FDR (2023) s01e01 Episode Script

1
Franklin Roosevelt
was the president
who had to face the Great
Depression and World War II.
The only thing we have
to fear is fear itself.
He was ambitious and active.
Incredibly privileged,
but he suffered.
You've contracted
infantile paralysis.
And he's had setbacks.
But through pain
can come wisdom.
The country is on
the edge of a cliff,
but we're not going
to let it fall.
What do you plan to
do with this policy?
He has a vision to change
the very soul of America.
I pledge myself to a New
Deal for the American people.
American democracy was literally
resting on his shoulders.
This was zero hour.
[speaking german]
Get everybody in here.
He knew that he needed
to project real strength.
He is the dealer in hope
for the entire free world.
An invasion of France
is courting disaster.
He took risks.
Again and again, you see
these moments of great daring.
Success may not come
with rushing speed,
but we shall return
again and again.
Roosevelt led the grand
alliance to victory
over fascism.
This was a tumultuous,
complicated period of time.
It's a mistake to think that he
somehow got everything right,
but there was something
about that voice,
there was something
about that smile.
That empathy, that
humility, that resilience,
all those qualities that
FDR just had triumphantly
built into his character.
Take a deep breath, Franklin.
It's perfectly natural
to feel anxious.
Oh, I'm not anxious
about getting married.
I'm very lucky.
So what has you so nervous?
[wedding march playing]
He does.
Take care of her.
I will, Mr. President.
Call me Uncle Ted.
It's March 17th, 1905.
The Roosevelts are probably
the most prestigious
of the New York elite families.
Teddy Roosevelt is president
of the United States.
His niece, Eleanor, is
marrying Franklin Roosevelt.
Eleanor and Franklin are
fifth cousins once removed,
and they are so in
love at this point.
She's 20 years old.
He's 23 years old.
And he tells his mother that
he's the happiest man alive.
Eleanor wasn't simply part of
the debutante world that he was
used to.
She was working in a
settlement house in New York,
finding a sense of
great fulfillment
by helping other people.
She had ambitions to do
something with her life,
and he too had them,
but there's no question
that knowing Teddy
Roosevelt was her uncle
was part of his
attraction to Eleanor.
The rock star in the United
States was Theodore Roosevelt.
Every minute of
his adult life, FDR
was always modeling himself
after Theodore Roosevelt.
We see FDR as this
iconic, universally
beloved, majestic
figure, but he was a man
before he was a monument,
and Franklin Roosevelt
did have something to prove.
He wanted to achieve, but
it wasn't foreordained.
Franklin Roosevelt is
born on January 30th, 1882
during the Gilded Age.
It is a time of massive
economic expansion marked
by incredible
technological innovation.
The great expansion
of the railroad,
the telegraph, the
introduction of electricity.
It was an age of progress,
progress, progress.
And Franklin Roosevelt's
family is wealthy, privileged,
and he has two parents,
James and Sara Roosevelt,
who absolutely adore him
and surround him with love
and affection and attention.
To call Sara Delano Roosevelt
a doting mother is an insult
to doting mothers everywhere.
She was an extremely
stubborn and willful mother,
who gave orders all the
time, loved him dearly,
which he knew, but
at the same time,
unless he developed
a will of iron,
he was going to grow
up being her vassal.
He grew up on this magnificent
property in Hyde Park, New York
right on the Hudson
River, where he
could walk through the woods.
He was a naturalist.
He loved birds.
He was very, very
curious as a young boy.
Franklin later said
that, "All that is in me
goes back to the Hudson."
And he meant the
unbounded love that he
got from both of his parents.
It's where his confidence
came from, his trust in people
came from, his
optimism came from.
But when he was eight, his
father had a heart attack.
After the heart attack,
it was very important
that he not trouble his father.
He would put it facade on so
that his father wouldn't know
that anything was wrong, and I
think this is something that he
carried on later into his life.
There's no question that
that projection of confidence
and optimism and things
are going to be all right
later became an enormous part
of his leadership strengths.
But for a man who
became the greatest vote
getter in the history of
the American presidency,
he was not a universal favorite.
Some people thought
he was too fancy.
Some people thought of
him as a lightweight.
When he goes off to
Harvard, he's pretty bright,
but it's not like he's
particularly studious.
He was a flirt.
He was a good golfer.
He was a Harvard pretty boy.
