Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and dominated his party for many years as a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. His program for relief, recovery and reform, known as the New Deal, involved a great expansion of the role of the federal government in the economy. As a dominant leader of the Democratic Party, he built the New Deal Coalition that brought together and united labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans, and rural white Southerners in support of the party. The Coalition significantly realigned American politics after 1932, creating the Fifth Party System and defining American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century.
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| Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
Roosevelt was born in 1882, to an old, prominent Dutch family from Dutchess County, New York. He attended the elite educational institutions of Groton School and Harvard College. At age 23, in 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had six children. He entered politics in 1910, serving in the New York State Senate, and then as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president with presidential candidate James M. Cox, but the Cox/Roosevelt ticket lost to the Republican ticket of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Roosevelt was stricken with debilitating polio in 1921, which cost him the use of his legs and put his future political career in jeopardy, but he attempted to recover from the illness, and founded the treatment center for people with polio in Warm Springs, Georgia. After returning to political life by placing Alfred E. Smith's name into nomination at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt, at Smith's behest, successfully ran for Governor of New York in 1928. In office from 1929 to 1932, he served as a reform governor promoting the enactment of programs to combat the Great Depression besetting the United States at the time.
in 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt successfully defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover to win the presidency of the United States. Having been energized by his personal victory over his polio, FDR relied on his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit.[3] In his first hundred days in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief (government jobs for the unemployed), recovery (economic growth), and reform (through regulation of Wall Street, banks and transportation). He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers, and to encourage labor union growth while more closely regulating business and high finance. The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 added to his popularity, helping him win re-election by a landslide in 1936. The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court, and blocked almost all proposals for major liberal legislation (except the minimum wage, which did pass). When the war began and unemployment ended, conservatives in Congress repealed the two major relief programs, the WPA and CCC. However, they kept most of the regulations on business. Along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Wagner Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Social Security.
As World War II loomed after 1938, with the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and the United Kingdom, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy", which would supply munitions to the Allies. In March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which he called "a date which will live in infamy", Roosevelt sought and obtained the quick approval, on December 8, of the United States Congress to declare war on Japan and, a few days later, on Germany. (Hitler had already declared war on the US in support of Japan). Assisted by his top aide Harry Hopkins, and with very strong national support, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek in leading the Allies against Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in World War II. He supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the war effort, and also ordered the internment of 100,000 Japanese American civilians. As an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented a war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and the development of the world's first nuclear bomb. His work also influenced the later creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods. During the war, unemployment dropped to 2%, relief programs largely ended, and the industrial economy grew rapidly to new heights as millions of people moved to wartime factory jobs or entered military service.Roosevelt's health seriously declined during the war years, and he died three months into his fourth term. He is often rated by scholars as one of the top three U.S. Presidents, along with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington
Personal life
Early life and education
One of the oldest Dutch families in New York State, the Roosevelts[a] distinguished themselves in areas other than politics. One ancestor, Isaac Roosevelt, had served with the New York militia during the American Revolution. Roosevelt attended events of the New York society Sons of the American Revolution, and joined the organization while he was president. His paternal family had become prosperous early on in New York real estate and trade, and much of his immediate family's wealth had been built by FDR's maternal grandfather, Warren Delano, Jr., in the China trade, including opium and tea.
Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York to businessman James Roosevelt I (1828–1900) and Sara Ann Delano (1854–1941). His parents were sixth cousins and both were from wealthy old New York families. They were of mostly English descent; Roosevelt's patrilineal great-grandfather, Jacobus Roosevelt III, was of Dutch ancestry, and his mother's maiden name, Delano, could be traced to a French Huguenot immigrant ancestor of the 17th century. Their only childwas to have been named Warren, but Sara's infant nephew of that name had recently died. Their son was named for Sara's uncle Franklin Hughes Delano.
