation was ripe for doing so, and announce that the... 4/

...ultimate ideal was to make this policy nation-wide. But elsewhere I would make peace on liberal terms, guaranteeing fair earnings on new investments and a fair basis of valuation in the event of the public taking them over hereafter.... Finally, the railroads... 5/

..Nationalise them if the time is ripe. If not, take pity on the overwhelming problems of the present managements, And here too let the dead bury their dead. (To an Englishman, you Americans, like the Irish, are so terribly historically minded!) I am afraid I am going... 6/

...beyond my province. But the upshot is this. A convincing policy, whatever its details may be, for promoting large-scale investment under the above heads is an urgent necessity. These things take time. Far too much precious time has passed.... Forgive the candour of... 7/

...these remarks. They come from an enthusiastic well-wisher of you and your policies. I accept the view that durable investment must come increasingly under state direction. I sympathise with Mr Wallace’s agricultural policies. I believe that the SEC is doing splendid... 8/

...work. I regard the growth of collective bargaining as essential. I approve minimum wage and hours regulation. I was altogether on your side the other day, when you deprecated a policy of general wage reductions as useless in present circumstances. But I am terrified... 9/

...lest progressive causes in all the democratic countries should suffer injury, because you have taken too lightly the risk to their prestige which would result from a failure measured in terms of immediate prosperity. There need be no failure. But the maintenance of... 10/

...prosperity in the modern world is extremely difficult; and it is so easy to lose precious time

I am, Mr President

Yours with great respect and faithfulness,

J.M. Keynes 11/END

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