Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In August,

1921, Mr. Roosevelt was stricken with infantile paralysis and emerged with the muscles of his legs and lower abdomen paralyzed. By careful exercises and winter treatments at Warm Springs, Ga., he gradually recovered. Meanwhile he continued legal work, establishing the firm of Roosevelt & O'Connor in 1924, and kept up much of his business and civic activity. As head of the Boy Scouts Foundation in New York City he raised large sums, and at Warm Springs he established an important hydrotherapeutic centre on a non-profitmaking basis. In 1924 he placed Alfred E. Smith in nomination at the Demo cratic National Convention. After the Democratic defeat of that year he made efforts to bring the Bryan-McAdoo and Smith Raskob factions together on a progressive basis. These failed, but he succeeded in softening much of the Southern opposition to Smith. In 1927 he urged acceptance of Smith and in 1928 nomi nated him again at the Houston Convention. At Smith's in sistence, though protesting that two more years of private life were necessary to his health, he allowed himself to be drafted as Democratic candidate for governor of New York. Carrying the State by about 25,000 votes while Smith lost it by more than Ioo,000, he was inaugurated in January, 1929. He furnished a conciliatory administration, and in 193o was reelected by the un precedented plurality of 725,000, economic depression and the quarrel over prohibition cutting down the Republican vote. His principal achievements in his two terms as governor were partial settlement of the hydroelectric question on the basis of public development of the St. Lawrence waterpower; a strengthening of the Public Service Commission ; and passage of various pieces of social welfare legislation, including an old-age pension law.

With the approach of the election of 1932, it became evident that Mr. Roosevelt was in a happy position to unite the dis cordant Democratic elements. At the Chicago Convention in July the rival candidates proved unable to unite, and on the third ballot a change by the California and Texas delegations gave Mr. Roosevelt the nomination. He at once began a campaign which took him into every section, travelling 12,500 miles and delivering some 200 speeches. Making effective use of demands for tariff reduction, farm relief, and greater attention to the "forgotten man," he enlisted the support of many influential Progressive Republicans. The economic depression caused an enormous de fection of Republican voters, and in November Roosevelt received 472 electoral votes against 59 for Hoover, carrying all but six states with a popular plurality of over seven million.

Mr. Roosevelt took office, March 4, amid the throes of a crisis unprecedented in time of peace. Between his election and inauguration he had realized its imminence and had prepared the broad outlines of a programme. Details of his plans, in a fast changing situation, had to be worked out in the heat of the mo ment. His first task, as the nation seemingly stood on the brink of an abyss, was to restore its morale. An eloquent inaugural address caught the popular imagination. It was at once followed by a proclamation closing banks, embargoing gold, and proving the government's power to cope with the financial crisis. From

that point he moved swiftly toward three objectives already out lined : restoration of prosperity "by re-establishing the purchasing power of half the people"; a better balance between farm, fac tory, and trade ; and reshaping the American economic system to eliminate abuses and excesses.

The 99-day session of the 73rd Congress which began March 9, 1933, witnessed the most daring Presidential leadership in Ameri can history. Congress, dazed and planless, found itself subjected to a carefully timed bombardment of bills. Mr. Roosevelt sent a rapid succession of presidential messages, sufficiently spaced to avoid confusion ; followed each message by a bill to implement it; and thus dealt with the agricultural crisis, banking crisis, relief crisis, and a dozen other problems with amazing speed. The fact that Congress was passing laws to order was never con cealed; never before had the American Government so closely ap proached the British system of Ministerial leadership. In his first month Mr. Roosevelt used this unprecedented authority (I) to reopen banks; (2) to restore Federal credit by temporarily abolishing some of the worst forms of waste; (3) to relieve dis tress by Federal grants, creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and stoppage of foreclosures; (4) to reform the handling of investments and securities; and (5) to begin a system of public works. These emergency measures were at once followed by four steps of the most far-reaching character: (I) a farm relief law; (2) creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority to plan the development of a 640,000-sq. mi. region; (3) passage of the National Recovery Act; and (4) the decision to abandon the gold standard and move toward revaluation of the dollar. His pro gramme had a scope never before approached in time of peace. When Congress adjourned June r6, after heeding all his principal recommendations, the nation had been placed squarely upon a new path.

Mr. Roosevelt's administration then entered upon a different phase. His primary task for the next three years was to admin ister the legislation already obtained. Since his genius was for originating rather than executing, his record was uneven. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration under Secretary Henry A. Wallace proved highly efficient. ,Its crop restriction plans, together with two great droughts, relieved the farmer of the in cubus of crop surpluses and restored prices. When the Supreme Court struck down the A. A. A., Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wallace had a substitute scheme ready for immediate operation. Mr. Roosevelt was less fortunate when he placed the National Recov ery Administration under General Hugh Johnson, whose attempt to carry the code system into all industries and to resort to moral coercion brought the law into discredit. When the Supreme Court held the Recovery Act unconstitutional (May 27, 1935), Mr. Roosevelt expressed bitter disappointment and indicated a tem porary disposition to seek an amendment to the Constitution con ferring enlarged power in social and economic spheres upon Con gress. But public opinion was chilly and he abandoned the idea.