Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life

Notes:

  • FDR and TR were 5th cousins.

  • FDR became president during Great Depression. In March 1933. Unemployment was at 25%. FDR believed his first task was not to establish a new economic program, which would lead to demoralizing debate, but to renew the country’s trust in its institutions and leaders.

  • “Hoover flags” = empty pockets turned inside out

  • The 18th Amendment (Prohibition) was adopted in 1919. It was as much a rejection of city life and habits as it was of “demon liquor.”

  • 1925: John Scopes trial in TN. Scopes taught evolution. Clarence Darrow defended him. Ended in a $1 fine of Scopes.

  • Walter Lippmann: nationally syndicated columnist, big deal. He believed, as FDR would, that world peace depended on international institutions and int’l public opinion. An int’l conscience.

  • Sui generis = unique (literally “of its own kind”)

  • FDR bio:

    • Attributes: “supreme self-confidence and unfailing self-reliance”

    • FDR knew a lot about his own family history. The Roosevelts had been in the New World since 1650. Made it big in Manhattan real estate and West Indian sugar trade.

    • FDR’s mom was 27 when he was born. His dad was 53. He was an only child.

    • Went to Groton. Not great at athletics. Academics didn’t matter back then really. Went to Harvard. Didn’t make it into Porcellian—”greatest disappointment of my life.” Was editor of the Crimson.

    • Passed the NY bar and quit law school.

    • FDR’s dad (James) was friends with Grover Cleveland. James took 5-year-old FDR to the White House to meet Cleveland. Cleveland was struggling with Congress at the time. He patted little FDR on the head and said, “I hope, young man, that you will never be president of the United States.”

  • Woodrow Wilson once blockaded Mexico’s east and west ports because Mexico captured three American sailors and eventually released them but did not fire a 21-gun salute, as Wilson demanded.

  • FDR tried to join the Navy during WWI. TR encouraged it, too. But Wilson wouldn’t let him.

  • During WWI, Americans started calling sauerkraut “liberty cabbage,” and frankfurters “hot dogs.” The latter stuck.

  • FDR cheated on Eleanor with Eleanor’s secretary. For two years. Eleanor found his love letters. They had a joyless marriage. And 5 children.

  • FDR was involved in a scandal that entrapped homosexual Navy members at a Rhode Island base. A Navy chaplain was caught in the trap. The Navy court reprimanded FDR for the “ill-advised” program.

  • FDR contracted polio at 39. At the time, less than 1% of adults over 30 who were exposed to the virus suffered permanent paralysis. FDR was one of those unlucky few. FDR designed his own conveyance—a modified kitchen chair with wheels but without arms to make it easier to get into and less noticeable than a conventional wheelchair, but he couldn’t propel himself. He mentioned his polio in public only one time during his 12 years as president.

  • Happy Warrior: FDR originally used the term to describe another politician, but it became more associated with FDR himself, given his polio but still buoyant personality.

  • Hoover: FDR’s predecessor. Stanford grad and mining engineer. Made money in Australia and China mining stuff. Millionaire before 40. Paragon of American belief in success through skill and hard work. Didn’t believe in welfare. Thought private charity should ease economic distress.

  • Spring 1929: FDR’s first Fireside Chat. Sunday night to maximize radio audience.

  • FDR urged a separation of business and government akin to the separation of church and state.

  • FDR believed states were laboratories of social experimentation to alleviate economic conditions.

  • America during the Depression was obsessed with self-reliance, rugged individualism, etc. FDR wanted a greater commitment to “social planning.”

  • FDR invented/popularized the term Brain Trust. After a NYT reporter reported on the group of academics who were invited to find ways to combat the Depression.

  • In July 1932, Gen Douglas MacArthur, Maj Dwight Eisenhower, and Maj George Patton used six tanks to clear a march of WWI veterans in DC who were protesting not receiving bonuses. They burned their shacks and used tear gas.

  • In November 1932, Roosevelt won a landslide (42 of 48 states).

  • FDR considered his political persona a form of acting. He told Orson Welles “you and I are the two greatest actors in America.”

  • An unemployed bricklayer named Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate FDR in February 1933 before he took office. He ended up shooting the Chicago mayor, who was standing next to FDR. A woman standing next to the gunman had saved FDR from injury by hitting Zangara with her handbag. Zangara was tried and executed.

  • FDR did more media availability than Hoover. FDR also did not use written questions. Just riffed.

  • FDR cut benefits for veterans and salaries for federal employees.

  • Civilian Conservation Corps: public projects; $30 per week; you had to send $25 home to your family. Planted trees, state parks, trails, billions of fish stocked, fires contained. 49 Corps members died. CCC was a precursor to the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). FDR legacy of conservationism about equal to that of TR.

  • Eleanor Roosevelt likely had a romantic affair with female journalist Lorena Hickok. They exchanged love letters. About kissing each other.

  • Civil Works Administration: 4 million workers, digging ditches, laying pipes, building and repairing roads, schools, playgrounds, athletic fields, hospitals, airports, etc. Lots of teachers, artists, actors, and college students.

