32 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (Happy days are here again)
Born: January 30, 1882, Hyde Park, New York
Died: April 12, 1945, Warm Springs, Georgia (died in office)
Term: March 4, 1933- April 12, 1945
Political Party: Democrat
Vice President(s): John Nance Garner, Henry Wallace, Harry Truman
First Lady: Eleanor Roosevelt
Before the Presidency: Franklin Delano Roosevelt grew up as an only child of fairly wealthy parents in upstate New York. He was isolated on a large farm growing up for the most part and was schooled at home by tutors. He did have loving parents, especially his mother, who was devoted to him throughout her life.
At age fourteen, Franklin’s parents sent him to the Groton school where he was miserable. There was something of a pecking order at the private school that favored athletes and rebels; Franklin was neither. He did become familiar with his distant cousin, Theodore, however, and became something of an admirer of him.
Franklin entered Harvard in 1900. There he became very active in extracurricular activities, sometimes at the expense of his grades. Still, his grades were average, and he graduated in 1903. He continued on through graduate school where he became editor of the Harvard Crimson. It was during this period when Roosevelt declared himself a Democrat even though he remained an admirer of his Republican and now President cousin.
The love bug bit Franklin as well and, after being rejected by one prospect, he became involved with a distant cousin, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. They would develop a romantic as well as a professional relationship, and anyone who knows American History knows who Eleanor Roosevelt is.
Franklin and Eleanor were married in 1905. She was given away by Theodore.
About the time he was married, Roosevelt entered law school. It wasn’t really his passion, however, and he never graduated. Nevertheless, he passed the bar.
He worked for a law firm for a time until he was approached by upstate Democrats to run for political office. Roosevelt ran for the State Senate in 1910 and won his first election. Roosevelt was an attractive candidate party due to his name, but also because he seemed to have an endless reservoir of energy. He was clearly a people person, and voters especially then responded very positively to that.
Roosevelt proved to be a different kind of Democrat as he railed against the Tammany Hall machine while defending the farmers in his district. He also shared the belief his cousin had that government should play a role in a fair and equitable society and didn’t think people should be controlled by an economic or political power. In other words, Franklin Roosevelt was a diehard progressive.
After he was re-elected in 1912, he formed a friendship with Louis Howe, a journalist who would become FDR’s chief adviser for two decades. FDR wouldn’t finish out his second term, though, as President Wilson came calling. Roosevelt had supported the New Jersey Governor through his Presidential run and Wilson asked him to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position he held for almost all of Wilson’s two terms. It was a position that his cousin Theodore once had under President McKinley.
As Assistant Secretary, Roosevelt thrived on the ceremonial gatherings he was called to attend, but more important, he worked to reshape the Navy in some ways, acting more as the top dog than as an assistant. He advocated a larger Navy, particularly during the World War, which often put him at odds with the Wilson Administration. Nevertheless, it was Roosevelt that took charge of the Navy’s contribution to the American effort in the war.
Roosevelt, by now, was a politician’s politician, and he would take steps to make sure his political career wouldn’t end, even with his flaws. When he lost a bid for the Senate in 1914, he realized he had to play ball with Tammany Hall. He also had an eye for the women and, when caught, Eleanor offered to divorce him. He turned her down and promised to be faithful from then on (he would break that promise on numerous occasions). He did it more for political reasons than anything else. Eleanor was also the shrewd type (though she has nothing on Hillary Clinton) and decided she would live her own life as well, thus, the marriage was one of a political partnership than of a romantic one.
Despite the personal issues, FDR’s star was rising within the Democratic Party, and he was nominated to run with James Cox as Vice President in 1920. Of course, Harding would win the election in a landslide, but FDR came out of the election as one of the party’s bright stars. He retired to the private world after the election and seemed ready for a political comeback. Then tragedy hit.
In the summer of 1921, Roosevelt was vacationing at Campobello Island when he was stricken with polio. He survived but would be partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He did manage, through rehabilitation, to be able to stand and walk as necessary, but he would be doing it in constant pain. Eleanor and Louis Howe encouraged him (Eleanor probably still loved Franklin in her own way) and were drawn in by FDR’s own optimism. Franklin expected a full recovery that never came, and yet, he never lost his will to live and, in fact, seemed to be strengthened by his circumstances. In that sense, he was an extraordinary man.
