Post by Diarist on May 14, 2014 1:37:52 GMT 1
Early life
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York to businessman James Roosevelt I (1828–1900) and Sara Ann Delano (b. 1854). He is an American statesman and political leader who serves as the 32nd President of the United States. A Democrat, elected in March 1933. and a dominant leader of the Democratic Party, he built a New Deal Coalition that realigned American politics after 1932, as his New Deal domestic policies define American liberalism for the middle third of the 20th century. With the bouncy popular song "Happy Days Are Here Again" as his campaign theme, FDR defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover in November 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression. Energized by his personal victory over polio, FDR's persistent optimism and activism contributed to a renewal of the national spirit.
Roosevelt attended Groton School, an Episcopal boarding school in Massachusetts; 90% of the students were from families on the social register. He was heavily influenced by its headmaster, Endicott Peabody, who preached the duty of Christians to help the less fortunate and urged his students to enter public service. Forty years later Roosevelt said of Peabody, "It was a blessing in my life to have the privilege of [his] guiding hand", and the headmaster remained a strong influence throughout his life, officiating at his wedding and visiting Roosevelt as president. Peabody recalled Roosevelt as "a quiet, satisfactory boy of more than ordinary intelligence, taking a good position in his form but not brilliant", while a classmate described Roosevelt as "nice, but completely colorless"; an average student, he only stood out in being the only Democratic student, continuing the political tradition of his side of the Roosevelt family.
Like all but two of his 21 classmates Roosevelt went to Harvard College, where he lived in a suite which is now part of Adams House, in the "Gold Coast" area populated by wealthy students. Again an average student academically, Roosevelt later declared, "I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong." He was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and the Fly Club. While undistinguished as a student or athlete, he became editor-in-chief of The Harvard Crimson daily newspaper, a position which required great ambition, energy, and ability to manage others. While at Harvard his fifth cousin Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–1919) became President of the United States; his vigorous leadership style and reforming zeal made him Franklin's role model and hero although he remained a Democrat, campaigning for Theodore's opponent William Jennings Bryan. In mid-1902, Franklin was formally introduced to his future wife Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (b. 1884), Theodore's niece, on a train to Tivoli, New York, although they had met briefly as children. Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins, once removed. At the time of their engagement, Roosevelt was twenty-two and Eleanor nineteen. Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in 1903 with an A.B. in history. He later received an honorary LL.D. from Harvard in 1929. Roosevelt entered Columbia Law School in 1904, dropping out in 1907 after passing the New York State Bar exam. In 1908, he took a job with the prestigious Wall Street firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn, dealing mainly with corporate law. He was first initiated in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was initiated into Freemasonry on October 11, 1911, at Holland Lodge No. 8, New York City.
Early political career
In the state election of 1910, Roosevelt ran for the New York State Senate from the district around Hyde Park in Dutchess County, which had elected one Democrat since 1856. The local party chose him as a paper candidate because his Republican cousin Theodore was still one of the country's most prominent politicians, and a Democratic Roosevelt was good publicity; the candidate could also pay for his own campaign. Surprising almost everyone, an aggressive and effective campaign, the Roosevelt name's influence in the Hudson Valley, and the Democratic landslide that year, won him the election.
Taking his seat on January 1, 1911, Roosevelt immediately became the leader of a group of "Insurgents" who opposed the bossism of the Tammany machine dominating the state Democratic Party. The U.S. Senate election which began with the Democratic caucus on January 16, 1911, was deadlocked by the struggle of the two factions for 74 days, as the new legislator endured what a biographer later described as "the full might of Tammany" behind its choice, William F. Sheehan. On March 31 compromise candidate James A. O'Gorman was elected, giving Roosevelt national exposure and some experience in political tactics and intrigue; one Tammany leader warned that Roosevelt should be eliminated immediately, before he disrupted Democrats as much as his cousin disrupted the Republicans. Roosevelt soon became a popular figure among New York Democrats, though he had not as yet become an eloquent speaker, and news articles and cartoons began depicting "the second coming of a Roosevelt" that sent "cold shivers down the spine of Tammany".
