Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Biography

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is born the January 30th 1882 with Hyde Park, in the State of New York. His/her father, James Roosevelt, is a rich person contractor pertaining to an aristocratic family of Dutch origin and his/her mother, Sara Delano, is resulting from a rich person aristocratic family of French origin ( Delanoye or Delanoë become Delano ). Only sons, Franklin is raised by his/her mother between the family property, with the assistance of private tutors, and their house of holidays on the island of Campobello located at the Canada, adjoining country and friend of the the United States, on the Atlantic north-eastern coast. It is only at fourteen years that it leaves the cocoon family to enter an private establishment and élitiste, Groton College, where it will be never really popular because not very gifted for the studies or the Athlétisme. It enters then to the university of Harvard where it is especially pointed out as an editor of the newspaper of the pupils, the Crimson . It is registered with the democratic party while admiring the political course of Theodore Roosevelt, a distance cousin, which becomes republican president in 1901. In 1905, it marries Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, another cousin remote with whom it will have six children of which a death in low age. He died in 1945.

Political beginnings

F.D. Roosevelt is registered with the bar of the State of New York but he does not like this trade particularly and turns to the policy on the first occasion. He is elected with the Sénat of his State in 1908, then in 1912 when the democratic president Woodrow Wilson names it secretary-assistant of the Navy. The parallel with the career of Theodore Roosevelt which had held the same station in the government of McKinley starts to appear. As a person in charge of the Navy, Roosevelt is in favor of the increase in the naval forces and the entry in war in the the United States in the conflict which makes rage in Europe (First World War).

Hardly elected official, F.D. Roosevelt is characterized by his progressive ideas on the ecological concerns and the topic from work. Two strong concepts, in addition to remarkable a Pragmatism, dominate its public action. First of all the idea that it is often necessary to substitute collective freedom for individual freedom (?), but also its great mistrust towards the idea of unconstrained competition (“ the co-operation must intervene where cease competition ” and this one “ can be useful until a certain limit but not beyond ”). The charges of “Socialist”, in a pejorative direction, will not fail to be addressed to a politician whose ideas in the Années 1910 and 1920 are not guères in adequacy with the dominant thought. It is also necessary to note its great tolerance on the topics of the Immigration and the Religion, tolerance which appears by its reserves on the policy of the quotas, in the Twenties, on the Prohibition and on the internal quarrels with the democratic party of the time between Jewish, catholic and Protestant.

The crossing of the desert

In November 1919 the victory of the republicans puts a provisional term at its political career, after an unhappy candidature for the vice-presidency like fellow candidate of Fox. It then takes again its law firm without much conviction.

In August 1921, it is on vacation with the Canada when the disease brutally strikes it after an imprudent bathe. There is reached by the Poliomyélite and will remain partially paralyzed for the remainder of its life. Its left leg is out of use and it will be necessary for him to relearn to go, to rise, sit down using canes and of orthopedic devices, but also thanks to his wife and her fortune. Although it remains in liaison with the democratic party it is necessary for him to await 1928, and a clear improvement of its health condition, to take again all its political activities. Roosevelt will go using canes or of crutches for the remainder of its days, even, in its offices and its apartments, in Wheel chair.

On the way towards the presidency

In 1929 it becomes democratic Gouverneur of the State of New York in a national context rather favorable to the republicans since even the leader of the party, Alfred Smith, former governor of the New Jersey is beaten. This victory, of a short head with 24 000 votes in advance out of 4,3 million expressed, make it possible Roosevelt to apply a rather innovative policy progressist. Thus it reduces the duration of the working time for the women and the children, launches a programme of improvement of the hospitals, prisons and reinforces the public authority. It also intervenes in the agricultural domain by supporting the afforestation and the catch of conservation measures of the ground. This policy, especially after the release of the economic crisis of 1929, reveals all its acuity in front of the absence of reaction to the crisis of the government of Herbert Hoover with Washington.

The candidature

Democratic adversaries

It is presented in the form of a candidate to the democratic nomination for the presidential one of 1932. It quickly carries it on its adversaries within the party: Alfred Smith was beaten in 1928 and it is a catholic, Albert Ritchie, the governor of the Maryland and W.H.Murray, that of the Oklahoma, are more local and less credible personalities. Only the candidate of the preserving wing of the party, John Nance Garner has a greater scale. Roosevelt with the skill to make its fellow candidate of it. Garner will be her vice-president until in 1941. Roosevelt remains confronted with the not disguised hostility of the president of the party, John Raskob, but receives the considerable support, including financier, of the billionaire Henry Morgenthau.

