Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was in office
for an unprecedented four terms, led the United States through
two of its greatest crises, the Great Depression and World War
II. The extravagance of the Roaring Twenties came to an abrupt
end in 1929 with the crash of the stock market. Imprudent investment,
a deceptive stock market bubble, and the natural boom and bust
of the business cycle led to the beginning of the Great Depression
in America. The first three and a half years of the depression
were marked by dramatic signs of the nation's poverty: breadlines
and soup kitchens in every city, families shivering in tents on
the street in the middle of winter, men around fires at railroad
tracks. President Herbert Hoover, who had been ushered into office
during the prosperity of the twenties, was then swept from office
by the Depression. His humanitarian sentiments were tempered by
a strong distaste for using federal funds for direct aid to suffering
Americans and an equal distaste for deficit spending.
Roosevelt, in the election of 1932, presented a strong
contrast to Hoover's seeming impotence in office, and followed
through on his promise to wage war against the ravages of the depression. Roosevelt
and the new Congress authorized the use of government funds for
either direct aid or for job creating programs. Though the relief
programs of the New Deal prevented the bottom from falling out
of a suffering nation, they did not bring the economic downturn to
an end. At the beginning of World War II, the depression was in its
eleventh year. There were still nine million people unemployed, despite
the expenditure of billions of dollars of federal funds on jumpstarting
the economy.
Americans faced a lighter load than many other countries
after the First World War. The imposition of harsh war indemnities
on the losers of the last battle and the retreat into isolationism
of both victors and losers resulted in a worldwide depression.
Desperate situations in countries such as Germany–where inflation
was so severe that many people were paid in cash by the wagonload
and burned currency to keep warm–encouraged the rise of fascist
dictators such as Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy. These
men took advantage of the desperate situations in their nations
to rise to power on a platform of imperialist ambition.
The spirit of isolationism and the poor economic situation
in Europe prompted Britain and France to look askance at Germany's violations
of the Treaty of Versailles, signed at the end of the First World
War. Germany began by imposing compulsory military service for
all of its citizens. Since nearly all of Germany's possessions had
been destroyed at the end of WWI, their factories began to produce
new munitions to outfit a larger army than before. They soon had
an army of over six million men with the newest and most potent
weapons in the world. When Hitler began to lay claims on lands
taken from the country in the Treaty of Versailles, Britain and France,
suffering from their own economic problems and reluctant to fight,
followed a policy of appeasement for even the most dubious of claims.
Yet, Germany continued to be an aggressor. Britain and France reluctantly
declared war only when Germany invaded Poland without cause, and
their hopes for preventing another large-scale conflict were dashed.
In the Far East, the Japanese followed through on their hopes for
increased power by invading China in 1937.
The German army quickly routed France, and Britain remained the
only hope for a democratic victory. The Japanese continued their
attack on China but watched as their resources shrank, and they
placed ever-increasing reliance on shipments from an ever more
tight fisted America. Americans, however, watched both conflicts
with considerable detachment because of the vast oceans that separated
them from the aggressors. Roosevelt, with his experience as Assistant
Secretary of War during WWI, understood the importance of what
was going on across the seas. He had, however, also watched Woodrow
Wilson before him try and fail to push foreign policy objectives
without the support of the people. Roosevelt thus felt he could
only wait, as even aid to Britain was greeted with distrust from
an isolationist American populace. Roosevelt could only bide his
time or risk losing his power in office.
Yet Germany, perhaps with the memory of the defeat at
the hands of American troops in World War I, was reluctant to commit any
violence that would require the entry of America into the war. It
took the imperialist ambitions of Japan to bring America into the war.
Though Roosevelt viewed Japan's aggressions against China with
equal dislike as the actions of Germany and Italy, the majority of
the American people did not share his view. The invasion of Pearl Harbor
in December of 1941, however, became the devastating provocation
that Roosevelt needed to rally the country behind him. It was thus
with acute political acumen that Roosevelt led the country through
the Great Depression and to its victory in World War II.
American industry, under the able leadership of Jimmy
Byrnes, met the impossibly high production targets Roosevelt set.
The vast numbers of jobs the war created finally managed to end
the Depression, which had endured years of government spending
that many historians in hindsight say was far too little too late.
An Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942 drove the Germans
out and across the Mediterranean, and set the stage for an Allied
invasion of Sicily and Italy in the summer of 1943. In the fall
of 1943, the leaders of the Allies, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin,
met for the first time. Stalin was tired of fighting the war in
Europe, and Roosevelt promised to invade Europe by spring of 1944.
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed on the Normandy coast of
France. In August 1944, they liberated Paris and in a month had
driven Germany almost entirely out of France. In the Pacific, American
forces had newly captured or recaptured all the strategic islands
east of Japan, retaken the Philippines, and gotten close to taking
Japan itself.
By the time Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met again
at Yalta, an Allied victory was almost guaranteed. The results
of this meeting–the creation of the UN, the post-war occupation
of Germany, and the redistribution of conquered lands–can be seen
to have the outlines of the future Cold War, and many blame Roosevelt
for allowing matters to be decided in such a fashion. However, Roosevelt
was aware of the dangers of the Soviet Union and was suitably wary
of Stalin. Nonetheless, he was aware that the peace of the world
rested on the shoulders of its largest powers, and he acted according
to this belief. World War II finally ended with the surrender of
Germany in May 1945 and the surrender of Japan in August 1945.
Roosevelt had died in April, without ever seeing the outcome of
his hard work.
