PCGUIA 10/PC Guia 10.iso/database/power/cu152.txt

Text File | 1996-01-29 | 25KB | 531 lines

1.5
For anyone alive during
the years 1933-1945,
when Franklin
Roosevelt was
Democratic president of
the US, FDR looms large.
True, millions of
American Republicans
detested "that man in
the White House" and
believed he was
ruining the country.
But even they knew
that he was the leader.
At first the point was
less clear. In his early political career, Roosevelt seemed a
commonplace, though personable, product of upper-class
society. Marriage to the redoubtable Eleanor Roosevelt (his
cousin), a crippling attack of polio and the trauma of the
Depression all had a galvanising effect. Taking office at a
moment of national collapse, he restored to his
countrymen (and other Western nations) the priceless gift
of hope. Ubiquitous, shrewd, gay in spirit, he won the trust
of immense numbers. They returned him to the White
House in 1936, again in 1940 (the only president to secure
a third term) and yet again in 1944. No less resilient in
wartime, though ageing rapidly under its burdens, he
directed operations from the initial disaster of Pearl
Harbor (which his enemies accused him of arranging) until
his death on the eve of victory over Germany. Roosevelt
had his weaknesses, like any man. But he stands as the
equal of the other men of destiny, both allies and
adversaries, who lived in that awesome era
@
2.2
 It was against a background of gloom and widespread
sense of hopelessness that the Presidential section of 1932
was held.  At it the Republicans, who felt bound to
vindicate their President by their votes, decided to put
Herbert Hoover forward for a second time.  At the
Democratic Convention at Chicago there was a good deal of
initial manoeuvring, but eventually Roosevelt was
nominated, and once his campaign had started there was
little question of the result. Apart from the fact that the
Hoover regime had failed to master the depression, there
were many circumstances in Roosevelt's  favour.  The
Democratic platform was, in defiance of all precedent, brief
and definite; conditions generally could scarcely have been
more desperate; and the refusal of prohibition was a
popular Democratic plank.

Moreover, as the campaign progressed Roosevelt's inspired
nomination pledge of "a new deal for the American people"
began to catch the public imagination.  Hoover, indeed, was
beaten from the first; but the result when it came was
unparalleled in American history - a majority of 4,000,000
votes and 480 out of 531 in the electoral college.

On the eve of his inauguration the nation long lost to hope
was on the point of panic.  Banks had been closing all over
the country and it was rumoured that those of New York
and Chicago would shut the next day.  It was a moment of
culmination at which Roosevelt alone seemed to stand
between the people and complete despair.  At such a time
he was at his greatest, and as he drove with his tired
predecessor through the streets of the capital to the
inauguration ceremonies, he appeared to radiate courage
and assurance.  His speech was brief and foreshadowed
immediate and strenuous action.

His plans for national recovery covered the whole range of
industry.  Huge schemes of public relief works were
launched and the Budget rose to a total unprecedented
even in the years of war.  Since taxation could not cover it,
he had to borrow.  In finance his plan was to move
towards a managed currency, and his aim a dollar which
would not change in its purchasing or debt paying power
during the succeeding generation.  There was to be
constant talk of a balanced Budget in some year not too far
ahead, but the figures and estimates were scarcely to point
in that direction.  With the huge defence programme which
developed later all hope of it expired.

There were three aspects of the President's "New Deal."
The first was to avert abuses by imposing drastic
limitations on all big industrial organizations; the second to
develop national resources by such means as huge dams
and hydro-electric plants; the third to establish social
security in one grand sweep.  Nothing in regard to it was
particularly new except the immensity of its scale and
speed with which it was attempted to put it through.  At
every stage, moreover, he sought to carry the country with
him, and to this end kept it informed of both his aims and
achievements by his "Fireside Chats," a system of direct
personal contact which developed into an unprecedented
intimacy between President and people.

