Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency marks one of the most significant transitions in American history. On the eve of his inauguration, the federal government, though expanded during the civil war and Progressive Era, was still a rather small institution. When he died, it very obviously held precedence over the states. Such an increase in federal power is rivaled only by the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution back in 1788 and 1789. Economic legislation shifted from mostly lassies-faire to predominantly Keynesian, favoring governmental intervention on behalf of the working class. Geopolitically, the US realized it was unable to maintain the isolationist policies of Calvin Coolidge and became an active member of the international community. Even the date of presidential inaugurations changed. FDR was the last president inaugurated on March 4 and began his second term not on March 4, 1937, but on January 20, 1937. These reforms took place during the 1930s and 1940s, two of the scariest decades in human history when all of the accomplishments in human progress and opportunity made during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and French and American Revolutions were jeopardized. FDR's brilliant leadership preserved these gifts, which is why he ranks so high here.

Roosevelt replaced Herbert Hoover as president on March 4, 1933, as the country was tarred and feathered by the miseries of the Great Depression. People were considering a fascist revolution similar to that of Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany. Others proposed the creation of a Leninist system. FDR knew that these were horrible ideas and instead adopted a much more pragmatic agenda: The New Deal. Using the Commerce Clause to re-arrange the economy in a way that would promote recovery, he launched the New Deal on March 5, 1933. He began by ordering all banks to close. This action, which started a brief period known as Bank Holidays, was Roosevelt's response to a crisis known as bank runs. After the initial stock market crash in 1929 that started the Great Depression, Americans feared that the banks where they held all their money would soon go under. At the time, that meant that all currency deposited in said bank would be permanently lost. So, throughout the end of 1929 and the start of 1930, people flocked to their banks en masse, withdrawing deposits so they could keep them "safe" at home. This caused the banks to run out of money, actually rendering them insolvent. Thus, the banking industry collapsed, dramatically intensifying the economic crisis.

As his first act as president, Roosevelt, on March 5, 1933, mandated that all the remaining banks close until further notice. 4 days later, on March 9, 1933, he signed the Emergency Banking Act, permitting banks to reopen if and only if they had enough money to pay back all of their depositors. This gave Americans a clear sign of whether or not their money was safe in the bank: If their bank had reopened after the Bank Holiday. Consequently, they no longer felt the need to go on bank runs. The New Deal responded to other broader causes of the Great Depression, producing additional economic growth that helped end the crisis. For instance, during WW1, many European farmers went to fight in the war themselves, creating a gap in food production that American farmers then filled. This increased the amount of food on the market, driving down the price of meats and crops. When the US joined the war, then-President Woodrow Wilson set up programs both to supply American soldiers with food and to help Europe recover from the war, both of which added yet more food to the enormous pile of new agricultural goods.

Originally, the increase in food and subsequent decline in prices helped farmers. But soon, meats, vegetables, and fruits became so cheap that farmers couldn't even finance their own work and endeavors, placing the entirety of the American agriculture sector on the brink of collapse. Roosevelt responded to this by, on May 12, 1933, signing the Agricultural Adjustment Act. This law set up two government agencies. The first was the Commodity Credit Corporation, which is still in existence today and provides general assistance to struggling farmers. The second was the titular Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which paid farmers to burn crops, kill livestock, and use fewer supplies at their work. This sounds barbaric and indeed, it was unpopular at first. But it was a necessary evil. By destroying agricultural goods, food became rarer and thus more expensive, allowing farmers to support themselves and preventing American agriculture from collapsing. Farmers' income rose by 50%!

Eventually, the Supreme Court declared the Agricultural Adjustment Administration - as well as the National Recovery Administration, an organization Roosevelt created to advise corporations on how they could help the economy recover - to be unconstitutional. Roosevelt responded by asking Congress to draft what he called the Judicial Procedures Reform Act. Had it been passed, the Judicial Procedures Reform Act would have expanded the number of people on the Supreme Court from 9 to 15. It also would have given a guaranteed income to any Supreme Court member who retired at or after 70. If they chose not to retire, they would be given an assistant. While Roosevelt claimed that this was to make the Supreme Court more efficient, it was apparent to everyone that this proposal was really meant to flood the court with New Dealers who would affirm the policy's constitutionality. This is something I'm critical of Roosevelt for, but I think it's relatively minor in the face of his other accomplishments.