After Harvard, he goes
to Columbia Law School.
He ends up practicing
law for a while,
but he's not all that
interested in it.
He's sort of bored, not
sure what his next step is
going to be, fantasizing about
following in his cousin Teddy's
footsteps.
In 1910, there's a
group of law clerks
that are sitting around his
firm when he's 28 years old
and they're all speculating what
they might want to be in life.
Franklin comes up with,
I'd like to I think become
a member of the
state legislature,
and then maybe I'd like
to be Assistant Secretary
of the Navy, and
then maybe governor,
and then maybe if I'm
lucky, I could be president.
Exactly the path that
Teddy Roosevelt had taken.
Franklin believed he'd
been born to serve.
Someone who believed that
who much is given, much
is expected.
And I think that's a key
part of Roosevelt's ambition.
And for Franklin Roosevelt,
the Roosevelt name was useful,
because at that point in 1910,
it's the most potent name
in American politics.
Because of his name, the
Democratic Party in New York
comes to him and says, we
want you to run for the state
legislature.
It wasn't because the
Democratic bosses saw in him
the makings of a leader.
They saw in him somebody
whose mother was wealthy
and who could
support the campaign
and maybe fund the
Democratic Party.
His mother is
horrified at the idea
that he's going to
become a politician.
Sara thinks that Franklin should
just be a landed gentleman
in Hudson Valley.
In 1910, he runs for
state senate in New York.
And it's at the time
not the sort of thing
where people are, you
know, knocking on doors,
but he gets himself this
big Maxwell touring car
and starts campaigning.
He was the first person to
use this newfangled gadget,
the car, during the campaign.
He loved to break precedent.
Franklin Roosevelt ran on
a campaign of cleaning up
the government, having
an honest government.
But what he's really
out there doing,
he's just convincing people
that he cares about them.
Hello there.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
running for state senate.
Eleanor said when he
first started speaking,
he spoke so slowly
that there were
big pauses between
everything he said,
and she was afraid he would
never go on with the speech.
Hello. How are you?
- This is my niece.
- Your niece?
Hello.
But then after a while,
when he got comfortable
and he kept talking
and talking, she
was afraid he'd
never stop speaking.
Hello, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: He
not only found his voice
in that campaign, but
he found his vocation.
He knew there was something
inside of him that
wanted to make other
people's lives better.
Roosevelt managed
to win as a Democrat
although this was a very
conservative Republican area.
Roosevelt was not expecting
to serve in the New York State
Senate for the next 40 years.
What he was doing was following
in the footsteps of Uncle
Teddy.
Roosevelt realized that to be
successful in American policy,
you have to show that
you can do something
for the national party.
So in 1912, when Woodrow Wilson
has running for president,
in those pre-radio,
pre-television days, when
candidates required
proxies, Franklin Roosevelt
is promoting Woodrow Wilson.
And he's campaigning against
his cousin Teddy, the man
that he idolizes.
He realized this was a great
opportunity for the Democrats
to win the election, but more
importantly, that this would
give him an inside track into
getting it into Washington
and getting out of
the state legislature.
In 1912, there were
three candidates.
William Howard Taft, who
was the incumbent president,
former president Theodore
Roosevelt, and governor
of New Jersey Woodrow Wilson.
The Democrats win the
election, Woodrow Wilson
becomes president, and
now Franklin D. Roosevelt,
having supported Wilson,
gets a slot in the Wilson
administration.
FDR supports Woodrow Wilson
without infuriating Uncle Teddy
and pleases Wilson
to such an extent
that Wilson is willing
to give him his wish
to become Assistant
Secretary of the Navy.
That's political talent
at a very young age.
As the Assistant Secretary of
the Navy, the same position
his cousin Teddy
Roosevelt had, Franklin
is elevated to the national
stage at a crucial point
in history.
In August 1914, World War
I breaks out in Europe.
And it's hard to imagine in
1914 that the US would ever
get involved.
As Assistant
Secretary of the Navy,
Franklin is
perpetually impatient.
He's convinced during the
early years of World War I
that America in general, and the
Navy department in particular,
are just not doing enough
to get ready for war.
Franklin is constantly
pushing to expand the Navy,
sometimes going around his
superiors' instructions
to do so.
In 1915, the Germans
sink the Lusitania,
one of the most famous and
luxurious passenger liners
of the time, and there's
nearly 2,000 people onboard,
and nearly 1,200
of those perish,
including 123 Americans.
