President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the greatest United States Presidents in history. FDR accomplished numerous mighty goals, and he made errors simultaneously. He saw war and a growing labor movement that propelled him into realizing that progressive efforts to enrich the lives of human beings is sacrosanct. He was one of the architects of modern liberalism. That is why FDR’s promotion of health care, Social Security, and other policies are lauded today. That is also why numerous far right reactionaries to this very day abhor FDR’s positions and desire to eliminate all of the blessings from the New Deal. In our time, we are not ashamed to believe in progressive principles like health care being a human right, civil rights, social justice, and economic justice. He survived polio, he was the Governor of New York state, and he won the Presidency four times. FDR’s four time electoral victories were the most terms served by any American President. After Franklin Delano Roosevelt's passing, America would never be the same again. To be clear, his legacy must be fairly expanded upon. His great achievements and mistakes will be presented here. It is precisely crucial to not only believe in the Dream, but to enact programs that reflect the supreme greatness of the Dream as well.
Going into Politics (1940)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882 at the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York. His parents were businessman James Roosevelt I and his second wife, Sara Ann Delano. Roosevelt’s parents were sixth cousins and both were from wealthy old New York families. These families were the Roosevelts, the Apsinwalls, and the Delanos. FDR’s patrilineal ancestor migrated to New Amsterdam in the 17th century and the Roosevelts were merchants and landowners. FDR’s ancestor Nicholas van Rosenvelt (or Nicholas Roosevelt) was from the Netherlands. Franklin Delano Roosevelt grew up in a wealthy family. His mother Sara had a dominant role in his life. He traveled into Europe and learned German and French. By 9, he attended a public school in Germany. He could ride a horse, shoot, row, play polo, and was involved in tennis. He used a sailboat at 16 and he was a golfer. He was a lifelong Episcopal. He was taught at the Groton School by Endicott Peabody to help the poor and to enter public service. FDR later went into Harvard College where he was a college student academically. He declared, "I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong." He was part of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. People know how I feel about fraternities. It is what it is.
Now, he was the editor of the Harvard Crimson or the daily newspaper. He was very sadden by the death of his father in 1900. In 1901, his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States. FDR graduated from Harvard in 1903 with an A.B. in history. Roosevelt entered Columbia Law School in 1904, but dropped out in 1907 after passing the New York bar exam. In 1908, he took a job with the prestigious Wall Street firm of Carter Ledyard and Milburn, working in the firm's admiralty law division. FDR later married Eleanor in New York City on March 17, 1905. Sara or FDR’s mother thought that FDR was too young for marriage. Both of them were fifth cousins, once removed. That is very interesting. Me personally, I will never marry my fifth cousin. They had two children by 1908. They lived at his family estate at Hyde Park, NY. The estate is called Springwood. Eleanor had an aversion to sexual intercourse and said that it was “an ordeal to be endured.” The couple had six children: Anna, James, and Elliott were born in 1906, 1907, and 1910, respectively. The couple's second son, Franklin, died in infancy in 1909. Another son, also named Franklin, was born in 1914, and the youngest child, John, was born in 1916. It is no secret that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had numerous extra martial affairs like with Eleanor's social secretary Lucy Mercer, which began soon after she was hired in early 1914.
In September 1918, Eleanor found letters revealing the affair in Roosevelt's luggage. Franklin contemplated divorcing Eleanor, but Sara objected strongly and Lucy would not agree to marry a divorced man with five children. Franklin and Eleanor remained married, and Roosevelt promised never to see Lucy again. Eleanor never truly forgave him, and their marriage from that point on was more of a political partnership. Eleanor soon thereafter established a separate home in Hyde Park at Val-Kill, and increasingly devoted herself to various social and political causes independently of her husband. The emotional break in their marriage was so severe that when Roosevelt asked Eleanor in 1942—in light of his failing health—to come back home and live with him again, she refused. FDR broke his promise to Eleanor and had other affairs. FDR and Lucy saw each other again in 1941. Lucy was with FDR on the day he died in 1945. Despite this, Roosevelt's affair was not widely known until the 1960's. Roosevelt's son Elliott claimed that his father had a 20-year affair with his private secretary, Marguerite "Missy" LeHand. Another son, James, stated that "there is a real possibility that a romantic relationship existed" between his father and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, who resided in the White House during part of World War II. Aides began to refer to her at the time as "the president's girlfriend" and gossip linking the two romantically appeared in the newspapers.
