He believed that the Great Depression and the New Deal brought about a significant realignment in the role of government in everyday life. He compares the role of the Federal government to that of a single post office in a to the immense welfare programs later brought about because of the Federal government. .
He believes that FDR came at a time of crisis in American history where a revolution had to occur. Roosevelt "packed the court" to get his necessary legislation passed. He took measures considered to be undemocratic to get America on the road to recovery in Leuchtenburg's opinion. He emphasizes that the Roosevelt administration could have been ethically wrong but his "sins were of the warm-hearted." His opinion relies heavily on this quote, "Better the occasional faults of a government living in the spirit of charity, than the inconsistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." He sees Roosevelt's New Deal as the only light in the dark of the dreary thirties. .
The revolution brought about through the New Deal also gave an example to the rest of the world that economic stability did not have to come through radical regimes such as the Nazis or the work of Mussolini or Lenin. America had changed from its beginnings of an agricultural society to a modern industrial society. Problems arose because of big business and classes were separated into the low wage workers and the more elite businessmen. According to Leutchenburg Roosevelt's Administration primarily reached out to the poor, but it did not ignore the needs of the upper class or take their money away in a Robin Hood fashion. He played the New Deal to help primarily the poor, but essentially it was used as a balancing force between the two classes. He did, however, invade the power possessed by the corporate America to step in on behalf of the low wage workers. Leucthenburg said this is where the Revolution occurred.