This almost causes
war, but there's,
you know, a real pushback
inside the United States
about going to war.
Then in 1917, the Germans send
a telegram to the government
of Mexico, saying, if you
declare war in the United
States, we will give you support
to take back the lands you lost
in the Mexican-American War.
Woodrow Wilson finally was
out of options for neutrality,
and the United States joined
World War I in April of 1917.
But there's a lot of pressure
on FDR to go to war the same
way Teddy Roosevelt had done
during the Spanish-American
War.
Franklin wanted desperately
to be a soldier himself
and went to Wilson and asked
the president, can I go?
And he said, no, you're more
important than staying here.
So even so, he wanted at least
to be able to go over and visit
the troops.
When Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt move to Washington
D.C., Eleanor was a
little overwhelmed.
Eleanor had to take care of
five very dynamic children,
so she decided to hire a social
secretary, a young woman named
Lucy Mercer.
She's very organized, she's very
pretty, the children loved her,
but Eleanor's own
insecurities came out,
and Eleanor eventually
ended up firing Lucy.
And then Lucy went to work
in the Navy department.
Oh, wait, your tie.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN:
Working under Roosevelt.
Let me, Eleanor.
What would Franklin
do without you?
Be wandering the
streets, I think.
So in 1918, FDR
arrives in France
and tours a number
of these battlefields
and was immersed in
the horrors of the war.
NEWSREADER: And saw
with his own eyes
and heard with his own
ears the savage onslaughts
of the Germans
against the allies.
There are a lot of weapons
systems that are introduced
in World War I for
the first time.
Airplanes, tanks, machine guns,
and the other artillery pieces,
which are so powerful
and so destructive
that they can literally
vaporize people.
It's an unprecedented level of
killing and an unprecedentedly
gruesome level of killing.
He describes being
on the battlefield
and hearing the whistle
of German shells
flying overhead and
exploding nearby.
VOICEOVER: We passed on to the
south slopes of Fort Duama.
A quarter of a mile beyond.
And sure enough, the long,
winding whistle of a shell
was followed by the dull
boom of the explosion.
This was a deeply moving
experience for him.
Franklin Roosevelt truly
believed that America
had a moral
responsibility as well
as a political responsibility to
be a player on the world stage.
In 1918, as FDR is returning
to the United States,
he has a slight fever,
he gets on a boat
and comes down with a very,
very serious cases of pneumonia
caused by the Spanish flu.
More American soldiers died of
the Spanish flu than in combat.
It must have been
terrifying for Eleanor
to have this young husband
who was so very sick.
And she took care of him.
She was there day and night.
When Eleanor was
unpacking the suitcase,
she came upon love letters
that Lucy had written to him.
Imagine the sense of
betrayal she must have felt.
It must have been devastating.
Thanks, Babs.
There's something
Is it about Elliott?
I hear he's been a right
devil while I was gone.
Do you love her?
Then we must get a divorce.
I believe I love her.
That's very sweet, but
you sound like an idiot.
I've spent my life doing
everything that was asked me,
but Lucy makes me happy.
It sounds ridiculous, I
know, but I feel free.
Louis Howe is Franklin
Roosevelt's closest
political advisor.
He is in so many ways
Franklin's opposite.
He's small, he's
perpetually dirty,
his hands are blackened from
cigarette ash and newsprint.
And FDR really relied on Louis
Howe as a great confidant,
a great advisor to him.
You want to talk
about being free?
Right now you have the
freedom to do whatever
you want with your career.
Run for office,
build a reputation.
The sky's the limit.
If you do this, if
you leave your wife,
there'll be a scandal.
It'll be all over the papers.
You'll have to resign.
I'll survive all that.
Besides, it's Eleanor
who's asking for a divorce.
What about your mother?
You think she'll accept
a divorced Roosevelt?
She's going to cut
you off, disown you.
You'll be on your own.
Think about that, Frank.
Really think about
what that means.
You may be in love, Frank, but
you've got to make a choice.
Do you want to be happy or do
you want to be the president
of the United States?
FDR makes a practical
decision that he will stay
in the marriage so as to
not lose his social status
and his political career, and
Eleanor goes along with it.
I think for the
sake of the family,
divorce was a huge
scandal at that time,
she agreed to stay
with him in marriage.
