How FDR Defined A Generation And A Party

  Franklin D. Roosevelt spent his life serving the public as a New York senator, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, vice presidential candidate in the 1920 election, and Governor of New York in the beginning of the Great Depression. A member of the prominent Roosevelt family, he was beset by what was believed to be polio and went on to not only found the polio treatment center in Warm Springs, Georgia, but gain election to the White House in 1932.

Roosevelt's election came in the midst of the worst economic collapse in history and the inept work of Republican president Herbert Hoover. He was the only president to serve more than two terms (he was elected to four), and for good reason. He provided stability in crisis, instituting a bank holiday and founding the SEC and FDIC, which resulted in the recovery of the economy. He guaranteed retirement and disability benefits by founding Social Security, and he protected laborers by establishing minimum wage and overtime, outlawing child labor, and securing the right to organize. He ended the Prohibition period on alcohol. His work on conservation including founding a Civilian Conservation Corps to provide hundreds of thousands of jobs while simultaneously improving America's national parks. He also placed all national parks under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, founded Camp David, and created massive new areas of wilderness protection. Foreign affairs were just as active: he ended the U.S. occupation of Haiti, Panama, and Cuba, and he successfully guided America through World War II, which ended soon after his death in 1945.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's program was one of compassion, one of genuine concern for his citizens, and one of purpose in his mission, much like his cousin Theodore. He led the nation through war, created peace, restored the economy, protected workers, and implemented and instigated lasting reforms that defined a generation and the liberal ideology.