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THREE PRESIDENTS DOMINATE American history: George Washington, who founded the country; Abraham Lincoln, who preserved it; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who rescued it from economic collapse and then led it to victory in the greatest war of all time.
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When he took office in 1933, one third of the nation was unemployed.
The Hoover administration had deployed tanks and tear gas to drive a bedraggled remnant of World War I veterans (the Bonus Marchers) from Washington but otherwise appeared incapable of responding to the crisis.
For the last twenty-three years of his life, Franklin Roosevelt could not stand unassisted.
Roosevelt knew the Democratic party better than anyone. It was said he could draw a line on a map from the East Coast to the West Coast and name every county the line intersected. In most counties he knew the Democratic leader and one or two officeholders as well. And he kept close watch on party patronage.
With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan (who voted for FDR four times), no president has been more serene in the conviction that whatever happened, everything would turn out all right.
Social Security, unemployment compensation, stock market regulation, the federal guarantee of bank deposits, wages and hours legislation, labor’s right to bargain collectively, agricultural price supports, rural electrification—all of which we take for granted—did not exist before FDR.
As commander in chief, Roosevelt was better prepared than any president before him, save Washington and Grant. For eight years under Woodrow Wilson he had been the number two man in the Navy Department. He understood how the services operated and did not hesitate to assert presidential authority.
FDR can be criticized on a number of issues. He ignored racial segregation, he did not rush to admit the victims of fascism to America’s shores, and he could be cavalier about the protection of civil liberties in wartime. But there is absolutely no evidence that he was complicit in the events of December 7, 1941.
The United States was a third-rate military power when World War II began. When it ended, America was the most powerful nation in history.
Not to be overlooked are the four women who played crucial roles in FDR’s life: his mother, Sara; Lucy Mercer, the woman he loved; Missy LeHand, the woman who loved him; and his wife, Eleanor. After Eleanor discovered FDR’s affair with Lucy in 1918, their relationship became more professional than personal—an armed truce, in the words of their son James. They remained together for a variety of reasons, and Eleanor became a national personality in her own right. But her impact on the president’s life was tangential. She and FDR moved in different circles, each with a separate entourage, and
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In 1881 President James Garfield and Czar Alexander II of Russia were both victims of political violence: Garfield slain at the hand of a madman in Washington; Alexander killed by a terrorist bomb on the streets of Saint Petersburg. The rapid pace of industrialization, the dislocation of families from rural to urban settings, massive immigration, unspeakable working conditions, labor unrest, and pestilential slums darkened the horizon.
Religious faith provided one of the sources of FDR’s unflagging optimism. Deep down he possessed serene confidence in the divine purpose of the universe.
America’s confidence in FDR depended on Roosevelt’s incredible confidence in himself, and that traced in large measure to the comfort and security of his childhood.
LESS THAN A YEAR after graduating from Harvard, FDR married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, his fifth cousin once removed, the orphaned daughter of his godfather, Elliott—a tall, striking young woman variously described by an adoring New York press as “beautiful,” “regal,” and “magnificent,” with “greater claim to good looks than any of the Roosevelts.”1 Franklin was an impressionable twenty-three. Eleanor was twenty: the same age her mother had been, yet still innocent of the birds and the bees. As she later informed her son James, the kiss she and Franklin exchanged at the close of the wedding
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In 1937, when she was at work on the first volume of her autobiography, Eleanor burned all of Franklin’s letters, finding his youthful avowals of constancy too painful to reread.
As TR’s daughter Alice observed, “Father always wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.”67
Financially, Franklin and Eleanor were well provided for. Between them, they had trust-fund income of a little over $12,000—the rough equivalent of $240,000 after-tax dollars one hundred years later.* Yet their combined incomes were insufficient to support their lifestyle. Eleanor and Franklin were not members of the fastest, richest set in New York, but they lived in three different houses at various seasons of the year, always employed at least five servants, maintained a large yacht and numerous smaller boats, automobiles, and carriages, dressed in fashion, belonged to expensive clubs,
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Midway through his third year at Columbia, Franklin took the grueling eight-hour New York bar examination and passed handily. He was immediately admitted to practice and at that point dropped his courses at Columbia and never took a degree. Twenty-two years later, Roosevelt, then governor of New York, was invited to address the Columbia Law School Alumni Dinner. Columbia’s president, Nicholas Murray Butler, sat next to him, chatting affably. At some point Butler was overheard joking with FDR on his failure to obtain an LL.B. “You will never be able to call yourself an intellectual until you
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Later the Roosevelts moved into even larger quarters at 4 Elk Street, known as “Quality Row” for the affluent Albany families that lived along it. That mansion had been built by Martin Van Buren when he was governor—the first New York governor to reach the White House—and reflected Little Van’s penchant for lavish living.
FRANKLIN WAS LITTLE LIKED in Albany. Most of his colleagues found him insufferable. Al Smith wrote him off as a dilettante—“a damn fool” who thought more about political appearances than substantive legislation.
The Triangle Shirtwaist fire, the worst factory fire in New York history, exposed the evils of unregulated working conditions.
