Читать книгу The Times Great Lives - Anna Temkin - Страница 21

Four times chief executive of United States.

Service in freedom’s cause.

12 April 1945

The death of President Roosevelt from cerebral haemorrhage on Thursday afternoon at Warm Springs, Georgia, as announced in the later editions of The Times yesterday, robs the United States of its Chief Executive within less than six months of his election to serve a fourth term of office at the White House – a term without precedent in American history. Throughout yesterday the people of the United States, of the United Nations, and of all peace-loving States mourned the passing of a leader whose influence for good had extended far beyond his national boundaries.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty-first President of the United States, was, as his whole life attested, a man of destiny. From one fate to another he was called. Through two great and prolonged crises in his country’s history he set its course and steered it through. Each of them provided a searching test of character and statecraft, and each made its own demands upon the Chief Executive. In both of them, however, he retained the confidence and was upheld by the support of an immense majority of his fellow-countrymen. The place in history which he will fill in relation to the greatest of his predecessors has yet to be decided but one of the determining factors in regard to it will be that he alone of them was invested by his fellow-countrymen with a fourth term of office and at his elections secured more decisive votes than any Presidential candidate before him. It will be remembered also that his pre-eminence was by no means due to lack of opposition, for many of his policies were carried in the teeth of a resistance by powerful and vocal sections of the American public. He was in fact during his first three terms master of Congress for only one comparatively brief period, and after that was opposed as strongly by some important groups in his party as by the Republicans. He had often, therefore, to use outside opinion to force his own supporters to follow him. His ability to do so was one of the truest measures of his stature. His like can, indeed, only be sought among those whose idealism made a comparable appeal to his people, and whose actions were equally justified in the event.

Rights of Democracy

The world was first to hear of Franklin Roosevelt, the second of his blood and familiar name to occupy the White House, as a champion of the rights of democracy. In this he was a true heir to the traditions of his country. Sensitive as he always was to the feelings of those near him he seemed able to enlarge the range of his sympathy and understanding until it embraced a huge and diversified nation. To him, a man of generous though sometimes hasty instincts, distress, suffering, and insecurity were standing challenges. He had an aristocrat’s magnanimity and angry inability to see unnecessary pain inflicted, and the ‘New Deal’ was a supreme assertion of the claim of all mankind to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ‘Every man has the right to live; and this means that he has the right to a comfortable living’ was both the expression of a genuine belief and a continuing directive of policy. To many millions of Americans it became a sufficing and unquestioned gospel. Even if the Fates had had no more to ask of him than the mighty struggle against the depression of the early 1930s which it inspired, his place in the first rank of Presidents would be secure. At the end of four years of it faith in his leadership had actually increased, and even after four more survived in a remarkable degree.

Roosevelt was required, however, not only to protect the fruits of his advanced Liberalism from internal enemies, but also against a far more formidable menace from without. His aims demanded that he should be a man of peace. Peace, however, was not to continue in his time. He did within the limitations of his position all he could to avert the calamity of war, and both before and after its outbreak displayed, in addition to an astonishing gift of judging his own people, almost as remarkable a one for seeing deep into the Axis leaders. Totalitarianism was the antithesis of all he stood for. He never concealed his personal hatred of it; but he determined with cautious statesmanship to move only as fast as his own countrymen could be led to travel with him. There were in the early stages of the war cross currents in American opinion, and it was not until Pearl Harbour that he had a united people behind him. In foresight he was from the first far ahead of most of them: but he understood the American temper much too well to force the pace, and in this way he succeeded in maintaining the position of a trusted interpreter of world events. When, therefore, Japan struck and he was free from the restrictions which had fettered him, he moved instantaneously into that not merely of a commander-in-chief in war, but of a national war-leader as well. He had, moreover, by this time not only armed his country, but had insured the capacity of Great Britain to hold Germany. It was, in fact, in the years immediately before Japan’s attack no less than in the years after it that his life’s battle for democracy was won.

Atlantic Crossings

It is true that, when pressed by his own party in 1940 to seek a third term and opposed by Mr Wendell Willkie, he failed to register as tremendous a victory as in 1936; but it is true also that it was a contest chiefly upon domestic issues, for Mr Willkie was broadly in agreement with him on the wider and more pressing ones of war. Thus during the years of America’s belligerency he was in fact the supreme head of an embattled people, and in authority the equal in vital matters of the great national figures with whom he cooperated. When, therefore, in the course of the long conflict he crossed the Atlantic to join in allied councils of war he went with all the prestige of his standing in the nation he represented as well as that of his own transcendent personality.