  • WWI: 18 million lives lost.

  • FDR did the Glass-Steagall Act, separated investment and commercial banking and created the FDIC.

  • FDR’s schedule: Each day began at approx. 8 a.m. with breakfast in bed of orange juice, scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. As he ate, he read six different newspapers. Over the course of the day, FDR would smoke two packs of Camel cigarettes.

  • Louis Howe, FDR’s closest advisor, urged Eleanor Roosevelt to consider running for president in 1940.

  • 1934: Securities Exchange Act created the SEC. Also the FCC.

  • Keynes to FDR: “If you fail, rational change will be gravely prejudiced throughout the world, leaving orthodox and revolution to fight it out. But if you succeed, new and bolder methods will be tried, and we may date the first chapter of a new economic era from your accession to office.”

  • Huey Long: FDR critic, was both governor of Louisiana and a senator at the same time.

  • Another FDR critic: Father Charles Coughlin. Huge radio personality. Totally wheels off guy. Tucker Carlson-esque.

  • Upton Sinclair was also governor of California.

  • Roosevelt’s cheerfulness.

    • “Happy Warrior.”

    • “A model of good cheer and optimism.”

    • “While the public’s impressions of him as upbeat and buoyant accurately reflected his general demeanor and mood, he also believed that a degree of role playing was essential to his political success, and that this role playing included a steady display of cheerful confidence that better days were ahead.”

    • “He was one of the most alive men I ever met. He never gave me the impression he was tired or bored.”

    • Cousin Daisy: “F. has such a buoyant nature.”

    • Ickes: “marveled again and again at his high cheer and at his disposition.”

    • Churchill: “I greatly admire the splendid calm and buoyancy with which you bear them [the press] amidst so much clatter.”

  • FDR asked Frances Perkins to figure out how they would craft Social Security. Perkins confided her uncertainty about how to make it work constitutionally with SCOTUS justice Harlan Stone. Stone whispered to her, “The taxing power of the Federal Government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need.”

  • WPA funded Jackson Pollack. The sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who sculpted Mount Rushmore, urged WPA administrators to use the funds on the schools. “Make their classrooms, study rooms, and halls pleasant, with color and design. … You are not after masterpieces … the real success will be in the interest, the human interest, which you will awaken; and what that does to the Nation’s mind.”

  • 1935: NLRA. Establishes NLRB.

  • FDR proposed a wealth tax in 1935. It had an inheritance tax.

  • In 1935, 75% of Americans supported a national referendum before entering another war. We were a hugely pacifist country.

  • Many of FDR’s initial New Deal measures were struck down by the Supreme Court. Famously, he tried to pack the court by adding liberal justices, but this never came to be. He also considered amending the Constitution to limit the Court’s powers, or to give Congress the power to overturn the Court’s rulings.

    • The number of justices is not enshrined in the Constitution, but SCOTUS has had nine justices since 1869.

    • Eventually, 5 justices retired in only 3 years, so FDR got his majority.

    • One of FDR’s appointees, Hugo Black, faced steep opposition. A rumor came out that he was a member of the Alabama KKK. It turned out he was. Black was confirmed anyway, and ironically ended up becoming one of the Court’s “leading exponents of civil liberties.”

  • In 1936, FDR proposed a tax on undistributed corporate profits. Which would force corporations to either invest their surplus (creating economic expansion and more jobs) or distribute profits to shareholders (who would have to pay taxes on capital gains). It passed. Generated $785 million.

  • FDR: “Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

  • FDR won 60% of popular vote in 1936. The Supreme Court justices did not attend his first State of the Union address because they didn’t like FDR’s earlier efforts of court reform.

  • In 1820, James Monroe won all but one of the electoral votes.

  • FDR’s children were kind of troubled. A lot of marriages, divorces, and financial issues.

  • FDR at one point changed his will to give half his estate to Missy LeHand, his administrative assistant.

  • In 1940, 2/3 of the country supported a draft.

  • WWII

    • Kristallnacht: 9 Nov 1938; cities across Germany, Nazi party officials attacked Jewish houses of worship, businesses, etc., killed as many as 100 unarmed civilians.

    • 1939: FDR sent Hitler a message to knock it off. In a sign of disrespect, Hitler did not respond for two weeks. Hitler didn’t think someone leading a country with so little military power deserved respect. “He who does not possess power loses the right to life.” Hitler thought the US was a “mongrel society” populated by Jews, blacks, and inferior Slavs.

    • Charles Lindbergh, the aviator, was a hugely popular figure. He was also a pacifist, which pissed off FDR. Lindbergh supported accommodation with Hitler. Even accepted decorations from Hitler. Somehow he was still popular.

    • 9 April 1940: Nazi armies invaded Denmark and Norway. 9 May 1940: Invaded Belgium and the Netherlands and France.

    • In 1940, Nazis had 6 million men. US had 500,000.

