On a warm night in August of 1921, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known as FDR, suddenly felt tired and decided to go to bed early. Vacationing on Campobello Island in Canada, the Roosevelt family had enjoyed a day of sailing and swimming, but by the next day, FDR had developed a high fever. Within weeks, FDR discovered he had polio, a highly infectious disease for which there was no vaccine or cure. From that moment, FDR knew that he would never walk, or even stand, without assistance. Fate had dealt a crushing blow to the 39-year-old politician, yet he would go on to inspire millions of people and become the only man to serve four consecutive terms as president of the United States.
In 1882, FDR was born in Hyde Park, New York, into one of the wealthiest families in America. He was an independent boy who loved riding and sailing. Every winter, the Roosevelts would stay in their New York City townhouse, and in summer, they would vacation on Campobello Island. FDR was privately tutored and then attended boarding school at the age of 14. He entered Harvard University four years later and graduated in just three years.
FDR greatly admired his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, who had been the 26th president of the United States. FDR entered state politics in 1910, but within two years, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position Theodore Roosevelt himself had held from 1897 to 1898. FDR proved himself an effective leader, and in 1916, he expanded American naval power by creating the United States Navy Reserves. Bright and talented, FDR was nominated to be the Democratic candidate for vice-president in 1920, and his popularity soared as Americans heard him on the campaign trail. But the Republican Party won the White House, and in 1921, after the grueling campaign across the country, FDR took a long-overdue vacation.
At Campobello, doctors delivered the news that FDR would never again walk unaided. Polio was common around the world and killed or paralyzed thousands of people every year. FDR, determined not to surrender to paralysis, explored every type of therapy. In 1924, a friend told him about a resort in Warm Springs, Georgia, which had naturally heated mineral springs that his friend thought might help ease FDR’s symptoms. FDR visited Warms Springs and was so impressed with the recuperative effects of the water that he turned it into a rehabilitation center for polio victims in 1927. He later founded the March of Dimes, an organization that raised money to eradicate the disease.
In 1928, FDR wanted to run for governor of New York, but he worried about the public’s perception of his physical disability. Fearing voters would consider him too weak to hold public office, FDR decided to conceal the true extent of his condition. He made campaign speeches from the back of a car with a hidden iron bar. When FDR wanted to address a crowd, he would grab the bar and pull himself up to a standing position. Then he would snap his metal leg braces into place to hold himself up. Newspaper photographers, by a gentleman’s agreement, did not photograph FDR in a way that would reveal his disability. Unbelievably, of the tens of thousands of photographs taken of FDR throughout his life, only two exist that show him in his wheelchair.
Soon after being elected governor, FDR faced a crisis when the American stock market crashed in 1929, and the Great Depression began. Bank failures, unemployment, hunger, and homelessness affected millions of Americans. So FDR decided to run for president of the United States; he believed the government should directly help suffering Americans by providing economic relief—something the administration of the current president, Herbert Hoover, refused to do. In 1932, FDR began the first of his four terms as president of the United States. He calmed and gave hope to the nation in his inaugural address when he spoke the memorable words "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
In the first hundred days of his presidency, FDR worked with Congress to bring about an economic recovery, but there was strong resistance from opponents who thought the government should not create jobs for the unemployed. But FDR prevailed. He called his idea the "New Deal," and created programs that provided jobs and a safety net for people in the form of Social Security and a federal minimum wage.
In 1936, FDR was elected to his second term. Americans had grown to trust FDR during the Great Depression, because he spoke often and frankly to them. He took advantage of the latest technology in mass communication, the radio, to broadcast what became known as "fireside chats" into millions of homes. His leadership was especially critical during this time because Nazi Germany was planning to invade its European neighbors, and Japan (an ally of Germany) would soon attack China.
By the time FDR won his third term in 1940, Nazi Germany had invaded France and was intent on crushing Great Britain. FDR sent aid to England in the form of weapons and supplies, but there was political resistance to his efforts. His critics wanted the United States to stay out of the war. But when the Japanese suddenly attacked the American navy fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, war became inevitable. The next day, FDR began one of his most famous speeches to Congress, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy . . . No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people . . . will win through to absolute victory." He rallied the country to war, and the number of American men and women in military service swelled to over 12 million by mid-1943.
In 1942, with Japan an enemy and hysteria from the attack sweeping the country, FDR signed an executive order that required the creation of internment camps for Japanese-American citizens. One hundred and twenty thousand innocent civilians were imprisoned for the duration of the war. Historians see this as an unfortunate stain on FDR’s legacy, but many people were suspicious of other Americans who had ties to countries at war with the US. In 1988, the United States formally apologized to the families who were imprisoned.
A visibly tired FDR was re-elected to his fourth term in 1944. Even as the war raged, FDR looked to the future and worked tirelessly to plan the reconstruction of the world after the war’s end. He worked to establish an organization through which international conflicts could be resolved, which would become the United Nations. This organization called for a world based on Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. But by March of 1945, the 63-year-old FDR was frail and exhausted. Years of fighting the effects of polio, coupled with the complexity of leading a nation in crisis, had taken a brutal toll on him. In need of rest, he traveled to Warm Springs and died there of a stroke on April 12, 1945. A train carried FDR’s casket to Washington DC, past millions of Americans who lined the railroad tracks in respectful silence. It was the end of the longest presidency in US history and the beginning of a new, postwar America, which had become the most powerful country in the world.