Franklin D. Roosevelt | whitehouse.gov Air Force One Franklin D. Roosevelt Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression as our 32nd President (1933-1945), Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York--now a national historic site--he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt. Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York. He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor.

Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed. In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy. Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled. As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association. For more information about President Roosevelt, please visit Chart of Presidents of the United States July 21, 2007 approx. 2 hours (7:16 - 9:21 EST) In all of the above situations the incumbent presidents were undergoing surgery during their absence from office. CONCLUSIONS: The only President who assumed office without first being elected President or vice president was Gerald Ford. He was appointed vice president by Congress in 1973, after Nixon's first vice president resigned. The shortest term in office was William Henry Harrison, who served for only a month.

Only he and James Garfield served as President for less than a year. Andrew Johnson was the vice president who served the longest time as President without specifically being elected to the office. Lincoln was assassinated a mere month into his second term, so Johnson got to serve almost all of Lincoln's four-year mandate. We are currently living in the longest stretch of successive presidents without anything weird (death, assassination, resignation) happening. Assuming Trump fulfills his term in office, there will have been seven successive presidents who have not ended their terms prematurely. The previous record period of presidential stability was the first nine successive presidencies, from Washington through Van Buren. Not a single one of the first nine presidents were killed, died in office, resigned, or were impeached. If Trump manages to serve a full eight years there will have been four eight-year presidencies in a row, which would be a historic first, and the fewest number of On average, at least one out of every three presidents dies in office. The most unstable period was 1933 to 1977.

Of the seven presidents of that 40-year period, Eisenhower was the only truly "normal" president; that is to say the only one didn't die in office, resign, or succeed to the presidency as a vice president. Living former presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt—Four-Term President—and the Election of 1944 | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Franklin Delano Roosevelt—Four-Term President—and the Election of 1944 by Matthew Dallek When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to seek a fourth term in 1944, his campaign would come to mark a major moment in the history of presidential elections for several reasons. No president had run for a fourth term prior to Roosevelt and FDR remains the only person to have been elected to a fourth term, or in fact, a third term. It was only the third time in US history up to then that a presidential election had taken place in wartime. The election was also momentous because Roosevelt was seriously ill, and he and his aides orchestrated a cover-up that hid his failing health from the American people.

[1] With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how consequential the 1944 election was. FDR’s victory would lead to the passage in 1951 of the Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution barring presidents from serving more than two full terms. [2] His physical condition at the time of his victory virtually ensured that his vice president would become president, and when FDR died three months into his fourth term, Harry Truman helped launch the nuclear age when he dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end the war in the Pacific. The Cold War with the Soviet Union also began on Truman’s watch. The 1944 presidential election inaugurated a politics of prosperity that would last for decades, while FDR’s deception about his health helped pave the way for the now-familiar custom in which candidates are forced to release results of their physicals, disclose income taxes, and reveal at least some details of their personal lives to the public. FDR defended his precedent-breaking decision to seek a fourth term on several grounds. In late 1944, Roosevelt reflected that while he “hate[d] the fourth term . . .

and the third term as well,” he thought he was able to “plead extenuating circumstances!” He believed, he explained, that Americans deserved to have the chance “freely to express themselves every four years.” Unlike some of his contemporaries, Roosevelt claimed, he did not feel the need to cling to power just for the sake of holding power. “I would, quite honestly, have retired to Hyde Park with infinite pleasure in 1941” had it not been for the international crisis. He felt ethically bound to break from tradition in 1940 and, again, in 1944; he described the possible election of his 1940 opponent, Republican Wendell Willkie, as “a rather dangerous experiment,” as he had little foreign policy experience and was not the man to handle an international emergency. By 1944, with America in its third year of the war, FDR considered it his obligation to remain in office until Hitler had been defeated. [3] Roosevelt faced re-election challenges on a variety of thorny fronts. Democratic bosses regarded Vice President Henry Wallace as a left-wing ultra-liberal, and they refused to accept him on the 1944 ticket.

