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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (/ˈroʊzəvəlt/,[1] /-vɛlt/;[2] January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System and defined American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II. He is often rated by scholars as one of the three greatest U.S. presidents, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, to a Dutch American family made well known by Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States and William Henry Aspinwall. FDR attended Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School, and went on to practice law in New York City. In 1905, he married his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt. They had six children. He won election to the New York State Senate in 1910, and then served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic Party's 1920 national ticket, but Cox was defeated by Warren G. Harding. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness, believed at the time to be polio, and his legs became permanently paralyzed. While attempting to recover from his condition, Roosevelt founded the treatment center in Warm Springs, Georgia, for people with poliomyelitis. In spite of being unable to walk unaided, Roosevelt returned to public office by winning election as Governor of New York in 1928. He was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform Governor, promoting programs to combat the economic crisis besetting the United States at the time.
In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide. Roosevelt took office while the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the country's history. During the first 100 days of the 73rd United States Congress, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief, recovery, and reform. He created numerous programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He harnessed radio to speak directly to the American people, giving 30 "fireside chat" radio addresses during his presidency and becoming the first American president to be televised. The economy having improved rapidly from 1933 to 1936, Roosevelt won a landslide reelection in 1936. However, the economy then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937 and 1938. After the 1936 election, Roosevelt sought passage of the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 (the "court packing plan"), which would have expanded the size of the Supreme Court of the United States. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented passage of the bill and blocked the implementation of further New Deal programs and reforms. Major surviving programs and legislation implemented under Roosevelt include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Social Security.
Roosevelt ran successfully for reelection in 1940. His victory made him the only U.S. President to serve for more than two terms. With World War II looming after 1938, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China as well as the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union while the U.S. remained officially neutral. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, an event he famously called "a date which will live in infamy", Roosevelt obtained a declaration of war on Japan the next day, and a few days later, on Germany and Italy. Assisted by his top aide Harry Hopkins and with very strong national support, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in leading the Allies against the Axis Powers. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the war effort and implemented a Europe first strategy, making the defeat of Germany a priority over that of Japan. He also initiated the development of the world's first atomic bomb and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations and other post-war institutions. Roosevelt won reelection in 1944 but with his physical health declining during the war years, he died in April 1945, just 11 weeks into his fourth term. The Axis Powers surrendered to the Allies in the months following Roosevelt's death, during the presidency of Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman.
Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, to a Dutch American family made well known by Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States and William Henry Aspinwall. FDR attended Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School, and went on to practice law in New York City. In 1905, he married his fifth cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt. They had six children. He won election to the New York State Senate in 1910, and then served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic Party's 1920 national ticket, but Cox was defeated by Warren G. Harding. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness, believed at the time to be polio, and his legs became permanently paralyzed. While attempting to recover from his condition, Roosevelt founded the treatment center in Warm Springs, Georgia, for people with poliomyelitis. In spite of being unable to walk unaided, Roosevelt returned to public office by winning election as Governor of New York in 1928. He was in office from 1929 to 1933 and served as a reform Governor, promoting programs to combat the economic crisis besetting the United States at the time.
In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide. Roosevelt took office while the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in the country's history. During the first 100 days of the 73rd United States Congress, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief, recovery, and reform. He created numerous programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He harnessed radio to speak directly to the American people, giving 30 "fireside chat" radio addresses during his presidency and becoming the first American president to be televised. The economy having improved rapidly from 1933 to 1936, Roosevelt won a landslide reelection in 1936. However, the economy then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937 and 1938. After the 1936 election, Roosevelt sought passage of the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 (the "court packing plan"), which would have expanded the size of the Supreme Court of the United States. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented passage of the bill and blocked the implementation of further New Deal programs and reforms. Major surviving programs and legislation implemented under Roosevelt include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Social Security.
Roosevelt ran successfully for reelection in 1940. His victory made him the only U.S. President to serve for more than two terms. With World War II looming after 1938, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China as well as the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union while the U.S. remained officially neutral. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, an event he famously called "a date which will live in infamy", Roosevelt obtained a declaration of war on Japan the next day, and a few days later, on Germany and Italy. Assisted by his top aide Harry Hopkins and with very strong national support, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in leading the Allies against the Axis Powers. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the war effort and implemented a Europe first strategy, making the defeat of Germany a priority over that of Japan. He also initiated the development of the world's first atomic bomb and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations and other post-war institutions. Roosevelt won reelection in 1944 but with his physical health declining during the war years, he died in April 1945, just 11 weeks into his fourth term. The Axis Powers surrendered to the Allies in the months following Roosevelt's death, during the presidency of Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - Wikipedia
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FDR: A Presidency Revealed examines one of history's most compelling figures. Inspired by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to the natio...
Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that January 30 is the anniversary of the birth of American democrat statesman and political leader Franklin Delano Roosevelt who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. This democratic President leveraged the great depression to super-size the role of the Federal government as supposed savior of the people of this nation.
During FDR's time, the press could keep secrets - FRD's polio was one such secret.
The creation of social security was an oxymoron as it was never secured with funding and the FICA taxes which are spent each year while other funding being used to pay social security beneficiaries that survive until they die [assuming they have 40 good quarters of earnings]
Rest in peace Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Images:
1. Statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt with his dog, Fala, at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C
2. Section of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C.
3. Images of FDR
4. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR Volume 1
FDR: A Presidency Revealed examines one of history's most compelling figures. Inspired by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to the nation's highest office during the depths of one of its darkest periods - and after being stricken with polio at the age of 39! A man of few words, he brought a desperate nation together through Fireside Chats and sweeping reforms like Social Security and the New Deal. Greater still, he lead America through the greatest war the world had ever known, and set international policy for a new global order. At the same time, his administration hid a dark underbelly teeming with covert actions, spy rings, and powerful enemies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xW4QqeHGlI
Background from whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/franklin-d-roosevelt/
"Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression as our 32nd President (1933-1945), Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves.
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.”
Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York–now a national historic site–he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.
Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.
In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as “the Happy Warrior.” In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.
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.
By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt’s New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.
In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy.
Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the “good neighbor” policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation’s manpower and resources for global war.
Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.
As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt’s health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage."
FYI Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen PO1 H Gene Lawrence CPT Scott Sharon SSG William Jones SP5 Mark Kuzinski Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL LTC Greg Henning PO3 Bob McCord SGT (Join to see) CPT (Join to see) LTC (Join to see) LTC Wayne Brandon Col Carl Whicker MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi PO3 Steven Sherrill PO3 (Join to see)
During FDR's time, the press could keep secrets - FRD's polio was one such secret.
The creation of social security was an oxymoron as it was never secured with funding and the FICA taxes which are spent each year while other funding being used to pay social security beneficiaries that survive until they die [assuming they have 40 good quarters of earnings]
Rest in peace Franklin Delano Roosevelt!
Images:
1. Statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt with his dog, Fala, at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C
2. Section of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C.
3. Images of FDR
4. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR Volume 1
FDR: A Presidency Revealed examines one of history's most compelling figures. Inspired by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to the nation's highest office during the depths of one of its darkest periods - and after being stricken with polio at the age of 39! A man of few words, he brought a desperate nation together through Fireside Chats and sweeping reforms like Social Security and the New Deal. Greater still, he lead America through the greatest war the world had ever known, and set international policy for a new global order. At the same time, his administration hid a dark underbelly teeming with covert actions, spy rings, and powerful enemies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xW4QqeHGlI
Background from whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/franklin-d-roosevelt/
"Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression as our 32nd President (1933-1945), Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves.
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.”
Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York–now a national historic site–he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.
Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.
In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as “the Happy Warrior.” In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.
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.
By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt’s New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.
In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy.
Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the “good neighbor” policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation’s manpower and resources for global war.
Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.
As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt’s health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage."
FYI Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen PO1 H Gene Lawrence CPT Scott Sharon SSG William Jones SP5 Mark Kuzinski Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. 'Bill' Price SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL LTC Greg Henning PO3 Bob McCord SGT (Join to see) CPT (Join to see) LTC (Join to see) LTC Wayne Brandon Col Carl Whicker MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi PO3 Steven Sherrill PO3 (Join to see)
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LTC Stephen F.
FDR Volume 2 Title3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prplRbu2IiY
Images:
1. Franklin and his fifth cousin Eleanor Roosevelt on their wedding day. March 17, 1905
2. Franklin Roosevelt with his mother Sara in 1887.
3. Franklin Roosevelt Campaign Train, 1932
4. Franklin Roosevelt’s burial at his estate in Hyde Park, New York.
5. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's long-time mistress Lucy Mercer, in about 1913 - she was Eleanor's press secretary until Eleanor discovered the affair
Background from {[https://www.legendsofamerica.com/president-franklin-roosevelt/]}
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was a Democratic statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history.
