Ordinary Heroes: Steve Vesce Unveils the Untold Legacy of Harry L. Hopkins

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. We all remember the names Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, but we rarely talk about the ordinary man who stood in the center of it all. Today's guest is Dave Vesey, an expert on the head of the 20th-century architect and author of a book, Ordinary Man. It is an award-winning book, and Steve has taken a deep dive into the archive to research the life of Harry L. Hopkins, who started out as someone in total obscurity, but became FDR's closest confidant, the vision behind the New Deal, and the evil strategist and the victory of World War II. So we're going to be talking to Steve about his book and about Harry L. Hopkins. He's an expert on history. So we're going to be talking to him about everything that he's up to and gonna be up to. Steve Bessie, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Thank you, Curtis. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Uh not much to not much really to tell, uh, Curtis. Uh uh entrepreneur for most of my career. Um, decided uh somewhere along the way that uh uh I I was uh passionate about uh history from early 20th century primarily. And um as part of that process, uh was um gave talks on various events and people and issues that occurred pretty much from 1900 to 1970. And while doing those talks, I was asked to do a talk on Harry Hopkins. And um I I as I said to you, I spent most of my career as a as a uh in as an entrepreneur. So it was really this was a uh a passion of mine. Um but when I did a deep dive into Harry Hopkins, I was really inspired to uh to write his story and to try to tell his story well. So I uh I started out writing uh actually writing a uh TV series, wanted to write a movie, turned into a TV series, and then uh ultimately wrote the book, uh One Ordinary Man.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Well tell this who Harry Hopkins was, and why was he such an important World War II figure that I've never heard of?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, Curtis, you know, it's uh really interesting. You know, every time I say to someone, um, you know, do you know Harry Hopkins? They say, Yeah, I've heard of him. You know, and and by the way, that's really the that's the case for most folks. You know, they they've heard his name, they you know, remember something about him. And like myself, very much my like myself, is exactly what I how I uh thought of Harry Hopkins before I really understood what he did. He he started from uh really modest, modest guy. He was uh born and raised in Iowa, uh, went to Grinnell College in Iowa, arrived in New York City in the early 20th century uh as a social worker, uh, uh, married a woman there by the name of Ethel Gross. They had three children, and he did, he did the career path uh uh that most of us uh in the world go through, or they did certainly in the 20th century, which was you know just kind of this uh career path from a social worker to a director to an executive director of an organization and became became well recognized as somebody who uh who can manage uh not-for-profit organizations and manage them well. And it was in uh basically in 1930, after the stock market crash of 29, when Franklin Roosevelt was president, I'm sorry, was governor of New York State, and he started a program called the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration, uh, which was really designed to put New Yorkers back to work who had uh really lost their jobs as a result of the stock market crash. And uh Harry Hopkins was the guy chosen to run it. Um he was the executive director and he did it. And um, then, of course, Franklin Rose became president. And four days after he became president, uh Hopkins arrived in Washington and uh pitched the idea of something called the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Federal Emergency Relief Relief Administration, also known as FERA, F-E-R-A, um that he became the uh the executive director of that uh as well. And so uh 60 days later, uh after that was he arrived on March 7th, 60 days after that, uh Congress appropriate or allocated rather um uh $500 million and off they went. And the goal of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was to put people back to work uh in the states. So they would they would give money, they would allocate money to the states, and the states would use that money to employ people. Um this was at the height, right, Curtis, of the Great Depression. Uh so there were 25 million people unemployed. On a by the way, the population in those those days was about 130 million Americans. So there was about 25 million people unemployed, 13% of the working population, and um uh they began the process of putting putting people back back to work using those that capital that Congress had allocated.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Well talk about the spark that you know got lit up in you when you were preparing for a Florida presentation that made you realize this has to be a 600-page novel. This can't just be a talk.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Well, the truth is, Curtis, I I never anticipated it being 600 pages. I I was really just trying to tell the guy's story well. Um the spark that really that drove me to kind of go forward. There was a number of them in in his story that really uh really inspired me and motivated me to tell it. He he was um he he he was divorced, uh and you'll understand in a second how this was one of the sparks. He he was divorced uh in in in 19 uh in the early part of uh 1920s. I'm sorry, I apologize, uh 1930, and he uh married a woman uh by the name of Barbara Duncan, his second wife. He adored her. Uh they really uh had a wonderful marriage and relationship. But by night in 1937, she died of cancer, and uh it happened suddenly. She was a very young woman, and uh, and then three months after that uh he was diagnosed with uh with cancer as well. And it was that process of going through that grief and him experiencing the same is the same sort of uh uh devastating, truly devastating illness that really inspired me to dig deeper into the into his life because of all he had accomplished after that. So he this was in 1937. He died eight years later in 1946, about nine years later. And it was really the beginning of 1938 when all of this happened, and and he he worked and helped put together the all of the allies that won World War II, not only put them together but hold them together uh while he was terminally ill for the entire eight-year period. And um he suffered from malnutrition uh pretty much his entire life. And ultimately, uh, when he died in uh in January of 1946, he died in a hospital because he was unable to process iron uh through uh through his body. So it was this incredible grit that he had, this incredible intelligence that he had, this incredible uh understanding and belief in uh what made America work and what made America uh really truly the the beacon it it it was in those years. Um, that was the thing that really motivated me to say, hey, this story needs to be told.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Well, how did an ordinary social worker from our uh go to living in the White House and being FDR's most closest confidant?

