 After enthusiastically supporting Franklin Roosevelt for president in 1932, he broke with Franklin D. Roosevelt, moved to the right, and became a critic of the New Deal, using his national magazines and "New York Journal" to confront Roosevelt's agenda.On June 15, 1904, over 1,000 people, mostly German ethnics, were killed when the excursion steamship General Slocum caught fire and burned in the East River.It was a major blow to the German-American community.