There were, of course, loud complaints from business and
other interests, and those who felt themselves to be
prejudiced or endangered by the new legislation.  But
apart from some checks and some dissension the
President's proposals were carried through on a broad tide
of popular support.  Even after what has been called the
first "honeymoon" year everything continued to go
smoothly enough.  Then, however, the "codes" which
Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 had
imposed upon employers were condemned by the
Supreme Court and rendered invalid.  His Agricultural
Adjustment Act was also to suffer the same fate.  It was
the beginning of a sharp constitutional conflict.  In spite,
however, of a tendency in some quarters to make it a
political issue, the President, to whom opposition was
always a stimulant, faced the difficulty calmly, and, in
trying to save what he could, succeeded beyond
expectation.  In spite, therefore, of the loss of legislation
which incidentally had served a great deal of its purpose,
the "New Deal" went on.

By 1935 the President was able to claim that his basic
programme was substantially complete.  Apart from its
material effects it had undoubtedly exerted a remarkable
educative influence on the people, and in the same year he
stated that the objective of the nation had greatly changed,
and that clearer thinking and understanding were leading
to a broader and therefore a less selfish outlook.  By that
year also the economic skies had begun to lighten.

The second term, however, was to be full of other than
domestic preoccupations.  In his Inaugural Address he did
not mention foreign affairs: but in the next October he
sounded a warning note and said that the epidemic of
world lawlessness was spreading.  "Let no one imagine," he
added, "that America will escape, that America may expect
mercy; that this Western Hemisphere will not be attacked;
and that it will continue tranquilly and peacefully to carry
on the ethics and the arts of civilization."  It was
remarkable prophecy; but perhaps even more remarkable,
the prophet himself proceeded to act upon it.
@
2.3
In the presence of the Senate and House of
Representatives and of 10 members of his Cabinet
President Roosevelt this afternoon read his eagerly
awaited Message to Congress.  He stood uncomplainingly
under the almost intolerable glare of "Klieg" lamps
installed by motion-picture companies, and spoke in a
voice which gathered resonance as he proceeded.
Applause interrupted him here and there, but it swelled to
an ovation as he ended and made his way down the ramp
which is erected to facilitate the walking.

There was, as politicians were quick to note, "something
for everybody" in the address, but it was something so
generalised as to whet rather than satisfy the appetite to
know what the future may hold.  It was a sketch firmly
drawn of bare outlines of purpose, but the work of filling
in is to be left  - and, given the uncertain temper of
Congress, perhaps wisely left - to a series of future
Messages.  Congress, in other words, was not asked to
swallow what the President called "a new order" whole
and at once, but its digestive powers are to be tested and
developed as time and public taste may determine.
Whatever else to-day's address may leave uncertain, it
clearly presages another year of budgetary deficit and
further and considerable additions of the national debt.

"SOCIAL JUSTICE"

The speech is roughly divisible into a prelude and a
programme.  In his exordium, Mr Roosevelt spoke of
movement toward a new order "under the framework and
in the spirit and intent of world-wide change creating
problems "for which the masters of the old practice and
theory were unprepared."  Today "social justice" is in most
nations a "definite goal," and the "attempt to make a
distinction between recovery and reform is a narrowly
conceived effort to substitute the appearance of reality for
reality itself.

In spite of our efforts and talk "we have not weeded out
the over-privileged, and we have not effectively lifted up
the under-privileged".  Though "no wise man has any
intention of destroying what is called the profit motive -
the right to work to earn a decent livelihood for selves and
families - Americans must forswear that conception of
acquisition of wealth which through excessive profits
creates undue private power over private affairs, and to
our misfortune over public affairs as well."

And so the President came to his programme, "which,
because of many lost years, will take many future years to
fulfil," and which should provide security of livelihood
through better use of national resources, security of
livelihood through better use of national resources,
security against the major hazards and vicissitudes of life,
and security of  life, and security of decent homes.

