Author: DerekDashwood | Total views: 69 Comments: 0
Word Count: 893 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 2:48 PM

Franklin Delano Roosevelt And Today - Ivory And Ebony

Franklin Delano Roosevelt made many long and lasting changes and through his years we saw momemtous redirage from leave business few inspectors, to bank inspecotrs and more regulation. During Roosdvelts time the more regulations was the order of the day. First the Great Depression of 1929-1935 in which Roosevelt did for the first time by an American president which was to raise billions to spend to reverse the deflating economy and ever furher job layoffs,Roosevelt borrowdd and raisied bonds, as he did later by selling war bonds to every American who would buy their trust in America War Victory War Bond after World War Two broke out after the Japanese attack on Peal Harbour December 7, 1941.

But from the beginning in 1932 and through until his death at Warm Springs Georgia in April 1945, Roosevelt was a father figure to most Americans. For many people ln order to end an arguement, one only needed to say because Franklin Roosevelt said it was so, that's why. First of all Roosevelt gave hope to the American people: his Fireside Chats shared his thoughts with millions of Ameericans who would sit as a gathering in the homes all over America, or at the corner soda shop and feel comforted that he was our leader.

His booming confidence that all we had to fear was fear itself inspired a recent mass of hoboes into a first a great mass of men who had built bridges, roads, and in less than a decade later into supuerb fighting army. But before war could justify spending by having the government create make work projects, which the Republicans, as now, insisted that it was tax cuts that would fizx the depression. Roosevelt instilled in millions of people who were getting road building jobs of being part of the largest restoration of America; farmers were taught crop saving techniques and it was a time of projects.

Roosevelt set up the Works Progress Administration, and jobs by the millions were created. One huge problem in 1928 to 1935-7 was that most major trading nations put up trade barriers and the United States economy was half its size in 1933 that it had been in 1928. Many of the WPA workers were given honest trade training which increased jobs working, rather than a decade and lesa ago had been driding the rails from coast to coast searching for jobs that had been lost by the ever continuing pulling back by governments and industry and ordinary citizens. Until Roosevelt.

Nany people were badly affected, and paying extra and mockering Roosevelt, the Republicans had to accept the WPA was a fact of life. The Tennessee Valley Authroity was created that brought electricity to rurual mountain and hill areas. Locals joked they were no longer a Hill Billie, they were now a Mountain William.But the tough time lingered and it was a Robin Hood story of tax the rich to help the poor. To cries from the ric h Roosvelt would say that some pay taxes all they can, rich only pay taxes they on what they can't deduct, even though his own family was rich and some of them were not speaking to him.

So, all were affected in the Great Depression, including the tich, who still complained about the higher taxes. But for m illdions, the work projects had them build bridges and road and dams small and large; the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee dam, the Golden Gate Bridge and many others. These all represented to Americans and the world they were on their way back. Sneered at for all his generosity to those in the poorest classes and his taxing the rich, Roosevelt was called a traitor to his class.

Years before he became President, in the summers the family would escape the stifling heat of New York City and travel by train or auto up to Canada, in an island just over the border from the United States. It was here that Franklin caught a severe chill in the cold water while swimming in the bay and eventually this developed ppolio. He would never walk again. While he was governor of New York State and later President he would request that the photographers not take pictures of his wheelchair to publlish as it might weaken the will and morale of the American people at a time they needed straws such as Roosevelts soothing words of positive things happenings, his Fireside Chats.

Born of a naval family in New York City, Franklin was the fifth Roosvelt since John Van Roosevelt lived; Roosvelts have been in New YOrk City and Boston since 1613. When the Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt declared and Congresss had America at war with Japan, Germany and Italy. Roosevelt saw to it that lthe damage done by Japan was soon more than replaced as San Diego, San Francsisco and Seattle became major naval basins, and Virginia Beach on the west coast with many others. The immense efforts took their toll on Roosevelt and he was obviouwsly frail at his wartime conferences with Churchill and Stalan, where he travelled through dangerous waters halfway around the world.

Roosevelt left a legacy under very familiar circumstance as now, for the present generation who seem more than up to the job.