The Brain trust

In 1932 Roosevelt completely recovered its disease physically, if it is not the use of its legs, and does not hesitate to launch out in one exhausting electoral campaign. Moreover, it matured politically under the influence of certain advisers or mentors such Louis Howe, one of its associates, or Joseph Daniels, his partial trusteeship with the Navy. One should not neglect either the role of the advisers of the governor who it is, such Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle, all three researchers and academics, generally of Columbia, had a presentiment of by Samuel Rosenman the writer of the speeches of the candidate then of the president. These men, with some others, whose Bernard Baruch, a financier former chief of the War Industries Board during the First World War, or Harry Hopkins, amateur of play, women but also confidant of Roosevelt will constitute the Brain-trust ( council of the brains ) which advises the president.

Character

The principal features of the character of Roosevelt appear already at that time. Its optimism, reinforced by the gravity of its disease and its will to go back some, its requirement with respect to itself but also of his/her collaborators. It is intuitive and a charmer, gifted for the communication and capable of eloquence, less in meeting that in small committees from where the undeniable success of its talks “to the corner of fire” ( fireside cat ) near the Americans. It is also a calculator able not to be embarrassed of too many feelings to arrive to its results, often egoist and imbu of his authority. According to its Secretary of State inside, Harold Ickes: “ You are somebody of marvellous, but you are a man with whom it is difficult to work. (…) You never speak frankly even with people who are devoted to you and you know honesty . ”

1932

November 8th: Roosevelt gains the presidential election by beating very largely its adversary, the outgoing president Herbert Hoover; the electoral College is favorable for him in 42 States out of 48. The economic crisis, in this end of the year, 13 million Americans is with the unemployment, against which the action of Hoover seemed insufficient, the promise of a new redistribution of the richnesses (New Deal) , expression used by Roosevelt for the first time, the July 2nd 1932 with the convention of the democratic party joined together with Chicago, played in favor of the governor of the State of New York. The program of Roosevelt does not obey any ideology and is not precise as for the means which will have to be implemented to help the poorest Americans.

Presidency

First mandate

1933

February 6th: The Congress adopts the 20 amendment with the Constitution which makes pass the date of the beginning of the presidential mandate of the March 4th with the January 20th. It thus does not run out more but two months between the presidential election and that of the installation of the new president.

February 15th: Giuseppe Zangara tries to assassinate Roosevelt, which is not yet officially president, whereas he makes a speech with Miami, Florida. Zangara is an anarchistic of Italian origin whose motivations are of a personal nature. He will quickly be condemned to 80 years of reclusion, then with the capital punishment, because Anton Cermak, mayor of Chicago, die of the wounds received during the attack. It is carried out on March 20th, that is to say 28 days after the crime.

March 4th: Roosevelt becomes the 32 president of the United States. Its government includes/understands, for the first time, a woman, Frances Perkins, at the post of minister of work.

March 5th: Roosevelt orders the closing of the banks for one four days duration in order to stop the panic caused by the bankruptcies.

March 9th - June 16th: The Congress votes during these “100 days” the majority of the laws which will form the program of the new distribution (New deal) of the richnesses. The solvent banks can again open what puts a term at economic panic and the government sets up two agencies to manage public works (4 million created jobs) and the stability of the economy.

March 12th: Roosevelt gives the first of its radiophonic interviews “to the corner of fire”. It will give thirty of them during its presidency.

March 31st: Creation of the Body of the ecologists which gives work to 250 000 young people by replanting the national forests.

April 19th: The United States gives up the Gold Standard, which gives a whiplash to the economy.

May 12th: Passage of the law on “the federal assistance urgently” allowing to grant subsidies to the States for their programs of assistance the most stripped and of the law on the “control of agriculture” allowing to limit the production, to increase the prices and to help the farmers in distress.

May 18th: Passage of the law on “the valley of the Tennessee” to fight against the floods and to allow the electrification of the seven states of the valley. Criticism will tackle this socialist `project' that others will regard as a model of social realization.

October 13rd: The government of the United States announces its withdrawal of the Ligue of the nations.