FDR was forced to dump Wallace, and he browbeat Missouri’s Senator Harry Truman into running as his number two. Truman had won praise for leading a Senate Committee investigation that turned up billions of dollars in fraud and government waste in the war effort, but he had only modest experience with foreign affairs. [4] An even greater problem for the President was that his body was falling apart. As only a handful of doctors and members of his inner circle knew, FDR had had hypertension in the early 1940s. High blood pressure had led to congestive heart failure by the time his re-election campaign rolled around. According to the author and medical doctor Hugh E. Evans, by March 1944 FDR was clearly suffering from heart failure. His death—due to a brain hemorrhage on April 12, 1945—was “predictable,” Evans has argued. [5] Roosevelt faced a more formidable Republican opponent in 1944 than he had in 1940. New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey defeated Wendell Willkie, a utility executive who had been the 1940 Republican nominee, for the GOP’s 1944 nomination.

Willkie had crisscrossed Wisconsin in the hopes of winning enough delegates in its April 4 primary to propel him toward the 1944 nomination. Yet Willkie failed to take a single delegate from the state’s primary, and he ended his bid on that disappointing note. Some Republican conservatives flirted with drafting General Douglas MacArthur into the race. But the MacArthur boomlet fizzled after letters he had written to one of his supporters were made public, which, among other things, highlighted the general’s disdain for civilian authority. [6] Dewey was prim, exact, and at times incendiary. He was a one-time district attorney of New York County who had also sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1940. [7] During a June 1940 rally in front of 2,000 people in Burlington, Vermont, he had blasted the Roosevelt administration for failing to staunch the internal threat that communists posed to Americans. “The least we can demand of our national government is that it stop coddling men and women whose major objective is the destruction of American institutions,” Dewey huffed. “The administration is . . .

riddled with communists and fellow travelers.” [8] In 1944, Dewey continued his anti-communist chest-thumping. He sought to sow doubts about FDR’s physical health and questioned his capacity to defend America from domestic enemies lurking in the shadows. But he failed to mount a significant challenge to Roosevelt’s New Deal program, stepping on conservatives’ own argument when he said in September that if elected he would “keep” the New Deal, “maybe [even] add to it some.” [9] The charges that FDR was soft on communism failed to resonate with the public. Moreover, Dewey was one of the icier presidential candidates of his era—a sharp contrast to FDR’s radiant warmth. Dewey was, one liberal writer said, “intelligent without depth, shrewd without vision, jocular without humor. . . . [Even] his friends don’t like him.” “Pompous and cold,” journalist David Brinkley sniffed, as author David M. Jordan has pointed out. [10] If Dewey’s candidacy was hyperbolic and if his personality was remote, Roosevelt was no longer the sterling campaigner of the 1930s.

The President had lost his vigor. His face was haggard and gaunt; his clothes hung loose around his frame; his hands trembled so much that Truman once saw him unable to make his own coffee. FDR’s physician, Ross McIntire, and a coterie of aides managed a cover-up that hid FDR’s illnesses from the voting public. Roosevelt’s use of radio helped him overcome doubts about his wherewithal to handle a fourth term. When he was preparing to oversee a military exercise at San Diego’s Camp Pendleton in July 1944, he had a seizure. This happened just as the Democratic National Convention was taking place. Still, Roosevelt delivered his acceptance speech to the convention over the radio. Only a handful of his closest aides knew about his seizure. Another key moment in the campaign came when FDR addressed the Teamsters on September 23, 1944. His talk, which was carried over the radio, rebutted Republican-led smears that the President had ordered the use of a Navy destroyer to rescue his Scottish terrier, Fala, from an island where the dog allegedly had been stranded.

[11] “These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons,” FDR said in his speech. “No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them.” [12] His humor disarmed his critics and tamped down rumors that the President was unfit to serve four more years. His spirited speech was a bracing reminder of his vigor and his mastery of the airwaves. Whereas television would have made FDR’s deceptions impossible, the radio enabled him to use his voice to cover up the severity of his physical deterioration. Most importantly, two issues—peace and prosperity—framed the election and explain why FDR won an unprecedented fourth term. On the eve of the 1942 mid-term elections, Roosevelt confronted economic troubles at home and military challenges abroad. While his name was not on the ballot that year, the returns on Election Day were a bad omen for FDR. His party lost forty-seven House seats and seven Senate seats.