Despite a bout of typhoid, and thanks to the help of Louis McHenry Howe who ran his campaign, he was re-elected for a second term in the state election of 1912, and served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee. His success with farm and labor bills was a bit of a precursor to his New Deal policies twenty years later. By this time he had become more consistently progressive, in support of labor and social welfare programs for women and children; cousin Theodore was of some influence on these issues. Roosevelt, again in opposition to Tammany Hall, supported Woodrow Wilson's successful bid in the 1912 presidential election, and thereby earned an informal designation as an original Wilson man.[
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Roosevelt's support of Wilson led to his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. Roosevelt had a lifelong affection for the Navy—he had already collected almost 10,000 naval books and claimed to have read all but one—and was more ardent than his boss Daniels in supporting a large and efficient naval force. As assistant secretary, Roosevelt worked to expand the Navy and founded the United States Navy Reserve. Roosevelt negotiated with Congressional leaders and other government departments to get budgets approved. He opposed the Taylor "stop-watch" system which was hailed by shipbuilding managers but opposed by the unions. Not a single union strike occurred during his seven-plus years in the office, during which Roosevelt gained experience in labor issues, government management during wartime, naval issues, and logistics, all valuable areas for future office.
Roosevelt was still relatively obscure, but his friends were already speaking of him as a future president; he himself reportedly began talking about being elected to the presidency as early as 1907. In 1914, Roosevelt made an ill-conceived decision to run for the U.S. Senate seat for New York. The decision was doomed for lack of Wilson administration backing. He was determined to take on Tammany again at a time when Wilson needed them to help marshal his legislation and secure his future re-election. He was soundly defeated in the Democratic primary election for the United States Senate by Tammany Hall-backed James W. Gerard by a margin of 3-to-1. Roosevelt learned a valuable lesson, that federal patronage alone, without White House support, could not defeat a strong local organization.
In March 1917, after Germany initiated its submarine warfare campaign, Roosevelt asked Wilson for permission, which was denied, to fit the naval fleet out for war. He became an enthusiastic advocate of the submarine and of means to combat the German submarine menace to Allied shipping: he proposed building a mine barrier across the North Sea from Norway to Scotland. In 1918, he visited Scotland, England, Wales, and France to inspect American naval facilities. Roosevelt wanted to provide arms to the merchant marine; knowing that a sale of arms was prohibited, he asked Wilson for approval to lease the arms to the mariners. Wilson ultimately approved this by executive order.
During these war years, Roosevelt acted to make peace with the Tammany Hall forces, and in 1918 the group actually supported others in an unsuccessful attempt to convince him to run for governor of New York. He very much wished to get into a military uniform, but the armistice took shape before this could materialize; Wilson himself reportedly ordered Roosevelt to not resign. With the end of the Great War in November 1918, Roosevelt was in charge of demobilization, although he opposed plans to completely dismantle the Navy.
In 1918, Roosevelt was sickened during the 1918 flu pandemic, and survived. In 1919, newspapers in Newport, Rhode Island criticized Roosevelt over his handling of what came to be known as the Newport sex scandal. Much more threatening was the fact that FDR and Eleanor, then living in Washington, D.C. across the street from Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, narrowly missed becoming casualties of an anarchist's bomb that exploded at Palmer's house, which they had walked past just minutes before. Their own residence was close enough that one of the bomber's body parts landed on their doorstep.
Campaign for Vice President
The 1920 Democratic National Convention chose Roosevelt by acclamation as the vice-presidential candidate with its presidential candidate, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio. Although his nomination surprised most people, Roosevelt was considered as bringing balance to the ticket as a moderate, a Wilsonian, and a prohibitionist with a famous name. Roosevelt had just turned thirty-eight, four years younger than Theodore had been when he received the same nomination from his party. The Cox-Roosevelt ticket was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding in the presidential election by a wide margin. Roosevelt returned to New York to practice law and joined the newly organized New York Civitan Club.
Governor of New York, 1929–1932
Roosevelt maintained contacts and mended fences with the Democratic Party during the 1920s, especially in New York. Although he initially had made his name as an opponent of New York City's Tammany Hall machine, Roosevelt moderated his stance against that group as well. He helped Alfred E. Smith win the election for governor of New York in 1922, and in 1924 was even a strong supporter of Smith against his cousin, Republican Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Roosevelt gave nominating speeches for Smith at the 1924 and 1928 Democratic conventions.
