Part 2 of this mini-series sure wasn't like the first part. We went from a fact-based account of what these industry giants did-with some exaggerations, like all of these recent History channel series, to a very partisan political piece in this part. One example of the type of exaggeration/fictional part, I believe, is in Part One where young Pierre Du Pont is sent by his father to get his watch from a dresser drawer, leaving the laboratory to walk a short distance to the house, and just after he pulls the watch out of the drawer, the boy hears an explosion and we see that the whole lab is blown up, and only by a matter of seconds does the boy deserve-according to the script-a nickname for which he is not given, that of "Lucky Pierre."
In this part we follow through on the exploits of these 20th Century titans, focusing largely on the construction of the World's Tallest Building, the Chrysler Building, which opened in New York in 1929, and was soon trumped by the Empire State Building, financed by Du Pont and J. P. Morgan, who ran Chrysler's auto competitor, General Motors. In the story, They made sure the newer building would be taller because they were miffed when Walter Chrysler told reporters he made his building so tall so he could "look down on GM."
The bulk of the remainder of this episode showed how Franklin Roosevelt happily took contributions from the titans to help get elected, and then double crossed them by blaming them on Inauguration Day for causing the Depression and vigorously going after them, confiscating their papers, putting William Boeing out of business, and getting the public to believe that Morgan was the main person responsible for the Depression.
What got me was all of the speakers who collectively seemed to believe that all of these men-Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, Pierre Du Pont, J. P. Morgan, Bill Boeing, etc., the men who created the industries, or saved them by managing them better than others before, who employed thousands and thousands of workers, paying them far more than other unskilled workers ever got paid before, who built hospitals to take care of their workers, and more, based on the comments from the "experts" on the show, these were all very bad men. FDR, on the other hand, was basically a saint. Every thing they said about FDR sounded like they think he was the greatest. He got no criticism.
Meanwhile these speakers on the show lambasted President Hoover by saying things about him that are patently incorrect, claiming he did nothing to help stop the Depression. It is a fact that many of Hoover's critics say he did a lot of things to help that wound up not helping. This is a far cry from doing nothing. Nobody on the show ever mentioned that we had periods of Depression throughout our history, including as recently as 1920-21, and that most experts believed in 1929 that we would recover soon if the government didn't get in the way too much.
I would have appreciated a more balanced view of what happened. At least more factual and not full of opinion, but if we need opinion, make it not so one-sided.
Near the end was a hit-piece on Charles Lindbergh that omitted almost all facts about his attempt to prevent a war, or at least keep us out of it, in the late 1930s. They show him testing a German plane and then reporting what he observed to American intelligence. We can disagree with his tactics, but what Lindbergh did was nothing like the way it was portrayed.
Part One was pretty decent as far as I know-a 7. But Part Two was so bad, I'm giving it a 1 for misleading people in many ways. At this point, I'm not sure I even want to watch Part Three.
In this part we follow through on the exploits of these 20th Century titans, focusing largely on the construction of the World's Tallest Building, the Chrysler Building, which opened in New York in 1929, and was soon trumped by the Empire State Building, financed by Du Pont and J. P. Morgan, who ran Chrysler's auto competitor, General Motors. In the story, They made sure the newer building would be taller because they were miffed when Walter Chrysler told reporters he made his building so tall so he could "look down on GM."
The bulk of the remainder of this episode showed how Franklin Roosevelt happily took contributions from the titans to help get elected, and then double crossed them by blaming them on Inauguration Day for causing the Depression and vigorously going after them, confiscating their papers, putting William Boeing out of business, and getting the public to believe that Morgan was the main person responsible for the Depression.
What got me was all of the speakers who collectively seemed to believe that all of these men-Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, Pierre Du Pont, J. P. Morgan, Bill Boeing, etc., the men who created the industries, or saved them by managing them better than others before, who employed thousands and thousands of workers, paying them far more than other unskilled workers ever got paid before, who built hospitals to take care of their workers, and more, based on the comments from the "experts" on the show, these were all very bad men. FDR, on the other hand, was basically a saint. Every thing they said about FDR sounded like they think he was the greatest. He got no criticism.
Meanwhile these speakers on the show lambasted President Hoover by saying things about him that are patently incorrect, claiming he did nothing to help stop the Depression. It is a fact that many of Hoover's critics say he did a lot of things to help that wound up not helping. This is a far cry from doing nothing. Nobody on the show ever mentioned that we had periods of Depression throughout our history, including as recently as 1920-21, and that most experts believed in 1929 that we would recover soon if the government didn't get in the way too much.
I would have appreciated a more balanced view of what happened. At least more factual and not full of opinion, but if we need opinion, make it not so one-sided.
Near the end was a hit-piece on Charles Lindbergh that omitted almost all facts about his attempt to prevent a war, or at least keep us out of it, in the late 1930s. They show him testing a German plane and then reporting what he observed to American intelligence. We can disagree with his tactics, but what Lindbergh did was nothing like the way it was portrayed.
Part One was pretty decent as far as I know-a 7. But Part Two was so bad, I'm giving it a 1 for misleading people in many ways. At this point, I'm not sure I even want to watch Part Three.