Roosevelt was a statesman in virtually every direction open to a truly democratic leader. As President he had immense powers and exercised them freely. Thus at times he would initiate and act with daring, and at others hold and caution. Occasionally he would move ahead of his people: but, if he found he had gone too far he would fall quietly into step with them again. He thus displayed the resiliency of his fibrous strength. Sprung of long lines of American ancestors, he was so deep rooted in the American soil and so steeped in American sentiment that he had no sense of inferiority to any man or people upon earth and could therefore be completely spontaneous. So American was he, indeed, that he seemed instinctively to realize the ideals which, however inarticulately, were stirring in his fellow-countrymen, and, since they were usually his own as well, it became his delight to translate them into concrete political forms. He became, moreover, in virtue chiefly of the accuracy of his intuitions, the shrewdest and most adroit of politicians. He had also the rare power of making government appear interesting and exciting, especially to the younger generation. He had, of course, his weaknesses and incapacities, though they were perhaps the inevitable concomitants of his virtues. He was assailed, for example, as a reckless spender, a plotter against the Constitution, a dictator, and an enemy of sound finance; but when due allowance is made for political animus, the substance of such charges seems small indeed beside his achievements. Added, moreover, to his many other qualifications for his exalted office he had an abounding vitality and exuberance of spirit, and, by no means least of his powers, he was a sound judge and a natural attractor of men. No doubt he was a favoured child of fortune; and yet the man who had fought and conquered a fell disease had, it seemed, wrung from that grim struggle the secret of all human victories.

Early Life

Wish to Be a Sailor

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born at Hyde Park, in Dutchess County, New York, on January 30, 1882. He was the only son of an affluent and long-established family well and widely related. President Theodore Roosevelt was his distant cousin. In him Dutch, French, Scottish, and Irish strains were mingled, but all of them had been seasoned for generations in the United States. His father, James Roosevelt, was both a man of business and a country gentleman. His mother, a remarkable woman who was to exert a great influence upon his life, was Sara Delano, a member of a French family which had left Leyden in the early seventeenth century. Although delicate he had a happy childhood, during which he was taken a number of times to Europe. Then rather late he was sent to school at Groton. As a boy he had wanted to enter the Navy – his love of ships remained with him always – but instead he went to Harvard. There, although he moved in a largely Republican set, he was known as a strong Democrat, the political faith of his immediate family; he also gained distinction by being managing editor of The Crimson, an undergraduate newspaper. After taking a full share in the university life and sports he graduated in 1904.

On St Patrick’s Day, 1905, when he was studying law at Columbia University he married Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of the famous Republican President. She was only a girl: but he seemed to have divined the quality of one who, herself a woman of remarkable ability, was to become a potent factor in his career and the most prominent and active mistress the White House has ever known. The young couple settled in New York, and in 1907 he was admitted to the Bar and joined the important legal firm of Carter, Ledyard and Milburn, of that city. Then in 1910 he yielded to the suggestion that he should stand for the State Senate as candidate for the Dutchess County District which for years had been a Republican stronghold. At the election his immense vitality, charm, and good humour won the day and his brilliant political career began. At its outset he made his name, for he became the central figure in a courageous and successful revolt against Tammany Hall over the election of a Senator to Washington.

Navy Assistant Secretary

When in 1912 Woodrow Wilson became President, Roosevelt was offered a choice of two places in the administration; but neither appealed to him. Then, however, Josephus Daniels, the new Secretary of the Navy, asked him if he would take the congenial post of Navy Assistant Secretary and he readily consented. Daniels was a pacifist of puritanical mind, but the two men got on well together, and Roosevelt, who was much the more popular with the service, was, in his capable and vigorous way, able to do a great deal to increase the efficiency of the fleet. He found, however, that the President was less helpful than he might have been. Wilson liked and admired Roosevelt, who continued to hold him in deep regard, but he hesitated to give signs of preparation for war. It was indeed only in 1916 that he consented to an increased navy, and thus gave the Assistant Secretary his chance. In June, 1918, Roosevelt was offered a nomination for the governorship of New York but refused it. Then in the next month he went in pursuit of his duties to England and afterwards to France. He was eager at the time to play a combatant’s part, but this was not to be. In London he created an admirable impression and made many friends. After the Armistice he went to Europe again.

