Be i talked about the revolutionary war. He waited a few minutes and said, did we win it . I realized i had a lot of work to do with this kid. [inaudible conversations] hello and welcome to the Franklin Roosevelt president ial library and museum and the roosevelt reading festival for 2016. I want to welcome those joining us now for what should be a wonderful lecture. This is exactly the sort of program that franklin expel nor roosevelt wanted to have happen here. They wanted this to be a center for the discussion of the roosevelt every rah and for people era and for people to visit this particular location because to understand Franklin Roosevelt, you really have to come here to hyde park. It influenced him in so many ways. The roosevelt reading festivals been going on for many years, and it really is an opportunity for us to bring in 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 many our library to come back and share their work with the public. Alonzo hamby is one of the great experts on truman and roosevelt. He is the distinguished professor of history emeritus at ohio university. Hes written a number of books, beyond the new deal, man of the people a life of harry s. Truman, and for the survival of democracy. And hes going to talk today about his new book, man of destiny Franklin Roosevelt and the 20th century. His work has been widely honored. Hes received two national be endowment for the humanities fellowships, a wood roe Wilson International center for scholars fellowship and the ohio academy of history distinguished Service Award with. Hes born and raised in missouri, so hes a show me kind of guy. [laughter] how can you not love harry truman . Hes going to talk today about really what i think is one of the key moments, the concept of what happened in the 20th century. Modern america was really formed by the policies and beliefs of franklin and eleanor roosevelt. When you think about the century, you have to start with the foundation of franklin and eleanor roosevelt, and no one knows more about that than our next speaker. Please welcome alonzo hamby. [applause] ah, well, thanks very much for the kind introduction. Ill do my best not to disappoint you but, gee, youve 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, probably really my first historical memory is a very hazy recollection of my father and mother listening to a radio talk by Franklin Roosevelt. Very probably his last fireside chat in early 1945. I have a more distinct memory of just a few months later hearing on the radio the news bulletin announcing his death. And running to tell my mother about it. Lets, lets begin as we kind of take a quick walk through this book by asking about fdrs heritage. Specifically, who were the roosevelts, who were the delano delanos. The First American roosevelt was a simple farmer from the earth in lands from the earth eartn lands who netherlands. Fast forward 230 years, and we find Franklin Roosevelts father, James Roosevelt, a Vice President of the delaware and Hudson Railroad and a wealthy landowner just outside of this little hudson river town that had just changed its name to hyde park to try to position itself upscale a bit. In 1880 a widower at the age of 52, James Roosevelt married an attractive woman half his age named sarah delano. So who were the delanos . Well, the First American delanos had been protestant immigranted from northern france by way of the netherlands. They had migrated to america almost literally in the wake of the mayflower and had established themselves as Business People with a special knack for foreign trade. Sarah delanos father, warren delano, had made his money in china the opium trade, a business that was all legal and above board in those days. Like James Roosevelt, he had acquired a large estate in the hudson valley. His daughters, he insisted, could marry only men who possessed a competence of at least 100,000. [laughter] or a few million in our own inflated currency of today. Well, James Roosevelt fit the profile. He was wealthy. Warrens daughter, sarah delano, was clearly attracted to him. The couple would have only one child delivered after an excruciating 24 hours of labor. They named him for sarahs favorite uncle, Franklin Delano. This book, of course, covers his political career, but it probes rather deeply into his personal life also. The guiding question is who was Franklin Delano roosevelt. Not just what were his politics, but who was the man. Lets begin with what life was like for the boy. Toward the end of the 19th century. A pampered but relatively solitary existence. Governesses and tutors. No regular playmates, 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, it seemed, had Carte Blanche to play tricks on the servants. Who may have been a little less enamored with him. At the age of 14 after having been privately educated at home, he was packed off to boarding school at the nations premier institution. What was it like . Cold showers, rigid schedules, demanding instructors, high academic standards. One and accustomed to discipline, all of which did much to form the emerging adult. After boarding school came harvard. There he was a soso student but a big man on campus, especially as ed or to have of the harvard editor of the harvard crimson, the student paper. All these experiences created a person who lurched between selfindulgence and a very disciplined work ethic. So what after college . Franklins father had died during his freshman year at harvard. His mother and a half brother whom i should mention from his fathers first marriage, Rosie Roosevelt as he was popularly known, had planned out his life for him. On to law school at columbia. Eventually a partnership in a congenial big bucks, white shoe law firm. A good marriage, social prominence. Franklin had rather different ideas. Particularly in the wake of his fathers death, 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, he would take a junior position with an elite firm. Pretty soon abandoned law for politics as a career. He also had his own ideas about marriage and took up withs niece with teds niece, eleanor. Eleanor was a bit of an ughing duckling, maybe, and without a lot of money to bring to a 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 were married on st. Patricks day, 1905. Its important to understand this marriage. It would have its ups and downs. Franklin clearly admired eleanors social conscience and compassion. He also wanted a big family. She bore him six children, one of whom died in infancy. But eleanor wanted to do more than be a mother. She felt she had a mission to do useful work in the world. She was fixated on helping the poor and was never a fulltime mother. Her surviving children were largely raised by a succession of governesses, some of whom seemed to have been pretty severe. By and large, the lives of the roosevelt children were not characterized by a lot of selfdiscipline. Or a lot of discipline of almost any kind, for example. Eleanor has an interesting line in the first of three autobiographical volumes she produced. This is from volume one in which he remarks she remarks, i had gone through six pregnancies in the first ten years of our marriage. She seems barely to refrain from saying enough was enough. [laughter] but how do you say that and enforce it many in an era when artificial Birth Control was outlawed . Use your imagination. And note that it was at about this time that eleanor had employed a beautiful young social secretary