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FDR and his presidency

FDR and his presidency The importance of Franklin Delano Rossevelt's presidency can be witnessed from many different fields. Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Despite an attack of poliomyelitis, which paralyzed his legs in 1921, he was a charismatic optimist whose confidence helped sustain the American people during the strains of economic crisis and world war. "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people," said Franklin Roosevelt. With that he was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The most important reform was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), instituted in 1933. This public corporation built multipurpose dams to control floods and generate cheap hydroelectric power. It manufactured fertilizer, fostered soil conservation, and cooperated with local agencies in social experiments. The TVA reflected Roosevelt's commitment to resource development and his longstanding mistrust of private utilities. At first, his legislative requests were conservative. He began by securing passage of an emergency banking bill. Instead of nationalizing the banks--as a few reformers wished--it offered aid to private bankers. A few days later the president forced through an Economy Act that cut $400 million from government payments to veterans and $100 million from the salaries of federal employees. This deflationary measure hurt purchasing power. FDR concluded his early program by securing legalization of beer of 3.2% alcoholic content by weight. By the end of 1933, ratification of the 21st Amendment to the U. S. Constitution had ended prohibition altogether. A series of measures took the nation off the gold standard, thereby offering some assistance to debtors and exporters. He also got Congress to appropriate $500 million in federal relief grants to states and local agencies. Harry Hopkins, who headed the newly created Federal Emergency Relief Administration, quickly spent the money. By early 1935 he had supervised the outlay of $1.5 billion more in direct grants, and in work relief under the Civil Works Administration (CWA) of 1933-1934. The early New Deal also sponsored reform measures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) came primarily from congressional initiative. By insuring deposits, it helped to prevent ruinous runs on banks. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), created in 1934, made a cautious beginning toward regulation of the stock exchanges. Roosevelt worked successfully for three significant acts passed in 1935. One, a relief appropriation, led to creation of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA disbursed some $11 billion in work relief to as many as 3.2 million Americans a month between 1935 and 1942. The second measure, the Wagner Act, set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which effectively guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with management. In part because of the Wagner Act, in part because of overdue militance by spokesmen for industrial unionism, the labor movement swelled in the 1930's and 1940's. The third reform was social security. The law provided for federal payment of old-age pensions and for federal-state cooperation in support of unemployment compensation and relief of the needy blind, of the disabled, and of dependent children. The act, though faulty in many ways, became the foundation of a partial welfare state with which later administrations dared not tamper. F.D.R.'s education in foreign affairs had been at the hands of two Presidents he greatly admired. Theodore Roosevelt, his kinsman (a fifth cousin), taught him national-interest, balance-of-power geopolitics. Woodrow Wilson, whom he served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, gave him the vision of a world beyond balances of power, an international order founded on the collective maintenance of the peace. F.D.R.'s internationalism used T.R.'s realism as the heart of Wilson's idealism. Cordell Hull of Tennessee served as secretary of state from 1933 to 1944, but Roosevelt's desire to engage in personal diplomacy left Hull in a reduced role. In 1933 the president's "bombshell message" to the London Economic Conference, saying that the United States would not participate in international currency stabilization, ended any immediate hope of achieving that objective. In the same year he extended diplomatic recognition to the USSR, still a relative outcast in world diplomacy. However, Roosevelt and Hull worked smoothly in behalf of reciprocal trade agreements and in making the United States the "good neighbor" of the Latin American. Surprisingly, it was not until the eruption of war in Europe that America fully recovered from the depression. Even in 1939 there were still some nine million unemployed in the United States. While Roosevelt's programs kept America afloat during the depression, it still took a major event, like a war, to completely void the effects of the Great Depression After having been safely reelected once again, Roosevelt called for "lend-lease" aid to the anti-German allies. This aid, approved by Congress, greatly increased the flow of supplies to Britain. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, lend-lease went to the Russians as well. Similar practical considerations dictated some of Roosevelt's diplomatic policies during the war. Cautious of provoking the British, he refrained from acting effectively against colonialism. Embarrassed by the delay in the second front--and anxious to secure Russian assistance against Japan--he acquiesced at the Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945) summit conferences in some of Russia's aims in Asia and eastern Europe. In his dealings with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, Roosevelt also showed an exaggerated faith in the power of his personal charm. The joviality and exuberance that had soothed ruffled congressmen and bureaucrats during the early New Deal days were not so well suited for international politics. In the larger sense Roosevelt's diplomacy, like his military policies, was statesmanlike. Despite occasional strains, the awkward wartime coalition among Russia, Britain, and the United States held together. Roosevelt was also wise in recognizing the futility of trying to stop Russian penetration of Eastern Europe, which Soviet armies had overrun by early 1944. Accordingly, he sought to avoid unnecessary bickering with Stalin. Had FDR lived into the postwar era, he could not have prevented divisions from developing between Russia and the United States. But he might have worked harder than did his successors in compromising them. As a war leader, F.D.R. picked an extraordinary team of generals and admirals. In partnership with Churchill, he presided over the vital strategic decisions. And also, in the footsteps of Wilson, he was determined that victory should produce a framework for lasting world peace. Roosevelt's military policies also provoked controversy. In 1941 critics blamed him for leaving Pearl Harbor unprepared. Extremists even claimed that he invited the Japanese attack in order to have a pretext for war. In 1943, FDR's opponents grumbled that his policy of unconditional surrender for the enemy discouraged the anti-Hitler resistance within Germany. Other critics complained that he relied too heavily on strategic bombing. His own generals were angry because he postponed the "second front" against Hitler until June 1944. Such delay, critics added later, infuriated the Soviet Union, which had to carry the brunt of the fighting against Hitler between 1941 and 1944, and sowed the seeds of the Cold War. In running the war effort Roosevelt encountered almost endless difficulties on the domestic front. Congress dismantled New Deal agencies such as the WPA and blocked such liberal proposals as aid to education and health insurance. Blacks, angry at continuing racial injustice, threatened to march on Washington in 1941. Fearful of racial disorder, Roosevelt responded by signing an executive order setting up a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to prevent discrimination in defense-related employment. Though the order was his most important action on behalf of civil rights, the FEPC did not have much power, and racial tension mounted throughout the war. Industrial controversies proved equally troublesome for the president. In order to encourage cooperation from corporate interests, Roosevelt brought business leaders into policy-making positions, offered corporations generous contracts and tax breaks, and downgraded progressive domestic reforms. Furious liberals protested against this growing power of big business. Other critics complained that Roosevelt refused to delegate authority over mobilization to a "czar" who would have power to establish priorities for production. The lack of centralized authority caused confusion, bureaucratic conflict, and delays in output. The difference between Roosevelt and many of the presidents that preceded him are many. He came into leadership in a time when his predecessor, Hoover, was unable to end the depression. He, more so than many of our leaders was charged with fixing capitalism. And, unlike past presidents, including Wilson, FDR had the responsibility of dealing with not one, but two of the most influential eras in the 20th century. His policies and acts are still felt today, some fifty years later. More so than Taft, or Hoover, or even Theodore Roosevelt; FDR left a lasting effect on American politics, finances, military, and employment. FDR was also the first president to have a first lady who could have been a capable politician in her own right. Eleanor Roosevelt shattered the ceremonial mold in which the role of the First Lady had traditionally been fashioned, and reshaped it around her own skills and her deep commitment to social reform. She gave a voice to people who did not have access to power. She was the first woman to speak in front of a national convention, to write a syndicated column, to earn money as a lecturer, to be a radio commentator and to hold regular press conferences. In conclusion, Franklin Roosevelt was one of America's most controversial leaders. Conservatives claimed that he undermined states' rights and individual liberty. Leftists found him timid and conventional in attacking the Depression. Others thought him devious and inconsistent and uninformed about economics. Some of these claims were well founded. Though Roosevelt labored hard to end the Depression, he had limited success. It was not until 1939 and 1940, with the onset of heavy defense spending before World War II, that prosperity returned. Roosevelt also displayed limitations in his handling of foreign policy. In the 1930's he was slow to warn against the menace of fascism, and during the war he relied too heavily on his charm and personality in the conduct of diplomacy. Still, Roosevelt's historical reputation is deservedly high. In attacking the Great Depression he did much to develop a partial welfare state in the United States and to make the federal government an agent of social and economic reform. His administration indirectly encouraged the rise of organized labor and greatly invigorated the Democratic party. His foreign policies, while occasionally devious, were shrewd enough to sustain domestic unity and the allied coalition in World War II. Roosevelt was a president of stature. These early measures displayed Roosevelt's strengths and weaknesses as an economic thinker. On the one hand, he showed that he was flexible, that he would act, and that he would use all his executive powers to secure congressional cooperation. Frequent press conferences, speeches, and fireside chats--and the extraordinary charisma that he displayed on all occasions--instilled a measure of confidence in the people and halted the terrifying slide of 1932 and 1933. These were important achievements that brought him and his party the gratitude of millions of Americans. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1943