At the Democratic Convention of 1920, which was held at San Francisco, Governor Cox, of Ohio, was nominated to succeed Wilson, and, much to his surprise and pleasure, the convention agreed that Roosevelt should go forward for the Vice-Presidency. It was a strenuous campaign; but the fate of the Democrats was sealed, and he retired into private life with good humour and, in spite of the defeat of his party, a high reputation. He thereupon resumed his legal practice, and as an occupation for his spare time undertook to reorganize the Boy Scout movement in New York. He had, however, been subjected to a long and unbroken strain, and in the next year was smitten with poliomyelitis, a form of infantile paralysis. It might well have ended his career, but, bearing its pain and deprivation with superb courage, he triumphed first over the disease itself and then by degrees over the physical incapacity it left. ‘I’ll beat this thing,’ he said. He was never in fact to regain the full use of his legs, and to him, who had the physique and habit of an athlete, swimming was to remain his only locomotive exercise. Owing, however, to his iron will and magnificent resistance he was able to do some work in 1922, and in 1924 played a prominent part in the Democratic Convention of that year. All who knew him seemed to have agreed that his ordeal had deepened as well as strengthened a character already strong.

Governor of New York

By 1928 much benefited by prolonged treatment at Warm Springs, in Western Georgia, where he later established a foundation for the treatment of infantile paralysis, he was able to stand without crutches, and once again to bear the strain of active politics. It was he, therefore, who nominated his old friend ‘Al’ Smith as Democratic candidate to the Presidency, and himself on Smith’s strong persuasion stood for the governorship of the State of New York. His election to it was in the circumstances of the time a triumph, for even Smith himself failed for the first time to carry his Empire State. This important office, which raised him to Presidential status, he was to hold for two terms of two years each. His was in many ways a notable administration, for he found himself in a laboratory in which he could test the reforms he was afterwards to apply to the country as a whole. He also developed his own political technique, and it was at this period that he was among the first to exploit the political uses of the broadcast, a medium of which he became perhaps the most skilled and effective exponent of his time. Perhaps the greatest of his many problems was the administration of New York City, and when in view of certain scandals he instituted an extensive investigation into its municipal affairs, events were to show that his action had been justified. By the end of the second period of office he had greatly increased his reputation in the country at large by the just and fearless performance of his official duties.

Elected President

New Deal Promised

Meanwhile the economic condition of the nation, gripped in the ever-deepening depression of those years, was going from bad to worse. The unemployment figures, in so far as they could be estimated, ran to many millions. Values were sinking to fantastic levels, factories were without orders, and a dreadful paralysis was encroaching on every normal national activity. It was against this background of gloom and widespread sense of hopelessness that the Presidential election 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. In it he was helped immensely by the work of the group of chosen experts known as the ‘Brain Trust’, whom he had employed to advise him, and to ensure that the votes his policy might gain would not be obtained by false pretences. Apart from the fact that the Hoover regime had failed to master the depression, there were many circumstances in his 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 this there followed the four months of impotence which the constitution imposed when there was nothing for him to do except to watch the increasing difficulties of the country and to mature the Brain Trust’s plans. In February, when he was in Florida, a crazy Italian made an attempt upon his life, and his companion, Anton Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago, was killed.

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. Before evening every member of his Cabinet was sworn in, and almost at once came his proclamation of a four-day banking holiday. He called Congress together at the earliest possible moment and with his overwhelming support there was able to pass through a vast programme of reform. 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.

Fireside Chats

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.

The new President had also been faced with serious problems of foreign policy. War debts provided one of them and disarmament another. In April, 1933, Mr Ramsay MacDonald went to see him at Washington to discuss the whole world situation, and in May he issued an important message to the heads of the 54 States concerned in the disarmament and economic conferences of that year. In it he appealed for a common understanding and suggested a definite non-aggression pact. It appeared indeed at the time that he contemplated a closer participation of representatives of the United States in international conferences, and as a step in that direction made Mr Norman Davis his Ambassador at large to various countries of Europe. Unfortunately, however, owing to American failure to see eye to eye with some of the European countries in regard to the stability of international exchange, the high hopes which had been formed were to remain unrealized, for the economic conference proved abortive. Thereafter for some years the United States was to lapse into an increasing detachment.

Plea for Broader Outlook

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. It was, therefore, with the confidence of great achievements and substantial hopes that he entered his campaign of 1936. The Republicans had chosen Mr Alfred Landon, the Governor of Kansas, to oppose him – by no means a formidable champion. It was, none the less, a bitter combat, in which, except for his party organization, the President seemed to stand alone. Against him were arrayed all the massed strength and resources of financial and industrial leadership, some of the clergy, more than three-quarters of the nation’s newspapers, and the film industry. Relying, however, upon the record of his administration he toured the country. The result was remarkable indeed. All that his opponents could do and say counted, as The Times said, for no more than Mrs Partington’s mop. It was observed at the time that everybody was against him except the electorate; but it returned him with a majority of 8,593,130 popular votes and with only Maine and Vermont against him in the Electoral College. It was a victory beyond all precedent and a supreme vindication of American democracy.