named lucy mercer. Franklin seems always to have had a bit of a roving eye, but until then he does not seem to have had an extramarital affair. Well, of course, eleanor eventually would discover the relationship between lucy and fringe lin. She was franklin are. She, with sarah backing her up with the 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 Grover Cleveland. And it might be worth saying a word or two more about franklins father at this time who seems to be too easily written off as a sort of a retired, old fuddyduddy. He was actually president of something called the nicaraguan canal company. And it seems to me a bit of a visionary. Because he was the, he had taken up the idea of building a Central American canal. One effort had already been made and had failed to go through panama where the terrain was just very difficult. Nicaragua presented much less of a challenge. Some biographers note along the way that James Roosevelt moved the 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 Grover Cleveland more a subsidy for the nicaraguan canal company. And cleveland, a notably tightfisted president with his budget, obliged and got one through congress. So the point i want to make here is that Franklin Roosevelts father was a man with some 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 had a few years with a law firm, and he was clearly bored with the practice he had. He campaigned intensively. He won a seat in this normallyrepublican district of which hyde park was a part. Almost instantly, he established himself as the leader of a band of insurgent democrats. We have the progressive era coming to a peak then. And an ethos of throwing the bosses out. Legislatures still elected senators in those days, and franklin took over the leadership of a band of insurgent democrats who opposed the machine candidate for the u. S. Senate. And, of course, senators were still elected by legislatures. Almost overnight he became nationally famous. It helped, after all, that his name was roosevelt and that cousin theodore cheered him on. By 1912 he was widely recognized at still quite a young age of 30 years old as a leader of the reform and antiboss faction of the new York Democratic party. In 1913, the newlyelected president , woodrow wilson, appointed him assistant secretary of the navy. We need to understand that the post of assistant secretary of the navy in those days was widely recognized to be almost as important, maybe even more important than the post of secretary. The secretary of the navy was always a political a appointee. The assistant secretary was the chief operating officer in the department. The secretary under whom franklin served, daniel withs, was a North Carolina 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 a nearencyclopedic knowledge of ships. The assistant secretary was effectively the perp responsible for daytoday the person responsible for daytoday 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. He was also prescient about world affairs. 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 eleanor, he recounts meeting some friends on a train who thought that the tumult in europe would soon be over because the bankers would not finance it. His foresight was chilling. It would be, he tells eleanor, the worst war in human history. And that bankers would not be given a choice about financing it. He seems quickly to have decided that the United States would likely be caught up in it. The war provided opportunities for his activism and raised his profile. In 1920, the war over and at the age still of 38, having played a fairly high profile washington role he became the democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States. He waged an intensive campaign that largely overshadowed that of the democratic president ial nominee, james cox. It provided hundreds of Democratic Party contacts across the country for him. Needless to say, all their names were taken down and kept in a card file for later reference. Well, what next . Out of office roosevelt seemed at first to be a very possible democratic nominee for candidate or for president in 1924. What came instead was polio. Here the roosevelts story becomes a saga of personal effort and on the to and optimism, but it also, let me suggest, a story of outstanding philanthropy. With the development of a treatment and Rehabilitation Center near warm springs, georgia, where he had gone to find what treatment he could for his own polio. Warm springs would become his second home. And eventually, he would establish after having bankrolled and privately raised money for the Polio Treatment Center himself he would establish a charity called the march of dimes. And if youve ever bond we ared why frank ever wondered why Franklin Roosevelts profile is on the dime, thats the reason. The march of dimes functioned not only polio treatment at warm springs, but eventually would bankroll the effort to develop a polio vaccine. One that was finally successful years after Franklin Roosevelts death. Bottom line, if Franklin Roosevelt had never returned to politics, he would be remembered as an outstanding philanthropist. But return he did, of course, making an unlikely comeback on crutches that was greatly facilitated by americas newest 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 at the 1924 and 1928 Democratic Conventions. And doing so projects a golden voice across the country. And does so at a time when america was more open to patrician inflections from their leaders than is the case today. Smith, of course, never won the presidency. But roosevelt succeeded him as governor of new york. And over the next four year, eclipsed him politically. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 would propel him into the presidency. Getting the nomination was the toughest part, but here his magnetism simply overwhelmed more entrenched democratic opponents for the nomination. What happens is he basically eclipses al smith who thought he was entitled to another shot but never got it. And he buries the hapless Herbert Hoover politically. His advocacy of a new deal for the American People arouses widespread hope. So what do we say about the new deal . Lets treat it very briefly. It was, lets just say it was, by and large, an economic failure but a political success. It also brought a wide array of policy intellectuals into the political arena. Particularly notable, i think, Raymond America olie molie Felix Frankfurter and richard tugwell. The new deal had little intellectual or policy coheres. It ameliorated the depression, did not end it, but it provided muchneeded relief in the form of public works jobs for millions of americans with projects that ranged from enormous hydroelectric dams to the laying of sidewalks in small villages. No matter that the jobs were temporary. No matter that they were usually controlled by local Democratic Party officials. And handed out as a form of patronage. I grew up in a 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. That 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, the local prendergast machine used it to finance what it characterized as an antirabies measure, a comprehensive census of all the dogs owned in the city. [laughter] kansas city dog census. 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] and had clearly been helped by the experience. [laughter] well, projects like these ranging from the grandiose to the small and maybe even the marginal gave help and rel