He is talking about the way people lived in that time. That thins changed.
The right lose or recover from the 'fiscal conservatism that requested to stimulate the economy, the rational and the friend of science' (the conservatism of an Eisenhower, for example) to 'fanatical destroyer of all progress to recover from slavery and medieval fanaticism.
"For too many of us, the political equality we have achieved has become meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group has concentrated almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's work. - other people's lives. For many of us life was no longer free; freedom was no longer real; men could no longer pursue the pursuit of happiness." - FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, 1936
