Difference between revisions of "Franklin D. Roosevelt"

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Template:Stub Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), was the 32nd president of the United States of America, following Herbert Hoover and preceding Harry Truman. Roosevelt was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected four times and served a few months longer than 3 terms, from 1933-1945, the longest any one man has been president of the United States. He was elected amidst the uncertainty of the Great Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he entered the United States into the Second World War on the side of the Allied Forces. Finally, in April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage, due partly to the crippling disease, poliomyelitis, which physically disabled him during his presidency.^[1]

Although Mr. Roosevelt was very popular in his time, it has been argued by scholars and analysts then and now that many New Deal relief efforts actually helped to prolong the Great Depression. Mr. Roosevelt started the second wave of the massive expansion of the Federal Government and greatly increased American foreign aid. Some of these policies were viewed as necessary due to the incredibly high level of unemployment in the 1930s and later US involvement in WWII.^[2].

A 1999 C-Span survey of historians found Roosevelt to be the second greatest president of all time, and the greatest of the 20th Century, ahead of other presidents such as Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.^[3]

Reflections on Christianity

Franklin D. Roosevelt, commonly known as "FDR", said this about the Bible in an address on October 6, 1935:

We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic ...

Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.^[4]

FDR became famous for delivering "fireside chats" over the new medium of radio, and on March 9, 1937 he declared:

I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.

As World War II broke out in Europe, FDR warned:

Those forces hate democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization.

Decision to run for a third term

It is highly questionable whether FDR would have chosen to run for a third term had the Nazis not experienced such great success early in World War II, particularly in overrunning France, which had been expected to hold out longer. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has explored the implications of triumphant Naziism for FDR's decision in her book No Ordinary Time. While FDR had inaugurated the first system of peacetime conscription just after France fell, Congress had agreed to conscript men for one year only, and the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1940, Wendell Willkie, was an isolationist. It was therefore entirely possible that both conscription and the war would end in 1941 with the Nazis in control of all Western Europe except for Britain, which would be dangerously isolated. FDR's Democratic heir apparent, Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas, was at best lukewarm on both the war and the New Deal. To avoid this outcome, FDR probably decided to enter the war at the same time he decided to run again, although he was politically unable to do so until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Had FDR chosen not to run in 1940, he would quite likely have lived longer (the impact of the presidency on its occupants' health is infamous, and FDR eventually confided at least to his wife Eleanor Roosevelt that he wished to live beyond his term). The 22nd Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, if any, would have dealt with something besides term limitation of the President. FDR's reputation would, however, have been determined by the same factors that determined it in real life: the outcome of World War II, the ability of his party to cement its majority, and in the short term, the willingness of his successor to follow his policies. One of these, the close alliance with the Soviet Union, was repudiated almost immediately by Truman, and as a result, Roosevelt is remembered by conservatives as at best a qualified success. A Republican 33rd President, however, would most likely have appointed anti-New Deal Justices to the U. S. Supreme Court (particularly had he been elected in 1940), with the result that Roosevelt today would be roundly condemned as a demagogue, notwithstanding his decision to respect George Washington's two-term precedent. Since the Republicans did not actually retake the White House until the 1952 Presidential election (and then through a candidate who was perceived as being above politics), the New Deal had time to be embraced by a new generation of politicians and constitutional scholars of both parties, although not universally (see Constitution in exile movement). This may have been an equally important factor in Roosevelt's decision.

Wartime record

The following year, on May 27, 1941, FDR stated in one of his radio addresses:

The Nazis are as ruthless as the Communists in the denial of God.

At the most dificult point in the War, when American boys were landing on the beaches of Normandy, FDR led the nation in prayer publicy during a radio broadcast. ^[5]

"In his second inaugural address, FDR pledged to do his utmost by 'seeking Divine guidance.' He took that self-appointed mandate further on January 25, 1941, when he wrote a personal prologue to a special edition of the New Testament, which was distributed to millions of U.S. soldiers. 'As Commander-in-Chief,' Roosevelt wrote, 'I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States.' He believed that all American soldiers should have the opportunity to read the words of Christ in preparing for battle. Once, when joining those soldiers aboard a warship with Winston Churchill, FDR asked the crew and prime minister to join him in singing the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' In his final inaugural address, FDR affirmed, "So we pray to Him for the vision to see our way clearly ... to achievement of His will.' "^[6]

References

1. ↑ http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/fr32.html
2. ↑ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/32_f_roosevelt/printable.html
3. ↑ http://www.americanpresidents.org/survey/historians/31.asp
4. ↑ Quoted in DeMar, The Untold Story, p. 60 and Gabrial Sivan, The Bible and Civilization (New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1973), p. 178.
5. ↑ Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day Prayer, June 6, 1944.
6. ↑ God and George W. Bush (New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 176