No man is perfect and adultery is wrong period. He entered politics and didn’t have much love for the practice of law. He joined the Democratic Party in New York State. Theodore Roosevelt secretly encouraged his cousin FDR to fight in the political arena. He became a New York state Senator by 1910. This shocked everyone. He took the seat on January 1, 1911. He worked with others to fight the Tammany Hall machine that dominated the state Democratic Party. He later became a greater speaker. FDR supported Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 Presidential run. Roosevelt was re-elected in the 1912 elections. After the elections, he served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, and his success with farm and labor bills was a precursor to his New Deal policies twenty years later. By this time he had become more consistently progressive, in support of labor and social welfare programs for women and children; cousin Theodore was of some influence on these issues. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1919. This was the second-ranking official in the Navy Department after Secretary Josephus Daniels. He greatly loved the Navy with almost 10,000 naval books. He made sure that the Navy had a merit system.
He wanted an Allied military buildup during World War One. On the 11-day voyage, the pandemic influenza virus struck and killed many on board. Roosevelt became very ill with influenza and a complicating pneumonia, but he recovered by the time the ship landed in New York. After WWI, he demobilized the Navy. FDR sought the vice Presidential nomination for the Democratic Party and lost the 1920 election after the League of Nations grew to be unpopular plus the Wilson administration was not very popular either. The Cox–Roosevelt ticket was defeated by Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge in the presidential election by a wide margin, and the Republican ticket carried every state outside of the South. Roosevelt accepted the loss without issue and later reflected that the relationships and good will that he built in the 1920 campaign proved to be a major asset in his 1932 campaign. The 1920 election also saw the first public participation of Eleanor Roosevelt who, with the support of Louis Howe, established herself as a valuable political ally.
Illness and Comeback (1921-1928)
After the 1920 election, he returned to New York City. He was vice President of Fidelity and Deposit Company. He soon had an illness. He was at Campobello Island in August of 1921. An illness harmed him. He had facial paralysis, numbness, hyperesthesia, and other symptoms. He was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. His symptoms were similar to Gullian-Barre syndrome. Though his mother favored his retirement from public life, Roosevelt, his wife, and Roosevelt's close friend and adviser, Louis Howe, were all determined that Roosevelt continue his political career. FDR wanted to continue to fight for his political career. He wore iron braces to walk short distances. He used a cane. He didn’t want people to show him in a wheelchair all of the time since he feared that people would highlight his disability. Yet, there is no shame in being disabled. Ironically, FDR became a major inspiration for the disabled community. FDR supported Al Smith’s campaign in the governor’s race since both were progressives. In 1925, Smith appointed Roosevelt to the Park Commission, and his fellow commissioners chose him as chairman. Roosevelt accused Robert Moses of using the name recognition of prominent individuals including Roosevelt to win political support for state parks, but then diverting funds to the ones Moses favored on Long Island. Also, Moses worked to block the appointment of Howe to a salaried position as the Taconic commission's secretary.
The Governor of New York state
At first, Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t want to run for Governor. Yet, he did after he gained a lot of support in his campaign. He wanted to defeat the Republican gubernatorial nominee named New York Attorney General Albert Ottinger. Roosevelt was also joined on the campaign trail by Samuel Rosenman, Frances Perkins, and James Farley, all of whom would become important political associates. While Smith lost the presidency in a landslide, and was defeated in his home state, Roosevelt was elected governor by a one-percent margin. Roosevelt's election as governor of the most populous state immediately made him a contender in the next presidential election. He took office as NY Governor on January 1929. He proposed the construction of a series of hydroelectric power plants and sought to address the ongoing farm crisis of the 1920's. Relations between Roosevelt and Smith suffered after Roosevelt chose not to retain key Smith appointees like Robert Moses. Roosevelt and Eleanor established a political understanding that would last for the duration of his political career; she would dutifully serve as the governor's wife but would also be free to pursue her own agenda and interests. He also began holding "fireside chats", in which he directly addressed his constituents via radio, often using these chats to pressure the New York State Legislature to advance his agenda. In October 1929, the Wall Street Crash occurred, and the country began sliding into the Great Depression. While President Hoover and many state governors believed that the economic crisis would subside, Roosevelt saw the seriousness of the situation and established a state employment commission. He also became the first governor to publicly endorse the idea of unemployment insurance. He started to run for a second term in May 1930.
