Concept

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Overview

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving US president and the only one to have served more than two terms. His first two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth focused on US involvement in World War II. A member of the Democratic Party, Roosevelt served in the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 and as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932.

Born into the prominent Delano and Roosevelt families in Hyde Park, New York, Roosevelt graduated from Harvard University. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 1910, before becoming the assistant secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1920. Roosevelt was the running mate of James M. Cox on the Democratic ticket in the 1920 presidential election, which Cox lost to Republican nominee Warren G. Harding. In 1921, an illness permanently paralyzed his legs. However, partly through the encouragement of his wife Eleanor, he returned to public office upon being elected governor of New York in 1928. As governor, he promoted programs to combat the Great Depression.

Roosevelt defeated President Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory in the 1932 presidential election. During his first 100 days as president, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation, initiated the program to implement the New Deal, built the New Deal coalition, and realigned American politics into the Fifth Party System. He created programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. He was re-elected in 1936, in one of the largest landslide victories in American history. Roosevelt was unable to expand the Supreme Court in 1937, the same year the conservative coalition was formed to block the implementation of further New Deal programs and reforms. Major surviving programs and legislation implemented under Roosevelt include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Social Security. In 1940, he was reelected, as there were no presidential term limits until 1951.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt obtained a declaration of war on Japan, and subsequently on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the American economy to support the war effort and implemented a Europe first strategy. He also initiated the development of the first atomic bomb and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. Roosevelt won reelection in 1944, but died in 1945. Since then, some of his actions have been criticized, such as his ordering of the internment of German, Italian, and Japanese Americans. Nonetheless, historical rankings consistently place him among the three greatest American presidents.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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The sympathies available for the purpose are those of race, language, religion, and, above all, of political institutions, as conducing most to a feeling of identity of political interest. When a few free states, separately insufficient for their own defense, are hemmed in on all sides by military or feudal monarchs, who hate and despise freedom even in a neighbor, those states have no chance for preserving liberty…
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government
Close in meaning to Franklin D. Roosevelt; the term itself is not named.
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In peaceable and quiet times, those two principles generally coincide and lead to the same conduct. The support of the established government seems evidently the best expedient for maintaining the safe, respectable, and happy situation of our fellow-citizens; when we see that this government actually maintains them in that situation. But in times of public discontent, faction, and disorder, those two different…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
Close in meaning to Franklin D. Roosevelt; the term itself is not named.
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If he could live (he said) to the age of Pontenelle, or of Hobbes, or even of Voltaire, he should see all this realized, or as good as realized. He died, however, at sixty, without leaving any disciple sufficiently advanced to be appointed his successor. There is now a College, and a Director, of Positivism; but Humanity no longer possesses a High Priest.
John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism
Close in meaning to Franklin D. Roosevelt; the term itself is not named.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt

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