Second Term

A Remarkable Prophecy

Entering upon his second term in January, Roosevelt put forward proposals for a radical reorganization of the Executive Branch directed towards increasing the effectiveness of the office of President. He also turned to the Supreme Court, which had proved so great an obstacle to his plans, and proposed to elect an additional judge above the nine who were then sitting for every one of them who had passed the age of 72. He was at once accused of tampering with the constitution, and the storm which followed was by no means confined to the Opposition. He had, therefore, to forgo his scheme. Fate was, however, to come to his assistance, for several judges were soon to die, and in a few more years the Bench was to be composed of men with greater sympathy for his social legislation.

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 civilisation.’ It was remarkable prophecy; but perhaps even more remarkable, the prophet himself proceeded to act upon it.

Dictators Denounced

With, therefore, all the prestige of his election behind him, he proceeded to take what steps he could to reinforce the cause of peace. One of them was to continue patiently to foster his ‘good neighbour’ policy in regard to the South American countries. When in 1941 Japan struck her blow he was to reap the advantage of the wise course Washington in his days had pursued towards the Latin American nations and of the established machinery of Pan-American cooperation. Nine Caribbean republics joined in at once in North America’s war of defence, and what had formerly been an almost hostile attitude on the part of South America towards its northern neighbour was as time passed to be one of increasing friendliness. As a result, America as a whole was to become the most disappointing of all continents to the Axis, and what might have been a fruitful field for the tares of Nazi diplomacy was very largely denied to it. Neither, however, the ‘good neighbour’ policy nor his desire to prevent war was to keep him from forceful comment on the increasingly aggressive and tyrannical acts of the German and Italian dictators, and he denounced Germany’s disregard of treaties soundly. When, moreover, he went to Canada in 1938 to open the new international bridge over the St Lawrence he made the historic pledge: ‘I give you the assurance that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire.’

In 1938 also Roosevelt began more fully to employ his influence in the affairs of Europe. Consequently when the crisis in regard to Czechoslovakia was at its height he addressed messages to both sides begging them to reach a peaceful solution by negotiation: and not to break off their deliberations. He sent, too, a second appeal to Hitler urging the maintenance of peace and then, when all negotiations seemed to have broken down at Godesberg, he established touch with Mussolini and had a hand in bringing about the Munich Conference, thus delaying war for a season. Throughout, however, the several critical years before it came he had no illusions in regard to the sinister nature of the dictators’ policies. ‘It is no accident,’ he had said, when he visited Buenos Aires for the Pan-American Conference, ‘that the nations which have carried the process of erecting trade barriers the farthest are those which proclaim most loudly that they require war as an instrument of policy.’ Incidentally, he concluded on that occasion with the remarkable words, ‘We took from our ancestors a great dream. We offer it back as a great unified reality. We offer hope for peace and more abundant life to the peoples of the world.’

Opposition to Hitler

Roosevelt saw far too deeply into the European situation to be set at rest by the achievement of Munich. At the beginning of 1939 he told Congress that he would go to any length short of war to stop the aggressor, and added that there were effective means of doing so. His speeches during the months which followed contained strong declarations for peace, but still more powerful vindications of democracy. His policy, he declared, was the defence of civilization against militarism. Thus he opposed to the morbid race theory and overweening demands of Hitler the broad and humane sanity of his democratic faith. At the same time he proceeded to strengthen the material defences of the United States and, as a precaution, ordered a comprehensive survey of American industry.

When in March Hitler seized what remained of Bohemia he sent messages to him and Mussolini as a ‘friendly intermediary’ asking them to give a guarantee not to attack for 10 years a specified list of nations. If they agreed he said he would be prepared to ask for reciprocal guarantees and call an international conference to which the United States would give every support in order to try to reach a settlement of all international difficulties. It was, in fact his last great bid; but Hitler would have none of it.

