Jacobus J. Roosevelt (M)
(25. Oct. 1759 - Aug. 1840), #67213
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Relationship=2nd cousin 7 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Jacobus J. Roosevelt was also known as James J. Roosevelt. Jacobus J. Roosevelt was born in 1759 at New York City, New York County, New York. He was baptized on 25. Oct. 1759 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Jacobus Roosevelt and Annatje Bogaert. Jacobus J. Roosevelt married Maria Van Schaick, daughter of Cornelius Van Schaick and Angeletje Yates, on 8. Mar. 1793 at Kinderhook, Columbia County, New York. Jacobus J. Roosevelt died in Aug. 1840 at age 80.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Jacobus Roosevelt (M)
(9. Aug. 1724 - 12. Mar. 1777), #67214

     Jacobus Roosevelt was baptized on 9. Aug. 1724 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. He married Annatje Bogaert, daughter of John Bogaert and Annatie Peeck, on 4. Dec. 1746 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. Jacobus Roosevelt died on 12. Mar. 1777 at Red Hook, Dutchess County, New York, at age 52.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Jacobus Roosevelt (M)
#67232

     Jacobus Roosevelt married Catharine Hardenbroek.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

James Alfred Roosevelt (M)
(c 1825 - ), #137165
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Relationship=4th cousin 5 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     James Alfred Roosevelt was born c 1825. He was the son of Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

James Roosevelt (M)
(16. Jul. 1828 - 8. Dec. 1900), #4898
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     James Roosevelt was born on 16. Jul. 1828 at Hyde Park, New York. He was the son of Dr. Isaac Roosevelt MD and Mary Rebecca Aspinwall. James Roosevelt married Sara Delano on 7. Oct. 1880 at Algonac, Saint Clair County, Michigan; 2 nd marriage James. James Roosevelt died on 8. Dec. 1900 at Hyde Park, New York, at age 72.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

James Roosevelt (M)
(23. Dec. 1907 - 13. Aug. 1991), #137156
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Relationship=7th cousin 2 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     James Roosevelt was born on 23. Dec. 1907 at New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. James Roosevelt died on 13. Aug. 1991 at Newport Beach, Orange County, California, at age 83.

Brigadier General James Roosevelt, eldest son of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt died 13 August 1991 at his home in Newport Beach, California. He had served on continuous active duty with the United States Marine Corps from 1940 through 1945. He later continued his affiliation with the Marine Corps Reserve and, on 1 October 1959, was advanced to the grade of brigadier general upon retirement, having been specially commended for heroism in combat.

Holder of the Navy Cross and the Silver Star Medal, James Roosevelt was born in New York City on 23 December 1907. He completed Groton Prep School in 1926, then entered Harvard University where he was a member of the Naval ROTC unit from 1926 to 1928. He graduated in 1930.

He entered the Marine Corps on 13 November 1936 as a lietuenant colonel in the Reserve, and completed various period of active duty – with the Marine Detachment aboard the USS Indianapolis; with Fleet Landing Exercise #4 (FLEX-4) in the San Juan-Culebra-Virgin Islands area on reconnaissance patrols and experiments with raiding and patrolling parties; and at Parris Island, South Carolina, in connection with testing of anti-aircraft batteries.

On 3 October 1939, he requested and was granted permission to resign his commission as a lieutenant colonel. Shortly thereafter, at his own request, he was re-commissioned in the Marine Corps Reserve, in the grade of captain, on 24 November 1939. Subsequently, he performed temporary periods of active duty with the Reserve prior to being assigned to extended active duty upon mobilization of his Reserve unit, 7 November 1940. Reporting to Camp Elliott, San Diego, California, he served as a battery commander with the 2d Battalion, 10th Marines, 2d Marine Division, until January 1941, when he was ordered overseas.

During the early months of 1941, he was assigned as an Assistant Naval Attache, American Embassy, London, England, attached to British Army Headquarters, Middle East, in Cairo, Egypt. During this period, he made various trips throughout the zone of operations of the British Middle Eastern Forces. He was on the Island of Crete until its invasion by German forces, and was with the British troops as they moved into Iraq.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he requested duty with a combat unit, and was re-assigned to Camp Elliott in January 1942, upon activation of the first Marine Raider units. Lieutenant Colonels Merritt A. Edson and Evans F. Carlson were designated to organize, train, and command the first two Raider Battalions, with Major Samuel B. Griffith, II, as Executive Officer of Edson’s 1st Marine Raider Battalion, and Captain Roosevelt as Executive Officer of Carlson’s 2d Marine Raider Battalion.

After further training in the Hawaiian area, he was promoted to major in May 1942, and with his unit moved to the Gilbert Islands in August 1942. He earned the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism during the battalion’s successful raid on Japanese-held Makin Island, August 17-18, 1942. His citation states in part:

“…Risking his life, over and beyond the ordinary call of duty, Major Roosevelt continually exposed himself to intense machine-gun and sniper fire to insure effective control of operations from the command post. As a result of his successful maintenance of communications with his supporting vessels, two enemy surface ships were destroyed by gunfire. Later, during evacuation, he displayed exemplary courage in personally rescuing three men from drowning in the heavy surf. His gallant conduct and his inspiring devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Returning to the United States in October 1942, he became Commanding Officer of the newly-organized 4th Raider Battalion, and a week later was promoted to lieutenant colonel. He sailed with the battalion for Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, in February 1943. While training for the New Georgia Operation, he was hospitalized in the New Hebrides and later evacuated to the U.S.

In August 1943, Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt was assigned as an intelligence officer on the Staff of the Commander, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet, and took part in the occupation of Kiska in the Aleutians. From October 1943 until December 1944, he was assigned as Intelligence and War Plans Officer, Amphibious Training Command, Pacific Fleet, and during this period was attached to units of the Army’s 27th Infantry Division which effected the landing on Makin Atoll. For gallantry in action at Makin Atoll, 20-23 November 1943, he was awarded the Army Silver Star Medal. His citation states in part:

“….(He) voluntarily sought out the scene of the heaviest fighting. Throughout the three-day period, he continually accompanied the landing elements of the assault, exposing himself to constant danger. His calmness under fire and presence among the foremost elements of the attacking force was a source of inspiration to all ranks.”

He was promoted to colonel in April 1944. Later, as G-2 of Amphibious Group 13, U.S. Pacific Fleet, he helped ready assault groups which were to strike Okinawa. After taking part in the invasion of Okinawa, he was transferred to the Philippines in March 1945 during the Consolidation of the Southern Philippines. For service on the Staff of the Commander, Amphibious Group 13, U.S. Pacific Fleet, in the Leyte area, he was authorized the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one bronze star.

Colonel Roosevelt returned to the United States in July 1945, and was transferred to the inactive duty list, 28 October 1945, following five years of active service.

He completed annual periods of active duty with the Marine Corps Reserve until his retirement, 1 October 1959, at which time he was advanced to brigadier general by reason of his combat citation. He was elected to the 84th Congress of the United States in November 1954, and served continuously from the 84th through the 89th Congresses as a Congressman from California.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Johannes Roosevelt (M)
(16. Jan. 1751 - ), #137173
Pop-up Pedigree
Relationship=2nd cousin 7 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Johannes Roosevelt was baptized on 16. Jan. 1751 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Jacobus Roosevelt and Annatje Bogaert.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

John Aspinwall Roosevelt (M)
(13. Mar. 1916 - 27. Apr. 1981), #137159
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Relationship=7th cousin 2 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     John Aspinwall Roosevelt was born on 13. Mar. 1916 at Washington, Distict of Columbia. He was the son of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. John Aspinwall Roosevelt died on 27. Apr. 1981 at New York City, New York County, New York, at age 65.

John A. Roosevelt (1916-1981)John Aspinwall Roosevelt, the sixth and last child of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, was a businessman, philanthropist and – unlike the rest of the Hyde Park Roosevelts – a Republican. He was also the only one of ER's sons who did not have political aspirations.
John and his next oldest sibling, Franklin Jr., were much closer to ER than the three older Roosevelt children had been in part because by the time they were born, she was more comfortable as a parent and in part because of the polio that struck FDR when John was five years old. Conscious of her husband's disability and determined that the younger children should not miss out on the sports and physical activities that their older siblings had enjoyed, ER learned to swim and skate. She also took John and Franklin Jr. camping and to Europe and urged them to live boldly and self-reliantly.
Educated at Groton and Harvard, John worked at Filene's Department Store in Boston until World War II broke out in 1941. He served in the navy until 1946 and thereafter pursued a business career on the West Coast. In 1952, he became a Republican so he could support Dwight Eisenhower's bid for the presidency. John's defection from the Democratic party and his subsequent leadership of Citizens for Eisenhower caused family friction as ER strongly supported the Democratic presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson. The tension was exacerbated when John and his family moved into Stone Cottage next door to ER's home at Val-Kill that same year. He and his brother, Elliott, who lived at nearby Top Cottage, did not get along and Elliott left shortly after John and his family arrived. John subsequently acquired what remained of the Hyde Park property Elliott had farmed with ER. More importantly, the presence of John and his family enabled ER to live at Val-Kill until her death in 1962. She saw John's children often and was particularly close to Sara who died in a horseback riding accident in 1960.
In 1967, John joined Bache and Company. He retired as a vice-president in 1980. His philanthropic activities included serving as a fund raiser with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which FDR had founded, membership on the executive committee of the Greater New York Council of the Boy Scouts of America and service as a trustee of the State University of New York.
Within three years of ER's death, John divorced and remarried. In 1970, he sold the Val-Kill properties. Thereafter, he and his second wife lived on an estate in Tuxedo, New York. He died of heart failure in 1981.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

John Aspinwell Roosevelt (M)
(27. Jul. 1840 - 11. Mar. 1909), #309880
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     John Aspinwell Roosevelt was born on 27. Jul. 1840 at Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York. He was the son of Dr. Isaac Roosevelt MD and Mary Rebecca Aspinwall. John Aspinwell Roosevelt married Ellen Murray Crosby, daughter of William Henry Crosby and Josepha Matilda Neilson, on 6. Jun. 1866. John Aspinwell Roosevelt died on 11. Mar. 1909 at age 68.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Kermit Roosevelt (M)
(10. Oct. 1889 - 4. Jun. 1943), #137151
Pop-up Pedigree
Relationship=6th cousin 3 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Kermit Roosevelt was born on 10. Oct. 1889 at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, Nassau County, New York. He was the son of President Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow. Kermit Roosevelt died on 4. Jun. 1943 at Fort Richardson, Anchorage County, Alaska, at age 53.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Margarieta Roosevelt (F)
(12. Mar. 1755 - ), #137175
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Relationship=2nd cousin 7 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Margarieta Roosevelt was baptized on 12. Mar. 1755 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. She was the daughter of Jacobus Roosevelt and Annatje Bogaert.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Margrita Roosevelt (F)
#434474

     Margrita Roosevelt married John Cozine.

