Biography

Roosevelt is generally considered a great president. A 1999 survey of academic historians by CSPAN found that historians consider Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Roosevelt the three greatest presidents by a wide margin, and other surveys are consistent.^[32] Roosevelt is the sixth most admired person in the 20th century, according to Gallup, though this "very high rating would have appalled many of the contemporaries."^[33]

Both during and after his terms, critics of Roosevelt questioned not only his policies and positions,
but also the consolidation of power that occurred because of his
lengthy tenure as President, his service during two major crises, and
his enormous popularity. The rapid expansion of government programs
that occurred during Roosevelt's term redefined the role the government
in the United States, and Roosevelt's advocacy of government social
programs was instrumental in redefining liberalism for coming generations.^[34]

Roosevelt firmly established the United States' leadership role on the world stage, with pronouncements such as his Four freedoms speech forming a basis for the active role of the United States in the Cold War
and beyond. The decisions made at the Yalta Conference established
international alliances and boundaries that continue to affect world
diplomacy today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's record on civil rights
has been the subject of much controversy. Roosevelt needed the support
of Southern Democrats for his New Deal programs, and taking an
aggressive position on civil rights
could have threatened his ability to pass his highest priority
programs. In addition, Roosevelt participated in the internment of
Japanese-Americans during World War II and has been charged with not
acting quickly or decisively enough to prevent or stop the Holocaust.

After his death, Eleanor Roosevelt continued to be a forceful presence in American and world politics, serving as ambassador
to the United Nations and championing civil rights. Many members of his
administration played leading roles in the administrations of Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, each of whom embraced Roosevelt's political legacy.^{[citation needed]}

Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park is now a National historic site and home to his Presidential library. His retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia is a museum operated by the state of Georgia. The Roosevelt memorial has been established in Washington, D.C. next to the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin, and his image appears on the Roosevelt dime. Many parks, schools, roads, an aircraft carrier and a Paris Metro stop have been named in his honor.

Contributions

Foreign policy

The rejection of the
League of Nations treaty in 1919 marked the dominance of
isolationism from world organizations in American foreign policy. Despite
Roosevelt's Wilsonian background, he and Secretary of State
Cordell Hull acted with great care not to provoke isolationist sentiment.
The main foreign policy initiative of Roosevelt's first term was the
Good Neighbor Policy, which was a re-evaluation of American policy towards
Latin America. Since the
Monroe Doctrine of 1823, this area had been seen as an American
sphere of influence. American forces were withdrawn from
Haiti, and new treaties with
Cuba and Panama
ended their status as American
protectorates. In December 1933, Roosevelt signed the
Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, renouncing the
right to intervene unilaterally in the affairs of Latin American countries.

Achievements

State Senator

In 1910, Roosevelt ran for the New York State Senate
from the district around Hyde Park, which had not elected a Democrat
since 1884. The Roosevelt name, Roosevelt money and the Democratic
landslide that year carried him to the state capital of Albany, New York, where he became a leader of a group of reformers who opposed Manhattan's Tammany Hall machine which dominated the state Democratic Party. Roosevelt soon became a popular figure among New York Democrats.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy

Roosevelt took the position as Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy under Woodrow Wilson in 1912. In 1914, he was defeated in the Democratic primary for the United States Senate by Tammany Hall-backed James W. Gerard. From 1913 to 1917, Roosevelt worked to expand the Navy and founded the United States Navy Reserve. Wilson sent the Navy and Marines to intervene in Central American and Caribbean countries. Roosevelt claimed that he personally wrote the constitution which the U.S. imposed on Haiti in 1915.

Roosevelt developed a life-long affection for the Navy. He showed
great administrative talent and quickly learned to negotiate with
Congressional leaders and other government departments to get budgets
approved. He became an enthusiastic advocate of the submarine and also
of means to combat the German submarine menace to Allied shipping: he
proposed building a mine barrage across the North Sea from Norway to Scotland.
In 1918, he visited Britain and France to inspect American naval
facilities. During this visit he met Winston Churchill for the first
time. With the end of the war in November 1918, he was in charge of
demobilization, although he opposed plans to completely dismantle the
Navy.