The broad problem of livelihood involved intelligent care
of the population throughout the nation in accordance with
intelligent distribution of means and a definite plan for
putting people to work; the problem of security against the
hazards of life  would be met by recommendations shortly
to be sent to Congress covering unemployment insurance,
old-age insurance, benefits for children, for mothers, and
for handicapped maternity care, "and other aspects of
dependency and illness where a beginning can now be
made"; and the problem of better homes would be met
through proposals he would make "in relation to giving
work to the unemployed."

The Unemployed

The President harked back to the spring of 1933, when the
"issue of destitution seemed to stand apart," and when
measures were taken to afford relief, to make possible the
more "rational and orderly operation of business," and "to
put behind industrial recovery the impulse of  large
expenditures in Government undertakings." Despite the
National Industrial Recovery Act, despite public works,
despite the expenditure of more than $2,000,000 in relief,
"the stark fact before us is that great numbers still remain
unemployed."

The disintegrating force of continued independence on
relief was dwelt on, and the President added vigorously,
"the Federal Government must and shall quit this business
of relief."  He estimated the number on the relief rolls as
approximately 5,000,000, of whom 1,500,000 represented
a group always in the past dependent on local welfare
efforts who would be cared for now as they were not local
but national," and the Federal Government was the "only
governmental agency with sufficient cover and credit to
meet this situation," on their behalf, therefore,

In the exception of certain of the normal public building
operations of the Government, emergency public works
shall be united in a single new  and greatly enlarged plan.

With the establishment of this new system we can
supersede the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
with a co-ordinated authority which will be charged with
the orderly liquidation of our present relief activities and
the substitution of a national chart for the giving of work.

The President said he had arrived at "certain very definite
convictions" as to the amount of money necessary and
would submit figures in his Budget message.   "I assure
you now," he said, "they will be within the sound credit of
the Government." Upon the work chart will appear -
Clearance of slums, rural housing, rural electrification,
reafforestation of great watersheds, prevention of soil
erosion, reclamation of blighted areas, improvement of
road systems, construction of national highways "to handle
modern traffic," elimination of level crossings, enlargement
of the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and other
projects.  Here was a method offered to meet the problem
of unemployment fitting logically "into the long-range
permanent policy of providing the three types of security
which constitute as a whole an American plan for the
American people."

There are other recommendations to come, however.
Consolidation of Federal regulatory administration over all
forms of transport is one of them, "renewal and
clarification of the purposes" of N.I.R.A. is another, and
reference was also made to the abolition of the evil
features of holding companies in the public utilities field,
and, "in view of the abnormal world conditions,"
continuance of agricultural adjustment "with certain
necessary improvements."
@
2.4
Mr. Roosevelt has been returned as President of the United
States for the second time in the history of American
elections. According to incomplete returns, he has carried
46 of the 48 States of the Union. His Republican opponent,
Mr. Landon, Governor of Kansas State, has won only Maine
and Vermont.
In the Electoral College Mr Roosevelt commands 523 of the
531 votes. Mr. Landon has only 8. The latest figures of the
popular vote are:

    Mr. Roosevelt    22,809,193 votes
    Mr. Landon    14,216,063

Although the returns are not yet complete, the indications
are that the Democrats will have increased majorities both
in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

Mr Roosevelt yesterday won a victory in the polls greater
than that of any other presidential candidate since James
Monroe was elected 116 years ago. Monroe gained all the
electoral votes but one, that one being withheld by an
elector who felt that only Washington was entitled to
honour of a unanimous election. Mr. Roosevelt won all but
8 of the 531 electoral votes and carried 46 of the 48
States, Governor Landon taking only Maine, with its 5
electoral votes, and Vermont, with its three. Even
traditionally Republican New Hampshire failed Governor
Landon, as well as his own state of Kansas.

The President's popular majority, with many returns of
voting still to be made, is already well over 8,000,000
votes. The latest figures show him leading Governor
Landon by 22,809,193 votes to 14,216,063, with Mr.
Lemke, the Union Party candidate, trailing far behind with
only 389,947 votes, and Mr. Thomas, the Socialist
candidate, so far out of the picture as to be a supreme
example of the "forgotten man."