FDR got back into politics in 1922 when he backed Al Smith for Governor of New York. Smith won and FDR would back him for President two years later. Alas, it wasn’t Smith’s time, but 1928 would be, at least in the Democratic Party, and he persuaded Roosevelt to run for the Governor’s seat. Smith had hoped that an FDR gubernatorial run would help his chances in the North. Alas, it didn’t but Smith at least had his man in the Governor’s mansion; FDR narrowly won and was destined to become a fairly popular Governor. At first, a lot of it was smoke and mirrors as Governor Roosevelt proved successful at hiding his affliction with the help of Howe, thus dispelling rumors that polio had made him more or less disabled (which he technically was).
The moment for Governor Roosevelt to shine, though, would come in the form of the Great Depression. Like President Hoover, Governor Roosevelt did nothing in hopes that the economy would take care of itself. However, Unlike President Hoover when it became obvious the market wouldn’t recover, the Governor took action by getting the state to pass a public works program to aid the unemployed and to lower taxes for farmers. He also granted relief to the needy and developed a reputation nationally as a liberal reformer.
As such, Roosevelt won re-election in 1930 and seemed poised as a major Presidential candidate in 1932.
Summary of offices held:
1911-1913: New York State Senate
1913-1920: Assistant Secretary of the Navy
1929-1933: Governor of New York
What was going on: The Great Depression, The New Deal, Hitler and Mussolini, Hindenburg disaster, Golden age of Hollywood, World War II
Scandals within the administration: The Air Mail scandal
Why he was a good President: His New Deal economic policies are with us to this day, even as there are still some who would like to destroy them, even Social Security, which may be FDR’s biggest domestic legacy. It took a while, but he got us out of the Great Depression and kept the nation calm with his numerous fireside chats. And he masterfully guided us through the crisis that was World War II. He is perhaps the only President in history that was able to steer us through two major crises.
Why he was a bad President: Well, he really fumbled the ball when it came to the Japanese- Americans, something even I can’t forgive him for. His quixotic attempt to pack the Supreme Court didn’t look well on him either.
What could have saved his Presidency: If he had followed his advice about falling into fear and not gotten xenophobic on the Japanese in the US, he probably would have scored an A
What could have destroyed his Presidency: If the Depression had actually gotten worse for starters. I won’t mention losing World War II because if he had tanked with the New Deal, he never would have been President for World War II; they would have sent him out on a rail.
Election of 1932: Roosevelt came into the convention in Chicago as the front runner. Still, it wouldn’t be as easy to get the nomination as one would think. For one thing, Al Smith was giving it another shot. They seemed to agree on just about everything, including the repeal of prohibition, but Roosevelt wasn’t as keen on making it a campaign issue as Smith was. And, because Smith was running, Catholicism was again an issue (People actually feared a Catholic President would take his orders from the Pope). John Nance Garner was also running, and he was popular in the West.
Of course, the issue on everyone’s minds was the Great Depression, which had all but peaked by 1932. No one initially had the two thirds majority until Roosevelt promised to put Garner on the ticket, giving him enough votes to be nominated on the fourth ballot.
Roosevelt went against possibly the most unpopular President in recent history in Herbert Hoover and it wouldn’t take much to win in the largest landslide in history up to that point. Still, Roosevelt played up his platform of a “New Deal,”, emphasizing the need for people to work together as opposed to the individualism Hoover spoke of. Otherwise, Roosevelt played the rope-a dope knowing it was Hoover, not he, that had to prove his adeptness at being President, something he (Hoover) seemed to be failing miserably at.
And as such, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was elected in the biggest landslide until, well, the next election.
First term: As it was, FDR was lucky to even make it to inauguration. At a rally in Miami in February 1933, Roosevelt was sitting in the back seat of a car when shots rang out. Four people were wounded, and Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was killed. FDR, fortunately, escaped the incident shaken, but unscathed.
So, Roosevelt became the last President to be sworn in on March 4. From 1936 onwards, the President would be inaugurated on January 20 since it was now easier to travel to Washington.