Campaign for Vice-President

The 1920 Democratic National Convention chose Roosevelt as the candidate for Vice-President of the United States on the ticket headed by Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, helping build a national base. The Cox-Roosevelt ticket was heavily defeated by Republican Warren Harding in the United States presidential election, 1920. Roosevelt then retired to a New York legal practice, but few doubted that he would soon run for public office again.

Governor of New York, 1928-1932

Main article: Franklin D. Roosevelt's terms as Governor of New York

By 1928, Roosevelt believed he had recovered sufficiently to resume
his political career. He had been careful to maintain his contacts in
the Democratic Party and had allied himself with Alfred E. Smith, the current governor and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in 1928.

To gain the Democratic nomination for the election, Roosevelt had to
make his peace with Tammany Hall, which he did with some reluctance.
Roosevelt was elected Governor by a narrow margin, and came to office
in 1929 as a reform Democrat. As Governor, he established a number of
new social programs, and began gathering the team of advisors he would
bring with him to Washington four years later, including Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins.

The main weakness of Roosevelt's gubernatorial administration was the corruption of the Tammany Hall machine in New York City.
Roosevelt had made his name as an opponent of Tammany, but needed the
machine's goodwill to be re-elected in 1930. As the 1930 election
approached, Roosevelt set up a judicial investigation into the corrupt
sale of offices. In 1930, Roosevelt was elected to a second term by a
margin of more than 700,000 votes, defeating Republican Charles H. Tuttle.

Roosevelt's strong base in the most populous state made him an
obvious candidate for the Democratic nomination, which was hotly
contested since it seemed clear that Herbert Hoover would be defeated at the 1932 presidential election. Al Smith
was supported by some city bosses, but had lost control of the New York
Democratic party to Roosevelt. Roosevelt built his own national
coalition with personal allies such as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Irish leader Joseph P. Kennedy, and California leader William G. McAdoo. When Texas leader John Nance Garner switched to FDR, he was given the vice presidential nomination.

The election campaign was conducted under the shadow of the Great
Depression, and the new alliances created by the Depression. Roosevelt
and the Democratic Party mobilized the expanded ranks of the poor as
well as organized labor, ethnic minorities, urbanites, and Southern
whites, crafting the New Deal coalition. During the campaign, Roosevelt
said: "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American
people", coining a slogan that was later adopted for his legislative
program as well as his new coalition. ^[3]

Economist Marriner Eccles observed that "given later developments,
the campaign speeches often read like a giant misprint, in which
Roosevelt and Hoover speak each other's lines." ^[4]
Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate
and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless
commissions and offices, consolidating bureaus and eliminating
extravagances reductions in bureaucracy," and for a "sound currency to
be maintained at all hazards."^[5]
In a criticism of Hoover, Roosevelt said, "I accuse the President of
being the greatest spending administration in peace time in all
American history—one which piled bureau on bureau, commission on
commission… We are spending altogether too much money for government
services which are neither practical or necessary." ^[6] Hoover damned that pessimism as a denial of "the promise of American life . . . the counsel of despair." ^[7] On October 19,
Roosevelt attacked Hoover's deficits and called for sharp reductions in
government spending. The prohibition issue solidified the wet vote for
Roosevelt, who noted that repeal would bring in new tax revenues.

Roosevelt won 57% of the vote and carried all but six states. After
the election, Roosevelt refused Hoover's requests for a meeting to come
up with a joint program to stop the downward spiral. In February 1933,
an assassin, Giuseppe Zangara, fired five shots at Roosevelt, missing him but killing the Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.

When Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933, the U.S. was at the
nadir of the worst depression in its history. A quarter of the
workforce was unemployed. Farmers were in deep trouble as prices fell
by 60%. Industrial production had fallen by more than half since 1929.
In a country with limited government social services outside the
cities, two million were homeless. The banking system had collapsed
completely. Historians later categorized Roosevelt's program as
"relief, recovery and reform." ^[8]

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. Roosevelt's series of radio speeches, known as Fireside Chats, presented his proposals directly to the American public.

First New Deal, 1933-1934

Roosevelt's "First 100 Days" concentrated on the first part of his strategy: immediate relief. From March 9 to June 16, 1933,
Franklin D. Roosevelt sent Congress a record number of bills, all of
which passed easily. To propose programs, Roosevelt relied on leading
Senators such as George Norris, Robert F. Wagner and Hugo Black, as well as his own Brain Trust
of academic advisers. Like Hoover, he saw the Depression as partly a
matter of confidence, caused in part by people no longer spending or
investing because they were afraid to do so. He therefore set out to
restore confidence through a series of dramatic gestures.

FDR's natural air of confidence and optimism did much to reassure the nation. His inauguration on March 4, 1933,
occurred in the middle of a bank panic, hence the backdrop for his
famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." ^[9]
The very next day he announced a plan to allow banks to reopen, which
they largely did by the end of the month. This was his first proposed
step to recovery.

• Relief measures included the continuation of Hoover's major relief program for the unemployed under the new name, Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The most popular of all New Deal agencies, and Roosevelt's favorite, was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects. Congress also gave the Federal Trade Commission
  broad new regulatory powers and provided mortgage relief to millions of
  farmers and homeowners. Roosevelt expanded reliance on a Hoover agency,
  the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Roosevelt made agriculture relief a high priority and set up the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to take land out of crops and to cut herds.

• Reform of the economy was the goal of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933.
  It tried to end cutthroat competition by forcing industries to come up
  with codes that established the rules of operation for all firms within
  specific industries, such a minimum prices, agreements not to compete,
  and production restrictions. Industry leaders negotiated the codes
  which were then approval by NRA officials. Industry needed to raise
  wages as a condition for approval. Provisions encouraged unions and
  suspended anti-trust laws. The NIRA was found to be unconstitutional by unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 27, 1935.
  Roosevelt opposed the decision, saying "The fundamental purposes and
  principles of the NIRA are sound. To abandon them is unthinkable. It
  would spell the return to industrial and labor chaos."^[10] In 1933 major new banking restrictions were passed and in 1934 the Securities and Exchange Commission was created to regulate Wall Street, with 1932 campaign fund raiser Joseph P. Kennedy in charge.

• Recovery was pursued through "pump-priming" (that is, federal spending). The NIRA included $3.3 billion of spending through the Public Works Administration to stimulate the economy, which was to be handled by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Roosevelt worked with Republican Senator George Norris to create the largest government-owned industrial enterprise in American history, the Tennessee Valley Authority
  (TVA), which built dams and power stations, controlled floods, and
  modernized agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley. The repeal of prohibition also brought in new tax revenues and helped him keep a major campaign promise.

Roosevelt tried to keep his campaign promise by cutting the regular
federal budget, including 40% cuts to veterans' benefits and cuts in
overall military spending. He removed 500,000 veterans and widows from
the pension rolls and slashed benefits for the remainder. Protests
erupted, led by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Roosevelt held his ground, but when the angry veterans formed a coalition with Senator Huey Long
and passed a huge bonus bill over his veto, he was defeated. He
succeeded in cutting federal salaries and the military and naval
budgets. He reduced spending on research and education—there was no New
Deal for science until World War II began.