Beginning in 1943, Congress began to eliminate some of Roosevelt’s cherished New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration. The nation’s mood was less than ebullient. The economy had frustrated consumers on the home front; World War II seemed to be stalemated. By Election Day 1944, however, the Allies had pulled off D-Day and liberated Paris. In his Pulitzer-winning synthesis Freedom from Fear: The American People in World War II, historian David Kennedy points out that news from the front lines was positive in 1944. “Shortly before election day, the navy defeated the Japanese in the war’s last great sea duel at Leyte Gulf, MacArthur histrionically waded ashore in the Philippines, and the first US troops entered Germany.” [13] Nearly three years after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans concluded that victory in World War II was now achievable. Equally vital to FDR’s chances, the US economy had risen from its years-long doldrums and had started an expansion that would endure for decades to come.

The US national income had expanded by more than $40 billion between 1942 and 1944. [14] More Americans began to see and feel the rewards of this boom. Wartime production of tanks, planes, bombs, and guns—and the millions of jobs created by the war economy—augured a peacetime economy of unlimited potential. After years of economic sacrifice and stagnation, a kind of economic Promised Land seemed within the nation’s grasp. FDR managed to give Americans hope that he had put the country on a glide path to economic victory. Not even FDR knew what he would do in a fourth term. He sought to leave as many options open as possible; his intentions were contradictory and, ultimately, inscrutable. During a news conference on December 28, 1943, FDR told reporters that his single-minded economic focus had been replaced by his wartime agenda. He talked in metaphors, explaining that when he took power in 1933 the United States was “an awfully sick patient” with “grave internal” wounds. FDR had to don his “Dr. New Deal” persona—prescribing the remedies that prevented the patient from dying.

But then he said that when this patient “was in a pretty bad smashup” on December 7, 1941, Dr. New Deal was forced to bring in his partner, “Dr. Win-the-War, to take care of this fellow who had been in this bad accident.” Dr. Win-the-War was now in charge of saving the country. [15] FDR contradicted his news conference when he declared in his January 11, 1944, State of the Union address that “the one supreme objective for the future . . . can be summed up in one word: Security. And that means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors. It means also economic security, social security, moral security.” Perhaps Dr. New Deal was making a comeback? He went on to outline an economic bill of rights that would give every American “regardless of station, race, or creed” access to enough food, a good job, “a decent home,” and “adequate medical care.” “All of these rights spell security.

And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.” [16] The anti–New Deal Congress rejected almost all of Roosevelt’s economic bill of rights, but that did not harm his re-election bid. The President had at least one major legislative victory in 1944—the GI Bill of Rights (or the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act), which he signed into law in June. The act provided returning veterans with access to college loans, help with buying homes, job training, and other services that enabled them to pursue the American Dream as they returned home. The law won support from Republicans and Democrats and veterans, and it symbolized FDR’s nationwide effort to honor soldiers’ military sacrifices and harness the lever of government intervention to spur individual initiative to build a better, more prosperous postwar world. [17] In the face of these successes Dewey had a hard sell. Despite the hardships that the war had imposed on the American people, FDR was commander in chief and seemed more than up to the task of winning it. He was also steering the economy with a sure hand.

Roosevelt had quelled concerns in his own ranks with his selection of Truman. The Washington Post faulted Dewey for having failed to confront head-on “the great issues of war and peace” at stake in 1944. Dewey lacked the expertise and “conviction” to lead World War II America. The electorate was ultimately reluctant to cast aside the incumbent commander in chief, who seemed best equipped to achieve a military victory and transition the country to a sound future. [18] In the end, FDR defeated Dewey by more than three and a half million votes, winning a 333-vote margin in the Electoral College. [19] Franklin Delano Roosevelt would be dead by April, but the election’s ramifications reverberate into the twenty-first century. Roosevelt’s deception about his health was one factor moving the political culture to a place where candidates would be forced to disclose intimate details of their lives. Wartime presidents, FDR’s victory suggested, had an electoral advantage while running for re-election—so long as their leadership seemed to be paying dividends.

