Franklin D Roosevelt became the
thirty-second President of the United
States of America in 1932, in a time his
country was still shaken by the Depression and the mass unemployment that
followed. He was a vigorous transformer and an eminently man, and his scheme of
rehabilitation carried out under the Works Progress Administration did much to
set the country on the road to prosperity again. He was President for four
consecutive terms – indeed a remarkable achievement.
But who was this Franklin D Roosevelt? He
was born on 30 January 1882 in a wealthy family of untitled aristocracy of New England. He studied at Croton and Harvard and
eventually graduated in law at the Columbia
Law School
in New York and was admitted to the bar in
1907 and joined a Law Firm in New
York.
Although he came from a family of great and
important politicians, initially he was not very concerned with politics.
However, the Democrats of New York State was not making any political grounds
and in 1910 they invited Franklin D Roosevelt to run for the New York State
Senate in what they thought was a hopeless case. He accepted it and decided to
give it a run for the money – above all hopes he won the election. This was the
turning point in his career as he was now hooked on politics!
In 1912 Franklin D Roosevelt got the post
of Under-Secretary of the Navy and in this post he excelled himself – the
efficiency of the USA’s
fleet in the closing phases of World War I was largely due to his hard work as administrator.
Franklin D Roosevelt’s career up to the 1920’s had been one of constant
success. He worked hard and became a clever politician respected by friend and
foe. However, bad luck stroked when he was smitten down with infantile
paralysis (poliomyelitis). He was a helpless
cripple but the true guts of the Roosevelt
family came through and against all odds he began the long road to recovery,
lovingly supported by his wife. Fortunately he held on to his post and within a
year he was back in office with crutches.
In 1928 he was elected as Governor of New
York State which he repeated two years later with even a bigger majority. His
four years as Governor covered the period the stock exchange collapsed which
started the world-wide depression. It was no surprise he was nominated for the
presidency and when elected in 1932 he pledged to put a deal together for the
American people, who suffered from the Depression. He started a campaign which
restored prosperity and respectability amongst the American people again.
He started working with instant energy and
fearless originality. He repealed prohibition, restored the banks, went off the
gold standard and create work for men to earn back their self-respect. He
succeeded within a short period of time to pull America
out from the slums and internationally he led the USA away from isolation. When World
II broke out he took the USA
out of its historical neutrality and supported his allies vigorously. He took
the USA
to war with the allies as promised and he was one of the architects of peace
which followed the war, although he passed away sadly on 12 April 1945.
But, his task was done. He had taken charge
of the USA
in its darkest hour of ruin and despair and pulled it together and restored its
prosperity and sanity. Internationally he came to the rescue of a world
collapsing into another dark age of defying human rights of people. World-wide
he restored the rule of law.
He definitely takes his place with a
Washington and a Lincoln as one of the most single-hearted leaders in the fight
for his country’s greatness.
No comments:
Post a Comment