SPEAKER_01 9:05

You know, Curtis, that's the story. That when you that question, the answer to that question is the story, as a matter of fact. So the guy he he was uh he had incredible emotional intelligence, he understood people extraordinarily well. And he's he was he also had a remarkable intellect. In fact, there are so many stories of him during the war, he was responsible for the program called Lenlease, which was the program where we gave actually uh enabled, uh sent supplies and ammunition and anything you can imagine, actually, to the our allies uh who were in those years incapable of paying us for those items. And uh he was responsible for moving all of those goods. Uh, and many of them, as you as I'm sure you you know, Curtis, uh, as we were moving them from the United States over to Great Britain, uh we were it was the Battle of the Atlantic, it was called, and uh German U-boats were sinking many of those ships that carried those goods uh uh over to uh they were just sinking them in the Atlantic. And and uh he he was able to tell people when he visited the map room in the in the White House, by the way, he was it was uh Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins were the only two civilians, uh non-military people who were who were able to visit that room. When they would when he would walk in there and they would say, Hey, you know, we lost the Indian Arrow uh to today, he actually would knew he would remember and somehow remember of all of the supplies, all of the ammunition, all of the goods that we were sending on on hundreds, if not thousands, of ships. Um, he was able to to tell them what we lost from the Indian Arrow. I mean, he carried that information around in his in his brain and um had this remarkable, remarkable ability to recall facts and uh to organize um those facts into uh into something pretty pretty amazing. So pretty uh that that was who he was. Yeah, those as there's so so many, Curtis. Um he was there, uh he was there when uh uh Churchill needed the United States the most. And during the um really truly during the darkest days for Great Britain, um it was uh the Nazis were across the Channel, they were preparing to invade Great Britain. Great Britain was the last standing democracy uh in the United States. It was the um sorry, the last standing democracy in the world, not the United States. Um they were they were alone, and he's he's sent by Franklin Roosevelt to go to to go to Churchill to understand if the if the great if Great Britain is going to survive uh this uh this onslaught that they were that they were under uh from the Nazis. And um he does, he goes there, and he's the one, when he's there, who not only forms a relationship with Winston Churchill, but also gets a deep, such a deeper, uh deep understanding of the capabilities of the of Great Britain that he leaves there saying to Franklin Roosevelt, um we should back these guys because they're gonna make it. They will they will win if we if we supply them with what what they need. And uh that is uh probably the best example I can give you of somebody pulling the lever, and it was really Hopkins' uh report, if you will, to uh to Franklin Roosevelt that convinced Franklin Roosevelt to back Great Britain and to uh really enable us to win the war.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Well, you describe Hopkins' life as a true hero's journey. So talk about the greatest obstacle he had to overcome to achieve his extraordinary destiny.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, so Curtis, one of the things, first of all, there were many obstacles, and there's just there wasn't one, but I'm gonna I'm gonna just back up a bit and frame this a little bit differently for us as we talk about this. One of the things that's really incredible to me, and and I and I think to most folks, once they get there, once they get they understand what was transpiring during those that 12-year period, this period from 1933 to 1945 is arguably one of the top the three most important periods in American history. The first being the Revolutionary War, the second being the Civil War, and the third being this period of time. And the reason it is one of the uh most important, three most important periods is because during this 12-year period, there was two, not one, but two existential threats to the United States. The first existential threat was the Great Depression. And, you know, Curtis, we I don't know about you, but I know I when I was growing up, I learned about the Great Depression, and I thought I understood it and I thought I knew it. But the truth was is that I didn't. It was, it was far, far worse than I ever imagined, far worse than I ever knew. It was truly a devastating, devastating to our country. And it in it in many ways, not just economically, in many ways, it it tested our entire country over several more than several years, um, whereby our country really had to um had to figure out a way to survive, not only as a country, but also as uh as a democracy. And that that threat, that existential threat was one of the one of the threats that Harry Hopkins, because of his programs, and because of the programs specifically that I mentioned to you earlier, uh Ferra, and because of the Civilian Works Administration, and because of the WPA, which is probably the most famous program he was associated with, um, because of those programs, they he helped um America uh find its voice again and find its footing again. And so that was the first part of the 12-year period. And then almost, almost immediately on top of that, almost immediately behind that was, of course, World War II, the rise of Nazi Germany, the rise of fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, and of course, World War II. And and so these two, you know, arguably two of the worst existential threats our country has ever faced, back to back, he's he's in the middle of it and executing on programs and policies and ideas that ultimately led not only led the United States out of the Great Depression, but also helped it to defeat fascism and also helped it, of course, to win World War II.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