Last Edited=21 Nov 2007

Maria Roosevelt (F)
(13. Jan. 1757 - ), #137176
Pop-up Pedigree
Relationship=2nd cousin 7 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Maria Roosevelt was baptized on 13. Jan. 1757 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. She was the daughter of Jacobus Roosevelt and Annatje Bogaert.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Nicholas Roosevelt (M)
(27. Dec. 1767 - ), #137179
Pop-up Pedigree
Relationship=2nd cousin 7 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Nicholas Roosevelt was baptized on 27. Dec. 1767 at Dutch Reformed Church, New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Jacobus Roosevelt and Annatje Bogaert.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Peter Roosevelt (M)
(Oct. 1732 - Jun. 1762), #285188
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     Peter Roosevelt was baptized in Oct. 1732 at New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Jacobus Roosevelt and Catharine Hardenbroek. Peter Roosevelt married Elizabeth Brinckerhoff, daughter of Joris Brinckerhoff and Elizabeth Byvanck, on 14. Nov. 1753 at New York City, New York County, New York. Peter Roosevelt died in Jun. 1762 at age 29.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Quentin Roosevelt (M)
(9. Nov. 1897 - 14. Jul. 1918), #137154
Pop-up Pedigree
Relationship=6th cousin 3 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Quentin Roosevelt was born on 9. Nov. 1897 at Washington, District of Columbia. He was the son of President Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow. Quentin Roosevelt died on 14. Jul. 1918 at France at age 20. He was buried a 14. Jul. 1918 at Chamery, France.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Rachel Roosevelt (F)
#3681

     Rachel Roosevelt married Cornelius Low.

Last Edited=3 Dec 2005

Robert Barnwell Roosevelt (M)
(7. Aug. 1829 - 14. Jan. 1906), #137167
Pop-up Pedigree
Relationship=4th cousin 5 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Robert Barnwell Roosevelt was born on 7. Aug. 1829 at New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Robert Barnwell Roosevelt died on 14. Jan. 1906 at Sayville, Suffolk County, New York, at age 76.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Silas Weir Roosevelt (M)
(c 1823 - ), #137164
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Relationship=4th cousin 5 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Silas Weir Roosevelt was born c 1823. He was the son of Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Theodore Roosevelt (M)
(22. Sep. 1832 - 9. Feb. 1878), #67218
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Relationship=4th cousin 5 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Theodore Roosevelt was born on 22. Sep. 1832 at New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Cornelius Van Schaick Roosevelt and Margaret Barnhill. Theodore Roosevelt married Martha Bullock on 22. Dec. 1853 at Bulloch Hall, Roswell, Cobb County, Georgia. Theodore Roosevelt died on 9. Feb. 1878 at New York City, New York County, New York, at age 45.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (M)
(13. Sep. 1887 - 11. Jul. 1944), #137150
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Relationship=6th cousin 3 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on 13. Sep. 1887 at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, Nassau County, New York. He was the son of President Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died on 11. Jul. 1944 at France at age 56. He was buried a 11. Jul. 1944 at Saint-Mere-Eglise, France.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

Dr. Isaac Roosevelt MD (M)
(1790 - 1863), #67236

     Dr. Isaac Roosevelt MD was born in 1790. He married Mary Rebecca Aspinwall c 1827. Dr. Isaac Roosevelt MD died in 1863.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (M)
(30. Jan. 1882 - 12. Apr. 1945), #4899
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     President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on 30. Jan. 1882 at Hyde Park, New York. He was the son of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, daughter of Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Rebecca Hall, on 17. Mar. 1905 at New York City, New York County, New York. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shown in the census on 16. Apr. 1910 as a lawyer.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt appeared on the census of 16. Apr. 1910 at Manhattan, New York County, New York; 3 children, 2 living.



In the census on 12. Jan. 1920 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was named F. D. Roosevelt. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shown in the census on 12. Jan. 1920 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt appeared on the census of 12. Jan. 1920 at Washington, Distict of Columbia. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shown in the census on 2. Apr. 1930 as the Governor of New York.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt appeared on the census of 2. Apr. 1930 at Albany, Albany County, New York. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt held the position of 32nd President of the United States bt 1933 - 1945. He died on 12. Apr. 1945 at Warm Springs, Georgia, at age 63.

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945), 32nd president of the United States (1933-1945). Roosevelt served longer than any other president. His unprecedented election to four terms in office will probably never be repeated; the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, passed after his death, denies the right of any person to be elected president more than twice.
Roosevelt held office during two of the greatest crises ever faced by the United States: the Great Depression of the 1930s, followed by World War II. His domestic program, known as the New Deal, introduced far-reaching reforms within the free enterprise system and prepared the way for what is often called the welfare state. His leadership of the Democratic Party transformed it into a political vehicle for American liberalism. Both in peacetime and in war his impact on the office of president was enormous. Although there had been strong presidents before him, they were the exception. In Roosevelt's 12 years in office strong executive leadership became a basic part of United States government. He made the office of president the center of diplomatic initiative and the focus of domestic reform.

Early Life
Roosevelt was born at his family's estate at Hyde Park, in Dutchess County, New York. He was the only child of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano Roosevelt. James Roosevelt was a moderately successful businessman, with a variety of investments and a special interest in coal. He was also a conservative Democrat who was interested in politics. His home overlooking the Hudson River was comfortable without being ostentatious, and the family occupied a prominent position among the social elite of the area. Sara Delano, 26 years younger than her previously widowed husband, brought to the marriage a fortune considerably larger than that of James Roosevelt. The Delano family had prospered trading with China, and Sara herself had spent some time with her parents in Hong Kong. Thus, Franklin was born into a pleasant and sociable home, with loving parents and congenial, rather aristocratic companions.

Education
Roosevelt spent his early years at Hyde Park. During the summers he was often taken on European trips, and he also spent much time at a vacation home that James Roosevelt purchased on Campobello Island, on the Bay of Fundy, in New Brunswick, Canada. It was a pleasant life for the young Roosevelt, who was fond of the outdoors. He soon developed a passionate interest in natural history and became an ardent bird watcher. He grew to love outdoor sports and became an expert swimmer and a fine sailor.
His mother supervised his education until he was 14. French-speaking and German-speaking tutors did most of the actual instruction and helped him develop early a talent for those languages. Young Roosevelt was a voracious reader. He was particularly fond of adventure tales, especially those that touched on the sea. He also developed an absorbing interest in stamp collecting, a hobby that taught him both history and geography and that was to afford him pleasure and relaxation during all of his adult life.
Roosevelt's parents sent him off in 1896 for further education. They selected Groton School in Massachusetts, which had a reputation as one of the finest of the exclusive private schools that prepared boys for the Ivy League colleges. Young Roosevelt was a good student, popular with his fellow students as well as with his teachers.
From Groton Roosevelt went on to Harvard College. He entered in 1899, the year before his father died, and remained until 1904. He took his bachelor's degree in 1903 but returned to Harvard in the fall to serve as editor of the student newspaper, The Crimson. He was an above-average student at Harvard, but he devoted a great deal of time to extracurricular activities, and his grades suffered as a consequence. He was particularly interested in history and political economy and took courses in those subjects with outstanding professors. Although he was a competent journalist, his editorials in The Crimson were chiefly concerned with school spirit in athletics and show no sign of growing social consciousness or political awareness. However, he joined a Republican club in 1900, out of boyish enthusiasm for the vice-presidential candidacy of his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt. In 1904 he cast his first vote in a presidential election for his cousin, who had become president after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Afterward, however, Franklin joined his father's political party, and he probably never again voted for a Republican.
Roosevelt then moved to New York City, where he entered the Columbia University Law School in 1904. Although he attended classes until 1907, he failed to stay on for his law degree after passing the state examinations allowing him to practice law. For the next three years he was a clerk in a prominent law firm in New York City, but the evidence is clear that he had little interest in law and little enthusiasm to be a lawyer.

