The title essay alone reveals the importance of this book. It was written in 1932 as a thrashing assault on the Hoover administration for its big spending, tax regulating, and inflating program that the author said would make the depression worse. Now, this is notable for many reasons, and not only because he was exactly right. What is striking is how his account overturns the usual line about Hoover, namely that he was a laissez-faire president who didn't use government to solve the depression. Garrett's essay alone is enough to prove that he was the first New Dealer and that FDR was merely following up bad policy with worse policy.
The essay was not obscure. It was hugely prominent and important. It has not appeared until this fantastic volume of writings by Garrett, as edited by Bruce Ramsey.
Garrett was a brilliant novelist and fantastic fighter against the rise of fascism in America in the 1930s. He hammered both the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations in article after article in the nation's most prominent periodical, the Saturday Evening Post. It drove the New Dealers completely bonkers. And when you read his work, you can see why.
But where can you read it? Until now, nowhere. The great material has languished in obscurity, pushed out of popular culture by statism (you know how the victor's get the spoils, among which is public opinion). But after a half century of nearly total obscurity, it's all back -- back in all its glory.
The great opponent of the rise of the welfare-warfare state speaks again. In so many ways, this book is indispensable for the freedom lover. It highlights what a true journalist of liberty said was going to be the results of the New Deal and the drive to war -- and it shows who precisely was right.
This compilation includes not only his writings from the Post but also work from his wartime journal and postwar writings. All these years later, Garrett is reestablished as a true prophet.
6x9, 300 page, paperback, ISBN: 978-0-87004-463-2