FDR’s legacy comes alive in stone

The upbeat song identified with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” wafted across the city’s waters at the recent dedication of the stunning F.D.R. memorial honoring his vision of a world founded on four essential freedoms, articulated during World War II. A bell tolled as the four were cited—freedom of speech and worship and freedom from want and fear—at the new four-acre park gleaming at the southern tip of Roosevelt Island.

Although delayed for decades, the opening on Wednesday of the memorial park, sitting prow-like at the water’s edge, could not have been timelier. The United Nations, a postwar dream of Roosevelt’s, stands just across the river on Manhattan’s eastern shore, consumed with many of the problems—war and hunger, tyranny—that occupied all of his days in the White House. The new skyscraper rising from ground zero can be seen punctuating the far southern cityscape as a resolute response to fear itself. Not quite, unless you think it reminds you of Pearl Harbor, the inciting incident of World War II.

That aside, the Four Freedoms Park captures the highest hopes of the 32nd president in charting a course through global travail. Physically, architect Louis Kahn’s granite memorial employs a brilliant simplicity across a sweeping vista to honor F.D.R. in his native city and in the state where, as governor, he honed the New Deal ideas, which included the landmark Glass Steagall Act, to keep the commercial and investment parts of banks separate. FDR was no new-comer to Wall Street and banking. Here is a summary of his achievements in banking and job creation.

The park proposal gathered dust during the worst of the city’s fiscal times in the 1970s when there was no money to pay for such a memorial. As better days returned, local citizens’ groups and political leaders fought off commercial developers to protect Kahn’s design.

Among those gathered to celebrate Roosevelt’s leadership through war and the Great Depression, none was more instrumental in making the memorial a reality than William vanden Heuvel, the former ambassador who tirelessly rallied donors and politicians in a seven-year campaign. The park, with its F.D.R. bust and ingenious open-air room, is a stirring tribute to a leader whose ideas of freedom remain relevant to this day. But where did this amazing man come from?

Early life

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York on January 30, 1882, into a wealthy family. They had been prominent for several generations, having made their fortune in real estate and trade. Franklin was the only child of James Roosevelt and Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt (who held the purse-strings). The family lived at Springwood, their estate in the Hudson River Valley in New York State.

While growing up, Franklin Roosevelt was surrounded by privilege and a sense of self-importance. He was educated by tutors and governesses until age 14, and the entire household revolved around him, with his mother being the dominant figure in his life, even into adulthood. His upbringing was so unlike the common people whom he would later champion.

In 1896, Franklin Roosevelt attended Groton School for boys, a prestigious Episcopalian preparatory school in Massachusetts. The experience was a difficult one for him, as he did not fit in with the other students. Groton men excelled in athletics and Roosevelt did not.

He strived to please the adults and took to heart the teachings of Groton’s headmaster, the Rev. Endicott Peabody, who urged students to help the less fortunate through public service. Would that more politicians followed his lead.

After graduating from Groton in 1900, Franklin Roosevelt entered Harvard University, determined to make himself someone of note. Though he was only a C student, he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, editor of the Harvard Crimson newspaper and received his degree in only three years.

However, the general consensus was that he was underwhelming and average. During his last year at Harvard, he became engaged to Eleanor Roosevelt, his fifth cousin. She was the niece of Franklin’s idol, Theodore Roosevelt. They married on March 17, 1905. His early life did not necessarily represent the CV of the great statesman and humanitarian he became, which should be an example to young people of what hard work as they grow into adulthood can accomplish.

Franklin studied law at Columbia University Law School and passed the bar exam in 1907, though he didn’t receive a degree. For the next three years, he practiced corporate law in New York, living the typical upper-class life. But he found law practice boring and restrictive. He set his sights on greater accomplishments.

Political beginnings

In 1910, at age 28, Roosevelt was invited to run for the New York State Senate. Breaking from family tradition, he ran as a Democrat in a district that had voted Republican for the past 32 years. He campaigned hard and won the election with the help of his name and a Democratic landslide. As a state senator, Roosevelt opposed elements of the Democratic political machine in New York. This won him the ire of party leaders, but gained him national attention and valuable experience in political tactics and intrigue.

Roosevelt followed in the famous footsteps of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, by starting a career in public service by getting into politics. Winning reelection to the state Senate in 1912, then president Woodrow Wilson appointed him as assistant secretary of the Navy and additionally Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the Democratic party’s nominee for vice president in 1920.

One short year later Roosevelt was stricken with the debilitating disease of polio. Not letting this awful condition slow him down at all he fought like a champion to regain the use of his legs. Eventually Roosevelt was able to walk again with the use of crutches and leg braces. The press had a “gentleman’s agreement” not to photograph in a wheelchair or with his crutches visible or sitting with his braces showing. Imagine that.

In 1928, he was elected governor of New York.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to the first of four presidential terms in November of 1932. By March of 1933 close to 13,000,000 were unemployed. Taking to heart the statement from his inaugural speech “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Roosevelt sought to bring renewed confidence to the American people. Sweeping programs to help people in danger of losing their homes were soon taking place as well as aide to businesses and farmers. Would that he lived in this era.

The country began a turn for the better within a few years in spite of the many banks and businessmen who disagreed with the direction President Roosevelt appeared to be taking the nation. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded to this backlash with stronger regulations against banks and much stronger support programs for the unemployed.

FDR spent many years working on the implementation of the United Nations as well. He truly hoped the creation of this group would lessen any potential for aggression between the countries of the world. As victory approached in World War II, his health was already failing. As victory came he was thoroughly exhausted.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia, from a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

As a boy, I remember listening to his radio speeches, so self-assured and powerful. At his death, I remember the serious-sounding announcers eulogize Roosevelt and then play his favorite song, Home, Home On The Range. Even then, I would notice the eyes of family members tearing. This under-achieving boy had risen above all obstacles to become one of our greatest presidents.

What follows are some of FDR’s most memorable quotations . . .

This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free.

Wealth in the modern world does not come merely from individual effort; it results from a combination of individual effort and of the manifold uses to which the community puts that effort.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

War is a contagion, whether it be declared or undeclared. It can engulf states and peoples remote from the original scene of hostilities.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.