In an effort to preserve domestic manufacturing amidst the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff on June 17, 1930. While Wilson had lowered tariffs, Warren G. Harding raised them to an extreme 40%. Hoover went even further, increasing them to an astonishing 60%. Even as a protectionist, I oppose this move. Other countries felt offended by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and so retaliated with tariffs of their own. This essentially killed international trade, making the depression infinitely worse. On June 12, 1934, Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. This policy allowed the president to unilaterally adjust tariff rates and broker trade deals with other countries based on mutual reductions in import taxes. Using the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, Roosevelt created dozens of trade deals and dramatically lowered duties, alleviating the anger of the outside world and allowing for the revival of international trade.

Roosevelt did other things that spurred economic growth. On March 22, 1933, he signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, which effectively ended Prohibition by allowing the sale of beer and wine with an alcohol-by-volume content below 3.2%. This law allowed people to legally and safely access alcohol, producing more economic and financial activity. The government was also now aware of alcohol sales, allowing said sales to be taxed and giving Roosevelt the revenue he needed to fund a slew of jobs programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, Tennessee Valley Authority, Home Owners' Loan Act, Works Progress Administration, and Bonneville Power Administration. The New Deal also included several beneficial long-term economic reforms. For instance, on July 5, 1935, Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act, guaranteeing workers their right to unionize and setting up the National Labor Relations Board to mediate labor disputes. He also founded the Social Security Administration on August 14, 1935, which has improved life for millions of disabled people and orphans, as well as unlocked a comfortable retirement for nearly all Americans.

Ultimately, though, the New Deal, while an amazing series of awesome accomplishments, is quite minor when compared to the greatest accomplishment of the Roosevelt Administration: Defeating the rise of fascist expansionism seen throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The economic contractions, loss of human lives, and psychological collective trauma caused by WWI created mass social unrest across Europe. This effect was particularly severe in Russia, Germany, and Italy, where these factors contributed to the ascensions of Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini respectively. All 3 of these men were vicious imperialists, with Hitler and Mussolini being particularly focused on the supposed ethnic superiority of their home nations. Mussolini began invading countries like Ethiopia, Albania, and Greece in an effort to restore the Roman Empire, which had collapsed back in 476. Hirohito, the emperor of Japan, staged events like the Mukden Incident and Marco Polo Bridge Incident as excuses to attack and invade China.

On March 11, 1938, Hitler (who claimed that the truth of German superiority was being suppressed by Jewish interests and that the only way to eliminate the Jewish threat was to take over the world) invaded Austria, annexing it on the 13th. The powers of Europe then allowed Hitler to maintain control over Austria and Germany in exchange for a pledge that he would invade no additional territory. When Hitler demanded control of the Sudetenland (a region of Czechoslovakia where most people were ethnic Germans), a similar deal was made. The Sudetenland was annexed by Hitler on October 10, 1938. However, when Hitler invaded and annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, the powers of Europe put their foot down: If Hitler invaded any more land, he would face declarations of war from Britain and France. Hitler ostensibly backed down but then signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union that ensured Soviet support of a German invasion of Poland. Once he signed that on August 23, 1939, he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, sparking WW2. Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand all declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, followed by Canada on September 10, 1939. Soviet reinforcements arrived on September 17, 1939. Poland was fully annexed by Moscow and Berlin on October 6, 1939.

From the beginning Germany and Poland went to war, Roosevelt knew what side he was on. Throughout his second term, he had already been speaking out against Hirohito, Mussolini, and Hitler. In October 1937, for example, he was denounced by isolationists for giving in a speech in Chicago where he compared German, Italian, and Japanese imperialism to a virus, which must be placed under quarantine. He continued to speak out in favor of the Allies (Poland and its support, a group that included the Soviet Union when Hitler invaded the nonaggression pact) against the Axis (Germany and its support). He then started shipping large amounts of supplies to Allied nations and restricting trade with Axis nations. Throughout the mid-1930s, before fascist expansionism became especially severe, Roosevelt signed a collection of bills meant to keep the US out of additional wars. At the end of 1939, he adjusted these laws to make it easier for him to support the Allies.

