- Leo Crowley
Leo Thomas Crowley was a member of the
cabinet of PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt as the head of theForeign Economic Administration . Previously he had served asAlien Property Custodian and as chief of theFederal Deposit Insurance Corporation . He also served PresidentHarry Truman but due to philosophical differences, such as the advisability ofconscription , declined to continue in Washington.Leo Crowley was born August 15, 1889, to Thomas and Katie Crowley in
Milton, Wisconsin . His father worked for theMilwaukee Road . Young Leo delivered groceries and saved his tips from customers. In 1905, with $1000 he bought a part of the General Paper Company, some of the products of which he had been bringing to customers. He worked hard to grow the company, and his share in it, until he owned it outright in 1919. That year he took over the T. S. Morris company with financing from Milo Hagen and W.D. Curtis. Selling stock in this company relieved its debt, and he bought a wholesale grocery for his brothers to run, and land inMadison, Wisconsin .Crowley began his entry into the political arena by supporting
Albert G. Schmedeman for governor of Wisconsin. The biographer Weiss says “He managed Schmedeman as a parent might his children, and as he managed his family and most of the nurses at Saint Mary’s Hospital.”(p.7)Crowley served as a delegate for
Al Smith at theDemocratic National Convention . He thus came in contact withJouett Shouse andJohn J. Raskob , operatives for Al Smith.Progressivism was strong in Wisconsin, as expressed by SenatorJohn J. Blaine and the newspaperCapital Times edited by William T. Evjue. Crowley was effective in bringing about a progressive-democratic alliance for the election of Franklin Roosevelt.It was the
Glass-Steagall Act that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corportation, one of the most popular elements of theNew Deal . The biographer Weiss tells of the incredible tale of how the nearly-bankrupt Crowley became the figurehead for banking security in a time of commonbank run s. The skeleton in Crowley’s closet was his misappropriation of funds in 1931, early in theGreat Depression . Though disguised, his banking misdeeds threatened to undo his place in political diplomacy, for instance years later whenHenry Morgenthau, Jr. orArthur Vandenberg were checking his credentials. His unusually close relations with the President andJames F. Byrnes , as well as adroit personal moves, preserved him in office. He had received theOrder of Saint Gregory the Great from PopePius XI in 1929. He was an early target ofI. F. Stone , whose investigations were republished by the "Capital Times" in Madison.Back in the business world, Crowley was named chairman of the "Milwaukee Road" in December 1945 and made it turn a profit until the mid 1960s. He continued contact with the White House:President
Dwight Eisenhower appointed Crowley to theUnited States Commission on Civil Rights in his second term, and he was known to have dined withLyndon Johnson .Very negatively for Crowley in 1955, Harry Truman wrote about how Crowley had caused a problem with the Russians when Germany was defeated. The episode was recounted by daughter Margaret Truman in 1973. She adds::…the real lesson was one that he hesitated to state in his memoirs – the extreme hostility which certain men in government, such as Mr. Crowley, felt toward Russia. It did not make my father’s task any easier, to find the middle path between these men and the Henry Wallace types, who could not believe the Russians were capable of any wrongdoing.
References
* Lawrence C. Eklund (1969) "Advisor to Presidents",
Milwaukee Journal , August 17-27 (ten articles).
* Stuart L. Weiss (1996) "The President’s Man: Leo Crowley and Franklin Roosevelt in Peace and War", Southern Illinois University Press [ISBN 0809319969] .
* Margaret Truman (1973) "Harry S. Truman", Wm Morrow & Co. (p.255)
* Truman Presidential Library: [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/printRecord.php?id=19255&rr= Photograph in Truman Cabinet] , (7th from Left).
* Time Magazine (23 March 1942) [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802250,00l.html Leo the Lion] (Personal sketch of Crowley).
* Time Magazine (26 April 1943) [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802730,00.html Leo Crowley's Aniline] (Crowley and synthetic mica).
* John. W. Jeffreys (1998) [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=28516893446438 One of FDR's Forgotten Men] Humanities and Social Sciences Net-Online.
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