He wanted progressive policies by his following words: “…that progressive government by its very terms, must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization." He wanted aid to farmers, full employment, unemployment insurance, and old age pensions. His Republican opponent faced economic criticism. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the second term by 14 percent. Governor Roosevelt wanted the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration to send funds to help people (in response to Herbert Hoover’s economic proposals) The NY state TERA was led first by Jesse I. Straus and then by Harry Hopkins, the agency assisted well over one third of New York's population between 1932 and 1938. Roosevelt also began an investigation into allegations of public corruption in New York City among the judiciary, the police force, and organized crime, and became known as the Seabury Commission. Many public officials were removed from office as a result. He opened the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, became the first American to open the Olympic Games as a government official.
The 1932 Presidential election
As the 1932 Presidential election came about, FDR turned his attention to national politics. He led his own campaign with a team. Howe and Farley were some of his policy advisers. The economy was getting weaker by 1932. Many Democrats wanted the 1932 election to win the first Democratic President since Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt was re-elected as governor of New York. Then, he was the front runner of the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination. Roosevelt rallied the progressive supporters of the Wilson administration while also appealing to many conservatives, establishing himself as the leading candidate in the South and West. The chief opposition to Roosevelt's candidacy came from Northeastern conservatives such as Al Smith, the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee. Smith hoped to deny Roosevelt the two-thirds support necessary to win the party's presidential nomination at the 1932 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and then emerge as the nominee after multiple rounds of balloting. FDR entered the convention with a delegate lead due to his success in the 1932 Democratic primaries. Yet, most delegates entered the convention unbound to any candidate. On the first presidential ballot of the convention, Roosevelt received the votes of more than half but less than two-thirds of the delegates, with Smith finishing in a distant second place. Speaker of the House John Nance Garner, who controlled the votes of Texas and California, threw his support behind Roosevelt after the third ballot, and Roosevelt clinched the nomination on the fourth ballot. With little input from Roosevelt, Garner won the vice presidential nomination. Roosevelt flew in from New York after learning that he had won the nomination, becoming the first major party presidential nominee to accept the nomination in person. In his acceptance speech, Franklin Roosevelt said the following words: "I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people... This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms."
FDR promised securities regulation, tariff reduction, farm relief, government funded public works, and other government actions to end the Great Depression. He was endorsed by progressive Republicans like George W. Norris, Hiram Johnson, and Robert La Follette Jr. He reconciled the conservative Democrats and even Al Smith. Hoover’s handling of the Bonus Army caused more people to support FDR since many veterans were dispersed by force. Roosevelt won 57% of the popular vote and carried all but six states. Historians and political scientists consider the 1932–36 elections to be realigning elections. Roosevelt's victory was enabled by the creation of the New Deal coalition, small farmers, the Southern whites, Catholics, big city political machines, labor unions, northern African Americans (southern ones were still disfranchised), Jewish people, intellectuals, and political liberals. The creation of the New Deal coalition transformed American politics and started what political scientists call the "New Deal Party System" or the Fifth Party System. Between the Civil War and 1929, Democrats had rarely controlled both houses of Congress and had won just four of seventeen presidential elections; from 1932 to 1979, Democrats won eight of twelve presidential elections and generally controlled both houses of Congress.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected on November 1932. He didn’t take office until March of 1933. After the election, Hoover wanted FDR to renounce much of his campaign platform and endorse the Hoover administration policies. Roosevelt refused to do so. He said that his hands would be tied and Hoover had all of the power to act if necessary. The economy crashed further and the nationwide shutdown existed as Hoover’s term ended. Roosevelt used the transition period to select the personnel for his incoming administration, and he chose Howe as his chief of staff, Farley as Postmaster General, and Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor. William H. Woodin, a Republican industrialist close to Roosevelt, was the choice for Secretary of the Treasury, while Roosevelt chose Senator Cordell Hull of Tennessee as Secretary of State. Harold L. Ickes and Henry A. Wallace, two progressive Republicans, were selected for the roles of Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture, respectively. In February 1933, Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Zangara, who expressed a "hate for all rulers." Attempting to shoot Roosevelt, Zangara instead mortally wounded Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was sitting alongside Roosevelt.
His Presidency (in the Beginning)
Roosevelt appointed powerful men and women to top positions. He made other decisions while in office as well. FDR was in direct control of his administration. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. America was in the nadir of the worst depression in U.S. history. One quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Farmers had trouble with prices reduced by 60 percent. Industrial production had fallen by more than half since 1929. Two million people were homeless. By the evening of March 4, 32 of the 48 states – as well as the District of Columbia – had closed their banks. Historians categorized Roosevelt's program as "relief, recovery and reform." Relief was urgently needed by tens of millions of unemployed. Recovery meant boosting the economy back to normal. Reform meant long-term fixes of what was wrong, especially with the financial and banking systems. Through Roosevelt's series of radio talks, known as fireside chats, he presented his proposals directly to the American public. Energized by his personal victory over his paralytic illness, Roosevelt relied on his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit. Roosevelt used a bank holiday on his second day of his office.
He passed the Emergency Banking Act on March 9, 1932. The act, which was based on a plan developed by the Hoover administration and Wall Street bankers, gave the president the power to determine the opening and closing of banks and authorized the Federal Reserve Banks to issue bank notes. The ensuing "First 100 Days" of the 73rd United States Congress saw an unprecedented amount of legislation and set a benchmark against which future presidents would be compared. When the banks reopened on Monday, March 15, stock prices rose by 15 percent and bank deposits exceeded withdrawals, thus ending the bank panic. On March 22, Roosevelt signed the Cullen–Harrison Act, which effectively ended federal Prohibition. FDR made many agencies and measures to help the unemployed and those suffering. Harry Hopkins headed the FERA or the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. It was used to distribute relief to state governments. The PWA or the Public Works Administration was under the leadership of the leadership of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. The PWA was used to oversee the construction of large scale public works such as dams, bridges, and schools.
The Civilian Conservation Corps or the CCC hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on local rural projects. He expanded the Reconstruction Finance Corporation making it a major source of financing for railroads and industry. Congress gave the Federal Trade Commission broad new regulatory powers and provided mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners. Roosevelt also made agricultural relief a high priority and set up the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to leave land uncultivated and to cut herds. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 wanted to end cutthroat completion by forcing industries to form rules of operation for all firms within specific industries. These industries were involving minimum prices, agreements not to compete, and production restrictions. Industry leaders negotiated the rules which were approved by NIRA officials. Industry needed to raise wages as a condition for approval. Provisions encouraged unions and suspended antitrust laws. NIRA was found to be unconstitutional by unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in May 1935; Roosevelt strongly protested the decision.
Roosevelt reformed the financial regulatory structure of the nation with the Glass–Steagall Act, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to underwrite savings deposits. The act also sought to curb speculation by limiting affiliations between commercial banks and securities firms. In 1934, the Securities and Exchange Commission was created to regulate the trading of securities, while the Federal Communications Commission was established to regulate telecommunications. FDR allowed the usage of federal spending to help people. PWA spent $3.3 billion. Also, FDR worked with Senator Norris to create the largest government owned industrial enterprise in American history called the TVA or the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA built dams, power stations, controlled floods, and used modernized agriculture plus home conditions in the poverty stricken Tennessee Valley. Executive Order 6102 declared that all privately held gold of American citizens was to be sold to the U.S. Treasury and the price rose from $20 to $35 per ounce. The goal was to counter the deflation which was paralyzing the economy.
Roosevelt tried to keep his campaign promise by cutting the federal budget — including a reduction in military spending from $752 million in 1932 to $531 million in 1934 and a 40% cut in spending on veterans benefits — by removing 500,000 veterans and widows from the pension rolls and reducing benefits for the remainder, as well as cutting the salaries of federal employees and reducing spending on research and education. But the veterans were well organized and strongly protested, and most benefits were restored or increased by 1934. Veterans groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars won their campaign to transform their benefits from payments due in 1945 to immediate cash when Congress overrode the President's veto and passed the Bonus Act in January 1936. It pumped sums equal to 2% of the GDP into the consumer economy and had a major stimulus effect.
The Second New Deal and Beyond
FDR believed that his party would lose many races in the Congressional elections. Yet, the Democrats gained many seats in both houses of Congress. He promoted the Social Security Act. He got it as a law and it promoted Social Security or economic security for the elderly, the poor, and the sick. He wanted it to be funded by payroll taxes rather than from the general fund. He signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. Compared with the social security systems in western European countries, the Social Security Act of 1935 was rather conservative. Yet, for the first time the federal government took responsibility for the economic security of the aged, the temporarily unemployed, dependent children, and the handicapped. Roosevelt wanted universal coverage, but the act applied to about sixty percent of the labor force (that excluded farmers, domestic workers, and other groups). PWA continued to exist. He made the WPA or the Works Progress Administration. Harry Hopkins headed it to employ over three million people in its first year of existing. The WPA was involved in construction projected and aided the National Youth Administration plus arts organization. Senator Robert Wagner wrote the National Labor Relations Act. This guaranteed workers the rights to collective bargaining via union of their choice. The act formed the NLRB or the National Labor Relations Board to facilitate wage agreements and to suppress the repeated labor disturbances. The Wagner Act didn’t compel employers to reach agreement with their employees. It did grow labor union memberships. Back then, there was the Flint sit down strike involving General Motors. Roosevelt didn’t intervene.
