First Impressions of Franklin D. Roosevelt

I am watching an episode of "The Presidents", created by PBS as a part of the American Experience series. The series covers several influential US presidents. I downloaded the available ones through iTunes U, which has lots of other free, historical videos. This two-part episode is about Franklin D. Roosevelt. I have plenty of opinions of his presidential work, and the direction he moved our country, but I have always wanted to have a clear, balanced opinion of any historical figure, so this was the first set I downloaded.

My wife and I have debated FDR's policies and positions at great length, her for, and me against them. After reading Ron Paul's book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, I was intrigued by this story "from the other side". In many ways, it illustrates many of my feelings nicely, but it also wasn't black-on-white comparison.

I have never felt that FDR was an evil man, rather a misguided one. That feeling hasn't changed, but now I see better why. Fear ruled the country, and it ruled him. But he fought back with action, any action he could come up with. FDR stated that he would try anything once, and that he was willing to admit when something didn't work, and go on. That's not bad. However, he didn't seem to have much internal morality, so he didn't have much judgement for what to try first.

What America really needed was a prophet. All they got was a man. It was better than nothing, at the moment, but the long-term outcome was worse than nothing. America was petrified economically and mentally, and his rise to power was an opportunity to teach, to lead, and to reshape the behavior of the masses. Instead, he offered the false hope of government care, the abdication of responsibility of each individual for another. He replaced that with the kind of suffocating "care" that his mother gave him. And he left us less capable, less secure, and less free.

There was another way.

What would I have done in his shoes?

One illustrative quote was that when he was taking the Oath of Office for the second time, as they said, "support and uphold the constitution", he stated in his mind "not your constitution." He was thinking of fighting the Supreme Court and in so doing, he cracked the foundation of this country to its core.

I am very disappointed in his moral character and example. He was a man of society and a law unto himself. I just heard the story of when he first met with Joseph Stalin and how he couldn't break through with his jovial self, so he palled-up with Stalin by picking on Winston Churchill. Stalin warmed a little, and FDR revealed his lack of a moral center. sure, he knew Russia would supplant Britain as the next-biggest world power, but FDR also positioned us for "intriguing alliances" which eventually brought on the cold war.

Four terms!

One thing I did like about FDR was that he really felt that we should be involved in diplomatic relations during the war, reaching out—not with weapons, be with our friendship. What he was missing then was commerce, that bond of interdependency, which we have today. He was faced with the specter of warmongering leaders in other nations and no one knew how to tame them without force. I'm not even sure how to overcome that, yet.

I was also pleased by his uplifting manner. He was encouraging and invigorating, to a fault. He reached people. He was probably the most beloved president in our recent history. But did he use that love to improve the people; teach them a higher way to care for one another? He did change our national identity. He unified us in many ways. But I feel that his was a lost opportunity for something fundamentally better.

So, as I expected, Franklin D. Roosevelt was a mixed bag—as we all are. I can see why he did what he did, and wish we could see beyond him and his legacy to objectively evaluate the outcomes of his (and others') fundamental changes to our country.