Garet Garrett - Political Viewpoint

Political Viewpoint

Garett was called a conservative in his obituary, and, after his death, his book The People's Pottage was adopted as one of the "twelve candles" of the John Birch Society. He is now sometimes called a member of the Old Right, and is seen as a libertarian or classical liberal.

Under editor George Horace Lorimer at the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1920s, Garrett attacked proposals for American forgiveness of the war debts of European states and for the bailout of American farmers. After the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he became one of the most vocal opponents of Roosevelt's centralization of political and economic power in the federal government. He attacked the New Deal in articles in the Saturday Evening Post between 1933 and 1940.

In 1940, he became the Post's editorial-writer-in-chief. Garrett opposed the Roosevelt Administration's moves toward intervention in the Second World War in Europe, and was one of the most widely read non-interventionists. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Garrett supported the war but was still fired from the Post.