Unfortunately, the role proved to be tragic for his party and the nation.  If Wilson inflicted the fatal blow against populist decentralism within the Democratic Party, Roosevelt presided over its funeral.

Historians often credit Franklin Roosevelt for having saved capitalism in the 1930s and the credit is deserved.  This would seem to contradict the Jeffersonian progressives-turned-Jeffersonian conservatives who accused the New Deal, at the time, of being “socialistic.”  But the contradiction is not so simple.  In reacting against what Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas called “capitalistic collectivism,” they correctly saw a repudiation of American political and economic traditions, but while Thomas was critical of the capitalistic component, they objected to the collectivism.