As the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1928 election, Smith in turn asked Roosevelt to run for governor in the state election. Roosevelt was nominated by the Democrats by acclamation. While Smith lost the Presidency in a landslide, and was even defeated in his home state, Roosevelt was narrowly elected governor, by a one-percent margin. As a reform governor, he established a number of new social programs, and was advised by Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins.
In May 1930, as he began his run for a second term, Roosevelt reiterated his doctrine from the campaign two years before: "that progressive government by its very terms, must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization." In this campaign for re-election, Roosevelt needed the good will of the Tammany Hall machine in New York City to succeed; however, his Republican opponent, Charles H. Tuttle, used Roosevelt's connection with Tammany Hall's corruption as an election issue. As the election approached, Roosevelt began preemptive efforts by initiating investigations of the sale of judicial offices. He was directly involved, as he had made a routine short-term court appointment of a Tammany Hall man who was alleged to have paid Tammany $30,000 for the position. His Republican opponent, however, could not overcome the public's criticism of his party for current economic distress, and Roosevelt was elected to a second term by a margin of fourteen percent.
1932 presidential election
Roosevelt's strong base in the most populous state made him an obvious candidate for the Democratic nomination, which was hotly contested in light of incumbent Herbert Hoover's vulnerability. Al Smith was supported by some city bosses, but had lost control of the New York Democratic party to Roosevelt. Roosevelt built his own national coalition with personal allies such as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Irish leader Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and California leader William Gibbs McAdoo. When Texas leader John Nance Garner announced his support of FDR, he was given the vice-presidential nomination.
In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt declared, "I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people… This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms." The election campaign was conducted under the shadow of the Great Depression in the United States, and the new alliances which it created. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party mobilized the expanded ranks of the poor as well as organized labor, ethnic minorities, urbanites, and Southern whites, crafting the New Deal coalition.
Economist Marriner Eccles observed that "given later developments, the campaign speeches often read like a giant misprint, in which Roosevelt and Hoover speak each other's lines." Roosevelt denounced Hoover's failures to restore prosperity or even halt the downward slide, and he ridiculed Hoover's huge deficits. Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagances" and for a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards." On September 23, Roosevelt made the gloomy evaluation that, "Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has long since been reached." Hoover damned that pessimism as a denial of "the promise of American life… the counsel of despair." The prohibition issue solidified the wet vote for Roosevelt, who noted that repeal would bring in new tax revenues. Roosevelt won 57% of the vote and carried all but six states.
Presidency
When Roosevelt was inaugurated March 4, 1933, the U.S. was at the nadir of the worst depression in its history. A quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Farmers were in deep trouble as prices fell by 60%. Industrial production had fallen by more than half since 1929. Two million were homeless. By the evening of March 4, 32 of the 48 states – as well as the District of Columbia – had closed their banks. The New York Federal Reserve Bank was unable to open on the 5th, as huge sums had been withdrawn by panicky customers in previous days. Beginning with his inauguration address, Roosevelt began blaming the economic crisis on bankers and financiers, the quest for profit, and the self-interest basis of capitalism:
Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence... The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
First New Deal, 1933–1934
Roosevelt's "First 100 Days" concentrated on the first part of his strategy: immediate relief. From March 9 to June 16, 1933, he sent Congress a record number of bills, all of which passed easily. To propose programs, Roosevelt relied on leading Senators such as George Norris, Robert F. Wagner, and Hugo Black, as well as his Brain Trust of academic advisers. Like Hoover, he saw the Depression caused in part by people no longer spending or investing because they were afraid.
His inauguration on March 4, 1933, occurred in the middle of a bank panic, hence the backdrop for his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The very next day he declared a "bank holiday" and called for a special session of Congress to start March 9, at which Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act. This was his first proposed step to recovery. To give Americans confidence in the banks, Roosevelt signed the Glass–Steagall Act that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Relief measures included the continuation of Hoover's major relief program for the unemployed under its new name: Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The most popular of all New Deal agencies – and Roosevelt's favorite – was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects.
Congress also gave the Federal Trade Commission broad new regulatory powers and provided mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners. Roosevelt expanded a Hoover agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, making it a major source of financing for railroads and industry. Roosevelt made agricultural relief a high priority and set up the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to take land out of crops and to cut herds.