Franklin Roosevelt was born on his family’s estate on the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York on January 30, 1882, to businessman James Roosevelt and his second wife, Sara Delano Roosevelt. Both of his parents came from wealthy old New York families who were well-educated and prominent members of New York society. Franklin’s father purchased the 110-acre estate in 1867 and named it Springwood. Young Franklin would spend much of his life on the estate and would eventually be buried there. It is a National Historic Site today.
The only child from his father’s second marriage to Sara Delano, young Franklin was doted on by his mother and lived a privileged life. In addition to their estate in Hyde Park, the Roosevelts also had a house in New York City and summered on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada. As a young boy, Franklin made frequent trips to Europe and became fluent in German and French. As a youth, he learned to ride, shoot, row, and play polo, lawn tennis, and golf. He learned to sail and when he was just 16 years old and his father gave him a sailboat.
His parents and private tutors provided him with his early education, some of which took place in Germany at the age of nine. From 1896 to 1900, he attended Groton School, a prestigious preparatory school in Groton, Massachusetts and afterward, received a BA degree in history from Harvard in 1903.
In the meantime, Franklin’s father died in 1900 and his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1901. Theodore’s vigorous leadership style and ambitious reforms made him Franklin’s role model and hero.
On March 17, 1905, Franklin married his fifth cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, who he had been courting since 1902. Eleanor was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt and the pair had known each since childhood. The couple married in New York City and Eleanor’s uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, stood in at the wedding for Eleanor’s deceased father. Franklin’s mother, Sara, who was very possessive of her son, fiercely resisted the marriage, because she thought Franklin was too young. However, she did not dislike Eleanor, and when the marriage took place in spite of her feelings, she invited the couple to live with her on the Springwood estate in Hyde Park. Sara also built a pair of townhouses in New York City, one for Franklin and Eleanor, and another next door, for herself. Franklin and Eleanor would eventually have six children, five of whom survived infancy.
The same year he was married, Franklin entered New York’s Columbia University to study law. After passing the bar examination in 1907, he left school without taking a degree. Afterward, he practiced law with a prominent New York City law firm for three years.
In 1910, he entered politics and was elected to the New York State Senate as a Democrat in 1912. After supporting Woodrow Wilson’s candidacy, he was appointed the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, a position he held until 1920. After doing well in this position, he was nominated for vice-president by the Democratic Party in 1920 on a ticket headed by James M. Cox of Ohio. However, Cox lost to Republican Warren Harding and Roosevelt returned to private life.
While vacationing in New Brunswick, Canada in the summer of 1921, Roosevelt contracted polio and was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He then sought refuge at Springwood, where his strength slowly returned. After much rehabilitation and with the encouragement and help of his wife, Eleanor, and other leaders, he soon resumed his political career. In 1928, he was elected the governor of New York.
In the meantime, the Great Depression had begun and Roosevelt made bold efforts to combat it in New York, enhancing his reputation. He soon began to campaign for the presidency and in 1932, he won the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for president. He campaigned energetically calling for government intervention in the economy to provide relief, recovery, and reform. His activist approach and personal charm helped to defeat Herbert Hoover in November 1932 by seven million votes. This would be the first of four terms in which Roosevelt would serve.
Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office on March 4, 1933. During the four months between Roosevelt’s election and his inauguration, the Depression worsened. By that time, there were 13,000,000 unemployed and almost every bank was closed. Of those that remained open, withdrawals were restricted. Farm income had fallen by over 50% and an estimated 844,000 non-farm mortgages had been foreclosed on. Industrial production had plummeted and the pace of factory closings accelerated. Roosevelt faced the greatest crisis in American history since the Civil War.
In his first “hundred days,” he proposed, and Congress enacted, his New Deal programs to alleviate the suffering of the nation’s huge number of unemployed workers, bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, change to the financial system, and other reforms to propel the nation out of its Depression. Within a very short time, banks reopened and direct relief saved millions of people from starvation.
The New Deal program was based on “socialistic” tendencies that the power of the federal government was needed to get the country out of the Depression. Although public support was widespread, not everyone agreed with Roosevelt’s agenda, arguing that the federal government had no place spending millions on public works, going into debt, and regulating business and industry. Others thought that the New Deal did not go far enough and that the federal government should take over the banks and industry. Roosevelt responded with new programs of reform including Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.