Evidently they
would never really
have intimate
relationships again.
Shortly after the
affair was discovered,
the war came to an end.
In 1918, the Allies
win World War I,
and the impact was felt
most severely in Europe,
where you're looking at 40
to 50 million casualties.
About half of those are
deaths and about half
of those are wounded.
The Americans come
back from World War I
and they see Europe
descending into violence.
There's outbreaks of
near revolution in most
of the European countries.
And they say, what did we
intervene in this war for?
But at the same time, a lot
of the unsolved problems
of America remain
below the surface.
Men have to return to jobs.
Some of these jobs
are still available.
Some of them aren't.
And labor wars are erupting
all over manufacturing centers
in the United States.
And for returning
African-Americans, what they
discovered was that
the reign of Jim Crow
was even more entrenched.
In 1919, Woodrow Wilson
suffers a terrible stroke
and he's essentially
incapacitated
for the rest of his term.
Franklin's hero Teddy
Roosevelt has recently died,
and Franklin is looking
at what is his next step.
In 1920, women had
just gotten the vote.
FDR was good looking.
The Democrats wanted
a good-looking guy
to run for vice president,
and so FDR got on the ticket
with Governor Cox in Ohio,
the Democratic candidate, who
probably knew he
was going to lose.
For a young Assistant
Secretary of the Navy to leap
from that job to the national
ticket as candidate for vice
president, this was
the gift of all times,
because Roosevelt knew
that even if Cox lost,
FDR would be a well-known
presidential figure
of the future.
This is also a moment when
Eleanor emerges as something
of a political observer,
because Louis Howe,
FDR's political advisor, has
Eleanor traveling with him
on the train on this
whistle stop tour.
The 1920 campaign is
Franklin Roosevelt traveling
the country, places
he's never been,
giving speech after speech,
thousands of speeches
over the course of three months.
So he can try things.
He can be bold.
He can really test his message
and evolve and improve.
It's all the skills that
he's going to need later
on in his political career.
It's the perfect
testing ground for him.
He's learning what works and
that he genuinely liked people.
I am certain that America will
choose the path of progress
and set aside the
doctrines of despair.
May the guiding
spirit of our land
keep our feet on the broad road
that leads to a better tomorrow
and gives us the
strength to carry on.
[applause]
What do you think?
Me?
Yes, you.
Do you like the speech?
It was good.
You think it could
have been better?
It was a little vague.
Yeah?
Well, I suppose he should
consider his audience.
I imagine that people
from farms and small towns
might feel rather distant from
what happens in Washington
or New York City.
People want to feel special.
They want to know that
they've been understood.
What is it?
Maybe I have the
wrong candidate.
Don't be so ridiculous.
Eleanor Roosevelt had a
comfort with everyday people,
an ability to connect to
people who were really living
at the very margins
of American society,
and so Eleanor Roosevelt is key
in the presidential campaign
of 1920.
Eleanor becomes more involved,
but it's also important
because FDR now starts listening
to Eleanor in a different way.
James Cox loses.
It was a disaster
for the Democrats,
but Roosevelt comes out,
he's now this national figure
and everybody knows
him, and he is
seen as one of the most
appealing Democrats
in the country.
In the summer, after the
Democrats lose the election,
FDR is deeply involved with
the Boy Scouts of America
and he goes to the jamboree that
they're having in upstate New
York.
He then continues on up to
his family's vacation home up
in Campobello.
What's all this yelling about?
Come on.
Dinner is ready.
August of 1921 was going
to be this rare treat
for an extended family
holiday, and in the end
they got one day.
Franklin?
Franklin?
Are you all right?
All right, let's
try the left one.
That's fine.
Mr. Roosevelt, you've
contracted infantile paralysis.
Polio.
I don't believe it.
Polio is contagious, isn't it?
Should we be worried
about the children?
Your husband's been
sick for weeks already.
If they were going
to get it, they
would have gotten it by now.
This can't be right.
FDR got sick in 1921, and
it was a mysterious disease.
They didn't really
know what caused it.
They didn't know how to cure it.
It seemed to affect children,
which, of course, is
terrifying.
When this strange
new disease spread
throughout American cities
in the first decades
of the 20th century, it's
terrifying to people.
There were 6,000 deaths
in the United States,
2,000 in New York City
alone, and tens of thousands
of children who are
infected with it.