President Roosevelt's victory over Governor Landon will
almost certainly be greater than any in American political
history. Mr. Roosevelt has won the electoral vote of every
State in the Union except Maine and Vermont which gives
him 523 votes to Mr. Landon's eight, and has a staggering
lead over his opponent.

This is an overwhelming personal triumph. The President
has conducted his campaign in every sense but that of
party organisation entirely alone. Against him were
arrayed all the mass strength and resources of financial
and industrial leadership and at least 80 per cent of the
newspapers in the country. They have been no more
effective than was Mrs. Partington's broom in brushing
back the ocean waves.

More important than this, infinitely more significant, is the
fact that yesterday's vote was affirmative, not negative. In
1932 the American people voted against the depression as
that was embodied for them in the unhappy figure of Mr.
Hebert Hoover, and gave Mr. Roosevelt 472 electoral votes
and a popular majority of more than 7,000,000. It was said
then, and not unreasonably, that the popular tendency was
always to vote against rather than for something, and this
year it had been the hope of the Republicans that the rule
would now apply against the man who had benefited by it
four years ago. But either the rule breaks down or, if it
does not, the people have risen against "big business" and
the newspapers. Taken either way, the result is profoundly
impressive.

Its social implications are endless. There has been
immense economic progress in the United States, but its
advantages have been dangerously centralised. Certain
business groups, certain specialised forms of occupation,
have been protected at the expense of others, and a
financial solidarity which for many years knew itself to be
more powerful than the  Government had been created.
These had been the primary interest of most legislative
enactments -  they were always the spoilt children of the
Republican Party - and the theory behind this action was
that the benefits conferred on certain classes would seep
down to the masses. This happened too completed or, as in
the years that followed the crash of 1929, not at all. What
is now evident is that the American people in the
tremendous majority refuse to forbid the most
considerable attempt which has yet been made to broaden
the field of economic growth and enlarge the sphere of
economic advantage.

The old way endured and was accepted as the right way
for numerous reasons. It worked while yet there was a
virgin empire to be settled and exploited, while the
development of transport was proceeding apace, and while
new divisions of industry - notably the manufacture of
automobiles - were in process of establishment. There are
no such factors or circumstances immediately to be seen or
relied on, but one of the ablest of Americas students, Mr.
Harold Moulton, has said that there are other ways of
advance.

In putting the old common necessities of food and housing
within the reach of millions who are now underfed, ill-
clad, and housed only in the tenement of the city slum or
the shack of the country slum we have an ample and
accessible field of business enlargement.

Unquestionably there are troublous days ahead, and it is in
the form of labour unrest that trouble is most likely. The
task before the President is, as the Washington Post says
today, the "consolidation of the practical and thoroughly
beneficial social advantages that have been sketched out
during the last four years." His experience has been
enriched during his first term, he knows more now of what
is visionary and what is achievable than he did. He is no
longer likely, as Hazlitt said all the Utopians were, to lose
himself in Utopia. and he will have a personal prestige in
his own country which has not been given to any President
since General Washington.

He will have a congress even more strongly Democratic
than before. The disadvantage of so unwieldy a
preponderance in numbers is obvious. Discipline, in the
party sense of the word, will be conspicuous by its
absence; there is enough numerically and in divergence of
opinion to furnish forth two sizable parties in the
Democratic strength today. The influence of one man
rather than the fortunes of a political organisation will be
the guide to action of most members of congress, and this
throws on that man, Mr. Roosevelt, a terrible
responsibility.
@
3.1
The Lease and Lend Bill was signed by President Roosevelt
yesterday afternoon and became law.  During the day the
Bill as amended by the Senate was approved by the House
of Representatives with a vote of 317 to 71.

The original vote in the House on the Bill before it went to
the Senate was 260 to 165.  Thus to-day's vote has given
an even more convincing demonstration of the solidarity of
the American people behind their Government in its policy
of giving all aid short of war to Great Britain and other
nations fighting against aggressors.