So, General Motors had unions and other U.S. automobile industries. While the First New Deal of 1933 had broad support from most sectors, the Second New Deal challenged the business community. Conservative Democrats, led by Al Smith, fought back with the American Liberty League, savagely attacking Roosevelt and equating him with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. But Smith overplayed his hand, and his boisterous rhetoric let Roosevelt isolate his opponents and identify them with the wealthy vested interests that opposed the New Deal, strengthening Roosevelt for the 1936 landslide. By contrast, labor unions, energized by the Wagner Act, signed up millions of new members and became a major backer of Roosevelt's reelections in 1936, 1940 and 1944. Biographer James M. Burns suggests that Roosevelt's policy decisions were guided more by pragmatism than ideology, and that he "was like the general of a guerrilla army whose columns, fighting blindly in the mountains through dense ravines and thickets, suddenly converge, half by plan and half by coincidence, and debouch into the plain below." Roosevelt argued that such apparently haphazard methodology was necessary. "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation," he wrote. "It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a landslide by the 1936 election, because the economy improved. Though, 8 million workers remained unemployed. Huey Long died in 1935, so he couldn’t challenge Roosevelt in 1936. FDR defeated Kansas Governor Republican Alf Landon. Organized labor and African Americans voted heavily for Roosevelt.
Roosevelt lost high income voters, especially businessmen and professionals, but made major gains among the poor and minorities. He won 86 percent of the Jewish vote, 81 percent of Catholics, 80 percent of union members, 76 percent of Southerners, 76 percent of Black Americans in northern cities, and 75 percent of people on relief. Roosevelt carried 102 of the nation's 106 cities with a population of 100,000 or more. The Supreme Court repealed many of his New Deal policies. Conservatives dominated the court at first. Roosevelt wanted to pack the court, so his policies would be permitted. People from both parties opposed the court packing plan. By 1937, the court was more favorable to economic regulations. He or FDR appointed a Supreme Court Justice and later seven out of 9 Justices were appointed by him by 1941. Roosevelt did manage to pass some legislation, including the Housing Act of 1937, a second Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, which was the last major piece of New Deal legislation. The FLSA outlawed child labor, established a federal minimum wage, and required overtime pay for certain employees who work in excess of forty-hours per week. He also won passage of the Reorganization Act of 1939 and subsequently created the Executive Office of the President, making it "the nerve center of the federal administrative system."
There was another economic downturn in late 1937. Roosevelt wanted $5 billion in economic relief and public works funding. Many new national parks and post offices grew. Democrats lost many seats in the 1938 elections. New conservatives in the conservative coalition would oppose Roosevelt’s domestic policies, but support FDR’s support of military action involving World War II. Roosevelt was pro-environment. FDR aided the expansion of National Park and National Forest systems. People built roads, planted trees, and upgraded areas. The unemployment rate fell during FDR’s first term, increased in 1938, and fell again after 1938. It radically declined by WWII. Roosevelt saw the expansion of 18.31 million jobs and an average annual increase in job during his administration by 5.3 percent. Roosevelt followed the Good Neighbor Policy. He at first didn’t want intervention in Latin America. He promoted neutrality in the world. Roosevelt regretted not helping the Spanish Republicans. By the 1930’s, fascism grew in Italy, Japan, and Germany. Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco of Spain, and Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany harmed the world. Genocide was spreading and FDR saw that isolation wasn’t going to work especially long term. Hitler lied and violated previous agreements. Roosevelt aided Britain and France economically when World War II started. Roosevelt sent money and supplies to the UK. Churchill and FDR had meetings to iron out the details. When the Fall of France happened by June 1940, isolationism declined in America.
In July 1940, Roosevelt appointed two interventionist Republican leaders, Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox, as Secretaries of War and the Navy, respectively. Both parties gave support to his plans for a rapid build-up of the American military, but the isolationists warned that Roosevelt would get the nation into an unnecessary war with Germany. In July 1940, a group of Congressmen introduced a bill that would authorize the nation's first peacetime draft, and with the support of the Roosevelt administration the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 passed in September. The size of the army would increase from 189,000 men at the end of 1939 to 1.4 million men in mid-1941. In September 1940, Roosevelt openly defied the Neutrality Acts by reaching the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, which, in exchange for military base rights in the British Caribbean Islands, gave 50 WWI American destroyers to Britain.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt would win his third by 1940. Roosevelt broke with tradition since he felt that he was qualified enough to deal with the Nazi threat. He defeated the Republican Wendell Willkie or a popular Republican nominee. Roosevelt had Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace of Iowa to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Garner turned against FDR since he disagreed with Roosevelt’s liberal economic and social policies. Wallace was a former Republican who supported the New Deal and was popular with farmers. Henry Wallace was criticized as being radical and eccentric i.e. Henry Wallace opposed racism and Jim Crow in public back during the 1930's and in the 1940's), but FDR supported him. Willkie agreed with much of the New Deal, but didn’t want America to be in a war. Roosevelt promised to keep America out of the war. Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55 percent of the popular vote.
Roosevelt’s third term involved World War II. America’s military expanded. The Lend-Lease program gave military and economic aid to Britain and China. Charles Lindbergh opposed these actions. Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union by June of 1941, so FDR aided the Soviets. Roosevelt and Churchill organized the Atlantic Charter to fight Nazis and deal with postwar goals. Roosevelt wanted U.S. Navy ships to fire on Nazi ships and submarines after a Nazi submarine fired on the U.S. destroyer Greer. Japanese invasions of Manchuria and Asian lands complicated U.S. and Japanese negotiations. Japan aided with Nazi Germany and Italy. Roosevelt placed General Douglas MacArthur to be an active duty to command U.S. forces in the Philippines. America issued an embargo against Japan. So, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 at Hawaii. Over 2,000 American military service people and civilians died in the attacks. Roosevelt declared war on Japan. Hitler and Mussolini declared war on America on December 11, 1941. America did the same on Hitler and Mussolini. Franklin Delano Roosevelt organized specific, detailed war plans by the Arcadia Conference on December 1941 with Winston Churchill. Both men wanted to defeat Nazi Germany before Japan. The Allied forces had many nations. He allowed military leaders to make most decisions. Admiral Ernest J. King was the Chief of Naval Operations. He commanded the Navy and Marines. General George C. Marshall led the Army and was in nominal control of the Air Force (which in practice was commanded by General Hap Arnold). The Joint Chiefs were chaired by Admiral William D. Leahy, the most senior officer in the military. Roosevelt supported the Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons. Britain was involved and Einstein initially supported this effort via a letter. Later, Albert Einstein rejected his previous support of the development of nuclear weapons.
FDR wanted the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China as the Four Policemen to handle postwar society. Roosevelt worked in the Cairo Conference and the Yalta Conference of 1945 to handle details after the war was over. Stalin wanted an immediate American invasion of France to end the burden of the Soviets on Eastern Europe. Churchill refused to do this. FDR issued a compromise to do it by Operation Torch and then in France. Operation Torch was an attack by the Allied Forces in North Africa. The Tehran Conference of November 1943 was the first time Roosevelt met Stalin. At the conference, Britain and the United States committed to opening a second front against Germany in 1944, while Stalin committed to entering the war against Japan at an unspecified date. Subsequent conferences at Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks established the framework for the post-war system and the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization similar to Wilson's failed League of Nations. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met for a second time at the February 1945 Yalta Conference in Crimea. With the end of the war in Europe approaching, Roosevelt's primary focus was on convincing Stalin to enter the war against Japan; the Joint Chiefs had estimated that an American invasion of Japan would cause as many as one million American casualties. In return for the Soviet Union's entrance into the war against Japan, the Soviet Union was promised control of Asian territories such as Sakhalin Island.
The three leaders agreed to hold a conference in 1945 to establish the United Nations, and they also agreed on the structure of the United Nations Security Council, which would be charged with ensuring international peace and security. Roosevelt did not push for the immediate evacuation of Soviet soldiers from Poland, but he won the issuance of the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which promised free elections in countries that had been occupied by Germany. Germany itself would not be dismembered, but would be jointly occupied by the United States, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t want huge reparations and deindustrialization on Germany after the war. Yalta was controversial since FDR had to deal with Eastern European nations dominated by the Soviets and the Soviets contributed heavily to the Allied victory.