During the summer of 1939 the King and Queen toured Canada and took the opportunity of visiting the United States. The President and Mrs Roosevelt received them at Washington and were their hosts at the White House and then for a weekend at Hyde Park. It was a happy interlude in grave and anxious days. Then, as towards the end of August war drew nearer, Roosevelt appealed twice to Hitler to preserve peace and to the President of Poland to continue negotiations. He also sent a personal message to the King of Italy asking him to use his influence in promoting negotiations. Next, on September 1 when war seemed inevitable, he begged the Powers concerned to declare publicly that they would not bomb civilian populations or unfortified cities. The German answer was the devastation of open Polish towns and villages. After this there was nothing for him to do except to fulfil his obligation to proclaim neutrality, and, under the laws which had been adopted in recent years with the purpose of keeping America out of war, he had to forbid American ships to enter the zone of combat, to warn Americans not to travel there, and to preclude the supply of ammunition or armaments to the belligerents and the raising of loans by those who still owed war debts in America. In the autumn, however, on his urgent insistence, the ban on armaments was relaxed so as to permit the sale of aeroplanes, munitions, and weapons to France and Great Britain under the ‘cash and carry’ plan. In this country it was a very welcome amendment, and was the beginning of the pro-allied legislation which he was determined to enact. He had indeed many weapons in his armoury and was prepared to use them all. He could warn and thunder and impose embargoes and trade sanctions but he lacked the only one to which Hitler might have paid attention, for he could not offer the threat of war. A biographer has written of him that at this time he was ‘a crusader wielding a sheathed sword’.

National Defence

With the overrunning of Europe and the fall of France the attitude of the people of the United States began to change. Demands for a vast programme of national defence arose, and Roosevelt, responsive as ever to national feeling, announced that there could only be peace ‘if we are prepared to meet force with force if the challenge is ever made’. The last despairing appeal of France moved him deeply; but he was compelled to point out that assistance by armed forces was not for him but for Congress to give. By June, 1940, American opinion had moved so far that he was able to say of Italy that ‘the hand that held the dagger had struck it into the back of its neighbour’ and to add that America sent forward her prayers and hopes ‘to those beyond the seas who are maintaining with magnificent valour the battle for freedom’. In July, 1940, at a Press conference he defined the ‘five freedoms’, the aims to be realized if peace were to return to the earth.

In the election of 1940 Mr Wendell Willkie was the Republican candidate. There was an honoured and unbroken tradition which forbade a third term to any President, and for a long time Roosevelt refused to say whether he would be prepared to stand. At last, however, having made it clear that he had no desire to do so, he yielded to a unanimous request from the convention at Chicago. Willkie was a strong opponent of the New Deal and of most of Roosevelt’s internal legislation. He was, however, in general agreement with him on a more vigorous defence policy and fuller aid for Britain. It was therefore to those matters that the President confined his attention, inaugurating meanwhile a huge programme for the production of munitions with the aid of leading businessmen whom he called in to assist and advise. He also took two leading Republicans, Colonels Knox and Stimson, into the Cabinet, transferred 50 destroyers to Great Britain in return for naval bases, and worked out a defence policy with Canada. He thus fulfilled his slogan ‘Full speed ahead’ in war production. In the campaign itself, however, he took little part and made only a few speeches towards its close, when he said he had been misrepresented.

Third Time President

Once again, although Mr Willkie did better against him than either Mr Hoover or Mr Landon, he won handsomely – he was elected by a majority of some 5,000,000 on the popular vote – and thus opened up new fields of leadership. Almost immediately he brought forward his lend-lease proposals, which were embodied in a measure entitled ‘An Act to promote the defense of the United States’. These proposals were to enable him to provide war supplies for Great Britain and in fact for ‘the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States’. Thereafter he kept on enlarging his production plans and stated that America would be ‘the arsenal of democracy’. He also pushed her naval patrols farther into the ocean than they had gone in defence of neutrality, and, after the Italians had been driven from Eritrea, sent American supply ships to the Red Sea. Calling for ‘unqualified immediate all-out aid for Britain, increased and again increased until total victory has been won’, he urged that there should be no idle machine and that they should operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Speaking in May at the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, he said: ‘He taught us that democracy could not survive in isolation. We applaud his judgment. We applaud his faith.’ Thus, by arming his country for its own defence and in the meantime sustaining the resistance of Great Britain, he served what was in fact the single purpose of saving democracy.

On May 27, 1941, Roosevelt delivered one of the most momentous broadcasts of his career. He reasserted the American doctrine of the freedom of the seas and announced that he had issued a Proclamation to the effect that an unlimited national emergency existed which required strengthening of the defences of the United States to the extreme limit of national power and authority. He pointed to the sinkings of merchant shipping, and said that all measures necessary to the delivery to Great Britain of the supplies she needed would be taken. ‘This can be done. It must be done. It will be done.’ In June, Lord Halifax, as Chancellor of Oxford University, conferred the degree of dcl upon him, the first time that a Chancellor had officiated at a Convocation outside the walls of Oxford.

