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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Biography - Quotes
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York. He attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School before marrying, on St. Patrick's Day in 1905, to Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
In 1910, FDR was elected to the New York Senate as a Democrat. Later, FDR was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy and a nominee for Vice President in 1920.
During the summer of 1921, FDR was diagnosed with poliomyelitis. He worked out immensely, fighting to regain his legs, predominately through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention, FDR appeared on crutches while nominated Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." Four years later, Roosevelt became Governor of New York.
Soon after, in November 1932, FDR was elected President. During his first 100 days he helped congress enact a program to recover business and agriculture and reform the Tennessee Valley Authority – helping relieve the 13 million unemployed.
By 1935, the New Deal didn't do enough. Businessmen and bankers were turning and feared his experiments of taking the United States off the gold standard and allowing a deficit (both are largely taken for granted now).
Roosevelt responded to his criticism by offering a new reform program, Social Security, higher taxes on the wealthy, more control over banks and public utilities and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.
In 1936, FDR was re-elected to office by a large margin -– to say the least. With the large margin, Roosevelt felt he had the nations backing to enlarge the Supreme Court. Although he failed, a revolution of change in constitutional law took place. From then on, Government could legally manage and regulate the economy.
FDR changed the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American action, to a good neighbor policy. Roosevelt also sought a neutral position to keep the United States out of the war in Europe. However, in 1940, after France fell and England came under attack, FDR sent Great Britain all possible aid while keeping short of military action.
However, after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, FDR felt it was necessary to use all resources necessary to fight in the global war.
During the coming years, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began planning for a united nations in order to keep peace throughout the world. But as the end of the war drew close, his health deteriorated before his death of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945 in Warm Springs, Georgia.
FDR was the thirty-second President of the United States and was the only president in American history to ever be elected to four terms.
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