We'll talk about how you balance your background as a CEO with the creative discipline to write an award-winning biographical app.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

So I I don't it's it's it's a good it's a good question, Curtis, but I don't I don't see it as being connected. And I know that might sound uh kind of kind of silly to you, but it's true. I don't I don't see it being connected. My business background and this experience of writing this is really not connected. Um, it's more connected to my passion about um about this period of history and what happened to America and to our country and our people during that time. Um that's probably more what drives uh what drove the process. As far as the writing goes, I've um I I just I I basically wrote um a screenplay uh first, or at least I I thought I was going to write a screenplay. It turned out to be a 12-part TV series. Um when I when I brought the TV series to folks uh in Hollywood, they asked, where is the book? And of course, there was no book at that time, so ultimately that's what caused me to write the book. Uh now, of course, the TV series now is uh, by the way, nine parts, not no longer 12 parts. And uh uh and but the book is based was really written after the TV series was written.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Well, I know that Hopkins dealt with Churchill and Stalin. So talk about what your research and what your novel reveals about that that high-stakes global relationship.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah, there's so there was there was so much. Um probably the one dynamic that really stands out for me was how how how much the balance of power shifted during the war, uh, from the start of the war into the uh uh America becoming obviously involved in the war, and of course, uh Russia being involved in the war. And you know, initially Great Britain was the it was the British Empire, and Great Britain was thought of as one of the certainly one of the top uh leader, leading countries in the world. Um Winston Churchill was uh was uh uh representing as prime minister, was uh uh uh one of the most formidable leaders in the world. And as we know, he was uh legendary for half for sticking with it uh while while everyone around him was was surrendering to the Nazi onslaught, he stuck with it and his grit um brought the uh brought the British through. But that said, as time went along from 1940 to 1941, of course, December 7th, we joined the war after after Japan uh bombed Pearl Harbor. What happened was as the relationships between the two giant countries of the United States and the Soviet Union, giant relative to, by the way, relative to Great Britain, Winston Churchill became a junior partner, if you will, in the three part in the partnership of these three countries and these three leaders. Um and it was clear because of the US our ability to produce goods and produce ammunition and to produce tanks and guns and ships and all of the things that obviously our allies needed uh to succeed against the Nazis. Um it was uh it was clear that the United States was the leading organization, in fact, leading country. In fact, it was uh Joseph Stalin who said um that without without the U.S. production, we would not have won the war. Um and second, of course, because of the just the sheer amount of resources and people that the Soviet Union lost. I mean, at the by the end of the war, I mean, the estimates are actually higher than what I'm about to say, but during the war, um it's it's estimated that um uh the Soviet Union lost 25 million people. So it was that investment of of resources and and people, and of course the US production that really pushed Great Britain and the British Empire Empire into the into the into a backs into the backseat, if you will, uh, of uh of powerful nations. And that probably was the thing that really stood out to me uh as time went along. And by the way, Churchill knew it. Um that was uh he he actually told his wife that he said he was between he was between two giant beasts, the elephant and and one on one waxing eloquent one night. He's telling her that and and he said, I feel like we are the little donkey who knows our way home, you know. And so he he knew that he was losing, he was really losing power and prestige as the war went on, because they just did not have the resources, they did not have the manpower, they did not have uh so much of what uh America was uh was investing in and what the Soviet Union was uh giving to the war effort.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Well, why do you think the story of the greatest generation still deeply resonates with audiences today?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And by the way, a real surprise for me, Curtis. I I never wrote this because I had there was some message I was trying to deliver. It was more about truthfully about just telling this guy's story well. However, what happened what's happened is it seems to resonate a lot with people because of this the question. You just asked, you know, what is it about this greatest generation? And there is something about it. And what it is, and I'm I'm pretty certain of this, what it is, is their is their behavior. They behaved uh in within the within the confines, if you will, or within the throes of these existential events that I was existential threats that I mentioned to you earlier, the Great Depression and World War II. And their motivation and their actions were not based on performative politics, or not based on trying to, you know, a 15 or 10 second soundbite. Though they, by the way, they did go to the press, they were uh interviewed all the time by the press. What they were they were really um uh doing was they were they were doing what I call their duty. And their duty, the way they perceived it, was to act for the benefit of the United States, for the benefit of Americans, to to really uh uh ensure that they were acting for the greater good. So the greatest generation, when you think of the greatest generation now, certainly now when I think of the greatest generation, I think the thing that defines them is their sense of duty, which I don't I don't certainly I don't sense today in in our world today. There's you don't set I don't see that very often. It's there for sure in some cases, but it's I don't see it very often. But back then, I think the greatest generation had this sense that we have to do this for the greater good of our country and the greater good of the world. So I I think that's the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

What is one historical fact that surprised you about the FDR era during your years of research?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, fascism is the one historical fact that that really uh surprised me. So a little one of the little it's a little known uh fact, and and by the way, I mean there are people who know this, but but uh the gen generally people, most folks don't don't appreciate the fact that when Franklin Roosevelt came to office in 1932, fascism was on the rise throughout Europe, as we know, with Benito Mussolini and with uh Adolf Hitler as an as examples, but it was also on the rise here in the United States. And uh there were people here in the United States who were actually uh encouraging Frank Franklin Roosevelt to scrap the constitution and become a dictator uh during those during those years. And he refused to, he did not, and he's in fact famously said to uh to one of his associates, he said, if I do that, I will become the last president the United States ever has. And so he he didn't. That really is the one of the one of the things that kind of caught me and captivated my my attention and captivated my imagination, right? That uh little known during this era was this um this movement, if you will, this this appeal, fascism had an appeal to uh to folks who are going through, again, back to the Great Depression and the existential threat, going through this these devast this devastating time of the Great Depression. It it was appealing to think that there would be one person who could uh take help them through this this uh these catastrophic events. And um uh in fact, by the way, another uh interesting part of this was that the U.S. press, there were some in the U.S. press, some of the major papers, um actually advocated for that for that, advocated for uh for dictatorship. So that's probably the one thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

What do you hope modern readers take away from the life of Harry Hopkins regarding the power of grid and individual impact?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

I think you just said it. That's what I hope people take away from it. I think what if I could summarize it, it would be that someone who's who has moral integrity and who acts from a sense of duty for the greater good of our country and for our world um can can do remarkable, remarkable things in spite of their own their own deficiencies or obstacles that they have to overcome, their own personal uh obstacles that they might have to overcome, like of course, thinking about Harry Hopkins' illness. Even at that, this this man, um, with all of the all that all he had to overcome was able to um change, truly change the trajectory of our country and change the the trajectory of the world for the greater good, right? For the better betterment of all of us. Um is it is it has is it perfect? No, it's not, but it's been pretty decent ride since the end of 1945 up to the present. Um we have we've had a relatively uh stable and a relatively uh peaceful uh world. Uh that's not to say there hasn't been uh conflict, but no conflict has ever ever so far at least has been on the scale of uh World War II. I mean, that was just I mean, just it was awful. It was just remarkably uh remarkably bad.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Uh upcoming another book is in the mix. I'm working on it now. It's a similar, similar sort of sort of story. It's about a about a man who um again lost to history, who had a profound effect on our country. Um, and it's um it's uh hopefully will be be as interesting and uh as well thought of as uh as uh one ordinary man.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

I had that website uh to keep up with everything that Steve is up to is stevevesey.com.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

So close this out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

No, Curtis, I thought you're I thought the questions you asked were really very thorough. I I guess the the the thing that I would hope that folks would would recognize is that history doesn't uh necessarily as as by the way, Mark Twain said this, so history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme. And and there's uh there is inside of the Hopkins story and inside of uh the America's story from 1932 to to 1945, um, that really critical period of our history, there is uh so much there in terms of what we experience as a country, who we are as a country, and what we can be as a country. So I I think um that's probably the thing I would like to leave folks with. Uh I always go back to Curtis, the four freedoms. Uh January 6, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt uh in a State of the Union Union address put forward a vision for the country and for the world. Uh, freedom of speech, as you know, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, freedom from want, four freedoms. Those four freedoms became the war aims of the United States when they when they surveyed uh GIs in World War II, and there were, by the way, there were 16 million of them who went through uh the war. Um they when they surveyed them, the majority said when they asked them why were they fighting, they the majority of them said it was because of the four freedoms. They were fighting for the four freedoms. So for me, that that sense of what we could be as a country and what we are what who we might become as a country is really uh is really uh the most powerful message, not from not from one my story necessarily, but from that period of history and from Harry Hopkins' life.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

All right, ladies and gentlemen. So if you as somebody you know loves history, Steve Vesey is the man to to uh uh get your information from, visit Steve Vesey.com, check out his biographical epic that's award winning, and check out everything else that he's got upcoming and share this episode to as many people as possible. Also, to keep up with all things live in the dream. If you haven't done so, please visit www.curveball337.com and tell everybody about it that you know. Everybody on your social media, everybody in your contacts. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Steve, thank you for your research and bringing this stuff to light. And thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Curtis, thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.