It was very much seen
as a children's disease,
not something a
healthy, vigorous adult
would have to worry about.
What can I do?
Nothing.
It's fine, Babs.
Everything will be fine.
When Franklin Roosevelt
is struck down by polio,
he is 39 years old.
He never walks again unaided.
He goes from being totally
in control of everything
to being dependent at all times.
FDR felt physical pain, and
worse than physical pain,
terror, the terror
of never knowing
if you're going to walk again.
Here's a guy with enormous
political ambitions,
he's got a large
family, everybody's
expecting great things
from him, and he's
lying in a darkened
room and he can't move.
He fell into a deep depression
upon discovering that he no
longer had the use of his legs.
In those days, people
weren't used to seeing folks
with disabilities.
They didn't see
people in wheelchairs.
And he feared that his
public life was over.
In the beginning they
weren't even sure
that he could recover
the upper body,
but he did everything he could.
He experimented with every
new gadget that came along
that might help him walk better,
and that's what he would do
when he becomes a leader.
I'm going to experiment
with this one.
If it doesn't work,
I'm going to admit it,
and then I'll try
something else.
FDR's effort in the wake of
polio is to remake himself,
and against the advice of many
of his friends and family,
including his mother, to
not retire to Hyde Park
and live as a country gentleman
but to get back into politics
and back into leadership.
His experience of
being paralyzed
gave him a sense of setting
one's mind to achieve goals,
and understanding how
to overcome adversity
becomes a key part
of his makeup.
In 1924, Al Smith, a
fairly powerful politician
in New York, asked FDR to become
the chairman of his campaign
for president committee,
and then asked
FDR to place his
name in nomination
at the Democratic
National Convention.
FDR was taking a big gamble.
The gamble was that he
could appear in public,
give a stirring speech
nominating Al Smith,
and look like someone who
is in no way being held back
by the fact that
he had had polio.
Giving a speech on
the convention floor
means Franklin needs to somehow
move across a stage apparently
walking.
This was not something
that he could do.
He had these incredibly
heavy braces.
It was excruciating
to just take a step.
And yet he would practice
day after day after day.
He would have his
son hold him and then
he would have his
braces locked in place.
He wasn't sure that
he could do it.
That's 15 feet.
It's the distance to the podium.
It doesn't seem so far.
Can't we just wheel
Pa onto the platform?
I walk or I back out altogether.
All right, now let's
give it a shot.
Pa!
[groans]
I'm all right.
Again.
Want a break?
No, it's just I need to
be able to walk alone.
Elliott, grab me
the other crutch.
That's a good boy.
NEWSREADER: There never
was a political convention
to match the Democratic
National gathering in 1924
in New York with
drama and color.
Imagine the scene.
Thousands of people
packing this auditorium
at Madison Square Garden.
It took extraordinary
courage, and if he fell,
it could really end his hopes
of going into public life.
It would be a huge
humiliation, an embarrassment,
and yet he dared.
And now please welcome
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
of New York.
[applause]
We forgot to check the podium.
What do you mean?
Someone needs to make
sure it's strong enough
to support him.
Joe, do me a favor
and shake the podium.
Give it a shake now, will you?
Good.
[applause]
And when he got to the
podium, he gripped that podium
so hard that his
hand was shaking
and his knuckles were white,
and yet he wore a huge smile.
It gives me great pleasure to
meet again so many friends whom
I have not seen since the last
Democratic National gathering.
[applause]
America needs a pathfinder,
a blazer of the trail
to the high road, to
stand upon the ramparts
and die for our principles.
We offer one who
has the will to win,
who not only deserves
success but commands it.
The happy warrior,
Alfred E. Smith.
[applause]
The whole place erupts.
And when he describes Alfred
Smith as the happy warrior,
it's really he who comes
off as the happy warrior,
and by the end of
the convention,
the press about his
speech is glowing
and he has put himself
back on the map
as a possible future
presidential contender.
There was that great
sense of accomplishment.
I think this was a
huge moment for him.
He comes home that night
and he said, we did it.
I did it.
After the success
of the convention,
FDR absolutely is committed
to recovering from polio,
to being able to walk
again, to continuing
his political career.
His good friend
George Foster Peabody
tells him about this
resort down in Georgia that
has a reputation for miraculous
cures for polio survivors,
and he feels that, OK, now I
finally have a path forward.