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.
By 1939, World War II had broken out in Europe and Roosevelt was concentrating increasingly on foreign affairs. At this time, New Deal reform legislation diminished, though the ill effects of the Depression would not fully abate until the nation mobilized for war. In the early years of the war, the United States remained neutral, though aid was provided to Britain, France, and China. However, when France fell in 1940, Roosevelt’s policy changed dramatically and Congress enacted a draft for military service.
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, changed everything. The very next day, Congress declared war against Japan. Three days later Germany and Italy declared war against the United States; and Congress, voting unanimously, reciprocated. This brought the nation fully into the global struggle.
During the war, priority was given to the western European front and by April 1945 victory in Europe was certain. The war officially ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
But, by that time President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be dead. The unending stress and strain of the war had literally worn him out.
In early 1944 a full medical examination disclosed that Roosevelt had serious heart and circulatory problems and he was placed on a strict regime of diet and medication. Roosevelt, a chain-smoker throughout his entire adult life, had been in declining physical health since at least 1940.
In March 1944, he underwent further testing and was found to have high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, and congestive heart failure. Hospital physicians, specialists and his own doctor ordered Roosevelt to rest and changes to his schedule were made to accommodate this. However, his declining physical health was kept secret and Roosevelt made it clear that he was seeking another term. When it was time for the 1944 Democratic National Convention and re-election campaign, his personal doctor declared that “The President’s health is perfectly OK. There are absolutely no organic difficulties at all.” When it came time for the election in November 1944, Roosevelt and his vice-presidential running mate, Harry S. Truman, won by a comfortable margin.
Within months of his election to a fourth term, Roosevelt was looking old, thin and frail. On March 29, 1945, he traveled to the Little White House, a personal retreat of his located in Warm Springs, Georgia. On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, “I have a terrific headache” before slumping forward in his chair, unconscious. He was then carried to his room and his attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed the medical emergency as a massive stroke. He died just two and one-half hours later without regaining consciousness. He was 63 years old and just three months into his fourth term.
His death was met with shock and grief across the United States and around the world. The next day, his body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train for the trip back to Washington, D.C. Along the route, thousands flocked to the tracks to pay their respects. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported by train to his estate at Hyde Park, New York where he was buried in the Rose Garden on April 15.
Roosevelt’s son Elliott also claimed that his father had a 20-year affair with his private secretary, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand. Another son, James, stated that “there is a real possibility that a romantic relationship existed” between his father and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, who resided in the White House during part of World War II. At that time, aides referred to her as “the president’s girlfriend” and gossip linking the two romantically appeared in the newspapers.
The Springwood family estate in Hyde Park, New York, where Roosevelt was born and was buried, was given to the United States. Today, it is a National Historic Site, which remains largely unchanged since his death. The house is still full of his personality including his boyhood collection of stuffed birds.
By Kathy Weiser-Alexander, February 2019.
FYI SSG Stephen RogersonLTC Stephan PorterSSG Michael NollSFC (Join to see)CPT (Join to see)CPT Paul Whitmer1SG Steven ImermanSSG Samuel KermonSFC Richard WilliamsonSGT Steve McFarland MSG Andrew White Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MSG (Join to see)CWO3 Dennis M. SFC William Farrell SP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-Cwik TSgt David L.SPC Margaret HigginsSGT (Join to see)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prplRbu2IiY
Images:
1. Franklin and his fifth cousin Eleanor Roosevelt on their wedding day. March 17, 1905
2. Franklin Roosevelt with his mother Sara in 1887.
3. Franklin Roosevelt Campaign Train, 1932
4. Franklin Roosevelt’s burial at his estate in Hyde Park, New York.
5. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's long-time mistress Lucy Mercer, in about 1913 - she was Eleanor's press secretary until Eleanor discovered the affair
Background from {[https://www.legendsofamerica.com/president-franklin-roosevelt/]}
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, often referred to by his initials FDR, was a Democratic statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history.
Franklin Roosevelt was born on his family’s estate on the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York on January 30, 1882, to businessman James Roosevelt and his second wife, Sara Delano Roosevelt. Both of his parents came from wealthy old New York families who were well-educated and prominent members of New York society. Franklin’s father purchased the 110-acre estate in 1867 and named it Springwood. Young Franklin would spend much of his life on the estate and would eventually be buried there. It is a National Historic Site today.
