Franklin D Roosevelt – President of the USA

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a good president. He was a good president because he helped the country through a lot of really tough spots. As the 32nd President of the United States, he most definitely did his job. He also, in a way like no other president, did whatever it took to take charge, get the job done, and fix this beloved country. A few examples of this are the New Deal and the way that he led the United States during the havok of the Second World War.

The Early Life

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in the town Hyde Park, New York in the year of 1882 on the 30th of January. He was born to his father, James Roosevelt, and his mother, Sara Roosevelt. He also had a cousin, who was president before him and was also the one who he looked up to. His cousin was Theodore Roosevelt, or “Teddy”, the 26th president of the United States.

Franklin attended Harvard University in the year 1900 and that’s where he started courting his wife who was also his 5th cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. They were engaged in 1903 and were “happily” married on March 17, 1905. FDR also went to Columbia Law School but he withdrew from the school before he could even complete his degree. Before he became president, he was a lawyer and later on his idolization of Theodore would make him dream of becoming president himself and apparently, he succeeded. Franklin Roosevelt later on contracted polio, which prevented his legs from working effectively, but he didn’t let that stop him from fulfilling this dream.

Early Political Life

Prior to his position as the leader of our country, he was involved in many other political positions that affected the United States. After his interest in politics was sparked, he decided to run for the state senate in New York. Being a Democrat surrounded by Republicans was probably very nerve wracking, but even so, he still pulled it off and got himself a seat alongside the other members of the senate of New York. He won a second election for a place in the senate in 1912, but this time Franklin did not finish his term. He had helped Woodrow Wilson, the Governor of New Jersey at the time, run to be the new President and Wilson wanted to make sure that when he won, his helper had a place next to him. The campaign was successful and Wilson’s secretary of the Navy offered Roosevelt to be his assistant secretary, and the young Democrat accepted almost instantly. During this position, he helped a lot when WWI began. In 1914, he decided to try for the Democratic Nomination in the U.S. senate for New York but did not make it. Although his attempt at the U.S. Senate failed, his good reputation in the eye of Democrats from being in the Wilson Administration helped him politically. In 1920, he was made their vice presidential candidate. This turned out to be a dead end, since Roosevelt’s ticket under James Cox lost in the general election to the Republican candidates.

Presidential Elections

Roosevelt ran for office four times and succeeded each time he did. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt ran against Herbert Hoover for office. This was his very first Presidential election that he ever participated in and it proved to be promising. He had 472 electoral votes and 22,821,857 against his opponent’s 59 electoral votes and 15,761,841 popular votes.

In his second election in the year of 1936, Franklin gained 523 electoral and 27,751,597 popular votes, while his opponent,Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, only got 8 electoral votes and 16,679,583 popular votes. Devastating on the opposing candidate’s behalf and also upsetting for the Republican party.

At this time, a tradition breaking decision came to the mind of FDR. The President had been the head of the country through many hard spots and he felt like that he was the only one who could be strong enough to drive through the Nazi outbreak at the time, so Roosevelt ran for a third term, unlike any U.S. President before him. Nineteen Forty was his the year of his third successful presidential election and that year he ran against Wendell Willkie. Wilkie succeeded in getting 82 electoral votes and 22,305,198 popular votes, but it wasn’t enough against Roosevelt’s wopping 449 electoral votes and 27,244,160 popular votes.

Franklin’s fourth and final campaign in 1944 was won with 432 electoral votes and a number of popular votes that was 25,602,504. His opponent, the candidate in that run that obviously lost, was former New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey with 99 electoral votes and 22,006,285 popular votes.

Presidential Administration

Franklin had an arguably tough presidency, and somehow, he still made it through most of it. He was the President of the United States through both the Great Depression that devastated the world during the 1930’s, and the World War II.

When Roosevelt came into office, he prepared a series of programs and projects, including the CCC and the WPA, to help our country heal its wounds economically and pull us out of the financial hole we were in at the time. One of the programs that were also created was the Social Security that we still use today. Together, these were called the New Deal. The New Deal was made to provide three things that the U.S. needed at the time which was relief, job creation, and business regulation. The president created Social security to provide relief for the tired nation. The US also needed jobs very badly at the time so he created the CCC and the WPA to create jobs for Americans. The FDIC and the NRA regulated businesses so that they wouldn’t become a monopoly. Roosevelt increased the power of the national government too so that he could quickly take charge and solve the problem at its source. In order to make all of this run smoother, FDR began the Court Packing Plan in order to make his rulings more favorable by appointing six new Justices to the Supreme Court. This made people weary of the President because, in many eyes, he was behaving like a monarch more than a President of a Federal Republic Government. During WWII, FDR had no intentions of joining the war and wanted to stay out of affairs that concerned Europe. It did not seem to work out that way though.

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and caused an extreme amount of damage to the US Naval forces that were there at the time. A day later the President, along with Congress, declared that the United States was officially in a state of war with the Japanese, in which Roosevelt said that the attack was “a date which will live in infamy.” After this, Roosevelt decided to relocate all Japanese-Americans to poorly-conditioned relocation camps after signing the Executive Order of 9066, despite many protests, including that of Eleanor Roosevelt’s. Many of these places were makeshift and were originally fairgrounds and horse racing tracks. The people who were forced to live at the race tracks made horse stalls their new rooms and they slept on straw mattresses on the ground. They were moved often over a series of months and quite a bit of the people were relocated to empty swamplands or deserts in the west and in regions of Arkansas. These places were surrounded by barbed wire. Watch towers were even being constructed when the first groups were arriving. Everyone lived in crowded quarters and all shared a bathroom, so there was an extreme lack of privacy. Bad weather and inadequate amounts of food were also few of many problems that were wrong with the camps. After a while, these small prison-like areas were treated like small communities and schools were built along with other communal buildings. A saddening truth was that a vast number of these interned people served in the United States’ Armed Forces with much valiancy. Following that act of the U.S. Government, many Italian and German-Americans were placed under restrictions and were put into similar internment camps also.

In World War II, the leaders of United States and Great Britain, worked in closely together to win. Many conferences were held and the ones who participated mostly were Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, and our President.Stalin was another important participant in these meetings, but lacked the level of friendship that Churchill and Roosevelt seemed to share. In these meetings, they discussed many decisions that took place during this war like: . Stalin was also an Ally and attended these meetings, but the main contributors were the other two.

Death

Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia a year into his fourth term. He was 63 years of age when he passed of a hemorrhagic stroke, which caused bleeding to start in his brain.

Franklin’s children were also successful and a few even went on to start careers in politics just like their father before them. Two of his sons served in the House of Representatives.

Conclusion

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a very good President. He ran for office and won ALL four of the elections he participated in and left all of his competitors buried extremely deep in the dust of his victories. The President also was in office for two of the toughest time periods in history for the United States of America: the Great Depression and World War II. He succeeded in getting the country through those large and difficult situations and left a very good impression on a vast amount of citizens of the United States and many more. As a president, he surpasses many, but as a husband… well, let's not go there. 

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