Source: Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York to businessman James Roosevelt I (1828–1900) and Sara Ann Delano (b. 1854). He is an American statesman and political leader who serves as the 32nd President of the United States. A Democrat, elected in March 1933. and a dominant leader of the Democratic Party, he built a New Deal Coalition that realigned American politics after 1932, as his New Deal domestic policies define American liberalism for the middle third of the 20th century. With the bouncy popular song "Happy Days Are Here Again" as his campaign theme, FDR defeated incumbent Republican Herbert Hoover in November 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression. Energized by his personal victory over polio, FDR's persistent optimism and activism contributed to a renewal of the national spirit.
Roosevelt attended Groton School, an Episcopal boarding school in Massachusetts; 90% of the students were from families on the social register. He was heavily influenced by its headmaster, Endicott Peabody, who preached the duty of Christians to help the less fortunate and urged his students to enter public service. Forty years later Roosevelt said of Peabody, "It was a blessing in my life to have the privilege of [his] guiding hand", and the headmaster remained a strong influence throughout his life, officiating at his wedding and visiting Roosevelt as president. Peabody recalled Roosevelt as "a quiet, satisfactory boy of more than ordinary intelligence, taking a good position in his form but not brilliant", while a classmate described Roosevelt as "nice, but completely colorless"; an average student, he only stood out in being the only Democratic student, continuing the political tradition of his side of the Roosevelt family.
Like all but two of his 21 classmates Roosevelt went to Harvard College, where he lived in a suite which is now part of Adams House, in the "Gold Coast" area populated by wealthy students. Again an average student academically, Roosevelt later declared, "I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong." He was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and the Fly Club. While undistinguished as a student or athlete, he became editor-in-chief of The Harvard Crimson daily newspaper, a position which required great ambition, energy, and ability to manage others. While at Harvard his fifth cousin Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr. (1858–1919) became President of the United States; his vigorous leadership style and reforming zeal made him Franklin's role model and hero although he remained a Democrat, campaigning for Theodore's opponent William Jennings Bryan. In mid-1902, Franklin was formally introduced to his future wife Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (b. 1884), Theodore's niece, on a train to Tivoli, New York, although they had met briefly as children. Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins, once removed. At the time of their engagement, Roosevelt was twenty-two and Eleanor nineteen. Roosevelt graduated from Harvard in 1903 with an A.B. in history. He later received an honorary LL.D. from Harvard in 1929. Roosevelt entered Columbia Law School in 1904, dropping out in 1907 after passing the New York State Bar exam. In 1908, he took a job with the prestigious Wall Street firm of Carter Ledyard & Milburn, dealing mainly with corporate law. He was first initiated in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was initiated into Freemasonry on October 11, 1911, at Holland Lodge No. 8, New York City.
Early political career
In the state election of 1910, Roosevelt ran for the New York State Senate from the district around Hyde Park in Dutchess County, which had elected one Democrat since 1856. The local party chose him as a paper candidate because his Republican cousin Theodore was still one of the country's most prominent politicians, and a Democratic Roosevelt was good publicity; the candidate could also pay for his own campaign. Surprising almost everyone, an aggressive and effective campaign, the Roosevelt name's influence in the Hudson Valley, and the Democratic landslide that year, won him the election.
Taking his seat on January 1, 1911, Roosevelt immediately became the leader of a group of "Insurgents" who opposed the bossism of the Tammany machine dominating the state Democratic Party. The U.S. Senate election which began with the Democratic caucus on January 16, 1911, was deadlocked by the struggle of the two factions for 74 days, as the new legislator endured what a biographer later described as "the full might of Tammany" behind its choice, William F. Sheehan. On March 31 compromise candidate James A. O'Gorman was elected, giving Roosevelt national exposure and some experience in political tactics and intrigue; one Tammany leader warned that Roosevelt should be eliminated immediately, before he disrupted Democrats as much as his cousin disrupted the Republicans. Roosevelt soon became a popular figure among New York Democrats, though he had not as yet become an eloquent speaker, and news articles and cartoons began depicting "the second coming of a Roosevelt" that sent "cold shivers down the spine of Tammany".
