a little historical trip

Franklin Delano Roosevelt:


Authors: He enjoyed Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain
Bible Passage: St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, 13th Chapter
Cake: Fruit cake
Color: Blue
Dish: Scrambled eggs and fish chowder (Fairhaven recipe)
Fishing Rod: Regulation salt water rod with long butt
Flowers: Mountain laurel, and also roses, dogwood, magnolia, and all wild blossoms
Fruit: Orange
Historical Hero: John Paul Jones
Hymns: "The Hymn of the Navy," " Eternal Father Strong to Save," "Art Thou Weary, Art Thou Languid,"and others
Hobbies: Stamps, Maritime Collection and growing trees
Horse: "Bobby"
Poem: Kipling's "If"
Sandwiches: Hot dogs and toasted cheese
Songs: "Anchors Aweigh," "Medelon," "Home on the Range," "Wild Irish Rose," "Yellow Rose of Texas," etc.
Sports: Swimming, sailing, fishing
Sermon: Robert Louis Stevenson's " A Christmas Sermon"
Tree: Tulip poplar

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.

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favorite cookie: chocolate chip
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Presidential Number: 32nd
Years he was President: 1933-1945
State Represented: New York
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Fact(s): Led during Depression and World War II. First president to ride in an airplane while president.

Personal
Birthday: January 30, 1882
How old would he be this year? 121
School(s) attended: Harvard University, Columbia Law School
Wife: Eleanor Roosevelt
Occupation(s) before he was President: Lawyer
Other way(s) he served: Governer of New York, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Height: 6 feet, 2 inches
Favorite Foods: Pancakes, fish, cabbage, sweet potatoes with toasted marshmallows
Hobbies or Sports: Sailing, stamp collecting, swimming
Pets: Dog, a Scottish Terrier named Fala

Life in America
How would he have traveled? Airplane, Car
How would he have communicated with his friends? Telephone, letters
U.S. Population when term began: 122,775,046
Number of stars on flag when he left office: 48

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Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York--now a national historic site--he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.

Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.

In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy.

Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.

As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.