Posted on 02/20/2007 8:16:56 AM PST by Al Simmons
If you look at my home page, you will see that I rank FDR third behind Lincoln and Washington, and ahead of Reagan and TR in my list of our greatest presidents. Now, someone took me to task for that choice on an unrelated thread, which led me to pen this piece that I now throw out there for your review and comments.
In my younger, more brash days I would have dismissed FDR because of his socialist policies. And Yalta. And the supreme court-packing try. Sure, he had his faults, like all presidents.
Yet he is - along with Reagan - one of the two greatest presidents of the 20th century (It pains me to rank him ahead of TR, but the only thing keeping TR from the 'top 3' is the lack of a major crisis during his presidency. That he ranks so high despite that fact speaks for itself.)
Now back to FDR. Pre-WWII, FDRs single biggest contribution was to:
1. Restore the confidence of the American people in our system of government - at a time when the alternatives of fascism and communism were on the ascendancy and looking mighty good to an awful lot of out-of-work folks on this side of the pond;
2. Provide optimism and a hope in the future, which also served to keep the twin evils from spreading;
Post-WWII, his achievements were even greater:
1. By his Lend-Lease Act he may well have single-handedly tipped the balance in the Battle of Britain at a time when she was the only power still fighting Hitler in the West. And this kept the second front open and gave us the vital base for our own invasion of Europe that would have otherwise not been there and we would have been pretty helpless watching the Nazi juggernaut even as we fought Japan in the Pacific.
2. Massively helping Stalin in materiel to help him defeat Hitler has been criticized, but, between the two of them, Hitler was by FAR the greater danger to the security of the USA had he created his European empire.
That he actively supported Britain early (unlike Woodrow Wilson in WWI) speaks volumes about his keen insight as to America's interests.
Sure, he was weakened and gave up too much at Yalta - but what could he do? Threaten Stalin with war if he did not withdraw from eastern Europe? Do you really think that would have been even remotely politically possible at home after the bloodletting of 1941-1945? To go to war against an ally with a bigger and frankly better equipped, and more tough Army than we could hope to muster in Europe? The T-37 tank would have wiped out anything that we had - and they had more of them anyhow. Stalin got to keep what he conquered in exchange for the blood of 24 million Russians.
Hey - I stand second to no man in my hatred of communism, but I'm not crazy.
The fact that Russia was a lesser threat than Hitler is demonstrated by the success of containment and the eventual fall of communism.
So perhaps this little piece will lead you to think about the positive legacy of FDR, seeing him viewed from a different angle than usual, by someone who was trained as a historian, particularly in European history.
The isolationism of Woodrow Wilson in WWI helped to nearly lose the war in Europe for the allies, and by prolonging that war was a direct factor in allowing the rise of communism in Russia;
FDR's pro-active policy of helping Britain pre-US entry into the war - as well as his wise decision to make the war in Europe the #1 priority ahead of Japan was a farsighted decision without which the world might look an awful lot different now.
And I guarantee you one thing - had Hitler won in Europe, what followed would have made the cold war look like a piece of cake. And the steps that we would have had to take to combat that threat here at home would very well, out of necessity, have eroded those liberties that you - and I hold most dear.
So there you have a rational historical reassessment of the legacy of FDR - overlooked by those who can't see past the New Deal - which was a very good thing for the morale of the nation in the 1930s as discussed above, regardless of what future administrations expanded it into.
National survival sometimes dictates bitter medicine - but it still ranks first among all other instincts.
And that is still true today, by the way, as we contemplate the choice of a new president in the near future, at a time when we are at war with an enemy just as determined and fanatical (though thank God not as well organized and equipped) as the Nazis were.
FDR may very well have prevented a communist revolution in the U.S.
Post-WWII, President Roosevelt was dead.
ROFLMAO at such tripe!
FDR took a depression and by implimenting his Marxist diatribe, stretched it out 5-6 years more than if Hoover had stayed in office.
FDR was responsible for the cold war. His Keynsian policies
created the massive welfare state. His fiscal and monetary
policies deepened the great depression.
IMO a poor President. No way should Roosevelt eclipse
Reagan.
Containment failed. It was Reagan's arms race--economic war, if you will--that really worked. Containment only slowed down their pace a little.
Good point. University economics studies have more or less proved this, no?
FDR condemned 60 million to Russian slavery. How could any president have been worse?
Well (except for poster #1), I see that the 'traditional contingent' is out in force. Fine. At least you've been exposed to a different opinion and perhaps it will lead you to think after your knees stop jerking. Its a part of the process...
Some would say that was indeed his greatest contribution to his country.../jk
Had Hoover remained in office we would have had a real chance of a Marxist uprising. Its amazing to see how people are blind to the fact that Hoover had 3 years to deal with the Depression and failed miserably as the nation's morale slipped deeper and deeper into despair...
1. He basically pulled a Clinton-style triangulation, allowing for some socialism in order to take the edge off the socialists. This was the wrong decision, as the economy was already starting to recover, while we are still stuck with his socialism some 70 years later.
Also FDR refused to act when Hoover urged him to during the handover, causing more banks to fail and the banking issue to spread.
Further, the Social Security act was in itself dishonest - the actuarial tables, from the start, showed that only 1 in 4 Americans would make it to 65, so basically FDR was taking from the shorter-lived to give to the longer-lived. Also, the original SS was changed greatly in just a few years to encompass much more socialism.
2. "optimism and hope" - FDR was an accomplished liar.
Things you don't take into account: the NRA (National Recovery Act), which was so unconstitutional that even a hand-picked panel of his friends was scathing in their review of it; Communist infiltration to the highest levels of the US government; his attacking of personal property in seizing gold.
Post WWII (as you call it):
1 and 2 : Lindbergh, whatever his other beliefs, may well have been correct in urging isolationism so that Germany and Russia would have ground each other to pieces. Instead, Germany was kept down, allowing Russia to gobble up most of Eastern Europe (remember Yalta) and throwing hundreds of millions into 50 plus years of Communist slavery.
I could go on, but if you can't answer the above, or they don't change your position, then adding to the list above is pointless.
Don't settle for reading revisionist history alone - search out the archives, the newspapers from the time to get the full flavor of the despair this nation was in when FDR took office - and see how he single-handedly turned that around, literally saving the nation from a far worse fate. Monday morning quarterbacking repeating dogma does not tend to lead to positive brain growth...
That is the biggest bull I have ever heard since Bill Clinton last opened his mouth.
It is preposterous to argue that the Red Army was tougher or better equipped than the US Army.
It had more effectives and more hardware - but not better soldiers or better equipment.
And we could have nuked Moscow.
There's a grid band in my area that wrote a song about Roosevelt, called "Dead legs big spender".
George Bush gets creamed for his reaction to Andy Card informing him of the 9/11 attacks. If only there was a camera in the Oval Office to show FDR continuing to eat his lunch with Harry Hopkins after being informed of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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