November 16th: Establishment of the diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.

December 5th: The ratification of the 21e amendment by the Utah puts an end to the Prohibition.

1934

March 24th: The Congress votes the transition towards independence from the Filipino which will be effective only the July 4th 1946.

May 29th: The United States gives up protectorate on Cuba resulting from the War against the Spain in 1903.

1935

January 4th: During its annual short speech in front of the Congress on “the situation of the Union”, Roosevelt announces the launching of the second part of its program of new redistribution of the richnesses (New Deal) . It prepares basic reforms on the social security, the health insurance, unemployment etc intended to replace the emergency measures which it installation at the beginning of its program.

May 27th: The Supreme court declares the unconstitutionality of the one of the laws of the New Deal, giving to the federal government capacities on the industrialists. It is a first failure for Roosevelt but also for the federal government vis-a-vis the States and with the individual interests.

July 5th: Signature of the law authorizing the trade unions to represent the employees collectively.

August 14th: Signature of the law on the retirement at 65 years, the insurance unemployment and extension of the social security.

August 31st: Signature of the law on the neutrality of the United States between the countries in war. They avoid directly delivering weapons to the belligerents but authorize the latter to come to supply itself from where the nickname " Cash “Carry" who to him will be given `law paid - carried'. It will be applied to the war between the Italy and the Ethiopia, then with the civil war in Spain. The president was " interventionist " , whereas the Congress was '" isolationist ". What pushed it to declare: " The United States is neutral, but nobody obliges the citizens to be neutres" , which gave volunteers in Spain in the battalion " Abraham Lincoln" , others in China of the AVG ( American Volunteers Group ) which formed the " flying tigers of Claire Chennault and later volunteers of the Eagle Squadron within RAF.

1936

November 3rd: After four years of presidency the economy remains weak and 8 million Americans is always with unemployment. Roosevelt is confronted with a republican candidate without real scale, Alfred Landon, and it succeeds in joining together under its banner the whole of the forces opposed “to financial, to the bankers and to the imprudent speculators”. This multi-ethnic electoral unit, multi-monk primarily Urbain will become and is always the reserve of voice of the Democratic party. Roosevelt is re-elected for a second mandate. Its crushing victory, obtained with a variation of 11 million voice, contradicts all the surveys and the forecasts of the press. It indicates a strong popular support for its policy of new redistribution of the richnesses “(New Deal)” and results in a democratic majority in the two Rooms of the Congress.

Second mandate

1937

January: is invested for a second mandate

1938

January 3rd: During its annual short speech in front of the Congress on “the situation of the Union”, Roosevelt announces the continuation of its economic policy but also the launching of an important program of armament, in particular with the profit of the Navy.

May 26th: Creation of a Parliamentary commission to inquire into the antipatriotic activities. It is interested particularly in the Extreme-right-hand side and the Extreme left.

November 14th: The United States points out their ambassador in Germany, putting de facto fine at the diplomatic relations. Germany points out its ambassador later a few days.

1939

14 - July 26th: Roosevelt engages of the talks to reinforce the bonds with the United Kingdom. He asks the Congress the cancellation of the law of neutrality.

September 3rd: Whereas the France and the the United Kingdom declare the war with the Germany, the the United States reaffirm their neutrality.

October 18th: they prohibit the access of their ports to the submarines of the belligerents.

November 4th: The Congress votes the law of neutrality which takes again the terms of the preceding ones but allows in fact to bring a discrete help to the United Kingdom and France.

1940

Third mandate

1941

January: is invested for a third mandate.

June 28th: the Congress adopts a law allowing the pointing from abroad and prohibits very carried out tending to reverse the government. (These laws are always of topicality and were reinforced after the events of September 11th, 2001).

June-July: the democratic party invests Roosevelt to be candidate for a third presidential mandate, made without precedent. Its republican adversary supports the same policy and will have much evil to convince the Americans to change pilot in full action.

July 26th: nationalization of the Filipino military forces , still under American control, and nomination of the general Douglas MacArthur in load of the Peaceful theater. The relations with Japan start to worsen.

September 11th: Roosevelt orders with its aviation to attack the ships of the Axe surprised in American territorial water.

September 16th: for the first time in the history of the the United States, the Military service obligatory in times of peace is founded.