Despite a bout of typhoid, and thanks to the help of Louis McHenry Howe who ran his campaign, he was re-elected for a second term in the state election of 1912, and served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee. His success with farm and labor bills was a bit of a precursor to his New Deal policies twenty years later. By this time he had become more consistently progressive, in support of labor and social welfare programs for women and children; cousin Theodore was of some influence on these issues. Roosevelt, again in opposition to Tammany Hall, supported Woodrow Wilson's successful bid in the 1912 presidential election, and thereby earned an informal designation as an original Wilson man.[
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Roosevelt's support of Wilson led to his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. Roosevelt had a lifelong affection for the Navy—he had already collected almost 10,000 naval books and claimed to have read all but one—and was more ardent than his boss Daniels in supporting a large and efficient naval force. As assistant secretary, Roosevelt worked to expand the Navy and founded the United States Navy Reserve. Roosevelt negotiated with Congressional leaders and other government departments to get budgets approved. He opposed the Taylor "stop-watch" system which was hailed by shipbuilding managers but opposed by the unions. Not a single union strike occurred during his seven-plus years in the office, during which Roosevelt gained experience in labor issues, government management during wartime, naval issues, and logistics, all valuable areas for future office.
Roosevelt was still relatively obscure, but his friends were already speaking of him as a future president; he himself reportedly began talking about being elected to the presidency as early as 1907. In 1914, Roosevelt made an ill-conceived decision to run for the U.S. Senate seat for New York. The decision was doomed for lack of Wilson administration backing. He was determined to take on Tammany again at a time when Wilson needed them to help marshal his legislation and secure his future re-election. He was soundly defeated in the Democratic primary election for the United States Senate by Tammany Hall-backed James W. Gerard by a margin of 3-to-1. Roosevelt learned a valuable lesson, that federal patronage alone, without White House support, could not defeat a strong local organization.
In March 1917, after Germany initiated its submarine warfare campaign, Roosevelt asked Wilson for permission, which was denied, to fit the naval fleet out for war. He became an enthusiastic advocate of the submarine and of means to combat the German submarine menace to Allied shipping: he proposed building a mine barrier across the North Sea from Norway to Scotland. In 1918, he visited Scotland, England, Wales, and France to inspect American naval facilities. Roosevelt wanted to provide arms to the merchant marine; knowing that a sale of arms was prohibited, he asked Wilson for approval to lease the arms to the mariners. Wilson ultimately approved this by executive order.
During these war years, Roosevelt acted to make peace with the Tammany Hall forces, and in 1918 the group actually supported others in an unsuccessful attempt to convince him to run for governor of New York. He very much wished to get into a military uniform, but the armistice took shape before this could materialize; Wilson himself reportedly ordered Roosevelt to not resign. With the end of the Great War in November 1918, Roosevelt was in charge of demobilization, although he opposed plans to completely dismantle the Navy.
In 1918, Roosevelt was sickened during the 1918 flu pandemic, and survived. In 1919, newspapers in Newport, Rhode Island criticized Roosevelt over his handling of what came to be known as the Newport sex scandal. Much more threatening was the fact that FDR and Eleanor, then living in Washington, D.C. across the street from Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, narrowly missed becoming casualties of an anarchist's bomb that exploded at Palmer's house, which they had walked past just minutes before. Their own residence was close enough that one of the bomber's body parts landed on their doorstep.
Campaign for Vice President
The 1920 Democratic National Convention chose Roosevelt by acclamation as the vice-presidential candidate with its presidential candidate, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio. Although his nomination surprised most people, Roosevelt was considered as bringing balance to the ticket as a moderate, a Wilsonian, and a prohibitionist with a famous name. Roosevelt had just turned thirty-eight, four years younger than Theodore had been when he received the same nomination from his party. The Cox-Roosevelt ticket was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding in the presidential election by a wide margin. Roosevelt returned to New York to practice law and joined the newly organized New York Civitan Club.
Governor of New York, 1929–1932
Roosevelt maintained contacts and mended fences with the Democratic Party during the 1920s, especially in New York. Although he initially had made his name as an opponent of New York City's Tammany Hall machine, Roosevelt moderated his stance against that group as well. He helped Alfred E. Smith win the election for governor of New York in 1922, and in 1924 was even a strong supporter of Smith against his cousin, Republican Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Roosevelt gave nominating speeches for Smith at the 1924 and 1928 Democratic conventions.