Ever since George Washington, presidents had been accustomed to serving 2 terms and then voluntarily stepping down. Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt attempted to serve third terms, but Franklin Roosevelt had no plans of following in the footsteps of Grant and his cousin. He preferred the Washington precedent. However, he knew that a shift in leadership amidst WW2 would create instability, something that the country could not tolerate during such a dire crisis. So, in 1940, he reluctantly ran for a third term. Due to the New Deal and support for the Allies, Roosevelt was an incredibly popular president and, even with Americans being uncomfortable with the idea of a third term, was able to easily defeat Republican nominee Wendell Wilkie. On January 20, 1941, Roosevelt was inaugurated to start his third term. A few months later, on August 1, 1941, he banned the shipment of American oil to Japan. Since this made it harder to annex islands in Asia and Oceania, Japan attacked an American naval base called Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, forcing Roosevelt into the war on the side of the Allies.

On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, allowing the military to declare martial law in any location along the western coast of the United States. Using this power, the military started imprisoning Japanese-Americans and, to a lesser extent, German- and Italian-Americans living in states like California and Washington. Roosevelt tolerated and supported this hideous behavior, something he has been rightfully criticized for. Roosevelt also deported German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants, which also warrants criticism. However, the rest of Roosevelt's civil rights record was very good. For instance, he issued an executive order banning race-based employment discrimination in the federal government. Roosevelt also repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and appointed the first female cabinet official, Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor. Grover Cleveland had stripped Native Americans of indigenous reservations, but Roosevelt restored that authority.

Another thing Roosevelt is often criticized for is his cordiality with Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. While I agree that court-packing and Japanese internment are huge black marks on Roosevelt's record, this is not something he should receive much scorn for. As someone who has studied Stalin's life and regime, I despise him and his totalitarian depravity. However, Hitler was far worse, so FDR was right to temporarily suspend his dislike of Stalin in order to maintain a united front against fascist expansionism. Additionally, Roosevelt did quell the growth of Soviet influence on several occasions. For instance, at the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt and Winston Churchill defeated Stalin's proposal that all 15 Soviet republics receive their own seat in the United Nations. They ensured that the Soviet Union had 1 seat, just like all other countries. While Roosevelt and Churchill did allow Stalin to take up the mantle of rebuilding Eastern Europe after the war (which led to the establishment of Soviet puppet states in this region), they did require that Stalin hold free elections in countries like Bulgaria and Hungary. They also mandated that Poland be governed by a council of representatives from every major Polish political party that existed before Hitler invaded. Sadly, Stalin did not heed these mandates.

Roosevelt proved to be instrumental in defeating the Axis. Despite immense pressure from people outraged by the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt made sure that Germany took precedence over Japan or Italy. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, Roosevelt also helped plan out the D-Day landings, when Allied forces liberated France from Nazi occupation. Roosevelt even helped select the general who led the D-Day landings, as well as the invasions of Axis North Africa and Fascist Italy: Dwight D. Eisenhower. D-Day proved to be a defining moment in WW2 history. Many Soviet apologists try to credit Stalin with single-handedly defeating Hitler, citing the Soviet invasion of German colonies and minor Axis powers across Eastern Europe in late 1944 and early 1945. What they fail to acknowledge is that Stalin not only relied on Roosevelt materially but also that those invasions were so easy for Stalin because a panicked Hitler sent all his troops in Eastern Europe to France in order to serve as reinforcements. This cleared open a path through which Stalin and his troops could march. D-Day, which made that possible, was largely orchestrated by Roosevelt.

Besides his role in ending the Great Depression and defeating the Axis in WW2, Roosevelt had other accomplishments. For instance, he pressured many European nations into paying off lingering debts they owed to the US from WW1 by saying that American banks could no longer give money to clients in nations that held war debts to the United States until those debts were paid. He expanded the Good Neighbor Policy, which reduced US imperialism in Latin America. While he did recognize the Soviet Union, he did so only on the condition that Moscow stops spreading propaganda within US territory. For me, Roosevelt was the greatest president in US history. During the dire years of World War 2, he helped the Big 3 land decisive blow after decisive blow against the Axis, ensuring that Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo surrendered. This trio of evil imperialists threatened to eliminate all freedom, and Roosevelt prevented such an awful outcome. Through the New Deal, he not only helped end the bleak melancholy of the Great Depression but also empowered the working class, giving them an arsenal of unprecedented freedoms.