Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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Champion of Two Great Challanges
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Democrat, Thirty-Second President
1933-1945
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Considered among the greatest and most significant of all American presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born with a “silver spoon in his mouth.” With the great political name of Roosevelt, FDR did not understand the “average” American. By 1920, he had accomplished little on his own, yet was the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

In 1921, however, he was struck with polio and spent the rest of his life as a “cripple.” The battle to overcome this handicap was to bring him
understanding with the pain of others. Possibly the first “New Deal,” the catalyst for reversing the Depression, would not have happened in anywhere near its eventual form were it not for the polio that struck FDR thirteen years before.

As Herbert Hoover prepared to step down as U.S. President on March 4, 1933, America faced a crisis as grave as a foreign invasion; the banks were closed. FDR declared “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” and launched the country into the first hundred days of the New Deal providing relief for the desperate and attacking unemployment in many segments of society. He accomplished a miracle, the revitalization of the American spirit. Two years later, a second New Deal emphasized reform rather than relief and recovery. FDR had navigated America from the brink.

By the end of the decade an equal evil had raised it head. With Germany, Italy and Japan rattling sabers, America kept FDR in office to lead the country in time of crises. Depleted by the depression, America was not prepared to counter the juggernaut of Germany and the Axis powers, but was the only country with the human and raw resources necessary to eventually overcome this grave threat to what Roosevelt declared to be most dear: freedom from want; freedom from fear; freedom of speech; and freedom of religion.

Beginning in 1940, FDR championed the lend-lease program that supplied Britain the raw materials it desperately needed to avoid obliteration by the Germans. When full scale war followed the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, “the day that will live in infamy,” FDR was the central figure (with an outstanding supporting cast) in the ultimate victory. Regretfully, he failed to live until VJ Day.

“We have survived all of the arduous burdens and the threatening dangers of a great economic calamity. We have in the darkest moments of our national trial retained our faith in our own ability to master our own destiny. Fear is vanishing. Confidence is growing on every side, renewed faith in the vast possibilities of human beings to improve their material and spiritual status through the instrumentality of the democratic form of government. That faith is receiving its just reward. For that we can be thankful to the God who watches over America.”
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Fireside Chat, April 28, 1935

“We of the United Nations are agreed on certain broad principles in the kind of peace we seek. The Atlantic Charter applies not only to the parts of the world that border the Atlantic but to the whole world; disarmament of aggressors, self-determination of nations and peoples, and the four freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.”
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Fireside Chat, Feb. 23, 1942

Historical Portrayal Setting
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The date is February 23, 1942. You are a part of a delegation of the Democratic Party that is in Washington to meet with your congressional representatives. On this night you have been invited to the White House to sit-in while the President delivers his fireside chat to the nation.

The mood in the country this day is quite somber. From December 1941 through February 1942, the United States and its allies have suffered a series of military defeats on battle fronts throughout the world. It is a bleak and difficult time for President Roosevelt and for the country as a whole. The early excitement, sense of purpose, and feeling of unity that had inspired the nation immediately after the Japanese attack has begun giving way to selfishness and large scale hoarding and profiteering, to grumbling about the losses at Pearl Harbor, and to armchair strategists’ proposals about the proper way to fight a war. There is an odor of defeatism in the air. Optimism and confidence are being replaced by pessimism and self doubt.

Earlier in the week President Roosevelt suggested that listeners every where have a map of the world available to follow his comments so they could better understand the inter-dependance of the various parts of the world in relationship to the war. Stores throughout the country have reported a run on atlases,world maps and globes.

It is now just a few minutes before President Roosevelt will address the nation. It is the custom of the Secret Service to conduct a thorough inspection of the room before each broadcast. Therefore you are asked to leave the room and follow the directives of the White House officials. Please take all belongings with you.When the inspection of the Secret Service is complete, the President will already be seated. At that point you will be allowed to return to your seats. Do so quietly and remain so until after the President addresses the nation.

Martin Grauer
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“This is Martin Grauer of the National Broadcasting Company speaking to you from the White House in Washington, DC as President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks to the nation. And now ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

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