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Franklin D. Roosevelt served longer than any other president of the United States. He held office from 1933 until his death in 1945 at the beginning of his fourth term. During his presidency he led the United States through two great crises -- the Great Depression of the 1930 's and World War II. Roosevelt was a man of unusual charm and great optimism which he was able to communicate to others. He had a broad smile and an easygoing way of nodding agreement to whatever proposals were made to him.
But beneath his outward friendliness was an inner reserve and an iron will. He became one of the most beloved as well as one of the most hated U. S. presidents. His admirers emphasized the way in which he met the nation's problems.
They praised him for insisting that the federal government must help the underprivileged and that the United States must share in the responsibility for preserving world peace. Roosevelt's opponents denounced him for increasing the role of the government in the economic life of the country and claimed that he unnecessarily involved the United States in World War II. Yet friend and foe alike agreed that Roosevelt made a vital impact upon his times and that his policies exerted great influence on the future. Roosevelt was born on a comfortable estate overlooking the Hudson River at Hyde Park, New York, on January 30, 1882. He had a pleasant, sheltered childhood. His father, James Roosevelt, was a well-to-do investor and vice president of a small railroad.
His mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, came from a wealthy family of New England origin. During his childhood Franklin was taught by a governess and was taken on frequent trips to Europe. Once his father took him to the White House to see President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland, saddened and worn by the burdens of office, said he hoped that young Franklin would never have the misfortune of becoming president. At 14, Roosevelt entered Groton School in Massachusetts. From Groton he went to Harvard College where he concerned himself more with social life and other activities than with his studies.
He was especially proud of the fact that he was president (chief editor) of the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. He graduated in 1904 and went on to Columbia University Law School. Meanwhile, he had become engaged to his slim, attractive distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. At the wedding in 1905, Eleanor's uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt (who was Franklin's fifth cousin), gave her in marriage.
Roosevelt was an indifferent law student and did not bother to complete work for his degree after passing his bar examination. Nor was he much interested in his work with a prominent Wall Street law firm. In 1910 the Democratic leaders in Dutchess County, New York, persuaded Roosevelt to run for the state senate. The senate contest seemed hopeless for a Democrat. Nevertheless, Roosevelt conducted an energetic campaign, touring the Hudson River farming communities in a red Maxwell automobile.
The Republicans were split that year, and the 28 - year-old Roosevelt won his first election. Roosevelt supported Woodrow Wilson for the presidential nomination in 1912, and when Wilson became president in 1913, Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary of the navy. He still seemed too handsome and and too unpredictable dashing from one place to another to be taken very seriously. Yet he was especially successful as an administrator during World War I.
He was also achieving a reputation as a rising young progressive. In 1920, at the age of 38, Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination for Vice President, running with the presidential candidate, James M. Cox (1870 - 1957). However the Democrats were buried in the landslide victory of the Republican Warren Harding.
Biding his time, Roosevelt entered private business. Then, in the summer of 1921, while vacationing at Campobello Island in Canada, he was suddenly stricken with polio which paralyzed him from the waist down. Not yet 40, he seemed finished in politics. But his wife, Eleanor, and his private secretary, Louis Howe, felt that his recovery would be aided if he kept his political interests. Eleanor, now the mother of five children (a sixth child had died in 1909), cast aside her acute shyness and learned to make appearances for her husband at political meetings. In spite of his illness, which left him unable to walk without leg braces, a cane, and a strong arm upon which to lean, Roosevelt remained one of the dominant figures in the Democratic Party.
In 1928, Roosevelt ran for governor of New York at the urging of the incumbent-governor, Alfred E. Smith (1873 - 1944), who was the Democratic candidate for president. Although Smith was defeated by Republican Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt was elected governor by a narrow margin. His re-election in 1930 by a record majority made him the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. During the 1932 election campaign, the Depression overshadowed all other issues. In accepting the nomination, Roosevelt had promised the American people a "new deal, " and they voted for him in overwhelming numbers.
Roosevelt defeated Hoover, running for re-election, by more than 7 million popular votes, and he received 472 electoral votes to Hoover's 59. Conditions became worse between Roosevelt's election on November 8, 1932, and his inauguration on March 4, 1933. (The 20 th Amendment to the Constitution, changing the presidential inauguration date to January 20, did not go into effect until October 1933. ) Thousands of banks failed as depositors, fearful of losing their savings, withdrew their money. A quarter of the nation's wage earners were unemployed. Families on relief sometimes received no more than 75 cents a week for food.
Farmers were in an equally desperate plight because of low prices on basic crops. Amid these grim conditions, Roosevelt took his oath of office as president. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, " he said in his inaugural speech. The words were not new, but the way Roosevelt said them gave people new hope. As a first step, he closed all U. S.
banks to prevent further collapse. Then he called Congress into special session to pass emergency banking legislation. Within a few days most banks were reopened, and people who had withdrawn their money redeposited it. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was established soon after. It insured bank deposits and protected people from losing their savings.
During the first one hundred days of his administration, Roosevelt presented to Congress a wide variety of legislation. This became the first New Deal program. These early measures contained one notable reform -- the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The TVA provided flood control, cheap electricity, and better use of the land for the entire poverty-stricken Tennessee River area. For the most part, the early New Deal measures were meant to bring immediate relief to the needy and recovery to the economy.
A federal agency was set up to provide the states with funds to feed the hungry. Legislation was passed to aid farmers and homeowners in danger of losing their property because they could not keep up mortgage payments. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was organized, providing jobs for unemployed young men in forest conservation and road construction work. At the president's urging, Congress took the United States off the gold standard and devaluated the dollar. This lowered its exchange value, allowing American products to be sold to better advantage abroad.
At the heart of the recovery program of the early New Deal were the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) and the National Recovery Administration (NRA)...
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Research essay sample on World War Ii Presidential Nomination
