9 Things You May Not Know About Franklin D. Roosevelt
FDR: A Voice of Hope
Elected in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt was a reassuring presence for many Americans through the trials of the Fine Depression.
9 Things You May Not Know About Franklin D. Roosevelt
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9 Things You May Not Know About Franklin D. Roosevelt
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September 06, 2017
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Explore some surprising facts about the man who steered the United States through two of its greatest crises: the Good Depression and World War II.
1. Roosevelt was distantly related to both his wifey and eleven other presidents.
An only child with maternal roots dating back to the Mayflower, Franklin D. Roosevelt spent a privileged childhood in Hyde Park, Fresh York, prior to attending an elite Massachusetts boarding school. He then enrolled in Harvard College, where he began courting another Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor, his fifth cousin once liquidated as well as the niece (and goddaughter) of his fifth cousin, then-President Theodore Roosevelt, whom FDR greatly admired. When the duo married in 1905, Theodore Roosevelt took a break from his White House duties to give Eleanor away in lieu of her deceased father. “Well, Franklin,” the president purportedly exclaimed at the wedding, “there’s nothing like keeping the name in the family.” However Theodore was his closest relative to head the country, FDR claimed to have traced his family tree to ten other presidents as well.
Two. He had little love for the law.
After Harvard, FDR went on to Columbia Law School, where he promptly flunked contracts and civil procedure and had to make up the classes over the summer. “Franklin Roosevelt was not much of a student and nothing of a lawyer afterwards,” one professor later recalled. “He didn’t emerge to have any aptitude for law, and made no effort to overcome that handicap by hard work.” In fact, Roosevelt didn’t even stick around to get his degree, leaving Columbia in one thousand nine hundred seven upon passing the bar exam. Family connections landed him a job at Carter Ledyard and Milburn, a prestigious Fresh York City hard. But albeit he had some minor successes there, he never fairly took to the profession, preferring instead to talk politics. Fortunately, his family connections also brought him into contact with local Democratic leaders, who in one thousand nine hundred ten backed his successful campaign for a Fresh York State Senate seat. Roosevelt’s starlet only rose from there; he became assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913, a vice-presidential candidate in 1920, governor of Fresh York in one thousand nine hundred twenty nine and a presidential candidate in 1932.
Three. FDR won all of his presidential elections in landslides.
In what came to be called the “New Deal coalition,” disparate groups such as Southern whites, Catholics, Jews, African-Americans, labor union members and puny farmers united to conveniently elect Roosevelt to four terms in the White House. During his very first presidential race in 1932, with the Superb Depression at its height, he defeated unpopular incumbent Herbert Hoover by an electoral vote tally of 472-59. He then vanquished Kansas Governor Alf Landon in one thousand nine hundred thirty six (523 electoral votes to eight), businessman Wendell Willkie in one thousand nine hundred forty (449 electoral votes to 82) and Fresh York Governor Thomas Dewey in one thousand nine hundred forty four (432 electoral votes to 99), winning at least 53.Four percent of the popular vote each time.
Four. No president will ever serve longer (barring a constitutional switch).
When George Washington determined in one thousand seven hundred ninety six that eight years in office was enough, he established an unwritten rule that would stand for almost a century and a half. A few presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, attempted to buck this precedent. But none succeeded until FDR, who ran for a third term in one thousand nine hundred forty largely over concerns about the growing threat from Nazi Germany. In the end, he served in the White House for more than twelve years, a feat his political opponents disparaged as bad for democracy. With Roosevelt’s tenure in mind, momentum grew for the 22nd amendment, ratified in 1951, which proclaimed “no person shall be elected … president more than twice.”
Five. His handicap was largely concealed from the public.
In the summer of 1921, while on vacation in Canada, 39-year-old Roosevelt fell ill with what was ultimately diagnosed as polio, a disease with no known cure. Paralyzed from the mid-body down, he underwent years of painstaking physical rehabilitation to attempt and regain the use of his gams. Yet albeit he made some progress, learning to stir brief distances with the help of steel gam braces and a cane (usually while holding the arm of a companion), he would remain wheelchair-dependent for the rest of his life. FDR could not even dress or bathe himself. The public never knew the utter extent of his disability, however, in part because the media infrequently mentioned it. At Roosevelt’s request, most pictures from the time display him seated in an open car or standing at a podium. When the occasional photographer did attempt to catch him in his wheelchair, Secret Service agents reportedly tore the film out of their cameras.
6. Historians divide his Fresh Deal into two parts.
In his one thousand nine hundred thirty two speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president, Roosevelt famously promised to tackle the Excellent Depression with “a fresh deal for the American people.” Wasting no time, he initiated a flurry of legislation during his very first one hundred days in office, much of which remains in effect to this day. To shore up the faltering financial sector, FDR closed insolvent banks and reorganized others, federally insured bank deposits, established stock market regulations and abandoned the gold standard. He also took steps to end Prohibition, to increase employment through large-scale public works projects, to institute agricultural subsidies and to bring electric current to rural areas. Related measures continued to pass via the rest of one thousand nine hundred thirty three and 1934, after which Roosevelt took the Fresh Deal in a more liberal direction, generally referred to as the “Second Fresh Deal.” This time around, Congress raised taxes on the wealthy, ensured labor unions the right to collectively bargain and approved unemployment and disability benefits, as well as Social Security for retirees. Attempt as he might, tho’, Roosevelt could not fully pull the country out of the Depression until it began mobilizing for World War II.
7. Roosevelt attempted to increase the size of the Supreme Court.
Fed up with the U.S. Supreme Court for striking down several Fresh Deal laws, Roosevelt in early one thousand nine hundred thirty seven proposed expanding it from nine to as many as fifteen justices. Under this so-called “court-packing” plan, which critics derided as a separation of powers disturbance, a fresh justice would be added for each sitting justice above the age of seventy who refused to retire. But albeit FDR’s fellow Democrats held large majorities in both houses of Congress, they for once balked at supporting his agenda. In losing the battle, tho’, Roosevelt won the war. Never again would the Supreme Court invalidate a lump of Fresh Deal legislation, and by the time of his death, seven of the nine justices were his appointees.
8. He sanctioned the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans.
Anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States reached a fever pitch following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In California, for example, the governor, the entire congressional delegation, numerous newspapers and top U.S. Army commanders all called for Japanese residents to be eliminated so that they could not commit acts of espionage and sabotage. Some government officials had misgivings about what’s now considered one of the most shameful gigs in U.S. history. But not Roosevelt, a humanitarian in many other respects, who told the War Department to do what it thought best. In February 1942, he signed an executive order delineating “military areas … from which any or all persons may be excluded.” About 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were then forcibly eliminated to internment camps, their property sold off at bargain-basement prices. German-Americans and Italian-Americans were generally spared this fate. A few decades later, Congress issued a formal apology and awarded $20,000 to each surviving detainee.
9. FDR was the very first sitting president to fly in a plane.
At a time when air travel was much more dangerous, Roosevelt flew to Chicago in one thousand nine hundred thirty two to accept the Democratic nomination for president. He then became the very first sitting president to journey via airplane—and the very first sitting president to leave the country in wartime—when he took off from Miami in January one thousand nine hundred forty three aboard a Boeing three hundred fourteen flying boat. After making stops in Trinidad, Brazil and Gambia, he got on a 2nd plane, a TWA C-54, which brought him to Casablanca, Morocco, for a conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. More flights followed, including one from Malta to the Soviet Union just a duo of months before his death.
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