“Franklin Roosevelt”
“America was mired in depression as fascism took root
abroad – until a disabled man railed a paralyzed nation.”
“As radio networks matured, they became the
handmaiden of a President who understood the new
power of bringing his voice inside each home and talking
as if among friends… Americans had never been closer
together.”
The meaning and the image of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt grow stronger as time passes. In a recent CSPAN survey, Americans historians ranked him above
George Washington on their list of great Presidents: he is
now No. 2, just below Abraham Lincoln, who, like
Roosevelt, preserved the United States (“The last best hope
of earth”) in extreme crisis.
From someplace deep within Roosevelt came bold and
unshakable confidence in the American people. He
understood that this free land possessed limitless resources
to be marshaled against the great depression and then the
Nazi tyranny, which plunged much of the globe into World
War II. If there was a blazing banner under which he strode
and summoned the country behind him, it was spoken in
his first Inaugural Address on a cold, dreary day in 1933.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Nothing seemed to daunt him, and that showed in a large
face that radiated humor and strength (There is nothing I
love as much as a good fight”) and a rich baritone that
resonated through every corner of the nation. As radio
networks matured, they became the handmaiden of a
President who understood the new power of bringing his
voice inside each home and talking as if he were a family
friend.
Roosevelt relished the stage he had created. One of his
aides, Thomas Corcoran, once told me that F.D.R.’s
preparations for a “fireside chat” were little short of a star
getting ready for a climactic movie scene. Roosevelt
gargled profusely, summoned a Navy corpsman to minister
to his vocal cords and sinuses with swabs and sprays. He
then read a few of his best lines to staff members for
critical assessment. Given the radio signal, “Ladies and
gentlemen, the President of the United States,” Roosevelt,
according to Corcoran, was emotionally transported abroad
in the country, seeing and feeling in his mind the people to
whom he was talking. He was there – and his listeners
knew it.
I was a young boy in western Iowa in those desperate years
of depression and drought. I was too young to understand
what was at stake when Roosevelt talked on the radio, and
so I would take refuge with my friends in the front yards up
and down our street. What I vividly remember is that as we
wandered from yard to yard in the scorching summer
months, I could hear from inside each house the President’s
voice, and I could see through the open windows the
parents of my friends all huddled around their radios.
Americans had never been closer together.
Then there were the pictures – tens of thousands of pictures
that bloomed in the dawning of our visual age; pictures in
the scratchy frames of newsreels on the screens in movie
houses, on the front pages of the newspapers, later in the
glossy spreads of LIFE and Look magazines. There he was
in his open touring car in a floppy felt hat joking with
farmers in the heat of the dust bowl, once again bringing
hope where a few years before there was none. He was
pictures with his outlandish cigarette holder at a rakish
angle, somehow with F.D.R. a symbol of confidence and
not a dilettante’s fetish. With a cape thrown over his
shoulders on the desk of a destroyer, the sea wind in his
hair, he was the bold and beloved Commander in Chief.
Pictures of Roosevelt, the polio victim, in his wheelchair
were not circulated. He had asked the press not to show
him as disabled, though he spent his days in the wheelchair
and could only walk a few steps with leg braces. The press
scrupulously honored his request. Most Americans had no
idea of the extent of their President’s disability. Those who
knew admired his courage all the more.
Roosevelt created the modern Federal Government, big
departments in huge gray buildings sprawling across the
heart of the capital, to this day still a part of the debate on
whether the government is too big, too expensive, and too
intrusive. Few people believe it will ever shrink. Most
people believe it is necessary for a nation of 270 million
people.
When I arrived in 1957, Washington was still under the
cloak of Roosevelt. Many of the bureaucrats from his time
remained there. His aides had stayed in town to be lawyers
and consultants, advising new Presidents and dealing with
Congress. Members of the press who had covered his long
reign still told stories of the old days with deep feelings. On
one of those endless jet trips with later Presidents, I recall
Richard Wilson, of the Cowles publications, relating how
he had been sent to Washington to cover Secretary of
Agriculture Henry Wallace, one of the true innovators in
the New Deal, “Every day there was something new out of
the Department of Agriculture to try to deal with the farm
crisis,” explained Wilson. “It was the most exciting place in
the most exciting time in Washington.” And many of the
brilliant people who worked there would in later years have
a profound effect on American life. Their disparate likes
included lawyer and presidential adviser Abe Fortas and the
onetime trusted aide to Under Secretary of State Dean
Acheson, Alger Hiss, who later was accused of being a
communist spy and was convicted of perjury.
I got one of the most poignant insights into Roosevelt and
his times one evening some years ago from West Virginia
Senator Jennings Randolph, who claimed he was the last
living member of Congress who was on the Inaugural stand
when F.D.R. took his first oath of office. “I remember it as
if it was yesterday,” he told me. “It was a gray cold day. I
was a new Congressman from West Virginia and I was
scared to death.
We all sat on that stand made of raw lumber and huddled in
our overcoats wondering if this country would survive the
economic collapse. Everybody I knew had lost faith in the
system. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. Then
President Roosevelt began to speak. I tell you, it changed
the world. That voice of his filled the Capitol grounds, and
I think that everyone took heart. He was so optimistic, so
upbeat. After that speech we would have given him any
power he wanted; we would have made him dictator had he
asked.”
Another time I was walking down a White House corridor
with President Lyndon Johnson who was worrying about
Vietnam, when we came up to a bust of Roosevelt.
Johnson, who had been one of F.D.R.’s devout supporters
in Congress, suddenly stopped and changed the subject. He
was back 30 years. He went over to the bust, took the
bronze chin in his hand and stroked it. “There was a man,”
he said. “Look at that chin. Look at how fearless he was.
Look at his courage.”
Directions: After completely reading the article, answer the following discussion questions on a separate sheet of paper.
Please be sure to explain your answers when asked.
1. Why do you think historians moved F.D.R. ahead of George Washington and into 2nd place on the list of greatest
presidents? Explain.
2. What common traits/experiences do Lincoln and F.D.R. share that make them the greatest to ever hold the office of
President?
3. What were F.D.R.’s “fireside chats” and how did they help make him an effective and well-liked president? Explain.
4. What physical condition was F.D.R. stricken with?
5. Why weren’t pictures of him in a wheelchair circulated by the press?
6. Do you think that if the president had an illness today, the media would agree not to expose it to the American public? Why
or why not?
7. During the most recent election, many people in the media were quick to criticize Republican candidate Mitt Romney as
being “un-relatable”. Many people also said the same thing about Democratic candidate John Kerry during the 2004
election.
a. Used in this way, what does “relatable” mean?
b. Why do you think it is important for a president to be “relatable” to the American public?
c. As explained in the article, in what ways would you consider F.D.R. “relatable”?
8. F.D.R. is sometimes called the, “father of the U.S. welfare state and the large federal bureaucracy”.
a. What did he do that earned him this title? Explain.
b. Who do you think called him this, his supporters or his critics? Explain.
c. Do you agree or disagree with this title? Why?
9. Is this a primary or secondary source? How do you know?