In a hugely encouraging development, The New Republic reports that the Obama transition team hopes to avoid using the word “czar” in the coming administration. I’ve already had my say on this czarophilia, so I’ll let Kevin Drum, who tipped me off to this important news, get his two cents in:
Where did this whole czar business come from, anyway? My first recollection of it is Richard Nixon appointing an “energy czar” — in response to oil production peaking in the United States, by the way, not the Arab oil embargo — but a quick glance through Nexis shows several earlier uses. The first one I found was in 1969, when New York City controller Abraham Beame apparently decided the city needed to appoint a “construction czar” to get schools built more quickly. If Nexis went back further, I’d probably find earlier examples.
The usage is pretty obvious — a czar is a ruthless, absolute monarch who can shred the bureacracy and get things done — but when did it first pop into use to describe a political appointee of some kind? Anyone have examples from earlier than 1969?
Why yes I do, Kevin, thanks to the wonderful TIME online archive, which goes back to 1923. The NYT’s online archive goes back further, but I’m trying to be a good corporate citizen here–plus, what I discovered indicates that one may not need to go back before 1923. The word was used occasionally in the 1920s and 1930s to describe people with powerful jobs (“the czar of the Metropolitan Opera“), but the modern usage—government official with specific task and special powers—arrived in a big way in 1942. That year saw the appointment of an Economic Czar, James F. Byrnes, and around the same time the nation apparently got a Rubber Czar, a Petroleum Czar, a Food Czar, and a Price Czar. Now I guess it’s possible that there were people with similar titles during World War I, but at that point czars were still real people getting murdered by Bolsheviks rather than quaint historical artifacts, so I doubt it. (If anyone wants to check that out at nytimes.com, more power to you. I’ve got to get back to work.)
So it’s an FDR thing, but Obama doesn’t want to emulate it. So much for that cover story.
Update From the Onion Radio News: Drug Czar Toppled By Drug Bolsheviks.
Update 2 More czar news from Kevin Drum.