Reading festival. Here is alonso an the personal life and political career of fdr. Thank you to the roosevelt reading festival for 2016. Some of you have been here and i want to welcome you for what should be a wonderful lecture. This is a program that franklin and elenor wanted to have, a discussion and for people to visit the location because to understand Franklin Roosevelt you have to come to high park. It influenced him in so many ways. The festival has been going on for years and an opportunity to bring authors from all over the country and create an opportunity for people to hear these stories and for the researchers who have come here and spent time in our library to come back and share their work with the public. Alonso hamby, one of the great experts on both truman and roosevelt. The distinguished professor at ohio university. Hes written a number of books beyond the new deal, the american libbal rism. Man of the people. Life of harry truman and for the survival of democracy. His work has been widely honored. Hes received two national fellowships. Woodrow wilson and distinguished service award. He was born in missouri and hes a showme kind of guy, i think thats why he likes harry truman. How can now not love harry truman . Thats a different hes going talk about one of the key moments, the concept of what happened in the 20th century. Modern america was formed by the policies and believes of Franklin Roosevelt. You have to start with the foundation of Franklin Roosevelt and no one knows more about that than our next speaker. Please welcome alonzo haamby. [applause] well, thanks very much for the kind introduction. Ly do my best not to disappoint you, but gee, you made it difficult. [laughter] well, what im going to do is try to give you a kind of a fast tour through this new book man of destiny. I should begin by saying that one of my first historical memories, really my first historical memory is a very recollection of my father and mother listening to a radio talk of Franklin Roosevelt. Very probably his last fire side chat in 1945. I have a more distinct memory just a few months later of hearing on the radio the news bulletin announcing his death an run to go tell me mother about it. Lets begin as we begin to take a quick walkthrough this book, by asking that of fdrs heritage, specifically specifically roosevelts, who was elenors. A simple from the netherlands. Fastforward 230 years and we find Franklin Roosevelts father James Roosevelt, a Vice President of the delaware and Hudson Railroad and a wealthy land owner just outside of the hudson river town that had just changed its name to hide park to show upscale a bit. In 1808 the widow e of the age of 52, attractive woman has his age of sarah. First american delanos immigrant from northern france by way of the netherlands. They had migrated to america almost literally in the wake of the mayflower and established themselves and had knack for certain trade. Elenaros father had made money in china, in trade, all legal. Like James Roosevelt he had acquired a lot of estate in the hudson valley, his daughters, he insisted could mary only men who possessed exert competence of a hundred thousand dollars or a few million on our own inflated currency of today. Well, James Roosevelt fit the profile. He was wealthy, sarah was clearly attracted to him. The couple would have only one child delivered an 24hour of labor, they named him for sarahs favorite uncle franklin delenor. This book covers political career and probes into personal life also. The guiding question is who was Franklin Roosevelt, not just what were his politics, who was the man. Lets begin for what was life for the boy toward the end of the 19th century. Pampered but relatively solitary existence, no regular play mates but a lot of attention from his parents. From the time he was old enough to mount a pony, he made daily rides around the estate with his father. He also had seemed who may have been enamored with him. At the age of 14 after having been privately educated at home he was packed up to boarding school, the nations premier such institution. What was grutton like, cold showers, rigged schedules, demanding instructors, high academic standards and unaccustomed to discipline all of which did much to emerging adult. After grutton came harvard. There a soso student but a big man on campus, specially editor of the harvard student paper. All of these experiences created a person who lurched between selfindulgence and a very discipline work ethic. Well, what after college . Franklins father had died during his freshman year at harvard. His mother and half brother who we should mention from his fathers first marriage Rosie Roosevelt as he was popularly known had planned out his life for him, onto law school at colombia, eventually a partnership in big buck shoe law firm. A good marriage, social prominence. Franklin had different ideas, he had acquired a new role model, his distant cousin theodore roosevelt, the most exciting figure in american political life and president of the United States shortly after franklins graduation from harvard. Franklin wanted to go into politics. He would be a good young man. He would go through law school, take a junior position with an elite firm and pretty soon abandon law for politics as a career. He also had his own idea about marriage and took up with teds niece elenor. Elenor was a bit of a Ugly Duckling maybe but had a lot of money to bring to the marriage but as theodore told him as they were engaged and prepared to tie the knot, theres nothing like keeping the name in the family. [laughter] they. Married on st. Patricks day in 1805. Its important to understand that marriage. It had ups and downs, franklin clearly admired elenors social conscious and compassion, he