The only child from his father’s second marriage to Sara Delano, young Franklin was doted on by his mother and lived a privileged life. In addition to their estate in Hyde Park, the Roosevelts also had a house in New York City and summered on Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada. As a young boy, Franklin made frequent trips to Europe and became fluent in German and French. As a youth, he learned to ride, shoot, row, and play polo, lawn tennis, and golf. He learned to sail and when he was just 16 years old and his father gave him a sailboat.
His parents and private tutors provided him with his early education, some of which took place in Germany at the age of nine. From 1896 to 1900, he attended Groton School, a prestigious preparatory school in Groton, Massachusetts and afterward, received a BA degree in history from Harvard in 1903.
In the meantime, Franklin’s father died in 1900 and his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States in 1901. Theodore’s vigorous leadership style and ambitious reforms made him Franklin’s role model and hero.
On March 17, 1905, Franklin married his fifth cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, who he had been courting since 1902. Eleanor was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt and the pair had known each since childhood. The couple married in New York City and Eleanor’s uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, stood in at the wedding for Eleanor’s deceased father. Franklin’s mother, Sara, who was very possessive of her son, fiercely resisted the marriage, because she thought Franklin was too young. However, she did not dislike Eleanor, and when the marriage took place in spite of her feelings, she invited the couple to live with her on the Springwood estate in Hyde Park. Sara also built a pair of townhouses in New York City, one for Franklin and Eleanor, and another next door, for herself. Franklin and Eleanor would eventually have six children, five of whom survived infancy.
The same year he was married, Franklin entered New York’s Columbia University to study law. After passing the bar examination in 1907, he left school without taking a degree. Afterward, he practiced law with a prominent New York City law firm for three years.
In 1910, he entered politics and was elected to the New York State Senate as a Democrat in 1912. After supporting Woodrow Wilson’s candidacy, he was appointed the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913, a position he held until 1920. After doing well in this position, he was nominated for vice-president by the Democratic Party in 1920 on a ticket headed by James M. Cox of Ohio. However, Cox lost to Republican Warren Harding and Roosevelt returned to private life.
While vacationing in New Brunswick, Canada in the summer of 1921, Roosevelt contracted polio and was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He then sought refuge at Springwood, where his strength slowly returned. After much rehabilitation and with the encouragement and help of his wife, Eleanor, and other leaders, he soon resumed his political career. In 1928, he was elected the governor of New York.
In the meantime, the Great Depression had begun and Roosevelt made bold efforts to combat it in New York, enhancing his reputation. He soon began to campaign for the presidency and in 1932, he won the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate for president. He campaigned energetically calling for government intervention in the economy to provide relief, recovery, and reform. His activist approach and personal charm helped to defeat Herbert Hoover in November 1932 by seven million votes. This would be the first of four terms in which Roosevelt would serve.
Franklin Roosevelt took the oath of office on March 4, 1933. During the four months between Roosevelt’s election and his inauguration, the Depression worsened. By that time, there were 13,000,000 unemployed and almost every bank was closed. Of those that remained open, withdrawals were restricted. Farm income had fallen by over 50% and an estimated 844,000 non-farm mortgages had been foreclosed on. Industrial production had plummeted and the pace of factory closings accelerated. Roosevelt faced the greatest crisis in American history since the Civil War.
In his first “hundred days,” he proposed, and Congress enacted, his New Deal programs to alleviate the suffering of the nation’s huge number of unemployed workers, bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, change to the financial system, and other reforms to propel the nation out of its Depression. Within a very short time, banks reopened and direct relief saved millions of people from starvation.
The New Deal program was based on “socialistic” tendencies that the power of the federal government was needed to get the country out of the Depression. Although public support was widespread, not everyone agreed with Roosevelt’s agenda, arguing that the federal government had no place spending millions on public works, going into debt, and regulating business and industry. Others thought that the New Deal did not go far enough and that the federal government should take over the banks and industry. Roosevelt responded with new programs of reform including Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.
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.
By 1939, World War II had broken out in Europe and Roosevelt was concentrating increasingly on foreign affairs. At this time, New Deal reform legislation diminished, though the ill effects of the Depression would not fully abate until the nation mobilized for war. In the early years of the war, the United States remained neutral, though aid was provided to Britain, France, and China. However, when France fell in 1940, Roosevelt’s policy changed dramatically and Congress enacted a draft for military service.
