Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945) –
FDR was a member of the prominent Roosevelt clan in New York that had given rise to Teddy Roosevelt not long before. FDR and TR were from different wings of that family. Teddy was an Oyster Bay Republican Roosevelt, and Franklin was his fifth cousin, a Hyde Park Democrat. Franklin married Eleanor, one of the Oyster Bay Republicans (Theodore’s niece.)
Like Lincoln, I know I can’t do his Presidency justice, so I’m not going to try very hard. He was elected four times and led us through the Depression and World War II. He was born to an elite family and went to elite schools and, yet, he did much to improve the lot of the common man; he probably saved his fellow upper class members from suffering the same fate of the elite in Europe during this period; and they hated him for it. Some wouldn’t even say his name, referring to him only as “that man.”
President Roosevelt “made bitter enemies of the wealthy Protestants among whom he had lived most of his life. He had raised their taxes, regulated their business practices, threatened their dominance; he was, they said, a hypocrite, untrustworthy, demagogic, a ‘traitor to his class,’ and many of them, hating his name too much even to utter it, simply called him ‘That Man in the White House.’ ”
“That Man” attitudes carried, most regrettably, the whiff of violence. In early 1933, when Roosevelt was president-elect but not yet inaugurated, an assassin shot at him in Florida and barely missed. Six years later, a writer shared this description of mainstream, if private, imaginations of violence: “In the cabañas at Miami Beach the sun-tanned winter visitors said their business would be doing pretty well if it weren’t for THAT MAN. In the country-club locker room the golfers talked about the slow pace of the stock market as they took off their golf shoes; and when, out of a clear sky, one man said, ‘Well, let’s hope somebody shoots him,’ the burst of agreement made it clear that everybody knew who was meant.”
. . .
They saw dictatorship and revolution where the majority of Americans saw leadership and a democratic resurgence.”
However, FDR famously responded, “They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”
Roosevelt had been vice-presidential candidate to James Cox when they ran against Warren Harding in 1920 and got thumped. In 1921, he contracted polio, and his political future seemed in doubt. But, he battled back, and in 1928, he was elected governor of New York. In 1932, Hoover and the Republicans were deeply unpopular on account of the Depression. There were a number of contenders for the Democratic nomination, but FDR had taken control of the New York machinery from Al Smith. He had the support of newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst; Irish leader Joseph Kennedy, Sr.; California leader (and Woodrow Wilson son-in-law) William McAdoo; and eventually John Nance Garner. Soon-to-be Indiana governor, Paul McNutt played some games with Indiana’s delegates during this convention and earned a grudge from FDR.
In the general election, FDR won a resounding victory. He forged a coalition made up of organized labor, northern blacks, and ethnic Americans such as Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans and Jews and won with 57% of the votes and all but six states. The Congressional races also gave the Democrats a commanding presence. The Democrats won 313 Congressional seats to the Republicans’ 101 (and 4 to the Farmer-Labor party). The numbers in the Senate were 59-36-1. FDR’s first 100 days are still the benchmark against which other new Presidencies are measured. “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.” He also pushed for repeal of Prohibition, and the Twenty-First Amendment was completed on December 3, 1933. (Indiana was the seventh state to ratify the Twenty-First Amendment on June 26, 1933).
One of the Roosevelt administration’s major initiatives was the Works Progress Administration. It was established in 1935, and at its peak in 1938, it employed 3 million unemployed men and women (mostly men). Over the course of the 8 years it was in operation, it employed 8.5 million people.
The WPA built traditional infrastructure of the New Deal such as roads, bridges, schools, courthouses, hospitals, sidewalks, waterworks, and post-offices, but also constructed museums, swimming pools, parks, community centers, playgrounds, coliseums, markets, fairgrounds, tennis courts, zoos, botanical gardens, auditoriums, waterfronts, city halls, gyms, and university unions. Most of these are still in use today. The amount of infrastructure projects of the WPA included 40,000 new and 85,000 improved buildings. These new buildings included 5,900 new schools; 9,300 new auditoriums, gyms, and recreational buildings; 1,000 new libraries; 7,000 new dormitories; and 900 new armories. In addition, infrastructure projects included 2,302 stadiums, grandstands, and bleachers; 52 fairgrounds and rodeo grounds; 1,686 parks covering 75,152 acres; 3,185 playgrounds; 3,026 athletic fields; 805 swimming pools; 1,817 handball courts; 10,070 tennis courts; 2,261 horseshoe pits; 1,101 ice-skating areas; 138 outdoor theatres; 254 golf courses; and 65 ski jumps.
The WPA was disbanded during World War II when a labor shortage developed.
These acts did not end the Depression, but they did seem to help. And the continuous effort itself helped Americans keep hope. In 1936, his victory was even more resounding, winning 60.8% of the vote and all but two states.
A lot of his work was undone by the Supreme Court who determined many of his actions were unconstitutional. He floated a scheme to pack the court by appointing more justices. (Nothing in the Constitution dictates 9 Justices). He faced stiff opposition and this did not succeed. However, Roosevelt simply outlasted them. And, by 1941, he had appointed seven of the nine justices, and they began to find his acts constitutional. With respect to the economy, there was recovery from 1933-1937, but federal expenditures were cut in response to the recovery, and the economy backslid in 1937-1938.
Next time: World War II and FDR’s third and fourth terms.
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