1924, Franklin
makes his first trip
to Warm Springs with
his personal valet
and with Missy LeHand.
Missy LeHand was initially hired
to help with the vise
presidential campaign in 1920.
She was also this wise cracking,
extremely confident Irish girl
from Boston, who didn't
take crap from anybody.
She was as close
to a chief of staff
as you can be in those days when
women weren't allowed to hold
those kinds of positions.
In the fall of 1924,
Franklin is swimming around
in the water at Warm Springs,
and it does feel magical.
He feels this power that
he hasn't felt at any point
since his polio infection.
Franklin decides, you know
what, I can use this resort
to benefit all polio
survivors, and he purchases it
with about 50% of
his entire net worth
and transforms it into the
preeminent rehabilitation
center in the world.
He becomes a leader among
the polio patients there.
He was their camp counselor.
He was Doc Roosevelt. He would
exercise with them in the pool,
and he made them feel that they
had a purpose again in life.
He made them feel that
they could have joy in life
once again, and experiencing
that kind of leadership
really made him feel,
I can be a leader.
It doesn't matter if
I can't walk again.
I can do this.
The area around Warm
Springs was poor.
It was poor white people
and poor Black people,
and that was a
good thing for him
to see how the other half lived.
He was sensitive
to their suffering.
And he would drive
all around the area.
When he talked to
the local farmers,
he could see that they
had no running water.
They had no electricity.
They had no food
to eat sometimes.
And he understood what it
would do to your daily lives.
Warm Springs is really the path
that leads to his leadership.
That's the place where he
truly found a deeper sense
of purpose, not just
wanting a series of titles
to become a politician,
but wanting to do something
with that leadership where you
could make people feel that you
would change their lives.
In the '20s, while Franklin
Roosevelt is recovering
and plotting his comeback
into public life,
it just seems America's
soaring into prominence.
America is fast becoming the
world's dominant economy.
And it's a time of tremendous
economic growth and also
profound cultural changes.
Investments are
through the roof,
and it seems like the good
times are here and here to stay
and that everybody's going
to make bank in the 1920s.
It feels at one point like
money is falling from trees.
The roaring '20s is
described as euphoric.
Lip rouge, cigarettes,
and silk stockings
were no longer the
sine of a hussy.
LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR: People are
engaging in decadent behavior.
Social mores are changing.
Hemlines are getting shorter.
People are buying stock.
They're borrowing to
buy stock, but there's
this kind of giddy
euphoria that seizes really
the whole country.
There's a sense in
America in the late 1920s
that the party's
never going to end.
But it all crashes.
1928, Al Smith's going to
run for president again,
but he still has
plans for Franklin.
He's governor of New York, and
if he's going to be president,
he wants Franklin
Roosevelt to take over
as governor of New York.
Al Smith was also sort
of thinking, well,
if I lose the presidency,
then, you know,
FDR would just be a
puppet and I'll still
be power behind the throne as
the ex-governor of New York.
When Roosevelt agreed
to run for governor
of New York in 1928,
it was something
of a testing of the waters.
He wanted to know if he had the
energy to be the kind of leader
he had been before, and it
turned out that the Roosevelt
political skills, the ability
to tell a story, the ability
to convey a vision, that was
still there, and in some ways
it was more persuasive
than before.
He seemed to be a deeper soul.
He had the maturity of having
suffered through hard times.
As it happened, Smith
loses the presidency,
but Roosevelt wins
the governorship.
Al Smith also thought that FDR
was a lightweight whom he could
control.
"New York Times" wants to know,
should they refer to you as
Governor Roosevelt or Governor
Franklin Roosevelt?
Governor Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
Oh, by the way, remember, Al
Smith is still waiting for you.
Al, good to see you.
Thought I'd stop by and
hand over your speech.
I'm sure this is swell, but
I've already written my speech.
You know, Frank, you
should take it easy.
Let me handle things.
I actually think I can
do some good up here.
Well, that's funny.
You didn't even want to run.
Yet here I am.
And that's my chair
you're sitting in.
This isn't about
whose chair it is.
This is about doing my duty
to the people of New York.
Now, I've got a pile
of problems left over
from your administration,
so if you'll excuse me,
I've got a lot of work to do.
Roosevelt was elected
governor in 1928,
and he is following his
plan just like Uncle Teddy.
He's been in the state
legislature, Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, and
now governor of New York.