The President will ask Congress, probably to-morrow, to
appropriate no less than 7,000,000,000 dollars
($1,750,000,000) for carrying out the purposes of the law.
This announcement was made to-day by Senator Glass, of
Virginia, Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Appropriations, after members of the Appropriations
Committees of both Houses and some other members of
Congress had been called into conference by the President.
Senator Glass said that "all cash" appropriations would be
asked for, meaning by that presumably that there would
not be included any request for contract authorizations.

BARTER TALK DENIED

As soon as the Bill was signed the President released a
number of military and naval materials to Great Britain
and Greece.  He declined to say what they were, stating
that their nature would not be disclosed for a reasonable
time, lest the knowledge of their identity should be of
military value to "someone else"; but he did say that the
amount involved was not large, and that much of the
material was surplus or over-age.

Asked whether any deal or exchange was made in
connexion with the transfer this afternoon, he replied that
none had been made and that, if he did exchange
munitions for some foreign assets, that fact would be made
public within a reasonable time.

It is reported that some Congressmen who talked with the
President to-day received from him the impression that he
would send a fleet of "mosquito-boats" (motor torpedo-
boats) to England immediately and that probably food
supplies, particularly pork and cheese, and possibly wheat,
would also be sent.

Acting on the assumption that the United States may be
called upon soon to transfer to Britain a great tonnage of
merchant ships for carrying war supplies from this
country, the Government has begun a survey of American
shipping resources.  These have tentatively been listed at
about 1,150 ships of a total of 7,087,000 gross tons,
exclusive of the nine vessels which are all that remain of
the laid-up fleet.

Of these 1,150 there are 357 merchant ships of 2,271,148
tons in international trade, all privately owned except 41,
of 291,000 tons, which belong to the Government.  In
addition there are operating under the American flag 349
tankers of 2,578,500 tons, nearly all available for oversea
trade.  Of 386 vessels of 1,857,800 tons operating in
domestic trade some, though not a great number, are
suitable for transocean traffic.
@
3.6
It is with the deepest regret that we announce that
President Roosevelt died suddenly yesterday.  The news
reached London at midnight. His death occurred at Warm
Springs, Georgia, and was caused by cerebral haemorrhage.
He was 63.

Mrs. Roosevelt, who was in Washington at once notified the
Vice-President, Senator Truman, who attended an
emergency meeting of the Cabinet at the White House last
night.  Later he was sworn in as 32nd President of the
Union.

DEATH FROM CEREBRAL HAEMORRHAGE

It is announced at the White House that President
Roosevelt died suddenly this afternoon of cerebral
haemorrhage at Warm Springs, where he had been for
more than a week.

The President's death occurred at 3.35 p.m. central war
time.

Vice-President Truman conferred and took the oath as
32nd President of the Union at 7.09 p.m. with the Cabinet
at the White House.

Mr. Roosevelt died in his bedroom in the small bungalow
on Pine Mountain where he had stayed on his visits over
the past 20 years to Warm Springs for after treatment of
infantile paralysis.  Mrs. Roosevelt said to-night that he
had not been feeling well for some time.

A FAINTING FIT

Still, his physician, Admiral Ross McIntyre, felt no
apprehension about him.  When he talked on the telephone
to Warm Springs this morning the President seemed to be
all right, but at 3.05 this afternoon he was told that he had
fainted while having his portrait painted.  Admiral
McIntyre summoned Dr. Paullin from Atlanta, who joined
Dr. Howard Bruen, who was taking care of Mr. Roosevelt in
Admiral McIntyre's absence.  The two physicians were
with Mr. Roosevelt when he died.

Mr. Roosevelt complained of severe headache at about 1.15
p.m. and a few minutes afterwards became unconscious.
He remained so until he died two hours later.

The President had planned to return to Washington next
week.  The funeral services will be held in the White
House on Saturday.

Mrs. Roosevelt received news of her husband's death by
telephone while attending a charity event.  She left
immediately without saying a word to anyone.  Mrs.
Woodrow Wilson, whose husband also died under a war-
time President's burdens, was at the same party.