The Twentieth Century
The twentieth century brought sweeping changes to the world — the birth of aviation, the splitting
of the atom, the development of the computer and the Internet, the exploration of Space. But it
is also the century in which liberal democracy faced its two greatest trials: the Great Depression
and World War Two. The depression brought the United States and much of the rest of the world to
the brink of economic collapse and ushered in an era of uncertainty in which the extreme
ideologies of fascism and communism gained new vitality. By the early 1930s, authoritarian
regimes bent on the destruction of democracy had risen in Germany, Italy and Japan, while
here at home extremists on both right and left openly questioned the established order and
hinted at the need for revolution.
Never before had the United States experienced such profound economic
problems. Unemployment was massive, children went malnourished, and thousands of banks were forced to
close their doors as millions of Americans withdrew their savings in a last attempt to hold on to what
little they had. The nation in short had hit "rock bottom," and after years of steady decline following
the stock market crash of October 1929, the American people seemed to have lost hope, gripped by the
terrible, paralytic fear, that this inexplicable economic malaise might endure indefinitely.
In the face of such calamities, Americans went to the polls in 1932
to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt 32nd President of the United States. FDR would be re-elected an
unprecedented four times and remain in office for the next twelve years, the longest serving
President in U.S. history. He would also transform America, and in the process do more to influence
the history of the world than any other single individual of his generation. By temperament and talent,
energy and instinct, FDR came to the presidency ready for the challenges that confronted him, exuding
optimism and a warm-hearted confidence that hit the country like a breath of fresh air.
FDR also understood paralysis. At the age of thirty-nine, he had been
struck down by an attack of poliomyelitis that would render him unable to walk or stand unassisted
for the rest of his life. FDR refused to accept the notion that he was, in effect, a paraplegic, and
never gave up hope that one day he would regain the use of his atrophied legs.
The New Deal
Having stared down fear in his personal life, FDR counseled his
fellow countrymen in his first inaugural address to do the same. He then initiated a series of
reforms known as the New Deal that brought the country out of its economic despair and transformed
our government into an active instrument of social justice.
FDR created federal unemployment insurance in a nation where
twenty-five percent of the work force was unemployed. He implemented Social Security to help the
poor, disabled, and the aged cope with their misery. He developed the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation to guarantee the solvency of the nation's banks. FDR devised a program of federal
housing loans to help the average Americans buy their first home. He produced securities regulation
to stave off a further crash of the Stock Market and negotiated reciprocal trade agreements to open
the world's markets to American goods. In addition to all of these reforms, FDR sought farm price
supports, minimum wage laws, and collective bargaining guarantees.
These programs stand today as the underpinnings of our social and
economic well-being. If they were FDR's only accomplishments, he would still rank among the greatest
of our leaders. But domestic reform was not the only area in which FDR transformed America. Torn
asunder by the devastating effects of the Great Depression, and bitter about American involvement in
World War I, the United States of the 1930s turned its back on the rest of the world and disavowed its
international responsibilities.
FDR Abroad
In the absence of American support, the League of Nations
foundered and the enemies of democracy flourished. Piece by piece, Hitler's Germany expanded at
the expense of her neighbors, Italy invaded Abyssinia, Franco launched his fascist crusade in
Spain, and the Japanese invaded China.
Restrained by a series of neutrality laws passed in the late
1930s that did not distinguish between aggressor and victim, FDR could do little to assist the
hapless victims of aggression. But he understood the need for American leadership in opposition to
fascism, and so began a long, eloquent campaign of popular education designed to awaken the American
people from their isolationist slumber.
"Let no one imagine," he warned, "that America may expect mercy"
in the event that the fascists in Europe and Asia should prevail. Indeed, it was sheer folly, he
insisted, to believe as the isolationists did, that the United States could survive "as a lone island
in a world dominated by force...handcuffed, hungry and fed through the bars from day to day by the
contemptuous, unpitying masters of other continents."
World War Two
As the German Army stormed across Poland, Norway, Denmark,
the Low Countries and France in 1939-40 at the outbreak of the Second World War, FDR turned
the United States into the "arsenal of democracy." When Great Britain stood alone, and few
thought she could survive, FDR rejected the advice of his own Chiefs of Staff and insisted that
American arms shipments to the British must not only continue, but expand.
FDR also understood that the United States must prepare itself
for the possibility of attack and thus began a massive rearmament campaign the results of which
were nothing short of remarkable. In June 1939, the United States possessed an army of a mere
186,000 men that ranked 19th among nations. By mid 1943, the total number of men and women under
arms in the United States stood at twelve million, the largest and most powerful assembly of land,
sea, and air forces the world had ever seen.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR
picked an extraordinary team of generals and admirals, and with Churchill, crafted the
'Grand Alliance' that ultimately destroyed the twin evils of German Nazism and Japanese
militarism. He personally authorized the Manhattan project. He was the father of the nuclear age.
Determined not to let America once again revert to isolationism after the war, FDR committed the
United States to a host of international mechanisms, such as the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank, that would guarantee American involvement in the wider world and ultimately give rise
to the "global economy."
Four Freedoms
Finally, and most importantly, through his call for a
world based on the "Four Freedoms" — Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from
Want, and Freedom from Fear — and his ceaseless efforts to establish a United Nations
committed to collective security, human rights, national self determination, and economic
justice, FDR provided the vision and the framework for the world we live in today.
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