Not that he took much time to enjoy his victory. The United States still was in the worst economic crisis in its history, and it actually took a World War to finally get us out of it. Roosevelt made great pains to ease the impact as much as he possibly could, however, as his New Deal turned out to be much more than a campaign slogan. Within a day of his inauguration, he declared a four-day bank holiday in an effort to stop the run on banks. Days later, Congress would meet, and it started a tradition of the first hundred days or, in other words, the first hundred day period of a Presidential Administration when most of his work would be accomplished. That isn’t necessarily true, of course; Obamacare wasn’t passed until his second year for example, but it is true that FDR accomplished more in his first hundred days than any President before or since.
And the country badly needed someone that could accomplish much. President Roosevelt did just that starting with the Emergency Banking Act. He then convinced Congress to let him organize work programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority. More jobs were created with the Federal Emergency Relief Act and, on the hundredth day, the National Recovery Administration, and the Public Works Administration. The NRA (not the National Rifle Association) was especially notable since their stamp seemed to be on everything from newspapers to shop windows to consumer packaging. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that apparently helping the less fortunate was somehow unconstitutional and President Roosevelt would have to take another tactic.
Luckily, I’m exaggerating the cruelty of the court circa 1935 a little as many of FDR’s programs did pass muster with them, one of them being the National Labor Board which established the government as a pro-labor entity. He continued to create jobs with Federal Funds with organizations like the Civil Works Administration. He also took the US off the Gold Standard and established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guaranteed depositors their money wouldn’t suddenly disappear into the night. FDIC exists to this day.
Of course, Roosevelt and his New Deal had its enemies, mainly virtually the entire Republican Party. The Progressive idealism once prominent in the GOP was all but disappearing and only a strongly Democratic congress enabled the President to get his programs through. He also had detractors within his own party for not doing enough, notably, Senator Huey Long of Louisiana, a populist to a fault and even a potential dictator in Louisiana. The people loved him, especially the blacks and the poor and in some ways, was a liberal version of Donald Trump, albeit a bit smarter. He had plans to run against FDR in 1936 but he would be cut down by an assassin’s bullet in 1935.
World events were also becoming grimmer as Japan was hell bent on expanding its empire and was at war with China. Germany was now controlled by Hitler and his oppression of the Jews was already headline news. Roosevelt was, of course, cognizant of all this, but his priorities in this first term was to get as many Americans off the breadlines as he possibly could. Thus, all he could do was to pray for Europe.
And, domestically, the United States was about to get hit with a new crisis. For, the plains states were in a severe drought, and it set off the Great Dust Bowl of 1934.
His biggest enemy though proved to be the Supreme Court which found many of his New Deal programs unconstitutional. Most of these were Republican appointees of course which didn’t help. As such, Americans remained nervous about their futures and wondered if a second FDR term would really do any good.
Election of 1936: World and National events were not the best to say the least. Europe was getting darker by the day as Berlin held the Summer Olympics as Hitler’s paeon to Aryan superiority. Needless to say, he wasn’t thrilled when African- American Jesse Owens all but dominated the Olympics. Meanwhile Spain was in the throes of its own Revolution with Franco’s fascists getting help from Mussolini and Hitler, who were more or less allied these days.
At home, meanwhile, the Supreme Court seemed to have put the brakes on Roosevelt’s New Deal and the economy had faltered into what was now called the Roosevelt Recession. Yes, things were a lot better than it had been in 1932, but people were still struggling to make ends meet in general. So, Roosevelt’s re-election, at least at the start, wasn’t a done deal. He lost the support of the business community after supporting the Social Security Act (screw the elderly the rich men said).
With his likely biggest obstacle gone in Huey Long, however, there was no doubt as to his re-nomination, the only question being who the Republicans would put up against him.
As it was, there really was no strong Republican to put up against Roosevelt; that would have to wait four years. They ended up going with moderate Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, certainly a likable sort, but not much of an orator. Even worse, while Landon himself was more of a Centrist, the more conservative voices, most notably, his running mate, Frank Knox, were louder and that tended to turn the public off.
So, Roosevelt was able to form his coalition of what was called the New Deal Coalition, a group of Southern Democrats, minorities, particularly blacks, Northern Jews, Catholics, labor, and farmers. It was a coalition that would keep the Democrats in power until the seventies with some exceptions (Truman’s Republican Congress, Eisenhower, even Nixon).
And Roosevelt won in the biggest landslide in history- period.