Roosevelt wanted unconditional surrender of the Axis forces. The war persisted with Americans defeating the Nazis in North African and going into Sicily. France was attacked in 1944. The Soviets defeated the Nazis at the Battle of Stalingrad in February of 1943. Italy was soon to be liberated by 1945. In America, unemployment fell. African Americans had the second Great Migration to go into manufacturing centers of the West Coast. Income taxes were formed to fund the war effort. There were economic rations. There were labor strikes and race riots in Detroit, Los Angeles, and in NYC. Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union Address advocated that Americans should think of basic economic rights as a Second Bill of Rights. He stated that all Americans should have the right to "adequate medical care", "a good education", "a decent home", and a "useful and remunerative job.” In the most ambitious domestic proposal of his third term, Roosevelt proposed the G.I. Bill, which would create a massive benefits program for returning soldiers. Benefits included post-secondary education, medical care, unemployment insurance, job counseling, and low-cost loans for homes and businesses. The G.I. Bill passed unanimously in both houses of Congress and was signed into law in June 1944. Of the fifteen million Americans who served in World War II, more than half benefited from the educational opportunities provided for in the G.I. Bill.
FDR’s health declined by smoking. He found that he had high blood pressure, coronary artery diseases, and other illnesses by March of 1944. Doctors wanted him to rest. He was on a daily schedule. Roosevelt told a confidant that he might resign from the Presidency after the war ended. During the 1944 election campaign, the personal physician Admiral Ross McIntire said that the President’s health was fine, but that wasn’t true. The vast majority of Democrats support Roosevelt’s 1944 run. He defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey or the governor of New York. Dewey was a liberal in his party. Vice President Henry Wallace was dropped from the ticket since party leaders didn’t like Wallace’s progressive views on civil rights and on economic issues. Harry Truman was the new Vice president. The opposition lambasted Roosevelt and his administration for domestic corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, tolerance of Communism, and military blunders. Labor unions, which had grown rapidly in the war, fully supported Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Truman won the 1944 election by a comfortable margin, defeating Dewey and his running mate John W. Bricker with 53.4% of the popular vote and 432 out of the 531 electoral votes. The president campaigned in favor of a strong United Nations, so his victory symbolized support for the nation's future participation in the international community.
The end was approaching. After Yalta, people were shocked to see how frail and old he looked. FDR on March 1945 sent strongly worded messages to Stalin accusing him of breaking his Yalta commitments over Poland, Germany, prisoners of war and other issues. When Stalin accused the western Allies of plotting behind his back a separate peace with Hitler, Roosevelt replied: "I cannot avoid a feeling of bitter resentment towards your informers, whoever they are, for such vile misrepresentations of my actions or those of my trusted subordinates." On March 29, 1945, Roosevelt went to the Little White House at Warm Springs, Georgia, to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations. On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, "I have a terrific headache." He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed the medical emergency as a massive cerebral hemorrhage. At 3:35 p.m. that day, Roosevelt died at the age of 63. Later, Roosevelt’s body was placed in a flag draped coffin. It was loaded onto the Presidential train and travel to Washington, D.C. on the morning of April 13, 1945.
Thousands of people paid their respects. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported by train from Washington, D.C., to his place of birth at Hyde Park. As was his wish, Roosevelt was buried on April 15 in the Rose Garden of his Springwood estate. Many people were shocked by his death since many didn’t know of his failing physical health. After Germany surrendered the following month, newly-sworn in President Truman dedicated Victory in Europe Day and its celebrations to Roosevelt's memory, and kept the flags across the U.S. at half-staff for the remainder of the 30-day mourning period, saying that his only wish was "that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day.” The World War II events ended after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet entry into Asia, and the surrender of Japan. Truman would see the conclusion of the war and the birth of the United Nations plus the creation of postwar institutions that Roosevelt planned during his Presidency. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt certainly was a man who had a role in monumental historical events.
Civil Rights, Japanese Internment, and the Holocaust
Franklin Delano Roosevelt have a complex, mixed legacy in terms of civil rights. The irony is that Roosevelt has been hailed as a hero to many progressives, African Americans, Roman Catholics, and Jewish people. He caused these groups to form a coalition to vote for him in his terms via the New Deal coalition. He won strong support among Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans, not Japanese Americans because of the obvious reason. The New Deal was great in its policies, but much of the New Deal was discriminatory against black people plus other human beings. African Americans and Native Americans fared well in two New Deal relief programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Indian Reorganization Act, respectively. Sitkoff reports that the WPA "provided an economic floor for the whole black community in the 1930's, rivaling both agriculture and domestic service as the chief source" of income. FDR made the mistake of not joining NAACP leaders in pushing for federal anti-lynching legislation. He believed that such legislation was unlikely to pass and that his support for it would alienate Southern congressmen.
