Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 - April 12, 1945), often referred to as FDR, was the 32nd (1933-1945) President of the United States. He was elected to an unprecedented four terms of office - the only U.S. president elected more than twice, and part of the reason the United States Constitution was amended to prevent Presidents from being elected after having served two terms. His main contributions were the instituting of major economic and social assistance programs in response to the Great Depression, leading the country through a successful involvement in World War II, and the formation of the United Nations.
He suffered from polio at the age of 39, which left him with severe difficulty in moving his legs. He often used a wheelchair, but took efforts to hide this disability throughout his life. In fact, there are only two known photographs of Roosevelt in his wheelchair. When a statue of Roosevelt sitting in a wheelchair was commissioned in Washington, DC in 2001, some criticized this as unnecessary political correctness.
From the age of one, through until 1936, Roosevelt spent his summers at Campobello Island, New Brunswick but because of his worsening polio, in later years he had to spend much of his time in Warm Springs, whose namesake warm springs provided him and others relief from their symptoms, and where he built the Little White House, now a Georgia state historic site. [1] He also created the town's Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation, which continues to help others with disabilities to this day. [1]
In reference to the Great Depression, Roosevelt proclaimed "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" in his inauguration speech on (March 4, 1933). Roosevelt's first weeks in office were called The Hundred Days, as during the first part of his administration he authored and approved a flurry of Congressional acts to institute immediate change and keep the nation's economy from destabilizing. He insituted a four-day "banking holiday" two days after he took office: a four-day period in which all banks in the country closed, allowing the institutions a brief period to recover and reorganize. During this time of crisis Roosevelt addressed the nation for the first time as President on March 12, 1933 in the first of many "Fireside Chats."
In 1935-1936, the Supreme Court, which was dominated by conservatives with a narrow view of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, the basis of much New Deal legislation, struck down eight of FDR's New Deal programs.
In response Roosevelt submitted to Congress in February of 1937 a plan for "judicial reform," which proposed adding a justice for every justice over the age of 70 who refused to retire, up to a maximum of 15 total. This came to be known as his attempt to "pack" the Court. Though the plan failed in Congress, as a threat to the Court it may have had its desired effect. In a move cynically referred to as "the switch in time that saved nine," one of the conservative justices, Owen Roberts, inexplicably shifted his vote in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, changing the ideological balance of the Court. It wasn't long before time allowed Roosevelt to further have his way on the bench, as vacancies allowed Roosevelt to eventually fill all nine seats with his appointments--the most of any presidency except George Washington's.
Also in 1937, Roosevelt delivered "The Quarantine Speech" in Chicago. In it he compared the outbreak of international violence to that of a communicable disease needing to be quarantined. This speech began debates over just how much the United States should be concerned with international diplomacy. News media responded that the speech represented "an attitude and not a program".
Roosevelt would go on to defeat Garner for his party's nomination, then defeated Republican nomineeWendell L. Willkie in a landslide to win an unprecedented third term. Joining him as Vice President to replace Garner was Henry Agard Wallace.
Roosevelt said that he would not send American boys to fight in foreign wars. However, in 1941 the conflicting interests of Japan and the United States in Asia and the Pacific, especially in China, resulted in a breakdown of diplomatic relations to the point where war seemed inevitable (see entry for Hull note). Some have suggested Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and welcomed it as a way to get the U.S. into World War II. Others point out, that while U.S. code-breakers had broken Japanese codes in Washington, D.C and knew something was about to happen, communication delays prevented the messages from getting to Pearl Harbor until 4 hours after the attack. At best though the conspiracies can only claim that FDR knew an attack by the Japanese was going to happen some where in the Pacific not that it was going to take place at Pearl Harbor.
On May 18, 1942, Roosevelt wrote a private letter to William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, in which he discusses that the USA and Canada agree on an unwritten plan aiming to disperse French-Canadians in order to assimilate them more quickly.
In hindsight, perhaps the most controversial decision Roosevelt made was Executive Order 9066 which resulted in the internment in concentration camps of 110,000 Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent on the West Coast. Considered a major violation of civil liberties, it was even opposed at the time by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (who may have done it out of malice for FDR), Eleanor Roosevelt as well as many other groups. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Executive Order. Others have criticised him for failing to do anything to disrupt the Nazi operations in perpetrating the Holocaust despite having intelligence of the atrocity.
Roosevelt was the first President to regularly address the American public through the medium of radio. He instituted a tradition of weekly radio speeches, which he called "fireside chats." These "chats" gave him the opportunity to take his opinions to the American people, and they often bolstered his popularity as he campaigned for various changes. During World War II the fireside chats were seen as important morale boosters for Americans at home.
One speech he is famous for delivering was his State of the Union Address in 1941. This speech is also known as the Four Freedoms Speech. His address to Congress and the nation on December 8, 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor entered history with the phrase, "December Seventh, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy."
Though seen by many in the Democratic Party to already be physically ailing to a point where it was unclear if he could serve another four year term, there was little question that, in time of war, "FDR" would be the party's candidate for a fourth term in the 1944 elections.
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