FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Abstract

In this study we try to explore the concept of “leadership in Franklin D. Roosevelt” in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on “Franklin D. Roosevelt” and its relation with “the roles played by Franklin D. Roosevelt”. The research also analyzes many aspects of “his attributes” and tries to gauge its effect on “America”. Finally the research describes various factors which are responsible for “economic change” and tries to describe the overall effect of “leadership role” played by “Franklin D. Roosevelt”.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Introduction

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in 1882 and served as the thirty-second President of the USA from 1933-1945. He belonged to an old, wealthy New York family and was a distant cousin of Theodore Roosevelt. Possessing a dynamic personality, he became a State Senator in 1910 and within three years became the Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Wilson. When he assumed the presidency, the United States suffered a major crisis. The foundations of capitalism were at their worst because of liberal economic policies. 25% of the labor force was unemployed and the gross national product had fallen by half. In 1933 he led his voice to the American people, was the man who had been waiting for years, had the security of a fighter. He began his tenure with the New Deal.

In just three years the Americans regained their faith in democratic institutions. During his tenure World War II broke out and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to pursue joint strategies. He claimed that the victory created the context for a lasting peace. In 1936 he returned to get elected (Burns, 1956). He lost the battle with the Supreme Court but started a series of constitutional changes through which the Government could legally control of the economy. He spent much time in the conception of the UN, so that this area could resolve international conflicts. After the war, his health went into decline and died of a stroke on April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, Georgia.

As a Leader

With the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, who led the Country through the difficult years of the Civil War, no American president has been faced with the challenges of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From a personal standpoint, there was the polio he contracted at age thirty-nine—a disease that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Despite years of effort, Roosevelt spent the latter part of his life largely confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk without the assistance of crutches and heavy, metal braces. Even so, Roosevelt remained active in politics; ultimately leading the country through two of the most severe crises in is history: the Great Depression of the l930s and World War II. In the process he became one of the most popular and hated men of his day (Friedel, 1991).

After the horrors of World War 1(1917—1918), most Americans had no desire to fight another European war. But by the mid-1930s, Roosevelt realized that Germany, Italy, and Japan posed threats that had to be taken ...