That was wrong since it is always right to do right. FDR appointed a "Black Cabinet" of African American advisers to advise on race relations and African American issues, and he publicly denounced lynching as "murder." First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt vocally supported efforts designed to aid the African American community, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped boost wages for nonwhite workers in the South. In 1941, Roosevelt established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to implement Executive Order 8802, which prohibited racial and religious discrimination in employment among defense contractors. The FEPC was the first national program directed against employment discrimination, and it played a major role in opening up new employment opportunities to non-white workers. A. Philip Randolph and others pushed FDR (they said to Roosevelt to make the executive order or they would march on Washington, D.C. to demand racial justice. When FDR advanced the demand, Randolph called off the march to Washington. He would later do it by 1963) to enact the Executive Order to fight racial discrimination in the defense industries. During World War II, the proportion of African American men employed in manufacturing positions rose significantly. In response to Roosevelt's policies, African Americans increasingly defected from the Republican Party during the 1930's and 1940's, becoming an important Democratic voting bloc in several Northern states.
The attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. After the attack, massive racism came against innocent Japanese Americans. The Roberts Commission came about. By February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which relocated hundreds of thousands of the Japanese-American citizens and immigrants. They were forced to liquidate their properties and businesses and interned in hastily built camps in interior, harsh locations. FDR dealt with other issues too. Roosevelt had delegated the decision for internment to Secretary of War Stimson, who in turn relied on the judgment of Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy. The Supreme Court upheld the "constitutionality" of the executive order in the 1944 case of Korematsu v. United States. Many German and Italian citizens were also arrested or placed into internment camps. The internment of Japanese Americans and others was one of the worst mistakes of the Roosevelt administration.
After Kristallnacht in 1938, Roosevelt helped to expedite Jewish immigration from Germany and allowed Austrian and German citizens already in the United State to stay indefinitely. He was prevented from accepting more Jewish immigrants by the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. There was mass nativism and anti-Semitism among voters and members of Congress and some resistance in the American Jewish community to the acceptance of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Hitler implemented the “Final Solution.” That dealt with the extermination of European Jewish people. By January of 1942, American officials learned of the scale of the Nazi extermination campaign in the following months. There were objections of the State Department, but Roosevelt convinced the other Allied leaders to jointly issue the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations, which condemned the ongoing Holocaust and promised to try its perpetrators as war criminals. In January 1944, Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to aid Jewish people and other victims of Axis atrocities. Aside from these actions, Roosevelt believed that the best way to help the persecuted populations of Europe was to end the war as quickly as possible. Top military leaders and War Department leaders rejected any campaign to bomb the extermination camps or the rail lines leading to the camps, fearing it would be a diversion from the war effort. According to biographer Jean Edward Smith, there is no evidence that anyone ever proposed such a campaign to Roosevelt.
The Legacy
In the course of human history, some men and women have reached great prominence for various reasons. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is known as one of the most impactful Presidents in United States history. His policies not only reflected the mood of the time. He was involved in the transformation of America from being more isolationist to being more internationalist in scope. FDR had a legacy that dealt with great accomplishments and great errors simultaneously. He did much good in the service to the American people. He organized a response to defeat Nazi fascism overseas. He established laws, programs, and systems to help the poor, the elderly, and other workers to survive amidst the Great Depression. His wife Eleanor Roosevelt was a progressive activist during and after FDR’s passing. Not to mention that much of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s views as found in the New Bill of Rights redefined the role of government and outlined a credo of liberalism embraced by millions in America today. Even future administrations of Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson embraced Roosevelt’s policy agenda. FDR made it known that the role of government is not just the role of referee. The government should have an active role in helping citizens, protecting human rights, and investing in our future. The reason is that true government is by and for the people.
It is precisely fair to describe FDR’s errors. He was wrong to promote internment of Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans. He was wrong to refuse to advance federal anti-lynching legislation for fear of Southern opposition. Not to mention that he was incorrect to not be more forceful early on to help Jewish refugees who were escaping the terror of the Holocaust (i.e. Shoah). Therefore, the historical record must include all facets of his life. Memorials celebrate Franklin Roosevelt nationwide like at the home to his Presidential library (at Hyde Park, New York). The Roosevelt memorial is found next to the Jefferson Memorial (at Washington D.C.) on the Tidal Basin. His image is on the American dime to commemorate his leadership of the March of Dimes organization. That organization helps mothers and babies for decades. Now, we witness almost 70 years after his passing, and many of his views are relevant today in 2019. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a very prominent figure who changed the United States of America forevermore.
By Timothy
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