    • FDR wanted US to send as much supplies as possible. The Navy resisted, specifically the Navy JAG. FDR dismissed the “sea lawyer” and told the Secretary of the Navy to send him away on vacation.

    • France surrendered in 12 days. Nazi flags hung atop the Eiffel Tower. Charles de Gaulle formed a government in exile, which FDR would have issues with later.

    • Lend-Lease: gave POTUS blanket permission to distribute war goods.

    • FDR created Office of Civil Defense (OCD) to protect US cities from air attacks, like in London. FDR appointed New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia as its director.

    • Japanese officials spread the rumor that US Marines were the most ruthless, that they had to kill their parents to join the Corps.

    • January 1942: Nazis in Berlin proposed the “Final Solution of the Jewish question.”

    • FDR did not really do all he could have to protect Jews fleeing from Europe. Immigration laws were still too tight in the early 1940s. FDR was concerned that they might inadvertently let in Nazis, too. That concern was overblown.

    • Japanese internment: 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast. 70% were American citizens. Went to camps in the mountains and deserts. The concern was from the military of espionage and sabotage. FBI investigations showed little actual basis for concern.

      • In 1943, a program began that allowed draft-age US-born citizens from the camps to enlist in the Army. They were excellent fighters. Over 9,000 of the 14,000 Nisei volunteers won Purple Hearts. Most decorated unit in US military history.

    • Bataan Death March: US and Philippine forces surrendered in Bataan. Japanese and Korean troops beat and bayoneted them along the 80 mile march to prison camps.

    • Battle of Midway: US forces intercepted Admiral Yamamoto’s plans. Admiral Nimitz led the US forces. Took down 330 planes, four carriers.

    • LBJ briefly commissioned into the Navy, did almost nothing, got a Silver Star for promising Gen MacArthur that he would press FDR for a stronger commitment in the Pacific. “Most talked-about and least deserved medal in US military history.”

    • US produced 10,000 tanks per month. In the nine months after Pearl Harbor, the armed forces swelled 4x from 1.6 million to 5.4 million.

    • Navy was reluctant to integrate black troops. Then Dorie Miller, a “mess man” on a battleship at Pearl Harbor, won a Navy Cross for carrying his wounded Captain to safety and manning a machine gun to shoot down a Japanese plane.

    • The US thought we had a strong ally in China during WWII. China had no history of imperialism (like Britain) and their government was allegedly at least trying to imitate the US.

      • May 1944: Time Magazine article comes out that exposed Chiang Kai-Shek’s China as corrupt, predicted the rise of Mao.

    • 1944: GI Bill passes. A return to the New Deal ethos.

    • US wanted China’s help to defeat Japan, but CKS’s army was ineffective.

    • Stalin would show up to these conferences with hundreds of bodyguards; they would go around interviewing and arresting “suspicious people;” they even bugged FDR’s room in Tehran.

      • Nevertheless, the US public liked Stalin. Time Magazine honored him with a cover. The US appreciated Russia’s advance into Germany.

  • Churchill would work late at night, insisted on an afternoon nap, would chain-smoke cigars, drink sherry before breakfast, scotch and soda before lunch, wine at dinner, and brandy before bed.

  • FDR’s health was the biggest issue in his race for a third term. He would be 59. Lifetime smoker.

  • FDR’s Four Freedoms: of speech, of religion, from want, from fear.

  • In 1943, 51 percent of Americans favored a fourth term for FDR if the war was still on.

  • FDR chose WWI veteran and senator Harry S. Truman as his VP for his fourth term.

  • Eleanor after finding out FDR died: “I am more sorry for the people of this country and of the world than I am for ourselves.” When Stalin found out FDR died, he wanted to know if he had been poisoned. The New York Times, usually a critical voice: “Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now, that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House.”

  • 22nd Amendment (1951): you only get two terms now.

Quotes:

  • The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it and try another. But above all try something.

  • In a peroration meant to assure his constituents that he would no disappoint, Roosevelt declared, ‘I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order.’

  • “To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the tradition of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers.”

  • Every great benefit to the human race … has been bitterly fought in every stage leading up to its final acceptance.

  • We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. we must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.

  • In the face of our danger which confronts our time, no individual retains or can hope to retain the rights of personal choice which free men can enjoy in times of peace. He has a first obligation to service in defense of our institutions of freedom—a first obligation to serve his country in whatever capacity his country finds him useful—which must override all personal preferences.

  • Battles are not won by soldiers or sailors who think first of their own personal safety. And wars and not won by people who are concerned primarily with their own comfort, their own convenience, their own pocketbooks. … All of us here at home are being tested—for our fortitude, for our selfless devotion to our country and to our cause.

Typos:

  • Page 57: Missing quotation mark in first full paragraph.

  • Page 315: FSLA instead of FLSA

  • Page 390: “establishnment”

  • Page 448: diner instead of dinner

  • Page 535: Sarah vs. Sara

  • Page 558: “Letters from worried concerned supporters”

  • Page 568: comma instead of period ending a sentence.

  • Page 575: “Greatly trouble by prospects of a bankrupt ally”