October 27th: after the torpedoing of two American warships by German submarines, Roosevelt declares that the United States was attacked. The public opinion remains hostile with the war and Roosevelt does not go until declaring the war.

November 5th: Roosevelt decides to be represented for a third mandate, in spite of the implicit limitation with two established by George Washington, the first president. The republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, is a former member of the democratic party which had supported Roosevelt before. Its election platform is not truly different from that of this last and, the degradation of the international situation helping, F.D. Roosevelt are re-elected under conditions slightly less less favorable than in 1936. The victory shows that the Americans continue to support his policy, even if the margin narrowed to 55%.

December 7th: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor a few hours before a declaration of official war. Roosevelt declares that this day will remain marked by this infamy and the Congrès vote immediately the entry in war.

December 11th: the Germany and the Italy declare the war in the United States.

December 15th: the trade unions announce that they give up the right to strike to support the American effort throughout war.

December 19th: creation of the office of the Censure intended to control information in time of war.

1942

January 14th: Roosevelt signs a decree of Fichage Americans of Italian, German origin and Japanese woman whom one suspects of complicity with the enemy. In practice they are especially the Japanese residing on the west coast who are aimed; they will be locked up in camps (Order in Council 9066).

August 2nd: Roosevelt authorizes the operation Mittchell consisting in attacking Tokyo with light bomber on the basis of door plane.

June 19th: Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Washington to prepare the unloading of November in North Africa under the command of the general Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1943

11 - August 24th: Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Canada to prepare the unloading in France envisaged in spring 1944.

August 21st - October 7th: The delegates of the United States, of the United Kingdom, of China and the USSR meet close to Washington to outline the first steps of what will become the United Nations.

November 7th: Franklin Roosevelt is again candidate with the support of the near total of its party. He is again opposed to a republican candidate, Thomas Dewey, whose platform is not in total contradiction with the policy of Roosevelt. This last, in spite of its age and its tiredness, conducts campaign while requiring of the Americans not to change pilot in the middle of the ford. Roosevelt is re-elected for a fourth mandate with a small majority of 54% but more than 80% of the vote of the electoral college.

1944

Edward Stettinius, Jr was its last Secretary of State in November.

1 {{er}} - July 22nd: The representatives of 44 nations meet in Bretton Woods and create the the World Bank and the Fonds International currency. The monetary policy of the post-war period will be strongly affected by this decision. The system of Gold Exchange Standard (Standard of gold exchange) is adopted under the influence of the British economist John Maynard Keynes; only the dollar is convertible out of gold on the basis of 35 USD for one ounce of gold. This system will perdurera until August 15th, 1975, when President Nixon decides to give up the convertibility of the gold dollar.

Fourth mandate

1945

January: is invested for a fourth mandate

April 12th: Roosevelt, 63 years old, dies of a Brain hemorrhage during its holidays with Warm Springs, Georgia. The vice-president Harry Truman becomes the 33e president of the United States.

Foreign politics

Until 1939 the the United States remain neutral with respect to the first steps of the Second world war. They do not react against the seizure of power by Hitler in Germany, they did not leave in the civil war to Spain and do not protest against not carried out Japanese in Mandchourie. When the war bursts in Europe, the United States is favorable to the France and the the United Kingdom to which they will provide armament. They escort the British convoys through the Atlantique but without declaring the war in Germany. It is only in December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, that the United States declares the war with the Japan and that in return the Germany and the Italy will make the same statement. On the other hand, the president reacted much against the invasion of China by Japan.

It on a great subject of debate there on the relation of the president with China and French Indo-China which occupied the major part of its interventions to the costs of other subjects. After the Agreements of the Régime of Vichy with the Japan in 1940 to deliver the French Indo-China to the passage of the Japanese troops, the president ordered the Embargo against Japan for the oil raw materials and metals, which involved Japan to seek these resources in the South-East Asia and to enter in war with the protective western powers to get some.

Before the end of the war in Europe, F.D. Roosevelt takes part in the Conférence of Yalta in 1945. This conference carves the world of the post-war period such as it will exist until the disappearance of the USSR, F.D. Roosevelt will not see the end of the war.

When the Second world war was imposed on the United States by the Japanese aggression of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war of Germany and Italy, Roosevelt, which, before, had never hidden its sympathy to the combined camp, entered the battle resolutely. It had then the great merit, although the implication of its country in this war resulted above all from the Japanese attack, to firstly direct the American response in direction of Europe, once the conflict balanced on the face of the Pacific by the air and sea victory of the Islands Midway.

