Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (pron.: /ˈroʊzəvɛlt/ roh-zuh-velt or pron.: /ˈroʊzəvəlt/ roh-zuh-vlt; January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States (1933–1945) and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. A dominant leader of the Democratic Partyand the only American president elected to more than two terms, he built a New Deal Coalition that realigned American politics after 1932, as his domestic policies defined 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 Hooverin November 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression. Energized by his personal victory over polio, FDR's unfailing optimism and activism contributed to a renewal of the national spirit. He worked closely with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in leading the Allies against Germany and Japan in World War II, and restoring prosperity to the nation's economy.

In his first hundred days in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief (government jobs for the unemployed), recovery (economic growth), and reform (through regulation of Wall Street, banks and transportation). The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court or passing any considerable legislation; it abolished many of the relief programs when unemployment diminished during World War II. Most of the regulations on business were ended about 1975–85, except for the regulation of Wall Street by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which still exists. Along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which was created in 1933, and Social Security, which Congress passed in 1935.

As World War II loomed after 1938, with the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, FDR gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and Great Britain, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy" which would supply munitions to the Allies. In March 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to the countries fighting against Nazi Germany with Britain. With very strong national support, he made war on Japan and Germany after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, calling it a "date which will live in infamy". He supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the Allied war effort. As an active military leader, Roosevelt implemented an overall war strategy on two fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers and the development of the world's first atom bomb. In 1942 Roosevelt ordered the internment of 100,000 Japanese American civilians. Unemployment dropped to 2%, relief programs largely ended, and the industrial economy grew rapidly to new heights as millions of people moved to new jobs in war centers, and 16 million men and 300,000 women were drafted or volunteered for military service.

Roosevelt dominated the American political scene not only during the twelve years of his presidency, but also for decades afterward. He orchestrated the realignment of voters that created the Fifth Party System. FDR's New Deal Coalition united labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics, African Americans and rural white Southerners. He also influenced the later creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods. Roosevelt is consistently rated by scholars as one of the top three U.S. Presidents.

Family name, early life and education  

Roosevelt is an Anglicized form of the Dutch surname 'Van Rosevelt' or 'Van Rosenvelt', meaning 'from field of roses.' Although some use an Anglicizedspelling pronunciation of /ˈruːzəvɛlt/, that is, with the vowel of ruse, FDR himself used [ˈroʊzəvəlt], with the vowel of rose. (The last syllable was pronounced by him with a schwa, or nondescript vowel, almost as vult.)

One of the oldest families in New York State, the Roosevelts distinguished themselves in areas other than politics. One ancestor, Isaac Roosevelt, had served with the New York militia during the American Revolution. Roosevelt attended events of the New York society Sons of the American Revolution, and joined the organization while he was president. While his paternal family had become prosperous early on in New York real estate and trade, much of his immediate family's wealth had been built by FDR's maternal grandfather, Warren Delano, in the China trade, including opium and tea. His mother named him after her favorite uncle Franklin Delano.

Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in the Hudson Valley town of Hyde Park, New York. His father, James Roosevelt, and his mother, Sara Ann Delano, were sixth cousins and both were from wealthy old New York families. They were of mostly English descent; Roosevelt's great-grandfather, James Roosevelt, was of Dutch ancestry, and his mother's maiden name, Delano, originated with a French Huguenot immigrant of the 17th century. Franklin was their only child.

Roosevelt grew up in an atmosphere of privilege. Sara was a possessive mother; James, 54 when Franklin was born, was considered by some as a remote father, though biographer Burns indicates James interacted with his son more than was typical at the time. Sara was the dominant influence in Franklin's early years; she once declared "My son Franklin is a Delano, not a Roosevelt at all." Frequent trips to Europe made Roosevelt conversant in German and French. He learned to ride, shoot, row, and play polo and lawn tennis. Roosevelt also took up golf in his teen years, becoming a skilled long hitter. He learned to sail, and his father gave him a sailboat at the age of sixteen which he named "New Moon"

Roosevelt attended Groton School, an Episcopal boarding school in Massachusetts; ninety percent 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." Peabody recalled Roosevelt as "a quiet, satisfactory boy of more than ordinary intelligence, taking a good position in his form but not brilliant".