Marriage
Well before he finished his work at Columbia, young Franklin Roosevelt had married his distant cousin Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. They had been in love for some time and were determined to marry in spite of the opposition of Franklin's mother. The bride's uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, was present at the ceremony in New York City on March 17, 1905. Five of their six children grew to maturity: Anna, James, Elliott, Franklin, Jr., and John. The chief problem faced by the young couple during the early years of their marriage was Sara Roosevelt's possessive attitude toward her son. Eleanor's forbearance mitigated this situation, but the problem remained for many years.
Entry Into Politics

State Senator
Roosevelt formally entered politics in 1910, when he became a candidate for the New York State Senate in a district composed of three upstate farming counties. Democratic leaders had approached young Roosevelt because of his name and local prominence-and because he might be expected to pay his own election expenses. The 28-year-old Roosevelt campaigned hard, stressing his deep personal interest in conservation and other issues of concern in an agricultural area and also his strong support of honest and efficient government. In the first good year for Democrats since the early 1890s he was narrowly elected. He was only the second Democrat to represent his district after the emergence of the Republican Party in 1856.
In the state capitol at Albany, Roosevelt gained statewide publicity as the leader of a small group of upstate Democrats who refused to follow the leadership of Tammany Hall, also known as the Tammany Society, the Democratic Party organization of New York City. In particular, they refused to vote for the rich politician William F. "Blue-Eyed Bill" Sheehan for U.S. senator. Roosevelt's group succeeded in blocking the election of Sheehan, which infuriated Tammany Hall. The dramatic struggle drew the attention of New York voters to the tall vigorous new state senator with the magic name of Roosevelt. He soon became a dedicated social and economic reformer, and a political independent. He was reelected in 1912, in spite of a case of typhoid fever that kept him from campaigning.
Roosevelt entrusted his campaign management to the journalist Louis McHenry Howe. Howe, a genius at politics, performed brilliantly. Henceforth, Roosevelt and Howe were to be almost inseparable, and Howe, a wizened and colorful little man, guided the political fortunes of the Hyde Park aristocrat.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Even before his reelection to the New York legislature, Roosevelt had entered the national political arena by taking part in the campaign of Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey for the Democratic nomination for president. Once again the young state senator was a member of a minority group among New York Democrats. When Wilson won at both the convention and the polls in 1912, his early supporters were rewarded, and Roosevelt became assistant secretary of the United States Navy. Roosevelt resigned his state senate seat and moved to Washington, D.C., to take over the position once occupied by his cousin Theodore Roosevelt.
Franklin Roosevelt's years as assistant secretary, from 1913 to 1920, taught him both how to get things accomplished and, just as important for an executive, how to avoid unnecessary trouble. He had the devoted assistance of Louis Howe, who came along to the nation's capital as Roosevelt's assistant. Roosevelt's superior was Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, a North Carolina editor. Daniels was a close friend and devoted follower of Nebraska editor and former Representative William Jennings Bryan, three times the Democratic candidate for president and Wilson's secretary of state. Like Bryan, Daniels was concerned about agrarian issues and was a progressive reformer. He was also an isolationist (someone who believed that the United States should avoid alliances with other nations), who hated the idea of war. Young Roosevelt, an energetic supporter of a bigger navy and soon a warm friend of most of the leading admirals, inevitably had many disagreements with his chief, especially during Wilson's first term. Daniels had the confidence both of the president and of the most influential Democrats in the Congress of the United States; Roosevelt had neither of these. However, in time the two men came to have genuine respect for one another's different talents, and they remained good friends.
The Daniels-Roosevelt administration of the Navy Department was highly effective. American entry into World War I in 1917 found the navy in relatively good shape. Roosevelt, as the second in command, was particularly concerned with the civilian employees of the department. With the help of the energetic Howe, he made excellent contacts with labor leaders in the course of smoothing relations between the navy and its workers. Roosevelt was also involved in the enormous build-up of the naval forces and with the general administration of the department. Frequent public speeches brought him to the attention of the public, and he soon had a reputation as a young man of great promise. He turned down an opportunity to win the Democratic nomination for governor of New York in 1918 in order to go on a three-month tour of duty in Europe, during which he visited the western front in France. Although he wanted to go on active duty as a naval officer, both Wilson and Daniels insisted that he stay on as assistant secretary of the navy. He remained at that post until August 1920, when he resigned to campaign as the Democratic candidate for vice president.

Vice-Presidential Candidate
The Democratic National Convention of 1920 nominated as its candidate for president the governor of Ohio, James M. Cox. It was natural for the convention to turn to Roosevelt for the second position on the ticket. He was a member of the Wilson administration, closely identified with the League of Nations, an international association of countries that would, according to Wilson, prevent future wars. Roosevelt was young, handsome, energetic, and had a reputation as a fine administrator. He also came from an important state. Nevertheless the Cox-Roosevelt campaign was hopeless, for the American people had had enough of Democratic leadership and quickly responded to the pledge of the Republican candidate, Warren G. Harding, for a return to "normalcy." Roosevelt campaigned vigorously for a losing cause, making friends among Democratic leaders from coast to coast. After November 1920 he was a widely known public figure, even if he no longer held public office. Roosevelt, still under 40, could afford to wait.
Illness
Roosevelt resumed his law career on a part-time basis, and became vice president of the Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland. In this position he was in charge of the New York office of one of the most important companies handling bonds for public officials. Roosevelt's wide contacts and administrative talents provided an excellent background for this situation. Roosevelt also dabbled in a series of speculative ventures, none of which turned out very well.
Personal tragedy struck Roosevelt in August 1921, when he contracted what was diagnosed, after an unfortunate delay, as poliomyelitis. He had been plagued by illness of various sorts during the previous decade, and he had overexerted himself swimming and hiking at Campobello. In great agony and completely unable to walk, Roosevelt seemed to have reached the end of his active public career. Indeed, his mother wanted him to return to Hyde Park for the peace and quiet of the life of a country gentleman. However, backed by the determination of his wife and Louis Howe, Roosevelt decided to return to his work as soon as possible. In spite of the efforts of numerous specialists and of his strenuous exercises, particularly swimming at his "second home" in Warm Springs, Georgia, he was never again able to walk unaided. He spent most of his working hours in a wheelchair, and he walked with leg braces and canes, usually with help. Through the worst years of his paralysis, Roosevelt was amazingly cheerful. Eleanor Roosevelt often acted as her husband's eyes and ears, bringing him information and conferring with people he was no longer readily able to meet. Howe remained close by Roosevelt, assisting him in many ways and planning for his return to public life.

Governor of New York
Roosevelt continued to busy himself with Democratic politics after his illness. In 1922 he aided Alfred E. Smith, who in that year made a successful political comeback and became governor of New York for the second time. In 1924 Roosevelt made a rousing nominating speech for Smith at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, calling the governor the "Happy Warrior." Although Smith was unable to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924, he was reelected governor that year and again in 1926. In 1928 Roosevelt again nominated Smith for president at the national convention. This time, Smith was chosen, becoming the first Roman Catholic nominated by a major U.S. party as its candidate for president.
At Smith's urging, and against the advice of Eleanor Roosevelt and Louis Howe, Roosevelt agreed to run for governor. Smith, well aware that his own religion, his identification with urban issues, and his opposition to the prohibition of liquor would hurt him in rural Protestant areas, needed the help of Roosevelt in New York state. Ironically, Roosevelt was elected governor by the narrow margin of 25,000 out of 4.5 million votes cast, while Smith lost New York, and the presidency, to Herbert Hoover. Smith felt that his defeat was solely the result of religious prejudice, but it is unlikely that any Democrat could have defeated the Republicans in 1928.
Roosevelt thus succeeded Smith as governor in January 1929. He soon made it clear that he was going to have his own administration by replacing key Smith associates, and before long there was coolness between the two former political allies. Like Smith, Roosevelt had to cope with a Republican legislature. Since Smith had been responsible for a series of important social and administrative reforms, Roosevelt faced a difficult task in working out a distinctive program of his own. His first successes were in the fields of conservation and tax relief for farmers, areas in which he shared a common interest with his Republican legislators. In time he developed a skill as a political manager and a superb style of speaking on the radio. He was also careful to develop support among different groups for his plans.

Stock Market Crash
In October 1929 the economic prosperity that the United States had enjoyed for most of the 1920s came to an abrupt end. During this period many people had put their savings and earnings in risky investments, particularly the buying of stocks on margin. In these cases, the buyer put up as little as 3 percent of a stock's price in cash and borrowed the remainder from the broker. The growing demand for stocks and the prosperous state of the nation as a whole caused stock prices to rise, which in turn encouraged more stock purchases.
Stock prices reached their height in the so-called "Hoover bull market" during the first six months of the Hoover administration. People invested billions of dollars in the stock market, obtaining money by borrowing from banks, mortgaging their homes, and selling lower-risk government securities, such as Liberty Bonds.
Buying stock on margin was a risky bet that the price of that stock would continue to increase. In August 1929 approximately 300 million shares of stock had been purchased on margin. During normal business periods a share of stock had been purchased mostly for the dividend it paid, but during the Hoover bull market stocks were purchased increasingly to sell at a higher price. Unfortunately, industry sales had begun to slow down, indicating that stock prices were likely to fall because industries would pay smaller dividends. In September 1929 some investors began selling stocks, believing prices had reached their highest level and would fall in the near future. Other investors began selling, too, and as they sold the price to buy those stocks began to fall more quickly. The decline in prices especially threatened those who had purchased on margin, because they owed their broker the amount of the original price of the stock-even if that stock was now worth only half as much.
As a result, by October 1929 the feverish buying had stopped and had given way to desperate selling. Prices dropped rapidly, and thousands of people lost all they had invested. Many were completely ruined financially. On October 29 the New York Stock Exchange, the largest in the world, had its worst day of panic selling. By the end of the year stock values had declined by $15 billion.
Following the stock market crash of October 1929 Roosevelt found himself a depression governor, with new problems to face. In 1930 he was reelected by the unprecedented number of 725,000 votes.

Road to the Presidency
As an energetic governor and a leading progressive reformer who was also head of the nation's most populous state, Roosevelt was automatically a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. His inability to walk unaided had proved to be no political problem; indeed, many New Yorkers were unaware that their governor used a wheelchair. Roosevelt and Howe planned the campaign carefully. As the front-runner, Roosevelt was in some danger of becoming the man against whom the other candidates might combine. This could be fatal to his chances, since at that time it was necessary that a candidate secure two-thirds of the convention vote in order to win the nomination. Due to the growing unpopularity of the depression-ridden Hoover administration, 1932 looked like a Democratic year, and thus the Democratic nomination was pursued more aggressively than it had been for years.
New York Democratic chairman James Aloysius Farley traveled across the country in the summer of 1931 and made friends for Roosevelt and himself in each state he visited. He reported on his return that prospects were excellent for Roosevelt in all of these states except California, where newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst had great power and where the Democratic Party was a shambles. Hearst's newspapers, bitter in their attacks on Hoover, gave their support to Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas, whose isolationist views were more congenial to Hearst than were the views of a man still identified with former President Wilson's campaign for the League of Nations. Roosevelt, in an effort to ensure that Hearst would not lead a fight against him, announced that he no longer favored U.S. entry into the League of Nations. This position angered many supporters of Wilson, who felt that Roosevelt had turned his back on Wilson's memory.

Democratic National Convention
Fortunately for Roosevelt his opponents for the nomination, including the now-embittered Al Smith, were never able to organize against him and keep him from getting the necessary two-thirds vote. The strongest opposition to Roosevelt came from city leaders in the Northeast. His chief strength came from the South and West. He was nominated on the fourth ballot, after Garner agreed to accept the vice-presidential nomination. In part to demonstrate his physical capability and in part to show that he was ready to break with tradition, Roosevelt flew to Chicago, Illinois, to accept the nomination in person rather than wait weeks to reply to a formal notice of his nomination. In a dramatic speech to the convention, Roosevelt pledged a New Deal for the American people. The term New Deal came to describe Roosevelt's domestic policies, under which the government became much more directly involved in national social and economic affairs than ever before.

1932 Presidential Election
Roosevelt had more difficulty in winning the Democratic nomination in 1932 than he had in defeating President Hoover. In spite of Hoover's unprecedented efforts to use the power of the federal government to overcome the Great Depression, he was completely identified with the policies of former U.S. presidents Warren Harding (1921-1923) and of Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929), since he had served as secretary of commerce in both administrations. Roosevelt's task was essentially a simple one: to convince the American people that because the Republicans had claimed full credit for the prosperity of the 1920s, they should receive full blame for the depression. Roosevelt was spectacularly successful. He had an exuberance as a campaigner, a glowing confidence, and a warmth that was transmitted to his listeners. He toured widely by train, making brief appearances to cheering crowds and delivering carefully prepared speeches nearly every night. He promised to a despondent people a New Deal in manner and in spirit. Roosevelt won a resounding victory, losing only six states out of a total of 48. Of the six, four were in traditionally Republican New England.
President of the United States
When Roosevelt became president, on March 4, 1933, the Great Depression was at its worst. Sixteen million or more people were unemployed, and many had been out of work for a year or even longer. The American banking system had collapsed. Many states had declared so-called bank holidays, or enforced closings to prevent banks from being ruined when depositors withdrew all their money. Although the American depression had been touched off by the stock market crash in New York City in October 1929, it had since become part of a worldwide economic collapse. Whether Americans would be satisfied with the new leadership depended on Roosevelt's success in bringing aid to those in distress and in achieving some measure of economic improvement.
Roosevelt's first inaugural address, with its pledge to make war upon the depression and its ringing phrase, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself," brought a new style to the U.S. presidency. Roosevelt was confident, both in himself as a leader and in the American people. His liking for people came through to them over the radio and in the press. Out of his general bewilderment with the failure of the U.S. economy came few specific promises, but Americans probably felt more comfortable under the leadership of a man pledged to experiment than they had under Hoover's leadership, which had seemed inflexible. At least the prospect of change offered hope to the millions of people trapped in the depression.
Domestic Programs 1933-1941
First Appointments
At this time, Roosevelt was 51. He was vigorous and hard-working but capable of relaxation and in excellent health and spirits. His brief legislative experience and his public administrative careers had given him a wide acquaintance among political leaders. He was an irregular Democrat because he had asked for and obtained the support of progressive Republicans in his campaign and had rewarded several of them with high positions in his government. As president he sought to be "president of all the people." He stressed that the conquest of the depression was "above politics," one of Roosevelt's favorite terms but one not popular with professional Democrats who wanted Roosevelt to give them government jobs. It is noteworthy that Roosevelt frequently turned for help to people not previously identified with Democratic Party politics, such as what was called the Brain Trust, which was made up of faculty members from Columbia University (Raymond Moley, Adolf Berle, and Rexford Tugwell) and from Harvard (Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen). Roosevelt liked to learn through listening to and questioning experts, thus becoming familiar with different points of view. He was not usually communicative in return, and preferred to make up his mind in private. Indeed, he was "a private person," as Tugwell put it, in spite of his warm public personality. He had a genius for simple, clear speaking, and he projected a sense of dedication with a rousing style. He was at his best in press conferences, generally held twice a week. He knew how to handle questions easily, and had a quick sense of humor and an enormous fund of detailed information. The reporters usually liked him, and he received good press throughout his presidency, even when most newspaper publishers had turned against him and his policies.
"Deserving Democrats" also got attention in Roosevelt's administration, thanks particularly to James A. Farley, both postmaster general and Democratic national chairman. However, much of the most important work went to men and women who had never engaged in any sort of politics. Louis Howe, now secretary to the president, continued to help his old chief but did not play an important role in creating policy. The Cabinet was generally undistinguished, but it did contain the first female Cabinet member, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins.

The Hundred Days
Roosevelt immediately called a special session of Congress to deal with the depression rather than wait for the regular session in December. The legislation passed by Congress and signed by Roosevelt in the spring of 1933 was remarkable, both in number of bills passed and in their scope. Contemporaries called it the Hundred Days, a term that historians continue to use. No session of Congress had ever produced so much important legislation. Not until 1965 did another president or Congress accomplish as much.
Roosevelt had called the special session to deal with the banking crisis, economy in government, and changes to the liquor law. Congress quickly responded to the first and third. The Emergency Banking Act, introduced, passed, and signed by the president during a single day, gave the federal government sweeping power to deal with the banking crisis. The Beer Act raised the percentage of alcohol considered nonintoxicating from .05 percent to 3.2 percent. This made it possible to sell three-two, or low alcohol, beer, which had been illegal under the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (see Prohibition). The Economy Act, reducing government salaries and pensions to meet a Roosevelt campaign pledge, was bitterly opposed by many Democratic representatives and passed only because of intense pressure from Roosevelt and support by most Republicans in Congress.
While Congress was acting on these matters, Roosevelt aggressively pushed other legislation. Bills were frequently written by the executive branch, a procedure that made the legislative process faster and ensured that measures emerging from Congress would have the approval of the president. Congress worked quickly on most measures, but there was opposition from some members, especially those who felt that Roosevelt was not going far enough, fast enough. Roosevelt's success in getting Congress to do so much of what he wanted was in part a result of a widespread desperation and in part a result of strong leadership.

The New Deal
The basic New Deal legislation was passed in slightly more than five years, from 1933 to 1938. Historians have frequently discussed these laws under the headings of the three Rs: relief, recovery, and reform.

Relief Legislation
The most pressing problem facing Roosevelt, once the banking crisis had passed, was that of providing relief for the unemployed and their families. Private charities had long since run out of money, and few states could still provide any assistance. Under President Hoover the Reconstruction Finance Corporation had made loans to states to finance relief payments, although Hoover had long tried to avoid this step. However, under Roosevelt's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the first of his major relief operations, large amounts of money were given to the states. Harry L. Hopkins, a tough-minded professional social worker who had administered state relief under Governor Roosevelt, was the head of FERA. He saw to it that available funds were spent quickly to provide help to as many as possible.
The president and Hopkins, like President Hoover before them, believed in work relief, or payment for work performed, rather than the dole, a simple payment without any work requirement. Although they felt that work relief would help to maintain the morale of the recipients, work projects took time to plan and were far more costly to administer than the simple dole. FERA did have a subdivision, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), which provided work relief for a large number of men during the winter of 1933 and 1934. However, due to the necessity of making the available money go as far as possible, the FERA essentially dispensed money through the state governments.
Unemployment persisted in the early years of Roosevelt's presidency, in spite of some economic recovery. At the end of 1934 about one-sixth of the entire country was still on relief. In 1935 a new semipermanent organization, the Works Progress Administration (WPA, later renamed the Work Projects Administration), was set up by executive order and placed under Hopkins, and the FERA was abolished. The WPA provided work relief only, and due to lack of money many people on relief had to depend on the hard-pressed states for a dole.
The WPA projects were better planned than those of the CWA, and many of them were of lasting benefit to their communities. Roads and streets were built or improved. Schools, libraries, and other public buildings were constructed or repaired. Artists, musicians, and writers performed for the benefit of the public. Administrative costs were higher than those of the FERA, but the projects carried out were more complex and useful.
Two other relief operations were designed especially for young people. Both were of great interest to the president and his wife. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) provided work for unemployed and unmarried young men. They received food and shelter and were paid $30 per month, of which $25 had to be given to relatives or dependents. More than a quarter of a million men, many of them from city slums, worked in the corps, living together in camps under the management of army officers. They benefited from the healthy outdoor work, their families benefited from the money, and the country benefited from the many worthy projects they completed. The National Youth Administration (NYA) provided needy high school and college students with part-time jobs at their schools. The NYA also gave useful part-time employment to needy young people who were no longer in school. NYA workers normally earned from $5 to $15 per month. Although these sums were small, they proved valuable for the support of the recipients and their families during this period of great economic distress.

Recovery Legislation
When he took office, Roosevelt must have felt that his basic problem was how to bring about economic recovery. His predecessor, in spite of his philosophy of rugged individualism, had reluctantly accepted some government responsibility for improving the economy. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), established under Hoover, provided loans to financial institutions, railways, and public agencies. Roosevelt reappointed the head of that organization, and with congressional approval, he made RFC loans easier to get and the RFC became a major recovery agency of the New Deal.
Another Hoover policy, direct spending on major public works, was taken over and greatly expanded by Roosevelt. He set up a Public Works Administration (PWA) and put it under the jurisdiction of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, a Republican reformer from Chicago. Ickes proceeded slowly with PWA projects, for he had an obsessive and probably well-founded idea that if he did not watch closely, the PWA would provide politicians with opportunities for corruption. As a result of this slowness, Ickes's PWA did not play a very important role in the early New Deal, and an increasingly larger share of money was given to the less tidy but more energetic relief operations of Ickes's rival, Harry Hopkins. However, the PWA came into its own after the recession of 1937, when carefully prepared plans were ready to be implemented almost at once. Huge public buildings, great dams, and irrigation and flood-control projects are part of PWA's legacy.
The most spectacular agency designed to promote general economic improvement was the National Recovery Administration (NRA), an organization set up (along with the PWA) by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which was passed by Congress in June 1933. The NRA was designed to help business help itself. Unfair competition was supposed to be eliminated through the establishment of codes of fair competition; in effect, laws against combinations of large businesses were to be suspended in exchange for guarantees to workers. These guarantees specifically included minimum wages, maximum hours, and the right to bargain as a group.
Unfortunately, the NRA did not work as its supporters had hoped. The administrator, the colorful former army officer Hugh S. Johnson, let the code-making get out of hand. Eventually there were hundreds of codes for different industrial groups. Johnson's patriotic speeches, with which he sought to sell the NRA to the American people, began to wear thin after a while. Johnson resigned in 1934, and the NRA was unanimously declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1935.
A special recovery agency for one major segment of the economy was the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), set up in the Department of Agriculture and supervised by Secretary Henry A. Wallace, a farm editor, scientist, and son of a former Republican secretary of agriculture. The AAA sought to eliminate overproduction of basic crops and thus to bring prices back to the average prices of the period from 1909 to 1914, a time of agricultural prosperity. The AAA had authority to buy surplus crops and to make payments to producers to restrict production. It concentrated at first on cotton, wheat, corn, and hogs, the most important products of the Midwest and the South. The plans of the AAA to restrict production and to raise prices were aided by a series of droughts and windstorms on the Great Plains, and farm prices rose steadily during Roosevelt's first term. The AAA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1936, but a so-called voluntary system was established by Congress in 1936 for the same purposes as the AAA. In 1938 the second AAA was created by Congress. This AAA was more complex and did not rely on a special tax, and it survived.

Reform Legislation
The laws that later generations tended to think of as the New Deal were mainly reform laws. Franklin Roosevelt had been a reformer, a believer in progress and in government-sponsored social and economic change, from the time he first took public office in 1911. The reform impulse in America had been frustrated since the 1918 election victories by conservative politicians, who believed that government should not be involved in social reform. Now that impulse was revived in the Great Depression by President Roosevelt, often under pressure from congressional liberals, who were concerned with the development of personal freedom and social progress, and from reform movements outside the government. Between 1933 and 1938, major legislation passed by Congress constituted the most sweeping reform program since the progressive period of 1901 to 1907. In general, these reforms increased the existing regulatory activities of the federal government. After Roosevelt's administrations the government was involved in regulating many more areas of economic activity.
Banking and currency were in obvious need of attention, since the banking system had virtually collapsed by March 1933 and the drain of gold had placed a great strain on the dollar. Banking legislation passed in the first Roosevelt term created insurance for small savings depositors, separated commercial and investment banking, and greatly increased the authority of the Federal Reserve Board, the government agency that oversees banking activity. In order to protect the currency, Roosevelt secured authority from Congress to take the United States off the gold standard and to devalue the dollar. However, once he discovered that devaluing the dollar did not in itself help to bring about economic recovery, he was unenthusiastic about tinkering with the currency. Related to these reforms was the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission, an independent agency empowered to regulate the sale of stocks and bonds. The first chairman of the commission was Joseph P. Kennedy, an early Roosevelt supporter who was himself a wealthy speculator.
In the campaign of 1932 Roosevelt had strongly criticized the tariff, or import tax, policies of the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations, blaming the decline of world trade on those Republican presidents. He appointed Senator Cordell Hull of Tennessee as secretary of state. A fervent free trader, Hull felt that his main duty should be to eliminate trade barriers by lowering import tariffs. Some of the early New Dealers did not share Hull's enthusiasm. For more than a year they were able to block his program, while Roosevelt concerned himself with purely domestic efforts. However, Hull stubbornly persisted in his course, eventually winning the president's support and the passage of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, one of the most ingenious of the New Deal measures. This act did not attempt to alter existing import taxes by law. Hull and others knew very well how difficult it was to achieve tariff reform this way. Instead, the act authorized the president to negotiate agreements with other nations for a mutual lowering of import taxes. Such agreements did not have to be ratified by the Senate, and they could cut existing tariffs by 50 percent. The most-favored-nation clause promised that the United States would offer the same tariff rates to all countries with which it had signed a commercial treaty. If the United States lowered tariffs further in a treaty with another nation, it would have to lower tariffs for all nations with most-favored-nation status. By this method benefits from these agreements were slowly extended uniformly to all nations with whom such agreements had been made. Although Hull did not secure free trade, he did significantly lower tariff barriers. At the same time, he provided a method for taking tariff making out of the hands of Congress.
The federal government also became involved with housing. In the depths of the depression many people lost their homes because they were unable to make payments on their housing loans, called mortgages. Lending institutions then seized these homes but were often unable to resell them or even rent them. Two of the most popular of the early New Deal agencies were the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, which helped individuals by refinancing their home loans so that banks did not seize the homes, and the Federal Housing Administration, which helped banks by taking most of the risk out of home loans by insuring loans up to 80 percent of the value of the property. In his second term, President Roosevelt secured the passage of legislation that allowed him to set up the U.S. Housing Authority. This agency helped to rebuild slums and encouraged low-cost housing construction, of major importance because it was the first direct involvement of the federal government in building houses.
One of the most sweeping and imaginative New Deal reforms was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), an independent federal corporation set up to improve conditions in a depressed area of 103,600 sq km (40,000 sq mi) in seven states. Chiefly responsible for this scheme was Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, a progressive Republican who had almost single-handedly blocked the sale of government-owned power sites on the Tennessee River during the 1920s and who was a firm believer in government ownership and operation of public utilities such as power and water companies. Roosevelt was a widely known advocate of publicly owned power, which he saw as a yardstick with which to measure the real costs of private power companies. He was greatly attracted to the TVA because of its possibilities for the conservation of natural and human resources.
The TVA built a series of dams for power production, flood control, and navigation improvement. It distributed its own water-generated, or hydroelectric, power to many who never before had enjoyed the benefits of electricity. The TVA also produced cheap fertilizers. As a result, the standard of living of the people in its area steadily improved. The TVA was seen as a direct threat to the country's private-power companies, and it was not imitated elsewhere, although the Roosevelt administration did build dams and power plants in the West.
The most far-reaching of the New Deal reform measures was the Social Security Act of 1935. During the first two years of Roosevelt's presidency a commission studied the problems caused by unemployment, old age, and physical disability and sought to determine the part that should be played by the federal government in alleviating these problems. Unemployment insurance, financed by a federal payroll tax paid in equal parts by employers and employees, was established as a joint federal-state program. An old-age pension system was set up to be administered by the federal government and financed by taxes on both employers and employees. Other provisions of the Social Security Act provided federal money to encourage the states to care for dependent children and the blind. The Social Security Act did not include health insurance because the commission and the president considered that its inclusion would jeopardize the passage of the act (see Social Security).
After the National Industrial Recovery Act was declared unconstitutional, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed to workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, free from interference by employers. The act set up the National Labor Relations Board as an independent agency. The board was a major force assisting the rapid growth of trade unions in the New Deal era. By statute it was required to be in favor of labor, and it played its role with enthusiasm. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was the last important act of the New Deal. This measure set a minimum wage and a limit to the hours worked. It was moderate in its provisions, gradual in its application, and limited in its scope, but it established an important precedent.

New Deal Politics
The New Deal programs were closely associated with the personality of President Roosevelt, about whom the politics of the 1930s revolved. His skill at clarifying problems and in explaining the solutions he and his associates had devised made him almost an intimate friend of the American people. For almost six years his popularity with the majority of the people grew. In 1934 the already huge Democratic majorities in Congress were increased, a rare thing for a party in power in non-presidential, or off-year, elections. In 1936 these majorities were raised even higher. The number of Republicans left in the House was less than 100; only 17 Republicans remained in the Senate, and about half of them supported the New Deal. Not until the off-year election of 1938 did the Republican Party show any signs of renewed vigor.
Roosevelt did have opponents during these years. During his first year in office his most vigorous enemies were on the political left. Leftists felt that he was missing a priceless opportunity to move toward socialism, or the direct involvement of government in the economy. From 1935 on, however, his principal opposition came from conservatives, especially the reviving business community. These elements had been so stunned by the depression and so grateful at first to Roosevelt for his efforts to promote recovery within the framework of the capitalist system that they scarcely opposed him. However, beginning in 1935, the economy began to recover and the labor movement, encouraged by New Deal legislation, began to be effective. In addition the Supreme Court began to declare New Deal legislation unconstitutional. These developments encouraged conservatives to oppose the administration.

The 1936 Election
In 1936 Roosevelt won his greatest victory when he received more than 60 percent of the popular vote and won every state except Maine and Vermont. The Republican candidate, Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas, was a progressive himself and accepted much of the New Deal program while deploring how it was being administered. However, Landon was a dull campaigner. His advisers pushed him to the right during the campaign, and he ended with very little support. Careful students of politics saw in the 1936 election a considerable amount of voting by social or economic class, with workers and those who lived in the cities voting overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party.

Decline in Popularity
Middle-class support for the New Deal began to slip away in 1937 and 1938, and the Democratic Party became more than ever the party of urban labor. Three major events seem to have contributed to this change. First was a series of sit-down strikes, in which the militant new unions of the Committee for Industrial Organization, later known as the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), kept their men inside plants during strikes. This technique, used by the new unions in the automobile industry, violated property rights. Many middle-class Americans were antagonized by this, as they were by the labor war between the CIO and the more traditional American Federation of Labor (AFL).
The second event was Roosevelt's so-called court-packing plan, a scheme to enlarge the Supreme Court that he suddenly presented to Congress in 1937. Roosevelt argued that the court was behind in its work, partly due to the advanced age of many members. However, it was clear that what really irritated him was a series of decisions that had declared much of his program unconstitutional. A group of Democratic senators, including several former New Deal supporters, deserted the administration on this issue, and the president suffered his first major defeat in Congress. However, the court reversed the trend of its decisions after the court plan, and most New Deal legislation was allowed to stand.
The third event was probably the most damaging of all. It was the so-called Roosevelt recession that began in the fall of 1937 with another stock market crash. The recession lasted until after the resumption of large-scale government spending the following spring. This recession had been preceded by more efficiency in government and a balanced budget, courses promoted by conservative secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. The effect of the Roosevelt recession was to convince many people that the administration did not have any magic formula for prosperity and that the earlier recovery had been based on the government spending more money than it collected.

The 1940 Election
In the elections of 1938 the Republicans made a comeback in several key industrial states and substantially increased their congressional representation. It was freely predicted that the Republicans would regain the presidency in 1940. Many felt that Roosevelt would not run for president again, thanks to the tradition that no candidate ran for more than two terms. However, by the time the Democratic National Convention met in the summer of 1940, a grave international crisis was at its height, and Roosevelt was given his third nomination for president. Roosevelt defeated the Republican candidate, the lawyer and businessman Wendell L. Willkie, but he won by a much narrower margin than he had in 1936. Whether Roosevelt would have been renominated, and whether he would have accepted if nominated, in the absence of the world crisis will never be known. However, it is clear that his experience in foreign affairs had much to do with his winning an unprecedented third term.

Foreign Policy (1933-1941)
The Stimson Doctrine
Although in 1932, Roosevelt denied that he believed the United States should become a member of the League of Nations, he seems never to have given up the faith in collective security he had developed under Wilson. He was disappointed in the accomplishments of the league, but like many of the league's supporters he blamed many of its troubles on the failure of the United States to join. After his election in 1932, but before his inauguration, he conferred with Hoover's secretary of state, Henry L. Stimson, and accepted the so-called Stimson Doctrine of refusing to recognize the recent conquest of Manchuria by Japan. Thus, before he had become president, one of the cardinal principles of Roosevelt's foreign policy, opposition to Japanese efforts to dominate East Asia, had been established.

Good Neighbor Policy
Another basic Roosevelt foreign policy was the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America. The phrase "good neighbor," used by the president in his first inaugural address, meant in practice that the United States would no longer intervene in Latin America to protect private American property interests. American support for the savage Cuban dictatorship of Gerardo Machado was withdrawn, and a revolution soon turned him out. The removal of the last U.S. Marines from Haiti in 1934 ended direct financial control by the United States. Secretary of State Hull's reciprocal trade program, which resulted in several agreements with Latin American republics, lowered trade barriers on some goods and was thus popular in many Central and South American nations.
Hull went to the Pan American Conference at Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1933 to give full support to the important principle that "no state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." The administration acted in accordance with this principle when Mexico seized foreign-owned oil properties. Unlike Great Britain, the United States did not break off diplomatic relations with Mexico. Eventually the American companies worked out their own settlement with the Mexican government. The ambassador to Mexico, Josephus Daniels, was Roosevelt's old chief in the Navy Department. The actions of these two men did more than anything else to convince most of the Latin American governments that the United States could be a good neighbor.
Growth of U.S. Isolationism
Toward Europe, President Roosevelt's policies seemed at first to be almost isolationist, in spite of his background. He did agree to go ahead with U.S. participation in the World Economic Conference, scheduled to take place in London in the summer of 1933. President Hoover had promised U.S. attendance. However, Roosevelt did not have much faith in the ability of the conference to agree on measures to stabilize the value of the dollar. Except for Hull, most of the U.S. delegates were of minor importance. Roosevelt eventually undercut the conference by saying that he had little interest in currency stabilization and by announcing that he would work for economic recovery in other ways. He was strongly influenced by advisers, who had no faith in European central bankers and felt that there was nothing to be gained by tying the U.S. economy to a hazardous international agreement.
Unquestionably, Roosevelt's action was made easy by the prevailing isolationism in the United States. Some said the distress of these years was because of disillusionment caused by U.S. participation in World War I. Encouraged by congressional investigations and the works of a number of writers and politicians, many Americans felt that the United States should have stayed out of that conflict. This feeling was so strong that Congress passed a number of neutrality acts, which among other things forbade private American loans to nations that weren't paying their debts to the United States. Other acts required the president to place an embargo on the shipment of arms to nations at war, authorized him to keep U.S. citizens from sailing on the ships of those nations, and forbade the carrying by American ships of guns or ammunition to countries at war. Roosevelt sought but was denied the right to discriminate between aggressors and their victims. A majority in Congress believed that trading arms with countries that were at war was a dangerous activity. Some belligerent country, isolationists argued, would inevitably attack some of the shipments and draw the United States into another European war.
However, the balance of power in Europe was already shifting, and President Roosevelt was unable to pursue his domestic program without paying some attention to the international situation. During his first term, Italy, led by the dictator Benito Mussolini, conquered the eastern African empire of Ethiopia, in spite of mild economic punishment imposed on Italy as an aggressor by the League of Nations. Soon afterward, Germany, headed by the dictator Adolf Hitler, placed troops and weapons in the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, which had been signed at the end of World War I. In the summer of 1936, Italy and Germany gave vital assistance to the military forces leading a revolution against the Spanish republic. Not only did Britain and France do nothing, but the United States put its own unofficial embargo on the shipment of weapons to Spain, a course legalized by Congress when it convened in 1937. The U.S. policy toward Spain was isolationism carried as far as it could be carried, since under international law the government of Spain had the right to carry on trade, and the rebels were without legal status.

Quarantine of Aggressors
One of the most significant evidences of Roosevelt's growing concern with the precarious state of world peace came soon after his reelection in 1936. He journeyed by sea to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to attend a special Inter-American Conference for Peace, where he warned that non-American nations proposing "to commit acts of aggression against us will find a hemisphere wholly prepared to consult together for our mutual safety and our mutual good." Less than a year later, following the renewal of Japanese attacks on China, Roosevelt in a dramatic speech in Chicago proposed that a quarantine be placed on aggressor nations. Chiefly because of the lack of enthusiasm of Secretary Hull and the British, nothing came directly out of this proposal. However, it was a significant speech because it displayed Roosevelt's long-held belief in a system of collective security. Soon afterward, the president requested a billion-dollar appropriation for naval expansion, and then almost at once he asked for even more. Congress obliged, and the defense build-up was under way.

Start of World War II
The amount of money spent on defense grew enormously. The United States under Roosevelt was quickly preparing for a new war, which seemed close at hand. In March 1938 Germany annexed Austria and in 1939, it took over the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Large parts of Czechoslovakia had already been lost when Britain and France agreed to allow Germany to absorb German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia under the Munich Pact in 1938. At the end of August 1939 the Germans concluded a nonaggression pact with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which ensured that, if Germany went to war with France and Britain on one front, the Germans would not have to face the USSR on a second front. When the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Poles appealed to France and Britain for help. There was little that the Western powers could do to prevent the rapid occupation of Poland by the Germans, and, in the east, by the Soviets, except to declare war on Germany, which they did on September 3, 1939.

Defense Buildup
Roosevelt at once convened a special session of Congress and asked it to lift the embargo on the sale of munitions (weapons), a provision that chiefly hurt the Western countries opposed to Hitler and Germany, known as the Allies. After a sharp debate, Congress complied with the request. It passed the so-called cash-and-carry act, which permitted Americans to sell munitions to nations able to pay for them in cash and able to carry them away in ships registered abroad. Congress did not change any other provision of the neutrality acts, however (see World War II).
Unlike President Wilson in 1914, Roosevelt made no secret of his partiality for Britain and France. He loathed Hitler and his National Socialism, or Nazi, Party and considered them a threat to U.S. security. When the Germans quickly defeated Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in the spring of 1940, Roosevelt came quickly to the aid of the British, now carrying on alone against Germany. Not only did he ask Congress for more defense money, but he took steps to establish a kind of coalition government. He brought into the two key military posts in the U.S. Cabinet distinguished Republicans who shared his alarm at the Nazi threat. Henry L. Stimson became Roosevelt's secretary of war, and Frank Knox, a Chicago newspaper publisher and Republican candidate for vice president in 1936, was made secretary of the navy. Roosevelt also appointed leaders of the business community to a defense advisory commission.
In September 1940 Roosevelt secured the passage of the United States' first peacetime conscription measure, the Selective Training and Service Act (see Selective Service). Under it, men between 21 and 35 were required to register for a year of military training. Roosevelt was also impressed with the great danger to the survival of Britain caused by German planes and submarines. Thus, in September he also transferred 50 U.S. destroyers to Britain in exchange for eight naval bases in the western hemisphere. Fortunately for the success of the destroyers-bases arrangement, the 1940 Republican candidate for president, Wendell Willkie, endorsed it. Isolationists and others who disliked Roosevelt's policy of aid to Britain thus had no major party alternative in the election.