His fourth-term win also resulted in the amendment that has barred presidents from winning more than two elections—perhaps depriving Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton of third terms. Last, Roosevelt’s victory, and Truman’s ascension, helped ensure that the New Deal would continue to define Americans’ relationship with their government—that with his re-election Roosevelt’s vision of humanizing the industrial economy had become an accepted aspect of Americans’ lives, so vital to the country’s future that even FDR’s 1944 opponent vowed to “keep” it. [1] David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, The American People in World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 357–358. [2] For a discussion of the Twenty-second Amendment, see this pdf from the Annenberg Classroom . [3] FDR letter, reprinted in Robert H. Jackson, That Man: An Insider’s Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. John Q. Barrett (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 45. [4] Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 366. [5] Hugh E.

Evans, The Hidden Campaign: FDR’s Health and the 1944 Election (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), xiii. [6] David M. Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011), 84–91; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 363. [7] William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 312–313. [8] William Fulton, “Dewey Demands Immediate Home Defense Action,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 18, 1940. Dewey’s speech is reprinted after the article. [9] Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944, 329.

[10] Quoted in Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944, 27–28. [11] Stanley Weintraub, Final Victory: FDR’s Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012), 1–5; Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 367. [12] Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 367. FDR, Address at a Union Dinner, Washington, DC, September 23, 1944. [13] Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 368. [14] Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 360. [15] Franklin D. Roosevelt, Excerpts from the Press Conference, Dec. 28, 1943, ; also see Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 358–359. [16] Franklin D. Roosevelt, A State of the Union Message to Congress, Jan. 11, 1944.

[17] Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 361–362. [18] Quoted in Jordan, FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944, 326. [19] Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: Part II, 368. Matthew Dallek, Associate Academic Director at the University of California, Washington Center, is writing a book about the Roosevelt Administration and home defense in World War II. Suggested Resources The author recommends the following books to learn more about Franklin Roosevelt’s last presidential election and America in World War II: Evans, Hugh E. The Hidden Campaign: FDR’s Health and the 1944 Election. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. Jordan, David M. FDR, Dewey and the Election of 1944. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011. Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: Part II, The American People in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Smith, Jean Edward. FDR.

New York: Random House, 2008. Weintraub, Stanley. Final Victory: FDR’s Extraordinary World War II Presidential Campaign. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2012. Franklin D. Roosevelt - U.S. Presidents - HISTORY.com Franklin D. Roosevelt A+E Networks Introduction Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation’s 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or “fireside chats.” His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans. Reelected by comfortable margins in 1936, 1940 and 1944, FDR led the United States from isolationism to victory over Nazi Germany and its allies in World War II.

He spearheaded the successful wartime alliance between Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States and helped lay the groundwork for the post-war peace organization that would become the United Nations. The only American president in history to be elected four times, Roosevelt died in office in April 1945. Google Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Early Life and Career Born on January 30, 1882, on a large estate near the village of Hyde Park, New York , Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only child of his wealthy parents, James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. He was educated by private tutors and elite schools (Groton and Harvard), and early on began to admire and emulate his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt , elected president in 1900. While in college, Franklin fell in love with Theodore’s niece (and his own distant cousin), Anna Eleanor Roosevelt , and they married in 1905. The couple had a daughter, Anna, followed by five sons, one of whom died in infancy. Did You Know? Encouraged by his wife, Eleanor, FDR appointed more women to federal posts than any previous president; he also included black Americans in federal job programs (though they remained largely segregated).

Roosevelt attended law school at Columbia University and worked for several years as a clerk in a Wall Street law firm. In 1910, he entered politics, winning a state senate seat as a Democrat in the heavily Republican Dutchess County. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson named Roosevelt assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. He would hold that post for the next seven years, traveling to Europe in 1918 to tour naval bases and battlefields after the U.S. entrance into World War II . FDR’s Personal Struggles and Election as Governor With the support of his wife and his longtime supporter, the journalist Louis Howe, Roosevelt began to return to public life, issuing statements on issues of the day and keeping up a correspondence with Democratic leaders. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke publicly throughout New York State, keeping her husband’s reputation strong despite his illness; she also organized the women’s division of the Democratic Party. In 1924, Franklin made a triumphant public appearance at the Democratic National Convention to nominate New York’s Governor Alfred E. Smith for president (though Smith lost the nomination and the Democrats lost the general election).