Roosevelt went to Harvard College and lived in a suite which is now part of Adams House, in the "Gold Coast" area populated by wealthy students. An average student academically, he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and also editor-in-chief of The Harvard Crimson daily newspaper. Roosevelt later declared, "I took economics courses in college for four years, and everything I was taught was wrong." While he was at Harvard, his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President, and the president's vigorous leadership style and reforming zeal made him Franklin's role model and hero. In mid-1902, he met his future wife Eleanor Roosevelt, Theodore's niece, on a train to Tivoli, New York. (The two 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, but dropped out in 1907 after he passed 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 theIndependent Order of Odd Fellows and was initiated into Freemasonry on October 11, 1911, at Holland Lodge No. 8 in New York City.

Marriage and family life  

On March 17, 1905, Roosevelt married Eleanor despite the fierce resistance of his mother. Eleanor's uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, stood in at the wedding for Eleanor's deceased father Elliott. (Eleanor had lost both parents by age ten.) The young couple moved into Springwood, his family's estate, where FDR's mother became a frequent house guest, much to Eleanor's chagrin. The home was owned by Roosevelt's mother until her death in 1941 and was very much her home as well. As for their personal lives, Franklin was a charismatic, handsome and socially active man. In contrast, Eleanor was shy and disliked social life, and at first stayed at home to raise their children. Although Eleanor had an aversion to sexual intercourse, and considered it "an ordeal to be endured", they had six children, the first four in rapid succession:

• Anna Eleanor (1906–1975; age 69)
• James (1907–1991; age 83)
• Franklin Delano, Jr. (March 18, 1909 – November 7, 1909)
• Elliott (1910–1990; age 80)
• a second Franklin Delano, Jr. (1914–1988; age 74)
• John Aspinwall (1916–1981; age 65).

Roosevelt's dog, Fala, also became well known as Roosevelt's companion during his time in the White House, and was called the "most photographed dog in the world."

Roosevelt reportedly had affairs outside his marriage, including one with Eleanor's social secretary Lucy Mercer which began soon after she was hired in early 1914. In September 1918, Eleanor found letters revealing the affair in Roosevelt's luggage, when he returned from World War I. According to the Roosevelt family, Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce so that he could be with the woman he loved, but Lucy, being Catholic, could not bring herself to marry a divorced man with five children. According to FDR biographer Jean Edward Smith, it is generally accepted that Eleanor indeed offered "to give Franklin his freedom." However, they reconciled after a fashion with the informal mediation of Roosevelt's adviser Louis McHenry Howe, and FDR promised never to see Lucy again. His mother Sara also intervened, and told Franklin that if he divorced his wife, he would bring scandal upon the family, and she "would not give him another dollar." However, Franklin broke his promise. He and Lucy maintained a formal correspondence, and began seeing each other again in 1941—and perhaps earlier. Lucy was even given the code name "Mrs. Johnson" by the Secret Service. Indeed, Lucy was with FDR on the day he died. Despite this, FDR's affair was not widely known until the 1960s. Roosevelt's son Elliott stated that Franklin also had a 20-year affair with his private secretaryMarguerite "Missy" LeHand. Another son, James, stated that "there is a real possibility that a romantic relationship existed" between his father and Princess Märtha of Sweden, who resided in the White House during part of World War II; aides began to refer to her as "the president's girlfriend", and gossip linking the two romantically appeared in the newspapers.

The effect of these flirtations or affairs upon Eleanor Roosevelt is difficult to estimate. "I have the memory of an elephant. I can forgive, but I cannot forget," she wrote to a close friend. After the Lucy Mercer affair, any remaining intimacy left their relationship. Eleanor soon thereafter established a separate house in Hyde Park at Valkill, and increasingly devoted herself to various social and political causes. For the rest of their lives, the Roosevelts' marriage was more of a political partnership than an intimate relationship. The emotional break in their marriage was so severe that when FDR asked Eleanor in 1942—in light of his failing health—to come back home and live with him again, she refused.