Lend-Lease
Following his reelection in 1940, President Roosevelt moved ahead with the dual policy of building up U.S. defenses while giving assistance to those countries resisting the aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The major legislation was the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, passed over the bitter opposition of the isolationists in Congress and their national organization, the America First Committee. The Lend-Lease Act authorized the president to transfer to victims of aggression such military equipment (a term interpreted to include food and clothing) as could be produced in the United States and acquired by the government. This act, which was destined to be extended for the length of World War II, began with an appropriation of $7 billion. It was an emphatic announcement of support for the hard-pressed British. When Germany attacked the USSR in June 1941 and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill welcomed the Soviets as allies, Roosevelt extended the privileges of lend-lease to the USSR. Thus, the United States was virtually at war in the spring and summer of 1941, sending aid to Britain and the USSR and even patrolling the Atlantic Ocean with the U.S. Navy.
Wartime Leadership (1941-1945)

Pearl Harbor
Roosevelt officially became wartime president after Japan attacked the United States on December 7, 1941. Although he had opposed Japanese expansion in Asia from the time he took office, Roosevelt was kept from assisting China to any extent by the difficulties of geographical distance and by American isolationism. When the Japanese attacked China again in 1937 without a declaration of war, terming the hostilities a mere incident, Roosevelt refused to recognize the existence of a state of war and thus avoided the application of the neutrality laws. Such enforcement would have discriminated against the Chinese, and Roosevelt was as openly pro-Chinese in Asia as he was openly pro-British in Europe. In 1940 the administration notified Japan that the existing commercial treaty between the two countries would be ended. The administration increased U.S. aid to China and placed an embargo on the export of iron and steel scrap, an important part of U.S. trade with Japan. In Japan, militarists took complete control of the government in 1941 and prepared for a showdown.
The carrier-based airplane attack upon the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, caught the U.S. garrison by surprise and resulted in the sinking or damaging of a large number of ships. The Japanese did not succeed in destroying any aircraft carriers, however, and they were unable or unwilling to follow through with an invasion of Hawaii. At the request of Roosevelt, who called December 7 "a day which will live in infamy," Congress declared war on Japan. When Germany and Italy came to the assistance of their Japanese allies by declaring war on the United States, Roosevelt and Congress reciprocated by declaring war on them.

Atlantic Charter
Roosevelt threw himself into the role of wartime leader with determination and enthusiasm. He was convinced that the security of the United States depended on the defeat of Germany, Italy, and Japan. He was also certain that the greatest threat came from Germany. Even before Pearl Harbor he had spoken with Prime Minister Churchill in a naval vessel off Newfoundland, Canada, and had joined in issuing the Atlantic Charter on August 14, 1941. This document denied any desire for any territorial changes not desired by the peoples concerned. It also stressed the goals of improved economic conditions, "freedom from fear," and the disarmament of aggressors. This document reflected many of Woodrow Wilson's ideas that had so strongly influenced Roosevelt, but it is significant that it is much more general than Wilson's Fourteen Points, a program to establish a basis for lasting peace following World War I; it included a proposal for the League of Nations. Roosevelt was determined not to repeat what he considered Wilson's mistakes: the announcement of specific objectives, the refusal to bring Republicans into the Cabinet, and the failure to involve Republicans in diplomatic negotiations in preparation for peace.
War Plans
Roosevelt's leadership included a number of activities. He had to decide, in consultation with Churchill and the Soviets, upon basic military strategy. He had to promote defense production without creating inflation, and he had to determine the allocation of the goods among the several theaters of war and the various Allied powers. In these activities he had the tireless assistance of his former relief administrator, Harry Hopkins, who became his principal diplomat. The president also had to oversee the buildup of an enormous army and navy. By the end of the war more than 15 million people had served in the armed forces of the United States. Finally, Roosevelt had to explain war developments to the American people to maintain their support, which was essential to victory.
Wartime Conferences

In retrospect 1942 was the year when the tide turned toward the United Nations, the term then used to signify the United States and its allies in the war. In that year four major events took place: the defeat of the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway in the mid-Pacific; the containment of the Japanese southern thrust at Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands; the successful Allied invasion of French North Africa; and the Battle of Stalingrad, the beginning of the end for the Germans in the USSR (see Volgograd). In January 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca, Morocco, to make further plans and to confer with French leaders. At Casablanca Roosevelt announced the policy of insisting upon unconditional surrender by the enemy. In November 1943 the president met with Churchill and the Chinese leader, Chiang Kai-shek, at Cairo, Egypt. There a number of plans for the war against Japan were worked out.
Roosevelt also conferred twice with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Following the Cairo conference, he and Churchill journeyed to Tehran, Iran, to meet Stalin. The Chinese were not invited, since the USSR was not at war with Japan. At Tehran the leaders agreed upon an invasion of France by U.S. and British forces in the spring of 1944, to take some of the pressure off the Soviets. Finally, the Big Three, as they were called, conferred again in February 1945 at Yalta, in Crimea. The Yalta Conference, occurring as the European war seemed about to end, resulted in several agreements, including: the nature of the postwar international organization (later called the United Nations); the military occupation and free elections in eastern Europe; the postwar division and occupation of Germany; and the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan following the end of the European war (see Cold War).

Death
Roosevelt did not live to see the end of World War II. During the war years he had not appeared often in public, but during his campaign for a fourth term in 1944 many who saw him said that he looked pale, thin, and old. The election, which resulted in his victory over New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, was a strain on the president, as was the long trip to Yalta. In the early spring of 1945 he went to Warm Springs, Georgia, in an effort to recapture his flagging energy. There he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945. Harry Truman took the oath of office to become president the same day.
In spite of rumors about Roosevelt's poor health, the nation was terribly shocked by the death of the man who had been president of the United States longer than any other. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died knowing that his plans for victory were coming to a successful conclusion, but he was aware that the Soviet Union was already breaking the agreements about free elections in eastern Europe. He was laid to rest in the rose garden in the family estate at Hyde Park.



"Roosevelt, Franklin Delano," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Last Edited=14 Mar 2008

President Theodore Roosevelt (M)
(27. Oct. 1858 - 6. Jan. 1919), #67222
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Relationship=5th cousin 4 times removed of David Kipp Conover Jr..

     President Theodore Roosevelt was born on 27. Oct. 1858 at New York City, New York County, New York. He was the son of Theodore Roosevelt and Martha Bullock. President Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Hathaway Lee on 27. Oct. 1880 at Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts. President Theodore Roosevelt married Edith Kermit Carow on 2. Dec. 1886 at London, Middlesex, England. President Theodore Roosevelt was 26th President of the United States bt 14. Sep. 1901 - 4. Mar. 1909. He died on 6. Jan. 1919 at Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay, Nassau County, New York, at age 60. He was buried on 8. Jan. 1919 at Young's Cemetery, Oyster Bay, Nassau County, New York.

Theodore Roosevelt was more than just the 26th president of the United States. He was a writer, historian, explorer, big-game hunter, soldier, conservationist, ranchman and Nobel Peace Prize winner. It is not surprising that his philosophy of life was known as The Strenuous Life.
Theodore was born into a wealthy and socially prominent New York family in 1858. Although blessed with a quick mind he was not blessed with a strong body. He suffered from life-threatening asthma attacks throughout his childhood. Spurred on by his father, Theodore began to build up his body by strenuous exercise, and by adulthood he had become a model of physical courage and toughness. This early example of his character was indicative of the way he lived the rest of his life. He did not back down in the face of adversity, and he continually displayed remarkable physical and moral courage.

Early Political Life

As a young man Roosevelt decided on a dual career; law and politics. At the time, New York politics was dominated by men involved in machine politics. These were not exactly the kind of people he had met at Harvard. Yet he persisted in getting to know and understand them, while at the same time attending Columbia Law School. Eventually he secured the friendship and patronage of an influential man named Joe Murray who was able to get him nominated as a 21st District State Republican Assemblyman. Together, with Murray's contacts and knowledge of machine politics and his own family and social connections, Roosevelt was able to easily win the election. He was 23 and in Albany.
Theodore served three terms in the New York Assembly. He became known as an outspoken and active opponent of the "wealthy criminal class" as he called them and of political corruption - of which there was no shortage. He was a rising progressive star. His ascent, however, was cut short by the presidential election of 1884. Roosevelt was a delegate to the Republican convention, and as a matter of principle he vigorously opposed the leading candidates - James G. Blaine and President Arthur. Roosevelt supported a reformer, Senator George F. Edmunds. In the end Blaine won the nomination, and this put Roosevelt in a difficult position. He did not believe that Blaine was honest, yet if he followed the example of other progressives and did not support him he realized he would be through in the Republican party. He supported Blaine. When Blaine lost Theodore received no political position, and his political career was over.

Ranchman

Roosevelt not only suffered political defeat in 1884 but deeply personal defeats as well. On the same day both his mother and wife died. These disappointments led to a radical change in Roosevelt's life. He decided to move to the Dakota Badlands to become a rancher. At the time many people thought that this was a good way to become rich. The Dakotas were not like the East - life could be a little wild and woolly. Resolution of disputes was done at the end of a gun, and thieves were often hanged as soon as they were caught. Roosevelt excelled at this rough and tumble way of life and earned the respect and devotion of the men around him. Roosevelt, however, did not excel at making money. He lost about half of his entire capital in ranching. But what he gained was, in the long run, of much greater value. The men he met there were to later join the famous Rough Riders whose exploits were the major impetus to his political success. In 1886 Roosevelt returned to New York to marry a childhood friend - Edith Carow. Highly intelligent, Edith was one of the few people who could actually manage Theodore. In order to control his free spending habits she put him on a strict two dollar a day allowance - even when he was president. Together they had a very successful marriage and produced five children in addition to Alice, Roosevelt's child by his first marriage.