Roosevelt grew up in an atmosphere of privilege. (Reportedly, when James Roosevelt took his five-year-old son to visit President Grover Cleveland in the White House, the busy president told Franklin, "I have one wish for you, little man, that you will never be President of the United States."Sara was a possessive mother; James, 54 when Franklin was born, was considered by some as a remote father, though biographer James MacGregor Burns indicates James interacted with his son more than was typical at the time.Sara was the dominant influence in Franklin's early years;she once declared, "My son Franklin is a Delano, not a Roosevelt at all." Frequent trips to Europe—he made his first at the age of two, and went with his parents every year from the ages of seven to 15—helped Roosevelt become conversant in German and French; being arrested with his tutor by police four times in one day in the Black Forest for minor offenses may have affected the future president's view of German character.He learned to ride, shoot, row, and play polo and lawn tennis. Roosevelt also took up golf in his teen years, becoming a skilled long hitter. He learned to sail, and his father gave him a sailboat at the age of 16 which he named "New Moon".
Roosevelt attended Groton School, an Episcopal boarding school in Massachusetts; 90% of the students were from families on the social register. He was strongly influenced by its headmaster, Endicott Peabody, who preached the duty of Christians to help the less fortunate and urged his students to enter public service. Forty years later Roosevelt said of Peabody, "It was a blessing in my life to have the privilege of [his] guiding hand", and the headmaster remained a strong influence throughout his life, officiating at his wedding and visiting Roosevelt as president. Peabody recalled Roosevelt as "a quiet, satisfactory boy of more than ordinary intelligence, taking a good position in his form but not brilliant", while a classmate described Roosevelt as "nice, but completely colorless"; an average student, he only stood out in being the only Democratic student, continuing the political tradition of his side of the Roosevelt family. Roosevelt remained consistent in his politics; immediately after his fourth election to the presidency, he defined his domestic policy as "a little left of center".
Like all but two of his 21 Groton classmates, Roosevelt went to Harvard College,where he lived in a suite which is now part of Adams House, in the "Gold Coast" area populated by wealthy students. Again an average student academically,Roosevelt later declared, "I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong." He was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and the Fly Club. While undistinguished as a student or athlete, he became editor-in-chief of The Harvard Crimson daily newspaper, a position which required great ambition, energy, and ability to manage others.While he was at Harvard, his fifth cousin Theodore "T. R." Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–1919) became President of the United States; his vigorous leadership style and reforming zeal made him Franklin's role model and hero. The younger Roosevelt remained a Democrat, campaigning for Theodore's opponent William Jennings Bryan. In mid-1902, Franklin was formally introduced to his future wife Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), Theodore's niece, on a train to Tivoli, New York, although they had met briefly as children. Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins, once removed. She was the daughter of Elliott Bulloch Roosevelt (1860–94) and Anna Rebecca Hall (1863–92) of the Livingston family. At the time of their engagement, Roosevelt was twenty-two and Eleanor nineteen. Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in 1903 with an A.B. in history. He later received an honorary LL.D. from Harvard in 1929.
Roosevelt entered Columbia Law School in 1904, dropping out in 1907 after passing the New York State Bar exam. He later received a posthumous J.D. from Columbia Law School. In 1908, he took a job with the prestigious Wall Street firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn,dealing mainly with corporate law. He was first initiated in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was initiated into Freemasonry on October 11, 1911, at Holland Lodge No. 8, New York City.
Marriage and affairs
On March 17, 1905, Roosevelt married Eleanor in New York City, despite the fierce resistance of his mother; he was 23 and she was 21.While she did not dislike Eleanor, Sara Roosevelt was very possessive of her son; believing he was too young, she several times attempted to break the engagement.Eleanor's uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, stood in at the wedding for Eleanor's deceased father Elliott, as Eleanor was his favorite niece.(Eleanor had lost both parents by age ten.)
The young couple moved into Springwood, his family's estate at Hyde Park, where Roosevelt's mother became a frequent house guest, much to Eleanor's chagrin. The home was owned by Roosevelt's mother until her death in 1941 and was very much her home as well. In addition, Franklin Roosevelt and his mother Sara did the planning and furnishing of a town house she had built for the young couple in New York City; she had a twin house built alongside, with connections on every floor. Eleanor never felt it was her house.