Second New Deal, 1935-1936

After the 1934 Congressional elections, which gave Roosevelt large
majorities in both houses, there was a fresh surge of New Deal
legislation. These measures included the Works Progress Administration
(WPA) which set up a national relief agency that employed two million
family heads. However, even at the height of WPA employment in 1938,
unemployment was still 12.5% according to figures from Micheal Darby.^[11]The Social Security Act, established Social Security and promised economic security for the elderly, the poor and the sick. Senator Robert Wagner wrote the Wagner Act, which officially became the National Labor Relations Act. The act established the federal rights of workers to organize unions, to engage in collective bargaining, and to take part in strikes.

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,
but it failed to mobilize much grass roots support. By contrast, the
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. ^[12]

Economic environment

See also: Unemployment and the New Deal and Effects of the Great Depression

Government spending increased from 8.0% of gross national product (GNP) under Hoover in 1932 to 10.2% of the GNP in 1936. Because of the depression, the national debt
as a percentage of the GNP had doubled under Hoover from 16% to 33.6%
of the GNP in 1932. While Roosevelt balanced the "regular" budget, the
emergency budget was funded by debt, which increased to 40.9% in 1936,
and then remained level until World War II, at which time it escalated
rapidly. ^[13]

Deficit spending had been recommended by some economists, most notably by John Maynard Keynes of Britain. Some economists in retrospect have argued that the National Labor Relations Act and Agricultural Adjustment Administration were ineffective policies because they relied on price fixing. ^[14]
The GNP was 34% higher in 1936 than in 1932 and 58% higher in 1940 on
the eve of war. That is, the economy grew 58% from 1932 to 1940 in 8
years of peacetime, and then grew 56% from 1940 to 1945 in 5 years of
wartime. However, the economic recovery did not absorb all the
unemployment Roosevelt inherited. In his first term, unemployment fell
by two-thirds from 25% when he took office to 9.1% in 1937 but then
stayed high until it vanished during the war. ^[15]

During the war, the economy operated under such different conditions
that comparison is impossible with peacetime. However, Roosevelt saw
the New Deal policies as central to his legacy, and in his 1944 State
of the Union speech, he advocated that Americans should think of basic
economic rights as a Second Bill of Rights.

The U.S. economy grew rapidly during Roosevelt's term. ^[16] However, coming out of the depression, this growth was accompanied by continuing high levels of unemployment;
as the median joblessness rate during the New Deal was 17.2 percent.
Throughout his entire term, including the war years, average
unemployment was 13%. ^{[17] [18]}
Total employment during Roosevelt's term expanded by 18.31 million
jobs, with an average annual increase in jobs during his administration
of 5.3%. ^[19]

Roosevelt's administration also saw significant changes to the income tax in the American tax system. Just prior to Roosevelt's election in 1932, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1932, increasing the top marginal tax rate
on individual income from 25% to 63% and enacting a wide range of
additional excise taxes. In 1936, the Roosevelt administration added a
higher top rate of 79% on individual income greater than $5 million,
and that rate was increased again in 1939. During World War II, the top
marginal tax rate
was moved up to 91%. More significantly for most Americans, the overall
rate structure was heavily compressed in 1943, with the highest rate
made applicable to individuals with income of $200,000 or more, and
withholding taxes were introduced.^[20]

Famous quotes

• The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country
  demands bold, persistent experimentation. 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.
  

• This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly.

• The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
  abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for
  those who have too little.
  

• The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
  
  
  
  • Letter to all State Governors on a Uniform Soil Conservation Law (26 February 1937)
  
  
  
  

• Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free.
  

• In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
  
  The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.
  
  The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.
  
  The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world
  terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation
  a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.
  
  The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world
  terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in
  such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit
  an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the
  world.
  
  That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

• "[N]o business which depends for existence on paying less than
  living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country."
  


• Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

• It is fun being in the same decade with you. -- to Winston Churchill, 1942

• A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A
  conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has
  never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking
  backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the
  behest of his head.

• It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.

• A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself
  and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the
  competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things
  in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be
  done.

• A nation that destroys it's soils destroys itself. Forests are the
  lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our
  people.