Pearl Harbour; Entry into the War

As the year progressed the President became even more assertive in word and action. American troops were sent to Iceland, and in August he met Mr Churchill at sea. The Atlantic Charter recorded their agreement. There were attacks upon the American Navy, and he replied to them with a warning that Axis warships would enter American defensive waters at their peril. A little later he went to Congress to seek a revision of the Neutrality Act. Meanwhile German hatred of him found expression in a crescendo of abuse. Ever since the attack upon Russia he had shown his determination to uphold her resistance, and in November a credit of $100,000,000 was extended to her. Thus as the situation in both the Western and Eastern Hemispheres grew tenser he appeared to be gathering his strength against an inevitable collision. It came on December 7. He had just sent a message to the Emperor of Japan couched in persuasive terms, but protesting against the flooding of Japanese forces into Indo-China. One hour before the reply was delivered by the Japanese Ambassador Pearl Harbour was in smoke and ruin. The next day he gave in person a message to Congress and called for a declaration of war. Except for one member of the House of Representatives the answer was unanimous. ‘With confidence, ’ he said, ‘in our armed forces, with the unbounded determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.’ And so when a few days later Congress no less readily accepted the challenge of Germany and Italy, Roosevelt entered upon the war leadership supported by the national confidence to which his wise and patient handling of a long-drawn crisis had so richly entitled him.

Hotfoot upon the belligerency of the United States Mr Churchill went to Washington to plan for unity of action, and stayed at the White House. It was the beginning of a wartime association founded upon a well-established mutual regard and doubly proofed against external efforts to break it. Never before in history had the leaders of two great democracies worked together on the fraternal terms which came to exist between the President and the Prime Minister. Each stood high in the opinions of the other’s people, and as a result each strengthened the other’s hand. Roosevelt and Churchill together were a combination of scarcely precedented power.

Faith and Courage; All Resources Mobilized

The President’s message to Congress at the beginning of 1942 showed that the attack by Japan had not only failed to stun him but that he had reacted in much the same way as to the economic perils of 1932. In both cases his response was a programme of immediate action on a nationwide scale. All the vast resources of the United States were mobilized for war. A people which justly prided itself upon the largeness of its conceptions was given an almost unlimited scope for effort. The estimated cost was staggering, but the nation accepted it. He was close on 60 and his birthday at the end of the month brought many messages which indicated the regard of the allied peoples for him. He was already in the ninth year of the immense labours in which his own faith and courage had been his chief sustenance.

As Commander-in-Chief of the United States it was Roosevelt’s task to make a peaceful and largely self-centred people strategically minded, and to interpret the war to them as a world conflict rather than an opportunity for the counter-strike they longed to deal Japan. Isolationism was his greatest obstacle, and he said of those who still proclaimed its merits that they wanted the American Eagle to imitate the ostrich. Thus in firm but good-humoured fashion he led his people on, and the fact that the great majority were brought to take the broad, patient, and unselfish view which the character of the war demanded was due primarily to him. Despite, however, the huge measure of support he commanded, he continued to be exposed to a running fire of criticism from sections of the public and the Press.

In April he proposed a seven-point programme to combat the rise which had taken place in the cost of living and included a large increase in taxation. The fear of inflation had begun and was to continue to haunt him, but he was to find Congress somewhat reluctant to incur electoral unpopularity by supporting him in drastic measures. Another danger which he sought to avert was a light-hearted but, as he knew, unfounded optimism on the part of the people. By the summer, however, he was in a position to say that America’s reservoir of resources was reaching a flood stage, and vast amounts of material were being sent over-sea to the assistance of the allies. It was a vindication of his own far-sightedness. His lend-lease agreements were already taking shape as key instruments of national policy and he was beginning to realize his world statesman’s aim of distributing the financial burdens of the war. In June he welcomed Mr Churchill once again and found that they were still at one upon the major problems of the war. In September he made a quick tour of 11 States in order to test the spirit of the nation and reported it ‘unbeatable’. In November came the landing in North Africa – Mr Churchill attributed the authorship of it to him – and what he regarded as the turning point of the war.

Casablanca

The President’s New Year address in 1943 to a new Congress will probably rank among the greatest of many great utterances, for in it he was the inspired realist. He looked backward with a well justified satisfaction and forward with a lively hope. He said it was necessary to keep in mind not only the evil things against which America was fighting but the good things she was fighting for. Never indeed did he stand forth so clearly as the leader of his people’s thought as well as the ruler of their actions or as the possessor of a grasp wide enough to encompass the whole of the struggle for civilization. Then hard up on this call to thought and action came the bill for it – a Budget of $100,000,000,000. These preliminaries to the year performed, he was before the month had ended at Casablanca, when he conferred with Mr Churchill and the Fighting French at what, remembering General Grant, he called the ‘Unconditional Surrender Meeting’. The momentous conversations lasted for some 10 days and every aspect of the war was reviewed at them. Nothing like this had ever happened before, for he was the first President who had ever left his country in wartime. On the way home he stopped at Brazil for a discussion with the President. By thus breaking with tradition and adopting Mr Churchill’s practice of going himself to a vital centre of action Roosevelt achieved a master-stroke of leadership, for not only did he enhance his own authority as war leader but drew the beam of national interest after him. Paramount, however, though his authority was he continued to be engaged by efforts to keep prices down in spite of the hesitancy of Congress and the recalcitrance of active labour interests. In April he went to Mexico to discuss post-war cooperation. It was the first time the chief executives of the two countries had met. At the same time he visited the American forces in the Southern States.

