Really Cool Stuff about Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1. It took several months for Sarah and James to name their first-born son. “For the next two months the baby went unnamed as James and Sara delicately struggled for control. Roosevelt tradition dictated the boy be named Isaac…Sara, who was expected to defer to her husband’s wishes, declined to do so in naming her son. She detested the name Isaac. Before the child was born she had decided if it was a boy, he would be named for her father: Warren Delano Roosevelt…But there was a problem. A brother of Sara’s had recently lost a young son who had been named Warren Delano IV. Out of sympathy, Sara agreed it would be untimely to name her baby Warren as well…As an alternative, Sara proposed to name the baby for her favorite uncle, Franklin Delano” (p. 17).
2. While traveling in Germany, the Roosevelts actually got to hang out with Kaiser Wilhelm II (that’s the guy who started WWI) on board his sailboat. “Sara [FDR’s mom] found the emperor impressive and energetic but not so kind as she remember his grandfather, William I, whom she had seen once in Paris”(p. 31).
3. FDR was the first politician to use an automobile to campaign. “But the experiment proved a whopping success. Wheezing along at the dazzling speed of twenty miles an hour, Roosevelt crisscrossed the district as no candidate had done before” (p. 65). He would also be the first to use an airplane politically as well. “Twenty-two years later, FDR would capture the nation’s attention by flying from Albany to Chicago to accept the Democratic nomination for president—the first presidential candidate to use an airplane during a campaign” (p. 65).
4. As a state senator, the Roosevelts moved to Albany. Where did they live? Why in Martin Van Buren’s old house of course! “That mansion had been built by Martin Van Buren when he was governor—the first New York governor to reach the White House—and reflected Little Van’s penchant for lavish living” (p. 70).
5. Not only did FDR provide Warm Springs as an aftercare facility for polio victims but his desire to learn more about polio led him to start the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis and eventually the March of Dimes.
6. During the Great Depression, FDR was the first governor of any state to espouse the idea of unemployment insurance. “First at an ad hoc meeting of New England governors that he convened, then at the National Governors Association Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, FDR came flat out for a contributory scheme in which employees, employers, and the government would share the risks of future unemployment” (p. 242).
7. FDR had the first female cabinet member, Frances Perkins of the Department of Labor. “From the beginning FDR wanted to appoint a woman and Frances Perkins was a shoo-in” (p. 294).
8. Unbelievably, FDR was the first president to visit Canada. “He was the first American president to visit Canada while in office, and the outpouring of affection from islanders, many of whom had known the Roosevelts for two and three generations, was overwhelming” (p. 340).
9. FDR gave the first evening State of the Union address. “Roosevelt spoke to Congress in a special evening session—the first president to do so—and to the delight of wildly cheering Democrats pulled every partisan plug” (p. 361).
10. The election of 1936 was HUGE for FDR and the Democrats. “When the ballots were tabulated, Roosevelt had won an unprecedented 60.79 percent of the popular vote. He beat Landon 27,747,636 to 16, 679, 543—a margin 4 million votes larger than the Democratic landslide in 1932” (p. 373-4).
11. He was the first president to have the 20th amendment apply to him. “Roosevelt was inaugurated on January 20, 1937—the first president to take office under the Twentieth Amendment” (p. 376).
12. FDR was the first to make a presidential library. “The fieldstone library at Hyde Park he had designed to house his papers and memorabilia—the nation’s first presidential library—was nearly completion, as was his hilltop dreamhouse above Val-Kill” (p. 441).
13. FDR was also the first president to ever fly in office. “Roosevelt’s flight to Casablanca marked the first time an American president had flown while in office—and FDR had mixed feelings” (p. 569).
I really liked this rendition of FDR’s life. Not that I’ve read a plethora of FDR-related literature or anything, but in the spirit of things I watched several movies on him, including Annie, Warm Springs (with Kenneth Branaugh), and Sunrise at Campobello (with Greer Garson as ER—isn’t that hilarious!?!). This book was a highly enjoyable read and I really felt FDR come alive for me.
Even though Smith fervently upholds FDR and his accomplishments, the author also straight out gives us his faults. FDR made his fair share of mistakes, which Smith eagerly points out to us. “FDR avoided further friction simply by refusing to recognize that a problem existed. That was a trait he would hone to an art form in public life” (p. 55). His treatment of France and Charles de Gaulle during WWII created friction which still exists today and he also undermined the influence that China would have on world affairs. There were also the numerous domestic mistakes he made in office. “Roosevelt’s frustration with the Seventy-fifth Congress led him to his third serious mistake. The Court-packing fiasco was the first; the premature cutback in federal spending the second; and his 1938 attempt to purge the Democratic party of dissident members of Congress was the third” (p. 409). However, let’s not forget life before FDR. “Social Security, unemployment compensation, stock market regulation, the federal guarantee of bank deposits, wages and hours legislation, labor’s right to bargain collectively, agricultural price supports, rural electrification—all of which we take for granted—did not exist before FDR” (p. xiv).
I found that the author, Smith, was quite a funny guy himself and this penchant for humor came off clearly in his writing style. “Unfortunately for the president, Cummings and Reed were not the sharpest knives in the legal drawer” (p. 380). FDR also had a tendency to exaggerate (this doesn’t sound like any politician I know….har har). “On August 18, in Deer Lodge, Montana, he became carried away by his own rhetoric and claimed to have written the Hawaiian constitution, much as Al Gore once claimed to have invented the Internet” (p. 182). Here’s another funny story: one of FDR’s assistants was a man named Louis Howe and he was on an intimate basis with the entire Roosevelt family. At one point, Howe wrote a letter to a congressman explaining why FDR couldn’t give his friend a job in the Navy Department. “Now about your young friend…who appears to be one of nature’s noblemen and to have nothing against him except that he has broken most of the Ten Commandments. I am willing to admit that if we bar from the Navy every gent who has become mixed up with a beautiful female we would have to put most of our ships out to commission and I am afraid we might lose an admiral or two, but in this case the young man was unfortunately caught with the goods. You have run against the secretary’s [Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels] strongest antipathies…Do you want one of those ‘we are doing everything on earth to get this done because of the affection for the Congressman’ letters or not? Will send you a masterpiece that will convince your friends that Mr. Roosevelt is sitting on Mr. Daniels’ doorstep every night waiting for a chance to make one more please when he comes home to supper, if that will ease the strain” (p. 114).
One thing I always thought was interesting about FDR was the controversy over whether or not he knew about Pearl Harbor in advance. I read a book in college (I can’t remember the name) that expounded at some length on the idea that FDR knew all about the attack on Pearl Harbor but allowed it to occur so that he could get the United States into WWII. Smith immediately denies it all. Yes, it’s true that right before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had broken Japan’s code and knew something about what was to happen. However, Smith heatedly states, that although it was no surprise to anyone that FDR wanted to get in the war and had already started moving the US toward a war footing in 1941, it does not mean that he was complicit in any prior attack on the US. “Roosevelt did not pay as much attention as he should have to the deteriorating situation in the Pacific in 1941; he allowed hawkish subordinates too much leeway, and he muffed a possible summit meeting with the Japanese prime minister. The administration recognized that Japan might attack in December 1941, but it did not expect the assault to come at Pearl Harbor, which the military believe to be impregnable” (p. xiv). It will be up to each of you to come to your own conclusion. Me personally? I agree with Smith and clear FDR of everything except shortsideness in regards to Japanese-American relations.
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