Biographer James MacGregor Burns says young Roosevelt was self-assured and at ease in the upper class. In contrast, Eleanor at the time was shy and disliked social life, and at first stayed at home to raise their several children. Although Eleanor had an aversion to sexual intercourse, and considered it "an ordeal to be endured", they had six children, the first four in rapid succession:
- Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (May 3, 1906 – December 1, 1975)
- James Roosevelt II (December 23, 1907 – August 13, 1991)
- Franklin Roosevelt (March 18, 1909 – November 7, 1909)
- Elliott Roosevelt (September 23, 1910 – October 27, 1990)
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. (August 17, 1914 – August 17, 1988)
- John Aspinwall Roosevelt II (March 13, 1916 – April 27, 1981)
Roosevelt liked fatherhood, and the parents suffered greatly when their third child, named for Franklin, died of heart disease in infancy in 1909. Eleanor soon was pregnant again and gave birth to another son, Elliott, less than a year later. The fifth child and fourth son, born in 1914, was also named for Franklin. Their sixth child, John, was their fifth son.
Roosevelt had extra-marital affairs, including one 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, when he returned from World War I. Franklin had contemplated divorcing Eleanor, but Lucy would not agree to marry a divorced man with five children. Franklin and Eleanor remained married, and FDR promised never to see Lucy again. Eleanor never truly forgave him, and their marriage from that point on was more of a political partnership. His mother Sara told Franklin that if he divorced his wife, it would bring scandal upon the family, and she "would not give him another dollar."
Franklin broke his promise to Eleanor. He and Lucy maintained a formal correspondence, and began seeing each other again in 1941, perhaps earlier.The Secret Service gave Lucy the code name "Mrs. Johnson" . Lucy was with FDR on the day he died. Despite this, FDR's affair was not widely known until the 1960s.Roosevelt's son Elliott said that Franklin also 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 Princess Märtha of Sweden, 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.
The effect of these flirtations or affairs upon Eleanor Roosevelt is difficult to estimate. "I have the memory of an elephant. I can forgive, but I cannot forget," she wrote to a close friend. After the Lucy Mercer affair, any remaining intimacy left their relationship. Eleanor soon thereafter established a separate house 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.He was not always aware of when she visited the White House, and for some time she could not easily reach him on the telephone without his secretary's help; he, in turn, did not visit her New York City apartment until late 1944.
When Roosevelt was President, his dog, Fala, also became well known as his companion during his time in the White House. Fala was called the "most photographed dog in the world.
Governor of New York (1929–32)
Roosevelt maintained contacts and mended fences with the Democratic Party during the 1920s, especially in New York. Although he initially had made his name as an opponent of New York City's Tammany Hall machine, Roosevelt moderated his stance against that group as well.He helped Alfred E. Smith win the election for governor of New York in 1922, and in 1924 was a strong supporter of Smith against his cousin, Republican Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Roosevelt gave nominating speeches for Smith at the 1924 and 1928 Democratic conventions; the speech at the 1924 election marked a return to public life following his illness and convalescence.
As the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1928 election, Smith in turn asked Roosevelt to run for governor in the state election. Roosevelt was nominated by the Democrats by acclamation.While Smith lost the Presidency in a landslide, and was defeated in his home state, Roosevelt was narrowly elected governor, by a one-percent margin.As a reform governor, he established a number of new social programs, and was advised by Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins.In April 1929, a bomb was found addressed to him at the Albany, New York post office. A porter kicked the package, causing the fuse to sputter. The device was dropped in a pail of water where it failed to go off.
In May 1930, as he began his run for a second term, Roosevelt reiterated his doctrine from the campaign two years before: "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." In this campaign for re-election, Roosevelt needed the good will of the Tammany Hall machine in New York City to succeed; but, his Republican opponent, Charles H. Tuttle, used Roosevelt's connection with Tammany Hall's corruption as an election issue. As the election approached, Roosevelt began preemptive efforts by initiating investigations of the sale of judicial offices. He was directly involved, as he had made a routine short-term court appointment of a Tammany Hall man who was alleged to have paid Tammany $30,000 for the position. His Republican opponent could not overcome the public's criticism of the Republican Party for current economic distress in the Great Depression, and Roosevelt was elected to a second term by a margin of fourteen percent
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