Politics was still the place that Roosevelt wanted to be, but there were not many opportunities since his party was out of power. In order to support his family Roosevelt spent his time writing. This was not a new vocation for Roosevelt. Equally at home hunting for a book as hunting for a bear he wrote his first book The Naval War of 1812 while in law school and running for the New York Assembly. By the end of his life he had written and published dozens of books.

Reformer

In 1888 Roosevelt saw his chance to jump back into politics by campaigning for the election of Benjamin Harrison. When Harrison won he appointed Roosevelt to be a Civil Service Commissioner. It was with this job and later as Police Commissioner that Roosevelt made his reputation as a reformer. At the time both the Civil Service and the New York Police Department had serious corruption problems. Roosevelt did his best to clean up the corruption and make things work fairly. For example, as a Police Commissioner he took control of the police department, reorganized it, fired corrupt policemen and used to spend his nights walking through the city looking for policemen asleep on their jobs.

Nationalist

In the presidential election of 1896 the Republican William McKinley ran against the Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Roosevelt campaigned hard for McKinley, and he was rewarded by the job he coveted most - Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
It was during this time that Roosevelt first met William Allen White, a newspaper editor from Kansas. White's autobiography paints Roosevelt's personality perfectly "..and we sat there for an hour after lunch and talked our jaws loose about everything. I had never known such a man as he, and never shall again. He overcame me. And in the hour or two we spent that day at lunch, and in a walk down F Street, he poured into my heart such visions, such ideals, such hopes, such a new attitude toward life and patriotism and the meaning of things, as I had never dreamed men had. ...so strong was this young Roosevelt--hard-muscled, hard-voiced even when the voice cracked in falsetto, with hard, wriggling jaw muscles, and snapping teeth, even when he cackled in raucous glee, so completely did the personality of this man overcome me that I made no protest and accepted his dictum as my creed."
Being Assistant Secretary of the Navy provided this powerful young man his first chance to act on his foreign policy ideas. Roosevelt was a strong nationalist. He believed fervently that not only was the United States on the brink of becoming a world power, but that it had a responsibility and a duty to establish U.S. supremacy. For an explanation of these views in his own words see his speech The Strenuous Life. This faith in national supremacy spawned a host of related goals. In order for the U.S. to become a world power it needed to be able to transport its military quickly between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. At that time ships had to sail around the tip of South America to make that trip. If, instead, they could go through an isthmian canal it would cut weeks off the trip time. But having a canal meant that military control had to be established over the canal. To do this the United States would have to secure the Caribbean, and that in turn meant war with Spain. Spain's empire in Latin America was just a sliver of what it had once been, but it still controlled Cuba and Puerto Rico. This is why Roosevelt zealously worked to promote the Spanish-American War.
All wrapped around and through these ideas was the need for a strong navy. Toward this goal Roosevelt worked very hard while Assistant Secretary. He fought and pushed and prodded and on occasion was insubordinate in his efforts to strengthen the navy for war. His cause was helped enormously when the United States battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. This was just the sort of incendiary event needed to push the U.S. into war. The bombing was blamed on the Spanish even though nobody really knew who or what was responsible. War was officially declared on April 21, 1898.

It would have never done for Roosevelt to be stuck behind a desk while a war was on. He was just itching to become a soldier. He quit the Naval Department and joined the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. Together he and his superior officer, Colonel Wood, were responsible for raising volunteers for the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry regiment. By the time the war was over Roosevelt was the Colonel in charge, and his regiment, popularly known as Roosevelt's Rough Riders, was famous. For Roosevelt the war was the event that catapulted him politically. It was only three more years until he was the President of the United States.

New York Governor

When Roosevelt returned from Cuba he was a national hero and political gold. Men were lining up to beg him to run for office. Tom Platt, the boss of the Republican machine in New York was no exception, except that he was not real thrilled about it. Platt's political power base was big business, but here he was asking Roosevelt to run for governor - a man that had an annoying tendency to do what he felt was right rather than heedlessly protect powerful business interests. Unfortunately for Platt finding a man that could actually win was a bigger problem - a problem that Roosevelt could solve.
When Roosevelt became governor in January of 1899 he fulfilled Platt's worst expectations. He would not let Platt dominate his term or his decision making. In particularly he angered and defied Platt on the biggest issue of his term - utility franchise taxes. At that time public service corporations did not pay taxes on their franchises. They did pay Platt to make sure it stayed that way. Roosevelt felt that government should not give preferential treatment to big business, and that it had an important role in its regulation. In the end Roosevelt prevailed and utility companies were forced to pay taxes. This enraged both Platt and his supporters. In a weird twist it was this anger that helped paved the way for Roosevelt to become president.
In 1899 Garret Hobart, vice-president of the United States, died and in his death Platt saw his chance. He did everything he could to encourage the nomination of Roosevelt for vice-president. Others, with less selfish motivations, also thought it was a wonderful idea and applied pressure to both President McKinley and Roosevelt. Neither one of which was thrilled about the idea. McKinley had no particular interest in Roosevelt, and Roosevelt's active nature revolted at the thought of having a ceremonial and impotent political position. In the end they both relented, Roosevelt accepted the vice-president nomination and their ticket went on to win the 1900 presidential election against William Jennings Bryan. Roosevelt resigned himself to being vice-president.
Roosevelt's next opportunity also came at the expense of another person's death. In September of 1901, less than one year into his new term, McKinley was shaking hands with the public at the Pan-American Exposition when a young man named Leon Czolgosz walked up to him and shot him twice. At first it looked like McKinley would survive the shooting, but he ended up dying on September 14th. Characteristically Roosevelt was climbing a mountain when he got word that McKinley was dying, and that he would soon be President.

President of the United States

At the turn of the century the United States was a country rapidly coming into its own. Now it had a president that could not only keep up with it but push it even faster. Both on the domestic and international front Roosevelt aggressively expanded the power of the presidency, the federal government and the nation.

Domestic Policy

It was in the business arena that Roosevelt most aggressively extended the power of the federal government. Until his administration the dominate idea that governed the relationship between government and business was laissez faire. The government passed few business regulations and in general left businesses to do as they saw fit. Roosevelt was the first president that felt it was the proper role of the federal government to make sure that business was responsive to public needs. Because of this he actively sought to regulate business by enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and pushing new regulatory legislation through Congress.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act had been passed in 1890, but it had never been used to prosecute a trust - only unions. Meanwhile the changes in the business environment were phenomenal. Whole industries became dominated by a single company or a combination of companies controlled by a trust. Once it had a monopoly a trust could unilaterally control prices and rack up huge profits. The king of trusts was J.P. Morgan, a banker, who was to become the first target of Roosevelt's assault.
Many progressives felt that all trusts were bad and should be abolished. Roosevelt was more moderate. He thought that the era of big business was inevitable, and that it had important economic benefits such as increased productivity and efficiency. In his opinion, there were good trusts and bad trusts. The good ones were responsive to the needs of the public, and he wanted to leave those alone. He only wanted to go after ones that did not act in the public interest. In order to do this he came up with the radical idea of actually enforcing existing law.
On February 18, 1902 he directed the Justice Department to use the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to prosecute the Northern Securities Company run by J.P. Morgan. Morgan had created this trust to control the activities of several powerful railroad companies. He was a rich and powerful adversary, but Roosevelt was victorious in March of 1904 when the Supreme Court ruled against the Northern Securities Company and forced it to break up. This marked an important shift in the scope of government. For the first time the federal government was taking an active, regulatory position in regard to business.
Roosevelt could not achieve all he wanted with existing law. So he worked to pass two landmark pieces of legislation - the Pure Food & Drug Act and a meat inspection bill. These laws were intended to protect consumers against the food industry - especially meat packing. Meat packers used diseased and rotten meat, processed meat in unsanitary conditions and put labels on their cans that had precious little relationship to the actual contents. This was a problem that Roosevelt had personally experienced. He wrote the following about the meat supplied to his regiment in the Spanish-American War. "If we had been given canned corn-beef we would have been all right, but instead of this the soldiers were issued horrible stuff called "canned fresh beef." There was no salt in it. At the best it was stringy and tasteless; at the worst it was nauseating. Not one-fourth of it was ever eaten at all, even when the men became very hungry". Roosevelt's greatest ally in his struggle against meat packers was the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Its descriptions of the conditions in meat packing horrified and enraged the public, who in turn motivated their political representatives to support Roosevelt. As a result, on June 30, 1906 the President signed both of his consumer protection bills into law.
Roosevelt was also the first president to use the power of the federal government as a broker in the conflict between labor and capital. In May of 1902 the coal miners of eastern Pennsylvania went on strike. They were working 12 hour shifts, six days a week for an average wage of $560 per year. The mine owners rejected their demands, and the strike continued through the summer into the fall. Eventually the prospect of a winter without heat began to frighten people, and Roosevelt decided to intervene in the interest of the public. He invited the leaders of both sides to come to Washington to meet with him. At that meeting he proposed that an arbitration committee help them settle their differences. The union agreed to this but the mine owners rejected it. By that time Roosevelt had become very put off by the attitude of the mine owners. He threatened to send in federal troops to take charge of the mines. Eventually they gave in and agreed to arbitration. The miners won a 9 hour day, a 10% wage increase and the right to have their own representatives present when the coal was weighed.

Foreign Policy

International affairs was marked by the same activism as domestic affairs. He was definitely not an isolationist. He aggressively positioned the United States as a new world power in order to establish a leadership position and protect national security. For example, in 1901 the U.S. was the fifth strongest naval power in the world. By 1907 it was in second place behind Great Britain.
In 1823 the United States had issued the Monroe Doctrine which stated that the American continents were to be free of European interference and conquest. This expression of territoriality came before the U.S. really possessed the force necessary to back up its words. But by the turn of the century this was no longer true. European countries were quickly gaining respect for the might of the ne