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Our American History leaves out FDR's connection to Al Capone and Joe Kennedy during the Depression when they ran an incredible Canadian whiskey business from Chicago. That was the greatest economic boom Canada has ever ever had. Good imported Canadian whiskey was bootleged up and down the Mississippi and freighted overland for about 600 miles in every direction.
FDR was also the mastermind behind letting the crime bosses organize into a business format. Thought a monopoly was easier to control than having enterprising 'Bonnie and Clydes' shooting up the landscape and giving crime a bad name.
J. Edgar Hoover was allowed to capture the idiot criminals...dillinger, kelly, and eventually after the big money was made...the big Capone was made an example of too...lived out his life with every convienience that luxury could afford in prison...died of syphillis.
Joe Kennedy welched on FDR too...had agreed to pay a royalty on those illegal whiskey imports that were protected and brought into the USA during his administration...never paid FDR a dime...When Jack Kennedy was running for President... Daddy Joe tried to get Eleanor Roosevelts endorsement for Jack...She wouldn't do it...Snubbed them instead.
I wasn't alive during the FDR era but my parents were. They both admired him for helping America get through a horrible economic and social mess in the 1930s and the catastrophe of WW2 in the 1940s. Sure, there are some policies and decisions of his that in hindsight may not have been the best thing. The generation that is now called the "Greatest Generation" was helped along in many ways by FDR, so in that case he would get my vote as the best president of the 20th century.
I have visited the FDR home and presidential museum / library in Hyde Park, NY along the banks of the Hudson near Poughkeepsie. It is a place that anyone interested in learning more about FDR should visit. Doesn't matter if you agree with everything he did or not, it is a good place to learn a lot about history.
Another place worth visiting is Warm Springs, GA. I lived in eastern Alabama for several years not far from there and have gone hiking along the trails of FDR state park near Warm Springs and Pine Mountain, GA. FDR had a small cottage in Warm Springs where he would stay for treatments at the springs. He liked the area a lot and enjoyed driving along the rural roads of west Georgia. He died in his cottage at Warm Springs in April 1945. That home has been preserved as if time was frozen. Everything in that home has been left exactly the way it was on the day he died there. The most haunting thing is the partially complete portrait of FDR that is still sitting on the easel where the artist left it just before FDR died.
I've also been to the Roosevelt house at Campobello, New Brunswick, Canada just north of the Maine border. This was a grand summer vacation house that puts you back into the 1920s.
My view is that people can debate in hindsight the good and bad of FDRs decisions, but he made a bigger impact on the history of the 20th century world than any other US president.
A braver president has probably never occupied the White House, with the possible exception of Lincoln. FDR dealt with the pain and scourge of polio for a large part of his adult life. A crippling disease, the courage he had to leave the comfort and security of his home to lead an active public service career is almost beyond belief. Imagine a man who could not walk alone, who had to be carried up stairs, who had difficulty standing up and remaining standing, had the guts to get past the humiliation of polio and get on with a meaningful, active life.
His place is a memorial photo on the wall of every home in West Virginia...
FDR placed in the center, Jesus to the right, John L. Lewis to the left and JFK on the top...Halleluah! Is this a religious experience or what...
Truman was the great president...had balls.
I think George Washington was the greatest president-
His rallying inspiring speeches and his fantastic handeling of the new country I mean I ca't seem to equate him with any other.
Alrigh just thinking a drop - maybe it was Lincoln - but you know there was so much going on in the 60's, and until he was shot - and let me tell you - we were all in shock, he was highly caught up in the give and take of daily politics.
Teddy Rooservelt was also popular and nearly ran for a third term.
But it's funny- them pollsters just ask about the more recent presidents.
They should ask those who can actually remember what those times were like in comparison to today and properly put in to perspective each president and his era!
How far would George Washington get in our elections today ? Media would hype him as a crack pot, delusional war hero...I agree, he was the greatest...then Lincoln, Grant, TR Roosevelt, and then Truman...none since...sadly..
How far would George Washington get in our elections today ? Media would hype him as a crack pot, delusional war hero...I agree, he was the greatest...then Lincoln, Grant, TR Roosevelt, and then Truman...none since...sadly..
Well the media probably would not let anyone be known as a great president.
Perhaps better to think of them as having been great at something. JFK was a good crisis manager, LBJ was great for civil rights, Nixon, well, even he was good at some foreign policy, Ford healed the nation, Carter brought peace between Israel and Egypt. Reagan was and is widely hailed as a good President, Bush I was good at foreign policy, Clinton was all around effective, and Bush II, well, no comment.
I think George Washington was the greatest president-
His rallying inspiring speeches and his fantastic handeling of the new country I mean I ca't seem to equate him with any other.
Alrigh just thinking a drop - maybe it was Lincoln - but you know there was so much going on in the 60's, and until he was shot - and let me tell you - we were all in shock, he was highly caught up in the give and take of daily politics.
Teddy Rooservelt was also popular and nearly ran for a third term.
But it's funny- them pollsters just ask about the more recent presidents.
They should ask those who can actually remember what those times were like in comparison to today and properly put in to perspective each president and his era!
The greatest thing about Washington - and something that all of us should be enormously greatfull for - is the fact that at the height of his military power, when the British were finally and soundly beaten, that rather than do what so many other military leaders had done throughout all of history (that is seize power for himself) General George Washington stepped down. Same thing when his Presidency was done. He fought for the ideal of Democracy and then he ACTUALLY lived up to the ideal. Washington is nearly unique among men in that regard.
America was truly blessed that among the Founding Fathers were so many exceptionally talented and honorable men. It need not have been so. We could have easily gone the way of France after their revolution.
How far would George Washington get in our elections today ? Media would hype him as a crack pot, delusional war hero...I agree, he was the greatest...then Lincoln, Grant, TR Roosevelt, and then Truman...none since...sadly..
I have disagreed with you on a number of issues, but on this you are dead right. It's really a wonder that ANYONE want's to be President nowadays, the way candidates reputations are just destroyed. I know I certainly wouldn't want to campaign for the job.
Ken
PS - It seems to me that the one major flaw in any Democracy is the fact that you are giving power to someone who WANTS it. You have to always ask youself "why would they go through all that to have power?"
Maybe we'd be better off picking someone randomly out of the phone book.
Just kidding (sort of).
Neil Boortz mentioned something that I had forgotten. Washington wasn't elected by popular vote, but by the electoral college. The office was never meant to be voted on by all citizens, nor was it meant to be so important, with little to really do. The power was generally in the hands of local officials, as it still should be.
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