He nominated Smith again in 1928, this time successfully, and at Smith’s urgings agreed to run for governor of New York. Smith lost to Herbert Hoover , but Roosevelt won. Governor Roosevelt grew more liberal in his policies as New York (and the nation) sank deeper into economic depression after the stock market crash of 1929. In particular, he set up the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), which aimed at finding jobs for the unemployed, and by 1932 TERA was helping nearly one out of every 10 families in New York. Roosevelt Enters the White House Reelected as governor in 1930, Roosevelt emerged as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination two years later. He broke tradition and appeared in person in Chicago to accept the nomination, famously pledging himself to “a new deal for the American people.” In the general election, a confident and exuberant Roosevelt triumphed by an overwhelming margin over the incumbent Hoover, who had become a symbol for many people of the ongoing Great Depression. In addition, Democrats won sizeable majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

By the time Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the Depression had reached desperate levels, including 13 million unemployed. In the first inaugural address to be widely broadcast on the radio, Roosevelt boldly declared that “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper…[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Roosevelt began the momentous first 100 days of his presidency by closing all banks for several days until Congress could pass reform legislation. He also began holding open press conferences and giving regular national radio addresses in which he spoke directly to the American people. The first of these “fireside chats,” about the banking crisis, was broadcast to a radio audience of some 60 million, and would go a long way toward restoring public confidence and preventing harmful bank runs. After passage of the Emergency Banking Relief Act, three out of every four banks were open within a week.

Roosevelt and the New Deal Other key pieces of legislation during FDR’s first “Hundred Days” created some of the most important programs and institutions of Roosevelt’s New Deal , including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In addition to programs aimed at providing economic relief for workers and farmers and creating jobs for the unemployed, Roosevelt also initiated a slate of reforms of the financial system, notably the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to protect depositors’ accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash. In 1935, after the economy had begun to show signs of recovery, Roosevelt asked Congress to pass a new wave of reforms, known as “Second New Deal.” These included the Social Security Act (which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability, and pensions for old age) and the Works Progress Administration. The Democratic-led Congress also raised taxes on large corporations and wealthy individuals, a hike that was derisively known as the “soak-the-rich” tax.

Roosevelt’s Reelection and “Court-Packing” Controversial but extremely popular with voters, Roosevelt won reelection by a huge margin in 1936 over Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas . He faced opposition from the Supreme Court over his New Deal programs, and proposed an expansion of the court that would allow him to appoint one new justice for every sitting justice 70 or older. After heated debate, Congress rejected this “court-packing” scheme, handing FDR the biggest setback of his career. Nonetheless, the Court abruptly changed direction, upholding both the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act (officially the National Labor Relations Act). Labor unrest and another economic downturn in 1937 hurt Roosevelt’s approval ratings, but the crisis had largely passed by the following year. Republicans gained ground in the midterm congressional elections, however, and soon formed an alliance with conservative Democrats that would block further reform legislation. By the end of 1938, as support for the New Deal was waning, Roosevelt faced a new looming challenge, this time on the international stage.

FDR and World War II As early as 1937, FDR warned the American public about the dangers posed by hard-line regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan, though he stopped short of suggesting America should abandon its isolationist policy. After World War II broke out in September 1939, however, Roosevelt called a special session of Congress in order to revise the country’s existing neutrality acts and allow Britain and France to purchase American arms on a “cash-and-carry” basis. Germany captured France by the end of June 1940, and Roosevelt persuaded Congress to provide more support for Britain, now left to combat the Nazi menace on its own. Despite the two-term tradition for presidents in place since the time of George Washington , Roosevelt decided to run for reelection again in 1940; he defeated Wendell L. Wilkie by nearly 5 million votes. Roosevelt increased his support of Great Britain with passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 and met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in August aboard a battleship anchored off Canada.

In the resulting Atlantic Charter , the two leaders declared the “Four Freedoms” on which the post-war world should be founded: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor , Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress, which declared war on Japan. The first president to leave the country during wartime, Roosevelt spearheaded the alliance between countries combating the Axis, meeting frequently with Churchill and seeking to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union and its leader, Joseph Stalin . Meanwhile, he spoke constantly on the radio, reporting war events and rallying the American people in support of the war effort (as he had for the New Deal). Yalta Conference and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Death In 1944, as the tide of war turned toward the Allies, a weary and ailing Roosevelt managed to win election to a fourth term in the White House . The following February, he met with Churchill and Stalin in the Yalta Conference , where Roosevelt got Stalin’s commitment to enter the war against Japan after Germany’s impending surrender.

