Franklin D. Roosevelt
Thirty-Second President 1933-1945
Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park,
New York on January 30, 1882, the son of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano
Roosevelt. His parents and private tutors provided him with almost all his
formative education. He attended Groton (1896-1900), a prestigious preparatory
school in Massachusetts, and received a BA degree in history from Harvard in
only three years (1900-03). Roosevelt next studied law at New York's Columbia
University. When he passed the bar examination in 1907, he left school without
taking a degree. For the next three years he practiced law with a prominent New
York City law firm. He entered politics in 1910 and was elected to the New York
State Senate as a Democrat from his traditionally Republican home district.
In the meantime, in 1905, he had married a distant cousin, Anna Eleanor
Roosevelt, who was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had six
children, five of whom survived infancy: Anna (1906), James (1907), Elliott
(1910), Franklin, Jr. (1914) and John (1916).
Roosevelt was reelected to the State Senate in 1912, and supported Woodrow
Wilson's candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. As a reward for his
support, Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, a
position he held until 1920. He was an energetic and efficient administrator,
specializing in the business side of naval administration. This experience
prepared him for his future role as Commander-in-Chief during World War II.
Roosevelt's popularity and success in naval affairs resulted in his being
nominated for vice-president by the Democratic Party in 1920 on a ticket headed
by James M. Cox of Ohio. However, popular sentiment against Wilson's plan for US
participation in the League of Nations propelled Republican Warren Harding into
the presidency, and Roosevelt returned to private life.
While vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick in the summer of 1921,
Roosevelt contracted poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). Despite courageous
efforts to overcome his crippling illness, he never regained the use of his
legs. In time, he established a foundation at Warm Springs, Georgia to help
other polio victims, and inspired, as well as directed, the March of Dimes
program that eventually funded an effective vaccine.
With the encouragement and help of his wife, Eleanor, and political confidant,
Louis Howe, Roosevelt resumed his political career. In 1924 he nominated
Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York for president at the Democratic National
Convention, but Smith lost the nomination to John W. Davis. In 1928 Smith became
the Democratic candidate for president and arranged for Roosevelt's nomination
to succeed him as governor of New York. Smith lost the election to Herbert
Hoover; but Roosevelt was elected governor.
Following his reelection as governor in 1930, Roosevelt began to campaign for
the presidency. While the economic depression damaged Hoover and the
Republicans, Roosevelt's bold efforts to combat it in New York enhanced his
reputation. In Chicago in 1932, Roosevelt won the nomination as the Democratic
Party candidate for president. He broke with tradition and flew to Chicago to
accept the nomination in person. He then campaigned energetically calling for
government intervention in the economy to provide relief, recovery, and reform.
His activist approach and personal charm helped to defeat Hoover in November
1932 by seven million votes.
The Depression worsened in the months preceding Roosevelt's inauguration, March
4, 1933. Factory closings, farm foreclosures, and bank failures increased, while
unemployment soared. Roosevelt faced the greatest crisis in American history
since the Civil War. He undertook immediate actions to initiate his New Deal. To
halt depositor panics, he closed the banks temporarily. Then he worked with a
special session of Congress during the first "100 days" to pass recovery
legislation which set up alphabet agencies such as the AAA (Agricultural
Adjustment Administration) to support farm prices and the CCC (Civilian
Conservation Corps) to employ young men. Other agencies assisted business and
labor, insured bank deposits, regulated the stock market, subsidized home and
farm mortgage payments, and aided the unemployed. These measures revived
confidence in the economy. Banks reopened and direct relief saved millions from
starvation. But the New Deal measures also involved government directly in areas
of social and economic life as never before and resulted in greatly increased
spending and unbalanced budgets which led to criticisms of Roosevelt's programs.
However, the nation-at-large supported Roosevelt, elected additional Democrats
to state legislatures and governorships in the mid-term elections.
Another flurry of New Deal legislation followed in 1935 including the
establishment of the Works Projects Administration (WPA) which provided jobs not
only for laborers but also artists, writers, musicians, and authors, and the
Social Security act which provided unemployment compensation and a program of
old-age and survivors' benefits.
Roosevelt easily defeated Alfred M. Landon in 1936 and went on to defeat by
lesser margins, Wendell Willkie in 1940 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1944. He thus
became the only American president to serve more than two terms.
After his overwhelming victory in 1936, Roosevelt took on the critics of the New
deal, namely, the Supreme Court which had declared various legislation
unconstitutional, and members of his own party. In 1937 he proposed to add new
justices to the Supreme Court, but critics said he was "packing" the Court and
undermining the separation of powers. His proposal was defeated, but the Court
began to decide in favor of New Deal legislation. During the 1938 election he
campaigned against many Democratic opponents, but this backfired when most were
reelected to Congress. These setbacks, coupled with the recession that occurred
midway through his second term, represented the low-point in Roosevelt's
presidential career.
By 1939 Roosevelt was concentration increasingly on foreign affairs with the
outbreak of war in Europe. New Deal reform legislation diminished, and the ills
of the Depression would not fully abate until the nation mobilized for war.
When Hitler attacked Poland in September 1939, Roosevelt stated that, although
the nation was neutral, he did not expect America to remain inactive in the face
of Nazi aggression. Accordingly, he tried to make American aid available to
Britain, France, and China and to obtain an amendment of the Neutrality Acts
which rendered such assistance difficult. He also took measures to build up the
armed forces in the face of isolationist opposition.
With the fall of France in 1940, the American mood and Roosevelt's policy
changed dramatically. Congress enacted a draft for military service and
Roosevelt signed a "lend-lease" bill in March 1941 to enable the nation to
furnish aid to nations at war with Germany and Italy. America, though a neutral
in the war and still at peace, was becoming the "arsenal of democracy", as its
factories began producing as they had in the years before the Depression.
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, followed four
days later by Germany's and Italy's declarations of war against the United
States, brought the nation irrevocably into the war. Roosevelt became the
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a role he actively carried out. He
worked with and through his military advisers, overriding them when necessary,
and took an active role in choosing the principle field commanders and in making
decisions regarding wartime strategy.
He moved to create a "grand alliance" against the Axis powers through "The
Declaration of the United Nations," January 1, 1942, in which all nations
fighting the Axis agreed not to make a separate peace and pledged themselves to
a peacekeeping organization (now the United Nations) on victory.
He gave priority to the western European front and had General George Marshall,
Chief of Staff, plan a holding operation in the Pacific and organize an
expeditionary force for an invasion of Europe. The United States and its allies
invaded North Africa in November 1942 and Sicily and Italy in 1943. The D-Day
landings on the Normandy beaches in France, June 6, 1944, were followed by the
allied invasion of Germany six months later. By April 1945 victory in Europe was
certain.
The unending stress and strain of the war literally wore Roosevelt out. By early
1944 a full medical examination disclosed serious heart and circulatory
problems; and although his physicians placed him on a strict regime of diet and
medication, the pressures of war and domestic politics weighed heavily on him.
During a vacation at Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, he suffered a
massive stroke and died two and one-half hours later without regaining
consciousness. He was 63 years old. His death came on the eve of complete
military victory in Europe and within months of victory over Japan in the
Pacific. President Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of his estate at Hyde
Park, New York.
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