ul exception of Louisiana governor Huey Long, most were states were not up to the task. The Great Depression, worldwide in scope, pointed up the fundamental weakness of states in dealing with global social and economic forces. Indeed, Governor Long himself, after immersing his state in a hodgepodge of populist social welfare programs designed to ease the pressure of the Depression, jumped ship: in 1932 he ran for, and was elected to, the U.S. Senate - where he continued his demand for grassroots social welfare programs, but from a federal perspective.
He joined Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington, who was beginning his four-term tenure as 32nd President of the United States. FDR came into power with a country literally paralyzed by economic and social panic. On Roosevelt's Inaugural Day: in Michigan every single bank had been forced to close its doors weeks earlier; Chicago policeman had been working without pay for thirty days - the city government was bankrupt. Stepping into this quagmire of catastrophe, Roosevelt gave his inspirational "T
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