Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

I

Introduction

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945), 32nd President of the United States (1933-1945); elected for an unprecedented four terms, he was one of the 20th century's most skilful political leaders. His New Deal programme, a response to the Great Depression, utilized the US federal government as an instrument of social and economic change in contrast to its traditionally passive role. Then, in World War II, he led the Allies in their defeat of the Axis powers.

II

Early Life

Born at Hyde Park, New York, on January 30, 1882, he was the only child of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt. His father, a semi-retired railway executive, was a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. Although they were not wealthy by late 19th-century standards, the Roosevelts of Hyde Park led a comfortable, gracious existence, and young Franklin's life was sheltered; he was educated by governesses and indulged by his father. A handsome youth, he was an excellent athlete, expert at boating and swimming, and he also collected stamps, birds, and model ships—hobbies that he pursued all his life.

His formal education began at the Groton School in Massachusetts, where the headmaster, Endicott Peabody, stressed to his affluent young students their obligation towards those who were less fortunate in society. After graduation from Harvard University in 1904, Roosevelt attended Columbia University Law School without taking a degree and was admitted to the New York State bar in 1907. In 1905, despite his widowed mother's objections, he married a distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, in a gala society wedding at which President Theodore Roosevelt gave the bride away.

III

The Beginning of Roosevelt's Political Career

Franklin Roosevelt's political career began with his election to the New York State Senate as a Democrat in 1910. He quickly gained attention as the leader of an upstate coalition that fought the influence of New York's Democratic machine (the Tammany Society). His support of Woodrow Wilson's candidacy as the Democratic presidential nominee in 1912 resulted in his appointment to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, which he held during World War I. James M. Cox of Ohio, the party's 1920 nominee for the presidency, chose Roosevelt as his running mate because of his family name, but the Cox-Roosevelt ticket proved to be no match for the Republicans under Warren G. Harding.

Roosevelt faced the greatest personal crisis of his life when he was stricken by poliomyelitis at his Canadian summer home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, in 1921. He veiled his deep physical agony with a cheerful demeanour and rejected his mother's advice that he abandon politics and become a country squire at Hyde Park. Encouraged by Eleanor and his dedicated political mentor, Louis McHenry Howe, he resumed his career by nominating Alfred E. Smith for the presidency at the Democratic convention in 1924 and again in 1928, when Smith won the party's nomination. The Democratic party of the 1920s was deeply divided between Protestant, rural voters, who favoured Prohibition, and urban Roman Catholics, who opposed it. Anxious to win the New York State electoral vote, Smith persuaded Roosevelt to campaign for the governorship, given the latter's strong upstate appeal. Roosevelt, deeply in debt and disabled by polio, won a narrow victory, while Smith was defeated by Herbert Hoover.

IV

Governor of New York

During two terms as Governor of New York (1929-1933), Roosevelt established a reputation as a reforming progressive in the Theodore Roosevelt tradition and as a champion of relief for impoverished upstate farmers. His greatest struggle—for control of the St Lawrence River water-power resource by the state rather than private utilities—aimed at providing cheaper electricity for the rural consumer. With the outbreak of the Great Depression, he identified himself with the urban relief cause by appointing Harry Hopkins to head the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration. As the depression deepened, he assembled the “Brain Trust”, a group of faculty members from Columbia University, to formulate with him a comprehensive programme for resolving the economic collapse that had begun in 1929. With the aid of a progressive-southern Democratic coalition in 1932, Roosevelt won the party's presidential nomination, then easily defeated Hoover in the national election.