Jean Edward Smith - FDR

Praise for
FDR

Miraculous a careful, intelligent synopsis of the existing Roosevelt scholarship and a meticulous re-interpretation of the man and his record At last we have the biography that is right for the man.

The Washington Post

Magisterial The authors eloquent synthesis of FDRs complex and compelling life is remarkably executed and a joy to read. This erudite but graceful volume illuminates FDRs life for scholars, history buffs and casual readers alike.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

[A] remarkable, sympathetic biography [Smith] does a fine job.

The New Yorker

Compelling richly researched one of those monumental works that does not lose sight of the individual at its heart.

The Denver Post

An outstanding biography of the most gifted American statesman of the twentieth century an exemplary and highly readable work that ably explains why FDR merits continued honor.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A marvelous book.

The Dallas Morning News

Especially deft Smith vibrantly captures the complete drama of an American original.

Newark Star-Ledger

An intricate network of personal detail deeply moving.

The New York Sun

Smiths towering new biography brings the great man to vivid life once more, offering us a valuable chance to ponder again the crucial mystery of leadership.

J ON M EACHAM, author of Franklin and Winston and American Gospel

[Smith] is an accomplished biographer, and he lays out in the most charming prose the dynamics of a gifted politician.

The Washington Times

This page-turner is the best single-volume biography available of Americas thirty-second president. Essential.

Library Journal (starred review)

A LSO BY J EAN E DWARD S MITH

Grant

John Marshall: Definer of a Nation

George Bushs War

Lucius D. Clay: An American Life

The Conduct of American Foreign Policy Debated
( ED ., WITH H ERBERT M. L EVINE )

The Constitution and American Foreign Policy

Civil Liberties and Civil Rights Debated
( ED ., WITH H ERBERT M. L EVINE )

The Papers of General Lucius D. Clay ( ED .)

Germany Beyond the Wall

Der Weg ins Dilemma

The Defense of Berlin

Copyright 2007 by Jean Edward Smith

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint
of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE T RADE P APERBACKS and colophon are trademarks
of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2007.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., for
permission to reprint brief excerpts from Working with Roosevelt by Samuel I. Rosenman,
copyright 1952 by Harper & Brothers. Copyright renewed 1980 by
Dorothy R. Rosenman, Robert Rosenman, and James R. Rowen. Used by permission.

Unless otherwise noted, the photographs in this work are courtesy of the Franklin D.
Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Smith, Jean Edward.
FDR / Jean Edward Smith.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-58836-624-5
1. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 18821945. 2. PresidentsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

E807.S58 2007 973.917092dc22 2006043087
[B]

www.atrandom.com

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To the memory of my parents,
Eddyth and Jeanproud Mississippians
devoted to Franklin Roosevelt

H E LIFTED HIMSELF FROM HIS WHEELCHAIR
TO LIFT THIS NATION FROM ITS KNEES .

T HREE PRESIDENTS DOMINATE American history: George Washington, who founded the country; Abraham Lincoln, who preserved it; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who rescued it from economic collapse and then led it to victory in the greatest war of all time. Elected for an unprecedented four terms, Roosevelt proved the most gifted American statesman of the twentieth century. When he took office in 1933, one third of the nation was unemployed. Agriculture lay destitute. Factories were idle, businesses were closing their doors, and the banking system teetered on the brink of collapse. Violence lay just beneath the surface. The Hoover administration had deployed tanks and tear gas to drive a bedraggled remnant of World War I veterans (the Bonus Marchers) from Washington but otherwise appeared incapable of responding to the crisis.

Roosevelt seized the opportunity. He galvanized the nation with an inaugural address (the only thing we have to fear is fear itself) that ranks with Lincolns Second Inaugural, declared a banking holiday to restore confidence in the nations banks, and initiated a flurry of legislative proposals to put the country back on its feet. Under FDRs energetic leadership the government became an active participant in the economic life of the nation. More important, he restored the countrys confidence. Roosevelt revolutionized the art of political campaigning, revitalized the Democratic party, and created a new national majority that included those previously cast aside. His fireside chats brought the presidency into every living room in America. And what may be more remarkable, he did this while paralyzed from the waist down. For the last twenty-three years of his life, Franklin Roosevelt could not stand unassisted.

The literature on the Roosevelt era is immense. Virtually every major participant has written his or her memoirs, scholars have filled library shelves with analytic studies, and the nations most prolific writers have addressed the New Deal, the Second World War, and the outsize personalities who dominated American life in the 1930s and 40s. Biographies of Franklin Roosevelt are only slightly less numerous than those of Washington or Lincoln, and there is little that has not been said, somewhere, about the president. These works are easily accessible to the student of history, yet are seldom consulted by the general public. In recent years, biographies of lesser figuresTruman, MacArthur, Eisenhower, the numerous Kennedyshave shaped popular perceptions of the period. Rummaging through the life of Eleanor Roosevelt has become a cottage industry. As a result, Roosevelt himself has become a mythic figure, looming indistinctly out of the mist of the past.

The riddle for a biographer is to explain how this Hudson River aristocrat, a son of privilege who never depended on a paycheck, became the champion of the common man. The answer most frequently suggested is that the misfortune of polio changed Roosevelt. By conquering adversity he gained insight into the nature of suffering and found new sources of strength within himself. That is undoubtedly true. But it does not go far enough. FDRs effort to recover from polio took him to Warm Springs, Georgia. Year after year at Warm Springs he was exposed to the brutal reality of rural poverty. All around him he saw hardworking people who were ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. Roosevelts patrician instincts rebelled, and he began to formulate the economic ideas that came to fruition in the New Deal. As governor of New York when the Great Depression hit, FDR was the only state chief executive to organize extensive relief efforts. Modern society, acting through its government, he said, owes the definite obligation to prevent the starvation or the dire want of any of its fellow men and women who try to maintain themselves but cannot.