• Are you laboring under the impression that I read these memoranda of yours? I can't even lift them.

• Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of
  obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance.
  Without them it cannot live.

• Favor comes because for a brief moment in the great space of human
  change and progress some general human purpose finds in him a
  satisfactory embodiment.

• Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

• Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

• Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber
  of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

• I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

• I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.

• I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.

• I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

• If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of
  human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live
  together, in the same world at peace.

• If you treat people right they will treat you right... ninety percent of the time.

• In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down.

• In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

• It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

• 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.

• Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien
  power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President
  and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters
  of this country.

• Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

• Any nation seeking to resist tyranny and build democracy need only 'Look to Norway'.

• Many who have visited me in Washington in the past few months may
  have been surprised when I have told them that personally and because
  of my own daily contacts with all manner of difficult situations I am
  more concerned and less cheerful about international world conditions
  than about our immediate domestic prospects.
  
  I say this to you not as a confirmed pessimist but as one who still
  hopes that envy, hatred and malice among Nations have reached their
  peak and will be succeeded by a new tide of peace and good-will.

• We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate
  ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war
  exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation which
  most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.

• I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have
  seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their
  gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities
  destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of
  line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward
  forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen
  the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

• I wish I could keep war from all Nations; but that is beyond my
  power. I can at least make certain that no act of the United States
  helps to produce or to promote war. I can at least make clear that
  the conscience of America revolts against war and that any Nation which
  provokes war forfeits the sympathy of the people of the United States.

• Many causes produce war. There are ancient hatreds, turbulent
  frontiers, the "legacy of old forgotten, far-off things, and battles
  long ago." There are new-born fanaticisms. Convictions on the part of
  certain peoples that they have become the unique depositories of
  ultimate truth and right.

• A dark old world was devastated by wars between conflicting
  religions. A dark modern world faces wars between conflicting economic
  and political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds.

Roosevelt is generally considered a great president. A 1999 survey of academic historians by CSPAN found that historians consider Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Roosevelt the three greatest presidents by a wide margin, and other surveys are consistent.^[32] Roosevelt is the sixth most admired person in the 20th century, according to Gallup, though this "very high rating would have appalled many of the contemporaries."^[33]

Both during and after his terms, critics of Roosevelt questioned not only his policies and positions,
but also the consolidation of power that occurred because of his
lengthy tenure as President, his service during two major crises, and
his enormous popularity. The rapid expansion of government programs
that occurred during Roosevelt's term redefined the role the government
in the United States, and Roosevelt's advocacy of government social
programs was instrumental in redefining liberalism for coming generations.^[34]

Roosevelt firmly established the United States' leadership role on the world stage, with pronouncements such as his Four freedoms speech forming a basis for the active role of the United States in the Cold War
and beyond. The decisions made at the Yalta Conference established
international alliances and boundaries that continue to affect world
diplomacy today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's record on civil rights
has been the subject of much controversy. Roosevelt needed the support
of Southern Democrats for his New Deal programs, and taking an
aggressive position on civil rights
could have threatened his ability to pass his highest priority
programs. In addition, Roosevelt participated in the internment of
Japanese-Americans during World War II and has been charged with not
acting quickly or decisively enough to prevent or stop the Holocaust.

After his death, Eleanor Roosevelt continued to be a forceful presence in American and world politics, serving as ambassador
to the United Nations and championing civil rights. Many members of his
administration played leading roles in the administrations of Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, each of whom embraced Roosevelt's political legacy.^{[citation needed]}

Roosevelt's home in Hyde Park is now a National historic site and home to his Presidential library. His retreat at Warm Springs, Georgia is a museum operated by the state of Georgia. The Roosevelt memorial has been established in Washington, D.C. next to the Jefferson Memorial on the Tidal Basin, and his image appears on the Roosevelt dime. Many parks, schools, roads, an aircraft carrier and a Paris Metro stop have been named in his honor.