(The Soviet leader kept that promise, but failed to honor his pledge to establish democratic governments in the eastern European nations then under Soviet control.) The “Big Three” also worked to build foundations for the post-war international peace organization that would become the United Nations. After Roosevelt returned from Yalta, he was so weak that he was forced to sit down while addressing Congress for the first time in his presidency. In early April 1945, he left Washington and traveled to his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia , where he had long before established a nonprofit foundation to aid polio patients. On April 12, Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage; he died later that day, and was succeeded in office by his vice president, Harry S. Truman. Access hundreds of hours of historical video, commercial free, with HISTORY Vault . Start your free trial today. Tags Theodore Roosevelt | 26th President of the United States Domestic Policy Overview From the time he took office in 1901 to the time he left it in 1909, the cowboy president did much to help working Americans. He took the offensive against powerful corporate trusts. He passed laws to ensure the safety of food and drugs sold in the American marketplace.

He placed millions of acres of land under federal protection, preserving America's natural resources. He regulated interstate commerce and helped laborers to get a fair shake at the negotiating table. PBS Presidential Biographies Notable Milestones Developed the "Square Deal," a domestic program formed around three C's: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection Promoted the conservation movement and placed millions of acres of land under federal protection to preserve America's natural resources Dissolved 44 monopolistic corporations and regulated railroad rates to protect the middle and working class Passed the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act to better regulate food production and labeling Major Legislation Passed under the Roosevelt Administration Federal Budget under the Roosevelt Administration Main Revenues vs. Spending The U.S. government runs a surplus or deficit depending on whether revenues exceed or fall behind spending in a given year. Surplus/Deficit Data from the White House Office of Management and Budget . Figures have been adjusted using chained 2009 GDP to provide consistency across multiple years. Inflation under the Roosevelt Administration Low Inflation First term inflation (1901 - 1904) increased by a rate of 5 percent.

The second term inflation rate (1905 - 1908) increased by 5 percent. On average, inflation in this administration increased at a rate of 1.0% per year. Inflation is defined as the overall general upward price improvement of goods and services in an economy. Increases in inflation can be evaluated by tracking the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. Inflation rates in the low single digits are most often associated with economic growth. Deportations Key Terms Deportation: The lawful expulsion of an undesired alien or other person from the United States. Under current definitions, deportation is measured by summing removals and returns in a given year. Naturalization: The process by which U.S. citizenship is conferred upon foreign citizens or nationals after fulfilling the requirements established by Congress. Green Card: A lawful permanent resident (LPR) or "green card" recipient has the right to live and work in the U.S. on a permanent basis, to travel and return, and to petition for certain close family members to also receive green cards.

Green card holders do not have all of the same rights and benefits as citizens, however, including the right to vote. Removal: The compulsory and confirmed departure of a noncitizen based on an order of removal. Noncitizens who are removed may suffer administrative or criminal consequences if they illegally re-enter the country. Return: The confirmed departure of a removable noncitizen not based on an order of removal (e.g. a grant of voluntary departure). States Admitted to the Union U.S. Statehood Through 1909 What is the length of a US Senator's term, and how many terms can one serve? - Quora Quora Answer Wiki 2 Answers Bruce A McIntyre , Citizen of the United States for over 70 years, and learning all the time. Written Oct 29, 2015 While Quora User has answered the question about term length, there is no legal limit to the number of terms that a senator can serve. The longest serving time was 51 years, 5 months, 26 days: Length of time Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, served in the Senate -- January 3, 1959-June 28, 2010.

How long is a state senator's term? Related Questions Written Dec 22, 2013 I flew first class for the first time in my adult life on May 19, 2013. The flight was Virgin America VX 2 from Reagan National to SFO. Although I enjoyed every inch of additional leg room - I am 6'7 - I really remember the flight because I got to sit next to this man: Although he was busy editing a presentation on his laptop, I introduced myself to him soon after take-off. He was very frie...

Question: How many full terms in office did US President F D Roosevelt serve?
Answer: Three