In May Mr Churchill, at the President’s invitation, paid his fourth wartime visit to the United States, and it was widely noted that such occasions were the presage of great events. In this case the communiqué announced a full agreement on all points ‘from Great Britain to New Britain and beyond’. At the same time Roosevelt found himself in one of his recurrent troubles with labour – in this case, the miners – and handled it with characteristic firmness. He was not, however, to receive the support he desired from Congress, for late in June an Anti-Strike Bill which he vetoed was passed in spite of him. It was one of a series of setbacks in domestic policy. They were offset by occasional victories; but his supreme task of directing American strategy continued to be complicated by distractions due to the attitude of an increasingly difficult Legislature.

With the collapse of Italy the war entered on a new, and hopeful phase; but he refused to limit his aims even to a total victory over the Axis, and looked beyond it to another over all the forces of oppression, intolerance, insecurity, and injustice which had impeded the forward march of civilization. In August he went to Quebec for yet another meeting with Mr Churchill in which his old friend Mr Mackenzie King sat with them. Then, he travelled westwards to Ottawa, where he addressed the two Houses of the Canadian Parliament. It was the first time an American President had been there, and in his speech he stated that during the Quebec Conference things had been talked over and ways and means discussed ‘in the manner of members of the same family’, a phrase in true accord with both the theory and practice of the ‘good neighbour’ policy.

In November, 1943, Roosevelt left the United States for the series of historic conferences by which the leaders of the Allied Nations sought to consolidate their aims and efforts. At the first meetings in Cairo he and Mr Churchill met Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and discussed future military operations against Japan. They declared that she should be stripped of all her island gains in the Pacific as well as the territories she had stolen from China and other spoils of her aggression. To this end it was agreed to continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged efforts necessary to secure her unconditional surrender. The President with the Prime Minister moved next to Teheran, where for four intensive days they were in council with Marshal Stalin, whom Roosevelt then met for the first time. There in most amicable discussion the three leaders shaped and confirmed their international policy and announced jointly that they recognized their responsibility for a peace that would command the good will of the overwhelming masses of the peoples of the world. Thereupon the President with Mr Churchill went back to Cairo for discussions with M. Ismet Inönü, the President of the Turkish Republic. On the return journey Roosevelt visited both Malta and Sicily, arriving eventually at the White House bronzed and cheerful. One of his last actions of the year was to order the Secretary of State for War to take over the railways where trouble had been threatening.

In early January, 1944, Mr and Mrs Roosevelt presented their homestead at Hyde Park to the United States Government as a historical national site with a proviso that the immediate family might use it. It followed upon an earlier gift of the Roosevelt Library there. Then a few days later the President’s message to Congress embodied his programme for still further mobilization of the resources of the nation. In it he referred scathingly to the ‘pressure groups’ and others who, while he had been abroad, had been busy in the pursuit of interests which he regarded as only secondary to the supreme task of winning the war. This corrective he accompanied by yet another Budget for $100,000,000,000.

In the New Year there were to be still further difficulties with Congress. In late February he vetoed the Tax Bill, and thereby lost one of his staunchest supporters, Senator Barkley, of Kentucky, the Democratic Leader in the Senate, only to be overridden by large majorities in both Houses. It was a protest against what were regarded as the encroachments of the Administration. The obedient Legislature of his earlier years had long since been replaced by one largely hostile to his social policy. The result was the cat and dog relationship between President and Congress which the American Constitution permits, and his caustic description of the Bill as relief ‘not for the needy but for the greedy’ was an appeal over the head of the legislators to the people.

Senator Truman

As the spring lengthened the probability of his running for a fourth term seemed steadily to grow greater. In April, 1944, he had to take a rest, but in May be was back at the White House, himself again, clear of eye and voice. Simultaneously with his return to it the chairman of the Democratic National Committee asserted that he would accept the party’s nomination; but he himself refused to be drawn. At the end of the month, when reminded on one occasion of his support of President Wilson, he stated that he contemplated a new and better League of Nations in the post-war world and a little later outlined the American plan for a world security organization. On July 11 he broke his silence and announced that if elected he would serve a fourth term as President. The news was received calmly because it was widely expected. On July 20 the Democratic Convention at Chicago nominated him with loud applause and the waving of many banners ensigned with his name. Senator Truman was, however, chosen instead of his associate, Mr Wallace, to run for the Vice-Presidency.