As the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1928 election, Smith in turn asked Roosevelt to run for governor in the state election. Roosevelt was nominated by the Democrats by acclamation. While Smith lost the Presidency in a landslide, and was even defeated in his home state, Roosevelt was narrowly elected governor, by a one-percent margin. As a reform governor, he established a number of new social programs, and was advised by Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins.
In May 1930, as he began his run for a second term, Roosevelt reiterated his doctrine from the campaign two years before: "that progressive government by its very terms, must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization." In this campaign for re-election, Roosevelt needed the good will of the Tammany Hall machine in New York City to succeed; however, his Republican opponent, Charles H. Tuttle, used Roosevelt's connection with Tammany Hall's corruption as an election issue. As the election approached, Roosevelt began preemptive efforts by initiating investigations of the sale of judicial offices. He was directly involved, as he had made a routine short-term court appointment of a Tammany Hall man who was alleged to have paid Tammany $30,000 for the position. His Republican opponent, however, could not overcome the public's criticism of his party for current economic distress, and Roosevelt was elected to a second term by a margin of fourteen percent.
1932 presidential election
Roosevelt's strong base in the most populous state made him an obvious candidate for the Democratic nomination, which was hotly contested in light of incumbent Herbert Hoover's vulnerability. Al Smith was supported by some city bosses, but had lost control of the New York Democratic party to Roosevelt. Roosevelt built his own national coalition with personal allies such as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Irish leader Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and California leader William Gibbs McAdoo. When Texas leader John Nance Garner announced his support of FDR, he was given the vice-presidential nomination.
In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt declared, "I pledge you, I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people… This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms." The election campaign was conducted under the shadow of the Great Depression in the United States, and the new alliances which it created. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party mobilized the expanded ranks of the poor as well as organized labor, ethnic minorities, urbanites, and Southern whites, crafting the New Deal coalition.
Economist Marriner Eccles observed that "given later developments, the campaign speeches often read like a giant misprint, in which Roosevelt and Hoover speak each other's lines." Roosevelt denounced Hoover's failures to restore prosperity or even halt the downward slide, and he ridiculed Hoover's huge deficits. Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagances" and for a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards." On September 23, Roosevelt made the gloomy evaluation that, "Our industrial plant is built; the problem just now is whether under existing conditions it is not overbuilt. Our last frontier has long since been reached." Hoover damned that pessimism as a denial of "the promise of American life… the counsel of despair." The prohibition issue solidified the wet vote for Roosevelt, who noted that repeal would bring in new tax revenues. Roosevelt won 57% of the vote and carried all but six states.
Presidency
When Roosevelt was inaugurated March 4, 1933, the U.S. was at the nadir of the worst depression in its history. A quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Farmers were in deep trouble as prices fell by 60%. Industrial production had fallen by more than half since 1929. Two million were homeless. By the evening of March 4, 32 of the 48 states – as well as the District of Columbia – had closed their banks. The New York Federal Reserve Bank was unable to open on the 5th, as huge sums had been withdrawn by panicky customers in previous days. Beginning with his inauguration address, Roosevelt began blaming the economic crisis on bankers and financiers, the quest for profit, and the self-interest basis of capitalism:
Primarily this is because rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and have abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence... The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
First New Deal, 1933–1934
Roosevelt's "First 100 Days" concentrated on the first part of his strategy: immediate relief. From March 9 to June 16, 1933, he sent Congress a record number of bills, all of which passed easily. To propose programs, Roosevelt relied on leading Senators such as George Norris, Robert F. Wagner, and Hugo Black, as well as his Brain Trust of academic advisers. Like Hoover, he saw the Depression caused in part by people no longer spending or investing because they were afraid.
His inauguration on March 4, 1933, occurred in the middle of a bank panic, hence the backdrop for his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The very next day he declared a "bank holiday" and called for a special session of Congress to start March 9, at which Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act. This was his first proposed step to recovery. To give Americans confidence in the banks, Roosevelt signed the Glass–Steagall Act that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Relief measures included the continuation of Hoover's major relief program for the unemployed under its new name: Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The most popular of all New Deal agencies – and Roosevelt's favorite – was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects.
Congress also gave the Federal Trade Commission broad new regulatory powers and provided mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners. Roosevelt expanded a Hoover agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, making it a major source of financing for railroads and industry. Roosevelt made agricultural relief a high priority and set up the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to take land out of crops and to cut herds.
Source: Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt