Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), the 32nd president of the United States (1933–1945), was born in New York City into a patrician family. Inspired by the career of his fifth cousin, former US President Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt entered politics after graduating from Harvard University and Columbia Law School. He was elected as a Democrat to the New York State Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913; in 1920 he was the nominee for Vice President on the losing Democratic Party ticket with James M. Cox.
In 1921, Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis, which caused the loss of the use of his legs. Despite this disability, Roosevelt re-entered politics later in the decade and was elected Governor of New York State in 1928. In November 1932, he was elected president. He was re-elected three more times in 1936, 1940, and 1944, and died in office on April 12, 1945.
Fighting the Great Depression
President Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" fought the Great Depression on a number of fronts. In the famous "First Hundred Days" of his presidency, FDR pushed through legislation that reformed the banking and financial sectors, tried to cure the ills afflicting American agriculture, and attempted to resuscitate American industry. To meet the immediate crisis of starvation and the dire needs of the nation's unemployed, FDR provided direct cash relief for the poor and jobs programs. Roosevelt's reassuring "fireside chats," in which he spoke to the nation via radio about the country's predicament, calmed a worried public.
In 1935, FDR took the New Deal in a more liberal direction, overseeing the enactment of some of the most far-reaching social and economic legislation in American history. The Wagner Act allowed labor unions to organize and bargain collectively, conferring on them a new legitimacy. The Social Security Act set up programs designed to provide for the needs of the aged, the poor, and the unemployed, establishing a social welfare net that, at least theoretically, covered all Americans. By the end of his second term, FDR and his advisers insisted that the federal government should stimulate the national economy through its spending policies, a strategy that held sway for the next thirty years.
All of these actions, though, could not end the Great Depression. Only American mobilization for war in the early 1940s brought the United States out of its economic doldrums. Nor did New Deal programs, because they reflected the biases of 1930s American politics and culture, offer the same aid to all Americans; white men generally received better benefits than women, blacks, or Latinos.
Nonetheless, FDR did much to reshape the United States. With Roosevelt as its presidential candidate, the Democratic Party won again in 1936, signaling the beginning of 30 years of political dominance that extended long after FDR's death. With FDR in the White House, the federal government played a greater role than ever before in managing the American economy and in protecting the welfare of the American people. In short, FDR oversaw major and important changes in American politics and governance that would define life in the United States for most of the twentieth century.
Moreover, in 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt drafted a bill for Congress titled the "Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937," which became popularly known as the "Court-packing Plan," for Roosevelt's attempt to add as many as six new Justices to the Supreme Court. Roosevelt hoped to build more support for New Deal programs.
Although the bill endeavored a broad overhaul and modernization of the federal court system, its most important provision was the proposal that one new Justice be appointed for every sitting Justice over the age of 70.5, up to a maximum of six members (which could potentially have brought the total count to 15).
The motivation behind this change was the President's frustration with the conservative majority opposition to his New Deal legislation. Roosevelt believed the incumbent justices were too old and set in their ways to appreciate the bold scope of the President's plans to revive the economy. He hoped that, by stacking the Court with more liberal Justices, those who shared his ideology, he would create an atmosphere more favorable toward his policies.
Roosevelt's proposed legislation failed when the Senate voted 70-20 to return the bill to the Judiciary Committee with explicit instructions to strip it of its court-packing provisions.
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