In July the President was in Honolulu for a three days’ conference. On his way back he visited the Aleutians and Alaska, and dramatically broadcast from a warship on the Pacific coast. Then in September he went to Quebec to meet Mr Churchill. The discussions, which ranged over a wide field, were conducted, as Mr Churchill said, ‘in a blaze of friendship’. It was only after his return from Quebec that he made the first political speech of his campaign; but his wartime activities as Commander-in-Chief pleaded as strongly for him with the electorate as any words he could have uttered. Things were, indeed, beginning to go well for him, and on October 16 the New York Times came down in his favour. On October 22 he made a 51-mile tour of the City of New York in cold and rain. Meanwhile, his opponent, Mr Dewey, sought to mobilize every hostile and dissentient element against him. The President, however, standing foursquare upon his record, but dealing chiefly with foreign affairs, hit back upon occasion as hard as he had ever done.

Fourth Term

A Landslide Victory

The result of the election was once again a victory for Roosevelt so decisive as to be in fact a landslide. Such strength as Mr Dewey showed was in the rural districts; the workers in the great towns and cities were overwhelmingly for the President. In both the Senate and the House of Representatives he had comfortable majorities. Thus, not only unique in American history but triumphantly so, he prepared himself to enter on his fourth term.

No sooner was Roosevelt back at the White House than suggestions that he would shortly confer with Mr Churchill and Marshal Stalin filled the American Press, but arrangements had still to be made. In the meantime, therefore, he attended to the preparations for his fourth term, and spent a holiday at Warm Springs, in Georgia. On his return he took occasion to allay some disquietude in regard to the validity of the Atlantic Charter by declaring that its objectives were sound and as valid as when they were framed.

Early in 1945 his message on the state of the Union was read to a joint session of Congress. It was of exceptional length and great significance, and, after a masterly and comprehensive review of the military situation, in which he paid a vigorous personal tribute to General Eisenhower, went on to state that his country could not and would not shrink from the responsibilities which follow in the wake of battle. He followed it on January 20 by his fourth inaugural address, delivered from the south portico of the White House. On this occasion he spoke for only 14 minutes, though it was historical indeed as the first wartime Presidential inauguration since that of Abraham Lincoln. Then the next important news of him came from the Black Sea, when on February 8 the Press announced that he, Mr Churchill, and Marshal Stalin had reached complete agreement for joint military operations in the final phase of the war against Germany. In a few days the famous Yalta declaration, which disclosed the full extent of the agreement reached among the three national leaders, was given to the world. For him personally, no less than for the other two, it was a crowning triumph of wisdom and political capacity.

Crimea Conference

On March 1 Roosevelt made what he called his ‘personal report’ of the Crimea conference to the Senate and the House of Representatives and, by broadcast, to the American people. He had, so far as any United States President could, accepted joint responsibility with Great Britain and Russia for the solution of the political problems in Europe – a responsibility, he said, the shirking of which would be ‘our own tragic loss’ – and he asked for approval of the decisions made by political leaders and public opinion. He looked forward with hope to the San Francisco conference. He believed that the three great centres of military power would be able to achieve their aims for security; and in this mood of confidence he approached the full and intricate problems involved in America’s collaboration with the rest of the world. Thus he worked to the end.

Roosevelt was a tall and handsome man with a fine head. In compensation for his weakened lower limbs he had developed a great torso and immense strength in his arms. A direct speaker of remarkable precision and clarity, he had a clear voice with a ring of music in it, which helped him particularly in broadcasting. Instinctively friendly and sympathetic, he was the most approachable of men and had an engaging smile for all. At his Press conferences, which he managed in a fashion of his own, he was the familiar of all who attended them; but nowhere were his immense skill and clever touch in human relationships more apparent. At them he was open to direct viva voce examination and permitted himself a frankness which only the observance by the American Press of the strict code of honour embodied in the words ‘Off the record’ could have rendered possible. He had many interests. In his latter days he was particularly fond of deep sea fishing, and often went for long fishing trips; but his chief hobbies were ships – he had a remarkable collection of prints of them – and philately.

He leaves four sons, James, Elliot, Franklin, and John, all of whom have served in the armed forces, and a daughter who is married to Mr John Boetiger, a journalist, who is now on war service.