Its evaluation with its right measurement of the hugeness of the danger hitlérien and the need for preventing the USSR from sinking justified certainly this choice. But it had nevertheless to force it to overcome the preferences post-isolationists of the majority of the average Americans for whom the principal enemy was Japan. Thus was setting-up a vigorous entry on line of the United States at the sides of the British, initially towards North Africa by the Opération Torch, then towards Europe by the successive unloadings in Italy and France.

However, during this war, misled by its diplomats Leahy and Murphy, it was obstinated to only reduce its vision of France to the Régime of Vichy, while recognizing in the marshal Pétain and its entourage the only French to be supported in spite of their authoritative system and their action Collaborationniste and Raciste. In same time, he was opposed to the free France and his chief the Général de Gaulle, to have however only maintained the democratic institutions in the territories which he controlled, and of the French combatants in the allied camp.

Thus Roosevelt supported successively Darlan then Giraud, in spite of their maintenance of the Régime of Vichy in released Africa (1942-43), and that it tried to block the action of the French Comité of the national Release of Algiers, then to place France released under American military occupation (AMGOT).
In the field of the fight against the hitlerism, it was better inspired and, in agreement with Churchill and Stalin, imposed on the powers of the Axis an unconditional surrender. It was also unfavourable with any separate peace (suggested by certain diplomats).

But F.D. Roosevelt, exhausted, was going to succumb to its disease and was not going to see the end of the war.

Interior policy

Roosevelt is the initiator of a policy which it presents like a new redistribution of the richnesses “(New Deal)”. During its first mandate it sets up emergency measures in order to restore the economy and the confidence of the Americans in their banking system. It initiates many reforms whose creation of a Central bank and it succeeds in transferring the economic capacity from Wall Street, New York Stock Exchange, in the hands of the Government, with Washington. It launches programs of public Travaux using many Main-d'oeuvre and thus makes it possible to the unemployed to find work while equipping the country. Some of this work - the Stopping S in particular, gigantic for the time, still allow the Irrigation the least fertile valleys and brought comfort to it.

During its second mandate, it continues its policy and introduces also social laws intended to protect the weakest citizens, the elderly, unemployed etc the agencies in charge of the installation of these programs remain however controlled by the various states and the allowances thus vary from one area to another and discrimination towards certain minorities is visible. Its policy is always popular but it is attacked by the conservatives at the same time on the ideological level, socialism is in the United States a policy of extreme-left, and on the constitutional level because the States do not want to give up their prerogatives with the federal capacity.

The Second world war bursts before the beginning of the third mandate of F.D. Roosevelt. Certain historians think that it is it, and not the economic policy, which is at the origin of the end of the Grande Depression. American industry is equipped to be able to produce the ships, the planes and the armaments necessary to the entry in war and the government can allow all to control. In parallel, the need for labor is such as all the minorities, in particular the women and the Blacks, are put at contribution. The Discrimination remains real but the acquired rights will remain it after the war.

Favorable to the Retirement by distribution, he declared with a journalist who suggested to him financing the retirements by the tax: I suppose that you are right on an economic plan, but the financing is not an economic problem. It is a purely political question. We founded the deductions from the wages to give to the cotisants a statutory duty, moral and policy of touching their pensions. With these contributions, no rotten politician will be able to never dismantle my Social security.

Anecdotes

F.D. Roosevelt is the only president to be elected four times. It will remain it because an amendment with the Constitution limiting the number of mandates to two was voted since.

When he is elected president Roosevelt does not form part of the political community of Washington, he elected forever with the Congress of the United States but the genealogists showed that he had family ties with eleven other US presidents like with Winston Churchill. He belongs to the eight presidents died during their mandate.

In 1939, Roosevelt becomes the first president to be appeared on television. It used also much the radio. He hardly liked the theater and collected the stamps stations.

Homages

The portrait of Franklin Roosevelt appears on the part of 10 hundreds.

Monaco emitted several stamps of homage during second half of the Années 1940. One of them represents Roosevelt in front of its collection of postage stamps. However, this stamp comprises a error: the hand which holds the Brucelles was drawn equipped with six fingers.

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