‐ [Narrator] Previously on the Titans That Built America,
as World War I comes to a close, a new generation
of titans are on the rise.
‐ [Man] We're in the age of the machine.
‐ [Narrator] Three car makers fight for dominance.
‐ This is my father Henry Ford.
‐ [Man] To Pierre du Pont.
(crowd cheers)
‐ The Chrysler 70.
(crowd talks over each other)
‐ [Narrator] As a battle rages to take down Ford,
he and his son Edsel have their sights set on
a new industry.
‐ We should get into this.
‐ [Narrator] They go head to head
with a young upstart who wants to make his name
in aviation, William Boeing.
‐ Very excited to tell you about Boeing's new plane.
(camera pops)
‐ Pull.
(gunshots fire)
Hahaha, nothing like it.
‐ [Narrator] With the warring twenties and full swing,
a skyscraper war begins as Chrysler
looks to own the skyline.
‐ So why you building the tallest building in the world?
‐ So I can look down on GM.
Ha ha.
‐ [Narrator] But du Pont won't be out done and plans
a building of his own.
‐ Same height as Chrysler's, a bit taller than.
‐ The Empire State building.
(driving beat begins)
(seagulls caw)
‐ [Reporter] Mr. Morgan?
(reporters chatter)
(flashbulbs pop)
Mr. Morgan, what are the best investments
and what is your opinion on US steel?
I'll say this, General Motors stock is very undervalued.
‐ [Reporter] Mr. Morgan, one more question.
‐ [Morgan] Thank you.
‐ Mr. Morgan, one more please one more question, please.
‐ Thank you gentlemen.
‐ [Narrator] By 1929, Wall Street has become
the most famous street in America.
And JP Morgan Jr. is its King.
‐ There's a saying about JP Morgan Jr.
and his partners in the late 1920s, they're called
Jesus Christ and his 12 apostles
and so that gives you some sense of the stature
of JP Morgan Jr. on Wall Street.
He says in effect, I think GM's future looks bright
and GM stock surges in price
and then the stock market follows.
‐ [Narrator] Thanks to Morgan and his fellow bankers,
the stock market has climbed nearly 40% in just one year.
To investors and even ordinary Americans,
there's a sense that you can't lose.
‐ The thing about the roaring twenties, it was the go go.
Everybody was optimistic,
markets were soaring, when it's so easy
for anybody to go get out a loan and then go speculate.
‐ And not just speculation from professional investors.
But this was the first time that
Joe on the street saw the stock market going up
and decided I'm going to go get myself a loan to buy stock.
And by the way, I'm going to make
a handsome profit doing it.
‐ It was like a boom like we've never had.
There was a belief that we were in the Emerald City.
‐ [Radio Announcer] Day by day we were nearer to the final
triumph over poverty ever before in the history of any land.
‐ [Narrator] One industry in particular reaps the rewards
from the soaring economy, automobiles.
In 1929, American spend a half billion dollars on new cars.
‐ The American automobile industry had a larger economy
than every country on earth, with the exception
of Germany, France, Britain, maybe the Soviet Union.
‐ [Narrator] 80% of the entire us car market is controlled
by just three companies.
du Pont's General Motors has the top spot.
While Ford is second.
And then there's Chrysler.
‐ Okay, fellas, let's take a look.
‐ [Narrator] In the eight years since he left GM,
he's grown his company into the number three
automaker in America but he's determined to be number one.
‐ Let me show you this.
‐ [Narrator] And in order to do that,
he's going to take things to another level
by raising the competition to new heights.
‐ You see here, this stretches up to the third floor.
I want it to feel like you're stepping through
the doorway into a city.
‐ [Narrator] He's recently started construction on a tower,
that he plans to make the tallest in the world.
He calls it the Chrysler building.
‐ Business entrepreneurs at the top of game.
It's about personal dynamics and relationships
that they have with their colleagues and their peers
and their rivals and they want to beat them.
And whether it's a business or whether it's my house
is bigger or my building is bigger, that's the game.
And that's how it's all scored.
‐ [Narrator] The skyscraper's construction
is a monumental feat, 30,000 tons of steel
and more than 3 million bricks will be needed.
In a building this size, every single detail matters.
‐ One of the key innovations
in the Chrysler building was the world's fastest elevators.
And the building had the longest continuous elevator shaft
in the world at the time.
‐ [Narrator] But Chrysler doesn't just want his tower
to be the tallest, it also must be the most beautiful.
‐ Every entrepreneur knows what their,
their special sauce is, what their, their greatest skill is.
With Chrysler, his was beauty and precision.
This is Nirosta stainless steel, it's German.
‐ Walter Chrysler, whatever he did,
he was going to be the best at it.
‐ All right.
‐ He was going to build the most beautiful skyscraper.
It was going to be the tallest.
It was going to be the talk of the world.
(dramatic orchestral music swells)
‐ [Newsreel Announcer] High above street level,
about 1,000 feet high in the air
on the Chrysler building looking over Lexington Avenue.
‐ [Narrator] As it nears completion
in the summer of 1929,
Chrysler wants to make sure the world takes notice.
‐ Mr. Chrysler.
‐ [Narrator] So he hires one of America's top photographers
to document the building.
‐ Let me show you what I have going on.
‐ Yeah, let's see it.
‐ Margaret Bourke‐White is an amazing photographer
who is known for her photos of factories
and city life and architecture.
And one of the reasons that she stands out
is that she's willing to go places
that no one else will just for that perfect shot.
‐ [Narrator] Dangling high above Manhattan,
Bourke‐White captures the spectacle
of Chrysler's building.
(dramatic music)
Her death defying photos help make Chrysler
and his building the biggest news of the year.
But Chrysler has competition.
Less than 10 blocks away,
du Pont has grand plans for a skyscraper of his own.
The Empire State Building.
They've demolished the old Waldorf Astoria hotel
and have raised over $40 million for the construction
of the building, over a half billion in today's dollars.
But now with Chrysler so far ahead, some are questioning
whether the project is worth the investment.
‐ What do you think we should do?
‐ We're going to build.
(energetic strings begin)
‐ [Narrator] du Pont has no interest in standing down.
He's going to continue until he beats Chrysler.
So he keeps pushing the architects
to make the building taller.
‐ They'll be coming from a factory
in Pittsburgh and they'll be ordering 250,000 tons.
‐ There was sort of a personal rivalry among architects.
So you have developers who have these big egos,
who are trying to outdo each other.
You have the architects who are also sort
of part of this game.
‐ [Narrator] The newspapers begin referring to it
as the skyscraper race.
‐ It's often impossible to keep your plans
to add height secret because you have to file these plans
with the buildings department.
‐ [Narrator] But now with competition heating up
and construction nearly complete,
Chrysler is starting to worry.
He wants to make sure when all is said and done,
there's no question whose building is tallest.
‐ So he went to his architect and he says
you will go back to the drawing board
and you add extra height, you figure out some way
that we can make our building even taller.
(car honks)
‐ [Narrator] For months, Chrysler's team has been working
on a secret project.
Tomorrow he plans to unveil it to the world.
‐ Let's go, let's go.
Let's go.
Hold on, hold on.
‐ [Narrator] Within the crown of the building,
hidden from view, Chrysler's team has constructed
a massive steel spike.
‐ We need the beams over there, all the points stack left.
‐ Hold on, hold on, hold on,
‐ Okay, we're going up, we're going up!
Steady, steady, steady!
(triumphant music)
Hold on, hold on.
‐ [Narrator] Now, in the dark of night,
the team raises the metal structure
through the top of the building.
(sweeping music)
(workers talk indistinctly)
(phone rings)
‐ Hello?
‐ [Narrator] With the first rays of the dawn,
Chrysler's steel spire can be seen piercing the sky.
Overnight, Chrysler has added nearly 200 feet
to his building, surpassing even the Eiffel Tower.
The Chrysler Building is indisputably
the tallest structure that humans have ever created.
(crowd cheers)
‐ Great job boys, great job.
‐ Chrysler was more than willing to spend
a significant amount of money to have his building
express his sort of modern architectural view of the world
and to reflect his power and his success.
‐ [Narrator] It's a huge moment for the titan.
‐ It's the flapper buildings, it's jazz as an edifice.
It is all the audacity all the bombast of the 1920s
captured in concrete and steel.
‐ Look at it, that's history right there.
‐ It was so sexy and so new looking and so fresh
and so striking that if my building looks like this, well
certainly the cars have gotta be something pretty special.
So it was the biggest billboard
for a brand that was ever built.
‐ [Radio Announcer] The Chrysler building at 42nd street
and Lexington is the tallest structure in the world.
It's gigantic tower dominates the city
and it can be seen from nearly everywhere.
From it the views of Manhattan's are sublime,
it's silver spire flashing in the sun,
a monument of wealth and social prestige.
But New York is not only steel and stone.
It is people too, millions of beating hearts,
lights and shadows, tears and laughter, work and play,
night and day and so it moves from the memories of yesterday
into the promise of tomorrow.
‐ [Narrator] Less than 24 hours
after Walter Chrysler tops out his building,
the U. S. Stock Market is taking a nose dive.
‐ In the year before the Stock Market crash in 1929,
fortunes are being made all over the place.
And there's this belief, this optimism that the bull
market will never end.
No one could have foreseen
what was coming in October of 1920.
‐ [Narrator] In an instant, the roaring twenties are over.
And the fortunes of the Titans
and the entire country
will never be the same.
(dark forboding music)
(bells ringing)
‐ What's the position on standard oil?
‐ Standard oil is down by 14% and dropping.
U.S. steel down by 200.
‐ Sell down all the stock yet?
Hold the position on standard oil.
‐ [Narrator] In just three days,
the stock market loses almost half its value.
After a decade of reckless spending,
investors suddenly start to get nervous
and begin offloading shares by the tens of millions.
It's the biggest sell off in history.
‐ Traders know what that feels like
and they know what it means.
It starts to feed on itself
and it, and the momentum just picks up so rapidly.
And so, when the market started selling off in 1929,
it snowballed.
‐ If you're a stock broker looking up at a board
in 1929 and just watching the numbers tick down minute
by minute by minute, it'll make your heart stop.
I think that there were people who just
couldn't even fathom what they were looking at.
‐ JP Morgan is watching his world crumble before his eyes
but he knows if anyone can pull the country out
of the crisis, it's him.
(crowd talks over each other)
‐ [Reporter] Mr. Morgan, what's happening?
Has the stock market stopped falling?
‐ The worst is over, everything's going to be okay.
‐ [Reporter] Are you sure?
‐ Trust me, everything's going to be fine.
‐ JP Morgan says, things are fine.
Everybody goes back and buys.
‐ U. S. Steel up to one seven.
‐ Good.
‐ [Narrator] By the power of his word alone, JP Morgan
turns around the stock market and makes sure
that he buys at the lowest point to make a huge profit.
Most people think the Great Depression began right
after the stock market crash.
‐ Though the crash of 29 is considered the start
of the Great Depression, in fact, it took another couple
of years before the full depth
of this depression hit the American public.
‐ So in the world of the stock market, there's this thing
called a V‐shaped recovery.
You just go down real quick and come back real quick.
So in the brief aftermath of the crash
there actually was a little V and at the time,
they thought it was a big V.
‐ [Narrator] With the crash seemingly over,
du Pont decides he's still going to beat Chrysler
with the tallest building in the world,
the Empire State building.
‐ In the fall of 1929
Raskob and du Pont, they're crunching the numbers.
From du Pont's point of view,
it made perfect sense to go forward.
There was every reason to believe at that point
that their project would be economically successful.
‐ But Chrysler's new spire has complicated du Pont's plan.
So his architects add floors to increase the height.
‐ [du Pont] It will be taller.
‐ [Builder] Yes, 1,054 feet.
‐ [du Pont] And the Chrysler building?
‐ [Builder] 1,050 feet.
‐ So we'll be four feet taller?
‐ Yes.
‐ The original plans for the Empire State building
was just to have a flat top
at a height that was greater than a Chrysler's building.
‐ Four feet.
Chrysler gets to stick an umbrella on top
and say he's taller.
‐ But evidently that wasn't enough comfort.
It wasn't enough room to be sure that they were going
to have the world's tallest building.
So in December of 1929, they announced that they have come
up with this plan to erect a 250 foot high structure
which is mostly decorative, so that is a statement.
du Pont wanted to literally and figuratively
put Walter Chrysler's building in the shade.
‐ [Narrator] To create a building of this magnitude,
du Pont oversees the most ambitious construction project
in American history.
Every day, 57,000 tons of steel arrive from Pittsburgh.
‐ All the materials, all the steel and stone
and the piping, everything needed to arrive
at the site just in time
for when it was to be put in place.
And legend has it that the steel was still warm to touch.
‐ [Narrator] A new floor is added each day,
thanks in part to the talents of a new group of workers.
‐ Native American ironworkers from the Mohawk tribe
actually play a role in the construction
of the Empire State building.
They're sought after ironworkers because they're recognized
as masters of the craft and for being fearless
because of their ability to work
hundreds of feet in the air.
‐ [Narrator] The Empire State building is a true Colossus.
Three times wider than the Chrysler building
and the first building in the world
to have more than 100 floors.
For Chrysler, it's a disaster.
His enemy's building is overtaking him
right before his eyes.
Chrysler decides his only move
is to try to stop the construction.
Chrysler launches a smear campaign.
‐ Form take two.
‐ [Narrator] To make people doubt
that the Empire State building is structurally sound.
‐ And action.
‐ Do you think it's possible to build anything taller
than the Chrysler building?
‐ No I do not.
‐ Skyscrapers must have seemed strange to people
as electricity once had.
They saw these massive buildings arising
out of the landscape
and many wondered if they'd topple over.
‐ A tall structure has the potential to develop
stress fractures that could lead to catastrophic failure.
‐ So you're saying the Chrysler building will be the tallest
building for the foreseeable future?
‐ [Narrator] du Pont knows this is just
Chrysler being Chrysler.
Construction continues without delay.
The sooner he can top out his skyscraper,
the sooner he can claim victory over Walter Chrysler.
But as it nears completion, Chrysler takes one last swing
saying the tower shouldn't count, since it's decorative.
Coming from the person who pushed a metal spire up
to make his building taller.
du Pont responds by taking a page out of Chrysler's playbook.
He tells the press that the tower is far more
than just decorative.
It's a docking station for airships,
and he can prove it.
‐ They announce a plan to erect a mooring mast
where airships could anchor.
The passengers would then exit the air ship
and then they would go down the elevator.
But these things are utter fiction.
‐ [Narrator] In fact, no airship ever docked
with du Pont's tower.
The photograph he distributed
to the newspapers was a fake created by a specialist
a half century before Photoshop.
‐ They knew at the time that the mooring mast would never
be able to moor air ships.
The truth is when you're 1,250 feet in the air,
the forces of wind are incredible.
There did not exist a captain who was willing
to dock at the top of the Empire State building.
The mooring mast, if anything, was a kind of exclamation point,
a way to say this race is over,
there's no way you can beat us now.
‐ [Narrator] The Empire State building officially opens.
In just two years, the New York skyline
has been permanently altered thanks to competing egos.
And Pierre du Pont can now say he built
the tallest structure on earth,
but it quickly turns into a hollow victory.
Nobody is leasing office space.
The Empire State building is virtually empty.
‐ There's a bit of a myth about what really happened
in terms of the timing around the Great Depression.
It looked after 1929, that things might be okay,
but just for a moment, the V shaped recovery,
you could call it just like a check mark
before a real swoon.
‐ [Narrator] By 1931, the Great Depression has arrived.
And this time not even JP Morgan can stop it.
(forboding music)
‐ House and property is estimated at $7.3 million,
commercial properties, including the Manhattan office
hold value at $12.6 million, liquid cash holdings
are approximately 256 million and change.
‐ As the Great Depression takes hold,
the house of Morgan is cut in size by half.
‐ Furniture vehicles,
non‐commercial ancillary properties.
‐ For God's sake, get to the point.
‐ Overall assets down by 400 million.
‐ So it is dramatically affected.
‐ [Narrator] The stock market loses 90%
of its value and America faces another unforeseen disaster.
The nation's banks begin to fail.
‐ So we all put our deposits in a bank and we expect
to get that money back with some interest.
But if we all get scared, then I want to run to the bank
before you do, I want to pull my money out before you do,
and then everybody pulls out, that's a bank run,
and the bank collapses.
‐ [Narrator] By the end of 1931, 3,000 banks have closed
and with them, billions of dollars simply vanish.
‐ To watch your net worth disappear,
in some cases, in a matter of minutes and hours.
I know they're just numbers
but there's a reality behind that.
And there are so many people who lived
through that period and it changed them,
it changed them forever.
‐ [Reporter] Half the active manpower of the United States
drifting helplessly in search of work.
Marriages off by 22%, birth rate down sharply,
suicide rate, 40% higher.
‐ [Narrator] By the beginning of 1932
the world's strongest economy has ground to a halt.
‐ This becomes the deepest,
longest lasting economic downturn
not just in us history.
It's a global phenomenon with a devastating impact.
‐ Spending is down across the board.
In New York City, no one is leasing office space
in du Pont's new tower.
The press is calling it, the Empty State building.
The news from his car company is even worse.
GM's sales are down by two thirds
and Walter Chrysler is doing just as badly.
‐ The reality is, if you've lost everything
and you can't even afford to feed yourself
the last thing on your mind is going to be buying
a new automobile.
‐ [Narrator] Henry Ford initially believes
he's well positioned to ride out the depression.
‐ Henry Ford, he never trusted Wall Street.
He thought Wall Street was gambling
and that it was to rip off the folks.
‐ All good here, fellas?
‐ So when the Great Depression hit
and every company's stocks are going downwards,
you're watching Henry Ford say I don't
play the Stock Market.
‐ [Narrator] But before long, the depression catches
up with him too.
Ford hasn't seen car sales so low since before World War I.
Ford's airplanes are doing even worse.
‐ [Reporter] Hungry men live in shacks
reaching the braod avenues of...
‐ Two things happened with Ford aviation at the beginning
of the depression.
One is the demand for $50,000 airplanes dried up
almost instantly and the other thing that happened
was there was a number of crashes.
‐ Within the span of a single year,
there were four major crashes of Ford Tri Motors
that killed over 40 people.
In several cases, everyone aboard the aircraft died.
(dial tones)
‐ Of course I tried six times.
You're welcome to try them yourself.
No, that's not what I meant.
Look, nobody's flying.
Yeah, I'm doing it.
‐ [Narrator] There's one person Edsel knows
that could convince the public the Tri Motors are safe,
but Ford's partner in aviation, Charles Lindbergh
is dealing with a crisis of his own.
In 1932, Lindbergh's 20 month old son is kidnapped.
‐ Everything about Charles Lindbergh was a big story.
The birth of his baby was a big story.
And then when that child was kidnapped,
it was the biggest story in the United States.
‐ [Narrator] And then his child is found dead.
The press refuse to leave him alone.
Lindbergh is devastated.
‐ What if we, we built with the metal, you know, like boomy.
Dad, wasn't expecting you.
Everything okay?
‐ It's time to cut our losses.
‐ What are you talking about?
‐ I'm shutting Ford Aviation down.
‐ We have orders, it could be huge.
‐ That's it, it's over.
Can I trust you to make this happen?
‐ Sure, Dad,
whatever you want.
‐ Good.
(downhearted music)
‐ Edsel was devastated, one of his friends said
that they had never seen him so depressed.
Just like that Edsel Ford's whole identity,
his whole future, what he thought
it was going to be was gone.
‐ [Narrator] But while most titans are struggling
to survive, the Great Depression, one is thriving.
William Boeing.
‐ Even though there was a depression going
on for the rest of the United States,
there were still lucrative airmail contracts
from the U S government and so it was a very good time
especially for Boeing and the early 1930s.
‐ [Narrator] Americans might not be buying cars
or taking trips but they're sending more letters than ever.
And Boeing's planes are moving them.
(airplane engine roars)
Boeing now controls most of the air mail business
but he wants all of it.
‐ Mr. President.
‐ [Narrator] He's come to Washington to make his case
to the president, Herbert Hoover.
‐ Now you and I both know there is no oversight.
Do you honestly believe you're not being bled dry?
I play by rules
but these other guys they're raking you over the coals.
‐ Mr. Boeing.
‐ Mr. President.
‐ William Boeing convinced the Hoover administration
that these small independent companies
that had airmail contracts were actually cheating
the federal government.
Boeing argued, you really should be trusting, reliable,
dependable, trustworthy companies
like my company with the airmail contracts
and amazingly the Hoover administration agreed.
‐ [Narrator] The new routes are worth millions
of dollars for Boeing's growing business.
While the rest of the industry struggles to survive,
Boeing buys up aviation companies for pennies
on the dollar and adds them to his empire.
‐ Bill Boeing makes this incredible vertical business.
Airplanes, engines, propellers.
He has a school to train pilots
and mechanics and even builds his own airfield.
Everything under one corporation.
‐ Boeing has bought nearly every airplane company
in the country, combining them
into the largest airline the world has ever seen.
He calls the new company, United Airlines.
‐ [Narrator] By 1932, William Boeing has expanded his empire
with his newly formed United airlines.
But for most Americans,
the depression is taking a devastating toll.
‐ When the stock market crashed,
Herbert Hoover thought that was just a weird spasm
in the stock market and we would come back
so he didn't do anything.
And meanwhile, people suffered like you can't even imagine.
People were living in little shanty towns,
they started being called Hoovervilles.
We were in deep dark shape.
‐ Things went from bad to worse so quickly
that American business was in grave peril.
They need consumers.
They need a sound currency.
They need a sound banking system.
They need an overall economy
that's going to function well on a macro level
if they're going to remain profitable themselves.
‐ [Narrator] du Pont has closed GM factories
and laid off workers and still,
he's losing millions.
(thunder claps)
In New York, Wall Street is a ghost town
and J. P Morgan is bleeding money.
‐ By 1932, as the depression tightens
and deepens as millions of more Americans go
on the unemployment roles,
as the savagery
of the great depression becomes more apparent,
J.P Morgan Jr. And the house of Morgan,
they begin to doubt Hoover.
‐ Many American business leaders
thought that Herbert Hoover's administration handled
it so poorly.
They needed decisive action.
‐ [Narrator] Morgan and du Pont decide
the time has come for a change.
With an election coming,
they make it their mission
to get President Hoover kicked out of office.
They found their candidate, an elite like them,
from one of the most respected political families
in America.
‐ Governor.
‐ [Narrator] Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
‐ Mr. Morgan, my friend, Pierre du Pont
‐ Good to meet you, sir.
‐ Good to meet you.
‐ Franklin Roosevelt was a aristocratic child,
a patrician, born on the Hudson river,
lived there, went to prep school, went to Harvard.
‐ He was very much in the upper‐class in New York.
He could really communicate extremely well
with people from all classes,
all religions, all races, et cetera.
‐ [Narrator] Although he conceals it from the public,
FDR has lived with polio since the age of 39.
‐ He didn't do anything to bring on his polio.
Now for the rest of his life,
he couldn't walk again unaided.
And the essence of the great depression
for millions of Americans was,
"I didn't do anything wrong, but the sky fell in upon me."
And Roosevelt was able to connect with those people.
‐ Mr. Harrison's office please.
‐ Well, wake him up.
‐ [Narrator] Morgan and du Pont throw their influence
and their money behind FDR.
‐ Let's talk about the Roosevelt campaign.
‐ Yes, I want to talk to you about the Roosevelt campaign.
‐ We're very excited about Roosevelt.
I think he's all right.
‐ du Pont and the house of Morgan,
and turning their attention away from Herbert Hoover
and embracing FDR,
supporting FDR with their money.
This really was an example of an early super pack.
‐ [Narrator] On the campaign trail,
FDR is greeted by huge crowds.
He blames Hoover for the nation's misery
and positions himself as the candidate of change,
promising desperate Americans a new deal.
‐ He was very fuzzy on what the new deal was going to be.
He simply promised that the government would be more active
and be more helpful,
but it wasn't clear what that meant.
All they knew was it sounded a whole lot better
than be very quiet
and seemingly too little too late ideas of Herbert.
‐ I am confident.
‐ He was a great politician, FDR
and he was able to appeal to the unemployed,
the working people,
without startling the rich industrial titans.
‐ Well we'll wait and see.
‐ [Narrator] FDR wins the election in a landslide.
(cheering and applause)
His inaugural address brings hope to millions.
‐ [FDR] So first of all, let me assert my firm belief
that the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself.
(pplause and cheering)
‐ Good morning sir.
‐ [FDR] And there must be an end to a conduct in banking and
in business which too often has given to a sacred trust
the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
‐ The speech is one of the great political speeches
of the 20th century.
‐ [FDR] Practices of the unscrupulous money changers
stand indicted in the court of public opinion.
‐ And the Morgan bankers,
they're expecting that their voice
will be listened to in the White House
as it has been more or less since 1918,
incorrectly as it transpired.
‐ [FDR] They have resorted...
‐ [Narrator] In the speech,
Roosevelt says the first thing he's going to do
is go after the bankers.
‐ [FDR] This nation is asking for action
and action now.
‐ [Narrator] And within two weeks, FDR turns on Morgan
and comes for him.
(dramatic music)
(ominous music)
‐ [Narrator] J. P Morgan Jr. helped put Franklin Roosevelt
into office
but now,
the President is coming after him.
‐ How many?
The hell is this?
‐ [Narrator] To pull America out of the depression,
FDR is targeting the people he thinks caused the crash.
Bankers.
‐ Roosevelt needed an enemy
in order to justify the major changes he knew
he would have to undertake to get the economy moving
and he was a good enough politician to know
that you had to find an enemy that many people would hate.
‐ And J. P Morgan was an obvious person.
His name was synonymous with Wall Street.
So, just like today, if you're upset with big business
you call Jeff Bezos to testify before Congress
and Mark Zuckerberg.
Well, J. P Morgan was that guy.
‐ [Narrator] Now, FDR intends to create a public spectacle
to ensure that J. P Morgan becomes
the face of the stock market crash.
Roosevelt taps a tough New York lawyer, Ferdinand Pecora,
to call Morgan before Congress.
(press clamoring)
‐ The hearings as it turned out,
were the subject of extraordinary interest.
‐ [Pecora] Mr. Morgan.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
‐ It was late May early June,
and it was unusually hot in Washington DC
and there was no air conditioning in those days.
It was Torrid in every sense of the word.
‐ You know what, proportion of your total business
and total profits rise from your transactions
on the stock exchange?
‐ I wouldn't know off hand,
it would take a long time to find out.
‐ What was the reason for not keeping any minutes
or other written record of the proceedings?
‐ Well, for reasons of convenience.
Take a man's time to write them up
and they'd be of no use to you.
‐ Did you manipulate the stock market for your own gains?
Yes?
‐ Yes, no.
‐ Mr. Morgan, please answer the question.
Yes or no?
‐ [Narrator] The hearings accomplish exactly
what FDR wanted.
Millions of Americans now believe that J. P Morgan
and his Wall Street elites led the nation to ruin.
‐ FDR was not going to coddle the rich.
He genuinely believed that the concentration of power
in a few hands was bad for our country.
‐ [Narrator] But Roosevelt is doing more
than just pinning the crash on J. P Morgan.
He's drawing a line in the sand
between the rich elites and the rest of the country.
‐ He picked his enemies carefully
and he cast them as these dinosaurs
who have only their own moneyed interests at heart
and we need to get them out of the way,
so that the American people could live up
to the American dream.
‐ [Narrator] To prove once and for all which side he's on,
FDR is going to take down another titan
who got him elected.
Pierre du Pont
And to do it,
FDR will capitalize
on a best‐selling book about world war one.
‐ The idea behind the "Merchants of Death"
was that if the United States government
and the American people were dragged into
or duped into war
by bankers, by industrialists,
by people who are going to profit from war.
And one of the chief villains
that they arrive at is du Pont.
Pierre du Pont and the du Pont company
were deeply offended by this.
They really genuinely did not see
that they had done anything criminal.
‐ [Narrator] du Pont soon finds himself
the subject of a congressional inquiry.
‐ You charged the government $100 million
to build your smokeless powder piles
and then another 200 million in operating expense.
The du Pont company pocketed at a profit
of nearly $50 million.
While thousands of soldiers were sent to their deaths.
(clock ticking)
You are quite simply a war profiteer
but now, operating not in accordance with the interests...
‐ [Brand] For du Pont,
everything he's trying to leave behind resurfaces.
‐ du Pont and the du Pont company get the label
of being the "Merchant of Death"
which is catchy
and horrific.
‐ Franklin Roosevelt was a very, very gifted politician.
And he saw this as a real opportunity
to appeal to American voters.
If du Pont was vilified in the process,
that's the price of politics.
‐ [FDR] This Nation is asking for action,
and action now.
(applause)
‐ [Narrator] For du Pont,
his family name and reputation
have been dragged through the mud.
But for Morgan, his entire empire is being threatened.
Congress passes a law that sets new rules
for how Morgan can operate.
His banking empire will be broken up.
‐ You have these titans
who are used to calling all the shots.
Who are used to having things go their way.
They didn't like government interference.
‐ [Narrator] Unable to conduct business
how he wants in America,
Morgan turns his focus
to an area FDR can't touch,
outside of the U. S.
‐ J. P Morgan Jr. loaned millions of dollars
to various countries to finance all kinds of regimes.
It was financing the British Empire.
It was financing the French Republic
and it was financing Japan and Germany as well.
‐ But Germany now has a new leader.
Adolf Hitler.
Loaning them money is a decision
that Morgan will come to regret.
(ominous music)
‐ [Narrator] After cracking down on Morgan and du Pont,
FDR turns to phase two of his recovery plan.
Getting the country back to work.
‐ President Roosevelt told the nation
that the project would set an example
of funding for all the generations to come.
‐ Roads and trails are being made safe and easy
for motor cars.
‐ Democracy had stepped on the gas.
‐ FDR went in fast mode with his new deal programs
where you would build bridges
and roads and infrastructure
to constantly put some form of funding into middle‐class
poor and unemployed people's hands.
‐ [Narrator] FDR chooses one project to be the centerpiece
of his new deal.
It will require a massive workforce
and four million cubic yards of concrete.
A project this big would be a perfect fit
for industrial type means like Ford or du Pont,
but FDR doesn't trust them.
So he gives it to an unknown.
His name is Henry Kaiser.
‐ Henry Kaiser starts out at the bottom
of the construction industry.
He's the son of immigrants.
He comes from humble origins.
He doesn't go to Ivy league schools.
But the one thing he learns early on is that,
he was always willing to work harder
and longer than anyone else.
‐ [Kaiser] We need to know if we can get those foundations in..
‐ [Narrator] One day,
he'll have so many people working for him
that he starts a healthcare company
for his workers.
Kaiser Permanente.
‐ All of this here, all of this is gonna have to...
‐ [Narrator] But right now,
he's a nobody.
Now Kaiser has been given the job of his life.
Far out West in the hot barren desert.
Kaiser's project is already underway.
If completed,
it will be the most ambitious engineering project
America has ever built.
The Hoover dam.
Initial construction began under Herbert Hoover.
Blasting enormous tunnels through solid rock
to divert the Colorado river.
Now more than two years into the project,
the river bed is dry and ready
but the dam itself hasn't been started.
The press is calling it,
"The $50 million hole in the ground."
‐ It was an unimaginably hostile environment.
Desert heat of dust.
‐ Where's my engineer?
‐ Men who worked on it said that conditions were harsher
than anything they had ever experienced.
‐ [Narrator] But Kaiser has run into a serious problem.
Constructing the largest dam in the world,
requires a massive amount of concrete.
‐ 120, this is way too hot.
Enough to pave a two lane highway
from San Francisco to New York.
‐ What's it at?
‐ 120 after 72 hours.
It's not enough.
What do you think we should do?
‐ I need you to monitor this closely
and let me know as soon as anything changes.
You can take the temperature down.
‐ [Narrator] Pouring this much concrete can result
in a very dangerous outcome.
Cracking.
‐ Concrete emits heat as it cures
and if it's not cooled properly,
you'll get cracks in the concrete
and the entire structure will be much weaker
and in fact, it might fail.
There was so much concrete going into Hoover dam,
experts estimated that it would take more
than a century to fully cool down.
In 1928,
just a couple of years before Hoover dam project began,
the St. Francis dam in California had failed.
The reservoir behind St. Francis emptied in 11 minutes
and then swept toward the coast,
taking people, and houses, and livestock with it.
450 people lost their lives.
‐ [Narrator] Kaiser needs to figure out a solution quickly
or he could jeopardize FDRs new deal
and his project will be one of the most expensive failures
in American history.
(dramatic music)
‐ [Narrator] In the Nevada desert,
the biggest most important project
in FDR's new deal is underway
but Henry Kaiser has a problem.
He needs to find a way to cool four million cubic yards
of concrete as it hardens
or the Hoover Dam will fail.
‐ Henry Kaiser was someone who said
"Get the job done no matter what it takes."
And a good example of that is the challenge
they have when they have to figure out
how to cool the concrete used in the construction
of the Hoover dam.
He and his team figure out they can do this
by cooling it from the inside out.
‐ [Narrator] Kaiser embeds nearly 600 miles
of piping into the concrete
and then pumps chilled river water through it.
‐ Henry Kaiser built a whole refrigeration plant
to cool the water that would be pumped through the dam
to help it cool properly.
‐ [Narrator] With chilled water running
through every section of the dam,
the concrete cools in a fraction of the time.
‐ I think one of the critical components
to being successful in business is being decisive
because you're going to have a lot of naysayers,
so you're going to have to be decisive
and know, "I believe this is going to work.
I'm going to put all my energy behind it."
‐ [Narrator] Over 20,000 people will work on the Hoover dam
but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
All across America, FDR's new deal programs
are creating millions of well‐paying jobs
and for the first time in years,
people start to feel optimistic about the future.
‐ Money is circulating in the hands of people
and the assumption is
that this might actually stimulate the economy.
‐ Good morning, Mr. Boeing.
‐ Morning.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.
You are the first Americans
to witness the future of aviation.
‐ [Narrator] By late 1933,
Boeing rules the skies
and he's even built a passenger plane
like no one's ever seen before.
‐ The Boeing 247 is faster
than any other civilian plane.
Boasting a top speed of over 200 miles per hour.
You can have breakfast in New York
and be in Los Angeles in time to catch the sunset.
‐ The Boeing 247 was a huge step forward
in aviation both in design,
as well as aviation technology.
It's sleek, single wing, all metal, art deco design.
It just looks like a modern airplane.
‐ [Narrator] Boeing is betting that soon
the public will be flying again
and he's completely changing the entire flying experience.
‐ Bill Boeing's airline hired eight nurses
to care for the passengers,
ease their fears and take care of them
if they're sick during the flight.
These were the first flight attendants in the world.
‐ Smile for the camera's ladies.
‐ [Narrator] With his new plane
and growing control of the skies,
who could possibly stop him now?
Just one man.
The President.
He believes the government should be in charge of mail,
not Boeing.
A scandal gives FDR his opening.
‐ Mr. Boeing, Mr. President.
‐ The air mail scandal was a disaster for William Boeing.
It really took the shine off
of his company's reputation because newspapers across
the country were running front page stories
about corruption, and bribery, and graft,
and suddenly William Boeing's entire aviation empire
is now under the scrutiny of the public.
‐ FDR believed that there was an unfair advantage given
to these large corporate titans to make profits
at the expense of the American people.
And so the charges of monopoly really drove Roosevelt
to act.
‐ William Boeing?
‐ Yes?
What's this?
‐ [Narrator] FDR terminates all
of Boeing's air mail contracts.
(dramatic music)
‐ [Narrator] In the wake of a scandal, FDR takes away
all of William Boeing's air mail contracts.
For Boeing, it's a catastrophe.
(dramatic music)
‐ William Boeing was counting on that revenue
and income to continue to invest in and expand his business.
So without those airmail contracts, he has now lost one
of the only sources of guaranteed income in the 1930s.
(dramatic music)
‐ [Narrator] Roosevelt believes that just like
with the Hoover Dam, airmail is best left
in the trusted hands of the government.
‐ There had been corruption and bribery involved.
And so President Roosevelt decided the U. S. Army Air Corps,
the early American Air Force, would deliver the mail.