One of the principal pieces of social legislation to come forward at the 1911 session was a bill to limit the workweek of women and children to fifty-four hours. The measure was being held up in committee, and Democrats were divided. Every vote was important. Miss Perkins approached Roosevelt to ask his support and was dismissed abruptly: “No, no. More important things. More important things. Can’t do it now. Can’t do it now. Much more important things.”5
No one was better than FDR at simplifying a complex issue and translating it into words the average American could understand.
The veteran journalist John Gunther put it best when he wrote, “If FDR had come out for the Devil, it wouldn’t have mattered much to Louis Howe.”64
The year before his death, Bismarck had predicted that “some damn foolish thing in the Balkans” would ignite a general war in Europe. Princip provided the spark that set things off.12*
On September 25 Wilson spoke at Pueblo, Colorado. That evening he suffered a total physical collapse. The tour was canceled, and the president returned to the White House. The following week Wilson had a massive stroke that paralyzed his left side. For two months he hovered between life and death, barely able to scrawl a shaky signature on documents his wife presented to him. After that his mind became clear enough to follow what was happening and he was able to dictate letters. But he never fully recovered.
“Cactus Jack” Garner of Uvalde, Texas, FDR’s crusty vice president, later told newsmen the job “wasn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.”
To be a great president, said FDR, required “the quality of soul which makes a man loved by little children, by dumb animals, that quality of soul which makes him a strong help to those in sorrow or trouble, that quality which makes him not merely admired but loved by all the people—the quality of sympathetic understanding of the human heart, of real interest in one’s fellow man.”
“The country needs, the country demands, bold, persistent experimentation. Take a method and try it. If it fails admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
Tugwell could not resist. “You said Huey was the second most dangerous person.” “You heard right,” smiled Roosevelt. “Huey is only second. The first is Douglas MacArthur. You saw how he strutted down Pennsylvania Avenue. You saw that picture of him in the Times after the troops chased all those vets out with tear gas and burned their shelters. Did you ever see anyone more self-satisfied? There’s a potential Mussolini for you. Right here at home.”29
“This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
ANALOGIES BETWEEN MILITARY and political campaigns are often overdrawn, but what FDR did in rescuing the country in the first hundred days bears comparison with what General Ulysses S. Grant did in preserving the Union. Both men accepted responsibility, delegated freely, and radiated a confidence that inspired their subordinates to do their best.
In retrospect it seems incredible, but in less than a month, and aside from rescuing the banking system, FDR had taken on and defeated three of the most powerful special interests in the nation: veterans (with the economy bill), temperance (with the beer bill), and organized labor (with the CCC).
FDR’s mastery of the legislative process was complete. He compromised when compromise was necessary, zigzagged when required, but in the end saw his program through. “It’s more than a New Deal,” said Interior secretary Harold Ickes. “It’s a new world.”98
the president lowered his voice and continued, reciting the sermon’s lesson, as it were: There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is asked. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The nation looked to Government but Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years with the scourge! Nine mocking years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair!
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”
During the twelve years FDR was president not one piece of civil rights legislation became law.
“The island of Oahu, due to its fortification, its garrison, and its physical characteristics, is believed to be the strongest fortress in the world,” General Marshall assured Roosevelt in April 1941. “With the force available [to defend it], a major attack against Oahu is considered impractical.”1
Twelve times in a speech of only twenty-five sentences the president was interrupted by thunderous applause. He catalogued Japan’s Pacific aggression—not only at Pearl Harbor but in Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Midway:
THE ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION, like most of America, seriously underestimated Japan’s military capacity.
many Japanese leaders had “a childish notion” that because women had a powerful say in America “it wouldn’t be long before they started objecting to the war and demanding a settlement.”1
Neither Hitler (who was at the eastern front) nor Mussolini had been apprised of the attack on Pearl Harbor beforehand.
So confident were Hitler and Mussolini of ultimate victory that they did not press Japan for a parallel declaration of war against Russia. Hitler wished to finish off the Soviet Union himself and was content to see the Japanese free the Pacific of American and British influence.
Though Japanese farms occupied only 1 percent of the cultivated land in California, they produced nearly 40 percent of the state’s crop.32 As the manager of the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association told The Saturday Evening Post: “We’re charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons. We might as well be honest. We do.”
The chain of events is clear: Roosevelt delegated the decision to Stimson, Stimson turned it over to McCloy, and McCloy made the call. “This does not exonerate Roosevelt,” wrote McCloy’s principal biographer, “but at the very least it was McCloy’s job to determine if military necessity justified such draconian measures.”
The Battle of Midway proved to be the decisive battle in the Pacific. With the loss of four large carriers, their aircraft and their pilots, Japan never regained naval superiority. In the two years following Midway the Japanese were able to launch only six battlefleet carriers.
“We failed to see,” said Marshall many years later, “that the leader in a democracy has to keep the people entertained. That may sound like the wrong word, but it conveys the thought. The people demand action. We couldn’t wait to be completely ready.”
Curiously, while the United States and Britain were moving ahead, Germany dropped out of the race. In the autumn of 1942 Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s armaments minister, after conferring with scientists Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg, decided the construction of an atomic bomb was too uncertain and too expensive. “It would have meant giving up all other projects.” The decision to cancel the effort came easily for Speer. Hitler was uninterested in an atomic weapon and disparaged nuclear science as “Jewish physics.”34* Japan also discontinued its efforts in 1943, scientists telling the
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