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, changed everything. The very next day, Congress declared war against Japan. Three days later Germany and Italy declared war against the United States; and Congress, voting unanimously, reciprocated. This brought the nation fully into the global struggle.
During the war, priority was given to the western European front and by April 1945 victory in Europe was certain. The war officially ended with an invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, the suicide of Adolf Hitler and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.
But, by that time President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be dead. The unending stress and strain of the war had literally worn him out.
In early 1944 a full medical examination disclosed that Roosevelt had serious heart and circulatory problems and he was placed on a strict regime of diet and medication. Roosevelt, a chain-smoker throughout his entire adult life, had been in declining physical health since at least 1940.
In March 1944, he underwent further testing and was found to have high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, and congestive heart failure. Hospital physicians, specialists and his own doctor ordered Roosevelt to rest and changes to his schedule were made to accommodate this. However, his declining physical health was kept secret and Roosevelt made it clear that he was seeking another term. When it was time for the 1944 Democratic National Convention and re-election campaign, his personal doctor declared that “The President’s health is perfectly OK. There are absolutely no organic difficulties at all.” When it came time for the election in November 1944, Roosevelt and his vice-presidential running mate, Harry S. Truman, won by a comfortable margin.
Within months of his election to a fourth term, Roosevelt was looking old, thin and frail. On March 29, 1945, he traveled to the Little White House, a personal retreat of his located in Warm Springs, Georgia. On the afternoon of April 12, Roosevelt said, “I have a terrific headache” before slumping forward in his chair, unconscious. He was then carried to his room and his attending cardiologist, Dr. Howard Bruenn, diagnosed the medical emergency as a massive stroke. He died just two and one-half hours later without regaining consciousness. He was 63 years old and just three months into his fourth term.
His death was met with shock and grief across the United States and around the world. The next day, his body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train for the trip back to Washington, D.C. Along the route, thousands flocked to the tracks to pay their respects. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported by train to his estate at Hyde Park, New York where he was buried in the Rose Garden on April 15.
Roosevelt’s son Elliott also claimed that his father had a 20-year affair with his private secretary, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand. Another son, James, stated that “there is a real possibility that a romantic relationship existed” between his father and Crown Princess Märtha of Norway, who resided in the White House during part of World War II. At that time, aides referred to her as “the president’s girlfriend” and gossip linking the two romantically appeared in the newspapers.
The Springwood family estate in Hyde Park, New York, where Roosevelt was born and was buried, was given to the United States. Today, it is a National Historic Site, which remains largely unchanged since his death. The house is still full of his personality including his boyhood collection of stuffed birds.
By Kathy Weiser-Alexander, February 2019.
FYI SSG Stephen RogersonLTC Stephan PorterSSG Michael NollSFC (Join to see)CPT (Join to see)CPT Paul Whitmer1SG Steven ImermanSSG Samuel KermonSFC Richard WilliamsonSGT Steve McFarland MSG Andrew White Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MSG (Join to see)CWO3 Dennis M. SFC William Farrell SP5 Jeannie CarleSPC Chris Bayner-Cwik TSgt David L.SPC Margaret HigginsSGT (Join to see)
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If you get to DC, his memorial is a must see. He has one of the most creative memorials I've seen.
SMSgt Lawrence McCarter LT Brad McInnis PO3 Bob McCord CW3 Dick McManus SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO3 Dennis M. MSgt Stephen Council LTC (Join to see) LTC Stephan PorterLTC Stephen C. LTC Greg Henning SGT Gregory Lawritson Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. SGT Jim Arnold Maj Robert Thornton Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen SFC Francisco Rosario LTC (Join to see) SGT Mark Halmrast
SMSgt Lawrence McCarter LT Brad McInnis PO3 Bob McCord CW3 Dick McManus SGT John " Mac " McConnell CWO3 Dennis M. MSgt Stephen Council LTC (Join to see) LTC Stephan PorterLTC Stephen C. LTC Greg Henning SGT Gregory Lawritson Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. SGT Jim Arnold Maj Robert Thornton Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen SFC Francisco Rosario LTC (Join to see) SGT Mark Halmrast
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Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen
Been there but quite a while ago. You're right, not the kind of memorial I was expecting at all.
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I remember FDR well, he was elected the year I was born and was still in office when I was 12, listened to his radio broadcasts during WWII.
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