‐ The Army Air Corps now have to pick up
for these very experienced pilots who had been
flying every day
over well‐proven routes and scheduled airlines.
They now have to pick it up and carry that forward.
‐ [Narrator] The army realizes immediately
just how unprepared they are for the job.
Their planes are leftovers from World War I
and most of the pilots are inexperienced.
‐ They don't have the planes.
They don't have the infrastructure in terms of
flying day and night around the clock
in all types of weather operations
‐ [Narrator] For the young pilots flying old planes,
it's a disaster waiting to happen.
(ominous music)
‐ In a span of six weeks, you have more than 60 crashes
killing many young airmail pilots.
It was a public relations nightmare for FDR.
(somber music)
‐ [Narrator] Roosevelt realizes he has no choice.
He reverses his decision and gives the airmail business
back to private industry.
‐ It was a big humiliation for Roosevelt.
He had just been elected a year before
and he was flying high.
He was very popular because of the New Deal.
And this was his first real political defeat.
‐ [Narrator] But when FDR does give air mail back,
there's a huge catch.
The government will no longer permit companies to
both build planes and fly them.
Boeing's empire is broken up
but the president doesn't stop there.
As punishment for creating a monopoly,
FDR specifically bans William Boeing
for life from ever flying air mail again.
(plane engine whirs)
It's a staggering blow to the aviation titan.
‐ Bill Boeing was very angry, disappointed
to be attacked by the government
and be accused of being a criminal.
It crushed him.
(somber piano music)
It was more than he could accept.
‐ [Narrator] In just two decades, William Boeing turned
a small plane‐making business
into the largest aviation empire in the world,
taking out industrial giants along the way.
Now, while the company bearing his name will restructure
and live on, William Boeing is forced into retirement.
FDR has taken down another titan.
After the Boeing scandal, FDR wants to make sure
all American businesses play by the rules.
So he passes a sweeping new law forcing companies
to allow unions.
(ominous music)
‐ This was an extraordinary moment.
This shifted the power structure
of American industry entirely.
‐ It became clear that business leaders didn't
know what workers wanted or workers needed.
And this was Roosevelt's way
of trying to show the American public
that he could maintain capitalism,
but improve the lives
of those who were stuck in the system.
Often in horrible jobs, by making their jobs better.
‐ [Narrator] To industrial giants,
the law is an attack on capitalism.
‐ It was a huge change.
Government is going to tell you to some degree
how to run your own business.
People become entrepreneurs because they don't
like other people telling them what to do.
And now all of a sudden, the government's trying
to tell them what to do.
They didn't like it a bit.
‐ [Narrator] No one hates it more than Henry Ford.
‐ Yes, no. I've only just heard.
My God, this is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
No, I'll talk to him, myself.
‐ What FDR was basically saying was
yes, you guys have huge power but that power needs
to be balanced.
‐ The early Henry Ford of the Model T era was seen as
the ultimate people's person
because of his $5 a day to workers,
but he didn't believe in the union movement.
And so if you were a union activist working
in Henry Ford's facility
you weren't going to keep your job for very long.
‐ [Narrator] Ford calls Roosevelt a tyrant
and says he'll never negotiate with unions.
‐ Henry Ford felt threatened by FDR.
The problem for Henry Ford
and many industrialists at the time was
that they saw the federal government trying
to dictate how they ran their businesses.
And this did not sit well with Henry Ford.
Nobody was going to tell Henry Ford
how to run his own business.
‐ Heads of businesses never want regulations.
They never want rules. No one does.
But at that time in history, the everyday American
the everyday worker wanted better rights.
In the middle of a depression,
these titans' cries fell on deaf ears
because they weren't the most important voice.
(dramatic music)
‐ [Narrator] By 1935,
Franklin Roosevelt is as popular as ever
and out west, the president celebrates
a major victory for his New Deal.
The dedication of the Hoover Dam.
‐ [FDR] Rising 726 feet above the bedrock of the river,
bordering the geography of a whole region,
we are here to celebrate the completion
of the greatest dam in the world.
‐ The Hoover Dam changed the United States
and brought electricity to thousands and thousands
of American families.
And it put tens of thousands of people to work
not just in the building of the dam
but then in the management of the dam.
Hoover dam was in some ways the perfect New Deal project.
It brought light to people, it brought hope to people.
And it also brought confidence.
We could do new things.
We could achieve things again, we could overcome fear.
(upbeat guitar music)
‐ [Narrator] Remarkably absent from the dam's opening
is the man who built it, Henry Kaiser.
FDR has already sent him off to oversee more projects
like the Oakland Bay bridge and the Grand Coulee dam.
Two jobs worth a quarter billion dollars alone.
It's a massive investment in America,
which FDR pays for by significantly raising taxes
on America's richest titans.
(ominous music)
‐ The Roosevelt administration needed to find ways to
fund the New Deal.
One of those was a wealth tax.
‐ Roosevelt had the audacity to raise the wealth tax
up to as much as 75%.
And he scared the bejesus out of industrial titans.
(flames crackle)
(ominous music)
‐ Morgan is so angry with Roosevelt
that it becomes personal
and he can't stand to read or hear anything about FDR.
‐ [Butler] Wait.
‐ [Man] In fact, there's a story that Morgan's servants
are instructed to cut out all references to FDR
in the paper.
‐ [Butler] Thank you.
‐ Morgan himself saw FDR as a class traitor,
as a charlatan, as a left wing hack
who betrayed his own class in order to help the masses.
This to him was a cardinal sin.
(ominous music)
(footsteps click)
‐ [Narrator] For du Pont, whose reputation
has already been destroyed by FDR,
the wealth tax is the last straw.
He calls on other titans of industry
to do something about it.
‐ Gentlemen, we have been vilified
for all the country's ills.
We've become pariahs
and it's all because of this president.
So,
we all know what we have to do.
‐ All of these guys hated FDR.
He was raising 75% taxes on them.
He was a fan of labor unions, and he openly talked
about how he hated the banks.
They thought he was a socialist.
‐ [Narrator] Together, they form
the American Liberty League.
It's a bold move with one clear mission.
Stop FDR from getting reelected.
‐ Many different industry leaders, even competitors
within the auto industry came together
in the Liberty League because they shared a concern
about the way Roosevelt was using his political
power to limit what they wanted to do.
Nothing brings competitors together better
than a common enemy.
‐ [Narrator] They back a candidate to run against FDR,
Alf Landon.
They know if elected, Landon would do what they want.
So they bankroll his entire campaign.
‐ Let's drink.
‐ [Narrator] With du Pont fronting almost a third of it.
By election night, they hope it's enough.
‐ [FDR] This Baseball park is a good place
to talk about box scores.
(crowd cheers)
From where I stand, it looks as if the game
was pretty well in the bag.
(crowd cheers)
‐ [Reporter] President Roosevelt was cheery as ever
when he went into the booth to record his own vote
and a few hours afterwards, his optimism was justified.
Broadway went mad as the former president was
returned again with the biggest majority ever
known in American politics.
(crowd cheers)
In an election of 42 million votes,
the president wins the most overwhelming victory
in the country's history and the greatest popular election
in the history of the world.
(ominous music)
‐ [Narrator] FDR has been reelected president
in a landslide.
He carries all but two states.
The Liberty League's efforts are for nothing.
‐ The Liberty league failed for one very simple reason.
Roosevelt's policies were working.
The Liberty League had a very weak argument.
What were they defending?
Going back to Herbert Hoover? Who would support that?
‐ [Narrator] FDR's reelection means four more years
of fighting with the White House.
At this point, the titans and FDR are bitter adversaries.
But what none of them realize is
the real enemy is 4,000 miles away.
He's building up his army and
is growing more powerful every day.
(dramatic music)
(airplane engine hums)
‐ [Narrator] Since the devastating loss of his son,
Charles Lindbergh has been in hiding.
But now he's back in the pilot seat, testing a new plane.
For Hitler.
‐ Charles Lindbergh had been living in Europe
since the early thirties.
Lindbergh had had it with the press
after his child was kidnapped and murdered.
‐ [Narrator] Hitler has spent the last five years
building a massive military.
His Luftwaffe air force is the crown jewel
and he wants the world to know.
‐ While living in Europe, Lindbergh was invited
to come to Germany by Herman Goehring,
head of the Luftwaffe.
‐ [Narrator] Lindbergh is the first American to see
the German war machine up close.
(ominous music)
‐ This is part of his legacy.
Charles Lindbergh went from being an American hero
to a friend of the Nazis.
‐ [Narrator] To Hitler, the American hero
is the perfect pawn to deliver Germany's message.
‐ Hitler hopes that Lindbergh would be incredibly impressed
with the progress that the Germans had made
in terms of aircraft production.
And he proved to be right.
(dramatic music)
(cameras click)
‐ [Narrator] Upon returning to America,
Lindbergh brings a dire warning.
‐ The Messerschmidt is not like any other plane.
It's in a different league.
And trust me, I have flown the best.
‐ What makes it so good?
‐ It's fast, 380 miles an hour.
The fastest in the book.
It can fly higher than any other plane, 20,000 feet.
‐ [Man] How many do they have?
‐ Around 5,000, but they are building more.
Bombers, too.
If there was a war, no country in Europe
would stand a chance against Germany.
Come to think of it, neither would America.
‐ Lindbergh was incredibly impressed by the new bombers,
the new fighters that Germany had developed.
He did exactly what Hitler wanted him to.
He basically told the rest of the world
that he thought Germany was invincible.
‐ [Narrator] By 1937, Hitler's army
is a half a million strong
and is on track to quadruple in size in less than two years.
And there's more bad news.
Japan has just invaded China
and also has built up a huge army.
‐ Suddenly you have two super power armies
and it's obvious they're on the March.
‐ [Reporter] In Tokyo, there is widespread rejoicing.
Now, say the Japanese generals, it is our turn.
Japan marches in China against...
‐ [Narrator] FDR realizes war is inevitable.
‐ As he saw Japan going to war against China,
Roosevelt thought, okay, this is trouble.
The United States will suffer
if the Japanese gain control of East Asia.
As Germany rearmed for war, he saw how
the United States would inevitably get involved,
drawn into a war in Europe.
‐ [Narrator] But there's a huge problem.
During the depression, FDR has been focusing
on rebuilding America's economy
and infrastructure and spent virtually no money
on its own military.
‐ America's situation, as far as being prepared
for fighting a modern war, was pretty abysmal.
We had maybe the 18th largest military in the world.
Holland had a bigger military than we did.
Hungary had a better military than we did.
‐ [Narrator] FDR knows he must quickly build up
America's military.
Tanks, ships, planes, munitions
on an industrial scale never before attempted
in American history.
‐ America's going to need to build hundreds
of factories and hire millions of workers.
And there are really only a few people
in the country equipped in that moment to be able
to do that.
Titans like Ford,
du Pont,
Morgan,
Chrysler
and Boeing.
‐ I think there's an irony that Roosevelt has
to turn to some of the people he vilified,
but that's how American capitalism works.
‐ [Narrator] And now FDR needs these titans,
the very people he's condemned, to help
save the world.
Next time on the Titans That Built America.
(gun blasts)
As World War II begins in Europe,
FDR needs help preparing for battle.
‐ You're asking me to start producing munitions again?
‐ The president is asking, as well.
‐ The same President who labeled me the merchant of death.
‐ [Narrator] After years of the Great Depression,
Americans have no appetite for another crisis.
‐ You can tell FDR that Ford makes cars, not planes.
If he wants planes, you can tell him
to go to a damn plane maker.
‐ [Narrator] But a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor
(bomb blasts)
changes everything.
‐ Sir, please come quickly.
‐ [Radio] The bombing of Pearl Harbor by enemy planes...
‐ [Narrator] It will take America's industrial might
to build the greatest war machine on earth
and the stakes couldn't be higher.
‐ We're moving as fast as we can.
Every adjustment means a delay in the assembly.
‐ We have a problem with the M‐3.
They're a complete disaster.
(dramatic music)
‐ [Narrator] Now the Titans must put aside their differences
with each other and FDR and unite.
‐ Their goal is to create
a sustained nuclear chain reaction.
‐ [Narrator] The fate of the world rests in their hands.
‐ It's only a matter of time.
(dramatic music)