also wanted a big family. She bore born him six children one of who died in infancy. Elenor wanted to be more than a mother. She was fixated on helping the poor and was never a fulltime mother. Her surviving children were largely raised by a succession of governingness some of who seem to have pretty severe. By in large the lives of the roosevelt children were not characterized by a lot of selfdiscipline. Any discipline of any kind, for example. Elenor has an interesting line in the first of three autobiography articles that she produced. Volume one in which remarks, i had gone through sixing pregnancies of the first ten years of our marriage, she seems barely to refrain enough was enough. [laughter] but how do you say that and enforce it in an era where artificial Birth Control was outlawed. Use your imagination, and note that it was about this time that elenor had employed a beautiful young social secretary name lisa mercer had had a roving eye but until then has not had extra marital. Of course, elenor would discover the relationship between lucy and franklin. Threat of disinheritance would force franklin to break off the affair. But the break we discovered much later was never complete and the relationship would be reborn after franklin became president. Well, weve mentioned a career in politics, franklins father had been a conservative democrat, very close to president Rover Cleveland and might be worth saying a word or two about franklins father at this time who seems to be too easily written off as a sort of retired. He was president of nicaraguan company. He had taken up the idea of building a Central American canal and efforts had been made and had failed to go through panama where the terrain was barely difficult and nicaragua presented much less of a challenge. So some biographers note along the way that he moved family to washington, d. C. For a time in 1888. No one seems to know why he did that, but it seems pretty obvious that he was that he was lobbying president cleveland. In cleveland, notably, tightfisted and obliged an got one through congress. The point that i want to make here is that Franklin Roosevelts father was a man with big ideas and ambitions too. In 1910 franklin decided to run as a democrat for a seat in the new york legislature. By this time he had a few years with the law firm and he was clearly bored with the practice he had. He campaigned intensively. He won a seat in the normally republican district which i was a part. Almost then established thims as a leader of democrats. We have the progressive era coming to a peak then. He was throwing the buses out. Legislators still elected senators in those days and franklin took over the leadership of insurgent democrats. Almost overnight he became nationally famous. His name was roosevelt and the cousin theodore cheered him on. By 1912 he was widely recognized, still quite a young age, 30 years old as a leader of the reform of the new York Democratic party. In 1913 the newly elected president Woodrow Wilson appointed him assistant secretary of the navy. And we need to understand that the post of assistant secretary of the navy in those days was widely recognized almost as important or maybe even most important than the secretary, the secretary of the navy was a political appointee, the assistant secretary was the chief operating officer in the department. The secretary under whom franklin served daniels was a North Carolina editor and politician of great influence in the south, but very little knowledge about the navy. Franklin roosevelt had long been interested in naval power and had knowledge of ships. The assistant secretary was effectively the person responsible for daytoday management of American Naval capability. Roosevelt made the most of the post, sometimes stepping on the toes of his nominal chief daniels but also charming daniels and making himself nearly indispensable. World war i breaks out in the middle of 1914. Many people thought it would be a brief affair. Franklin from the beginning did not. In a long letter to elenor, he recounts meeting some friends on a train who thought that the two in europe would soon be over because the banksers would not finance it. The foresight was chilling. It would be he tells, elenor, the worst war in human history. And bankers would not be given a choice. He seems quickly to have decide that had the United States would like thatly be caught up in it. The war provided opportunities for his act of activism and raised his profile. In 1920, he became the democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States. He waged an intensive campaign largely overshadowed that of the democratic president ial nominee james cox. It provided hundred of democratic contexts and were kept in card file for later reference. What next . Out of office, roosevelt seemed at first to be a very possible democratic nominee for candidate for for president in 1924, what came instead was polio. And here the roosevelt story becomes a saga of personal effort and optimism but also let me suggest story of outstanding philantropy with the development of a treatment and Rehabilitation Center in warm springs, georgia where he had gone to find what treatment he could for his own polio. It would become his second home and eventually he would establish after having bankrolled and privately raise money for the Polio Treatment Center himself, he would establish a charity called the march of dimes and if youve ever wondered why Franklin Roosevelts profile is on the dime, thats the reason. The march of dimes function not only polio treatment at warm springs but eventually would bankroll the effort to develop a polio vaccines. One that was finally successful years after franklins death. Bottom line, if Franklin Roosevelt had never returned to politics, he would be remembered as an outstanding philanthropist but did come back on crushes and greatly facilitated by communication medium broadcast radio. Its a remarkable story that radio and fdrs National Political career really come of age in the same decade. He does it with nominating speeches for al smith, 1924 and 1928 Democratic Conventions. In doing so projects a golden voice across the country and does so at a time where america was more open to inflections from their leaders than is the case today. Smith, of course, never won the presidency, roosevelt succeeded him as governor of new york and over the next four years he clips him politically. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 would prepel him into the presidency, getting the nomination was the toughest part but here his magni, what happens is he basically clips al smith who thought was entitled to another shot but never got it. He buries the herbert theoretically. What do we say about the new deal . Very briefly, it was just by and large economic failure but a political success. It also brought a wide array of policy intellectuals into the political arena particularly notable raymond, felix frank and the new deal had little intellectual policy coherence. Did not end it, but it provided much needed relief in the form of public works jobs for millions of americans, with projects arranged with enormous hydroelectric dams to sidewalks in small villages, no matter if the jobs were temporary, no matter that they were usually controlled by local Democratic Party officials, handed out as a form. I grew up in the small town in southern missouri. New deal agencies built a new School Building for the town. That building, i think, is still in use. They built a bridge across a local stream at the south end of the town. The bridge is still there built by the federal emergency relief administration. Other projects were maybe more questionable. A fair amount of money went into kansas city where the local hinder gas machine used it to finance what is characterized as an antirabbies measure, a comprehensive census of all the dogs owned in the city. [laughter] kansas city dogs i might tell you, by the way, that i gave this talk in kansas city about a couple of months ago now and during the q a period an elderly black man came up to the microphone to ask me a question and also informed me that he had been one of the dog enumerators back in the 30s. [laughter] clearly been helped by the experience. Well, projects like these ranging from the grandios to the marginal gave help and relief to millions of people during hard times and made the Democratic Party the majority party. The jobs programs not coin coincidentally, i think, and established basis for fdrs huge landslide for reelection. Roosevelt exhibited daring Foreign Policy leadership that really strike me as the acme of his presidency and leadership that can be characterized and risks to keep britain in the war. He established a relationship with Winston Churchill and undertook a National Difficult buildup that included an unprecedented peacetime military draft in an election year. In 1940 first subscription in mid1940 with an election on the horizon not the sort of thing that any political consultant would have recommended. But very necessary. Its here i think that he really reached the peek of his Foreign Policy leadership. The wartime record is somewhat more mixed. His toirns have long since punctured myth Franklin Winston and churchill is happy con rads in arms. Disliked cherished British Empire. One of his car objectives to do what he could to see it dismantled after war and exploitative and discriminatory in its trade policies. He pretty clearly hoped that one efnghts of effect of the war to bring an end to it and indeed there was effect to the war inevitable because it left britain an exhausted nation. He pretty clearly understood that it would be extent on american aid after the war. His real goal was to strike an understanding with soviet leader joseph stalin. Here, i think, he did not fully understand ender stalin or toal yaren nature of stalin ice ideology. The difference that is between a runofthemill dictator like say vargas in brazil with whom he had a long and happy relationship. Or more than willing to follow American Leadership and did not understand that stall isen was no vargas. That something much more difficult and much more sinister. He hoped that a new United Nations organization which he may have imagined himself leading could maintain post war peace and stability. From time to time was the war coming to an end, he mentions to people the possibility that he might become the leader of the United Nations organization. How serious he was about all of this it had come or at least to have to resign the presidency. I wonder. His death on april 12th, 1945 saved him from would have likely been a fourth term marked by difficulty and disappointment. How do we remember fdr then . Cut down like lincoln at the height of his achievements . But facing the difficult future and spite the overall success of his presidency having also had a u few missteps. Well, whatever flaw the answer has to be is he a great man . Yes. Was he a great president . Yes indeed. [applause] if you would like to ask yes we ask you come u up to the microphone so questions can be captured for cspan. I will ask you one question. I believe you know something about a man named harry truman can you talk a little bit about the relationship between fdr and harry u truman. [laughter] well, the relationship between fdr and harry truman was certainly a mixed bag lets put it this way. Truman was a successful politician. Elected to the u. S. Senate in 1934. Running as did all in democratss a strong backe