But suddenly comes the
stock market crash.
NEWSREADER: The tremendous
crowds, which you see gathered
outside the Stock Exchange,
are due to the greatest crash
in the history of the
New York Stock Exchange
in market prices.
The stock market crashed in
1929 because Americans believed
in fairy tales.
People get invested
with unreasonable
hope that they can keep on
making money for nothing.
When it crashed, it
took down millionaires,
but it also took down plumbers,
carpenters, manufacturing
workers, farmers,
and many others.
And there's a lot of fear.
People are worried.
They're worried about
a lot of things.
And what follows is a steadily
worsening economic situation
with high unemployment and
then sky high unemployment.
Business failures,
bank failures.
It's a real crisis.
And the mood of the
country, 1929 on
forward is one of
bleakness and despair.
And at the beginning of
the Great Depression,
we have a president,
Herbert Hoover,
who firmly believes that
it's not the government's job
to take care of the
American people.
He says, this is the
job of aid societies,
the Red Cross and food banks.
But as governor of
New York, FDR says,
this is a unique and
tragic circumstance
and the government
has to do something
to help the people
who are suffering.
FDR believed in bold
experimentation.
He would try anything, and
he would say repeatedly,
try something.
If it doesn't work,
try something else,
but do something.
He understood that the
nation was in crisis.
And so some leaders would
think that that was the moment
to be timid, but he understood
that this was a call
to be bold.
So he brought in academics
to talk to him, to help
him explain what was going on.
This was somewhat of
a radical proposal,
because most politicians, they
brought in political advisors,
not academics, and they were
nicknamed the Brains Trust.
I'm sure you're wondering
why you're here.
I need your help.
I need to know what you know
about the current economic
situation.
Today would be nice.
Some think the decline is a
result of under consumption
and inadequate
demand, and this has
led to a decline in
industrial production
as manufacturers experience
an unintended surplus.
Whoa, whoa, I need you
to speak my language.
Sir?
If I can't understand it,
how are the American people
going to?
The bottom line is, people
are buying less stuff,
so factories are
making less stuff.
And if they're making less,
they don't need as many workers.
And if a man's not
working, he's not buying.
There's your real
problem, unemployment.
Franklin Roosevelt doesn't
read book after book
to learn about a subject.
He listens to people.
He'll ask really
probing questions
and try to get to the heart
of the matter that way.
One thing has never
been clear to me.
If the people are expected to
follow laws and do their duty
to the country, why doesn't the
country have a duty to them?
The country has a
duty to JP Morgan.
[laughter]
That's the problem.
Think about your forgotten man.
Been working his whole life.
Now just when he needs some
help, he's out of luck.
Yeah, but people
don't want handouts.
Well, that's right Frances.
They want jobs.
They want to earn their money.
But there are no jobs.
So we'll create jobs.
FDR is challenging the core
assumption that government has
no role in helping
the common man,
that the government's role is
to help banks and big business,
and he is saying that
the forgotten man is
who the government
should be helping.
This is his motivation for what
he's trying to do in New York
State to provide relief.
More importantly, it forms
the foundation of everything
he does after.
How do you think you're going
to convince Albany to put up
that kind of money?
They can say no to me, but they
can't say no to the people.
FDR is a great political
leader in a sense
that he understands how to
read the public mood, how
to motivate people.
And FDR realizes
that if he wants
to reach the great masses,
that the radio provides
an incredible
opportunity to do that.
I don't have to tell you
how important the speech is.
Just relax.
Talk just like you're in their
living rooms, because you are.
It's time.
In my judgment, my
friends, my calm judgment,
the nation faces today a more
grave emergency than in 1917.
It has been said that Napoleon
lost the Battle of Waterloo
because he forgot his infantry.
Roosevelt had the perfect
conversational voice, a voice
that seemed intimate, could
make people feel he was talking
directly to them.
The present administration in
Washington provides, I think,
a close parallel.
It has forgotten the infantry
of our economic army,
but I say we must put our faith
once more in the forgotten man
at the bottom of the
economic pyramid.
It is high time to admit,
with courage, that we
are in the midst of an emergency
at least equal to that of war.
Let us mobilize to meet it.
You can't overemphasize how
important this speech is
to his entire career.
When you talk like that, you
sound like a president, Frank.
I don't think you
can escape being
the next Democratic nominee.
If I'm throwing my hat
in, I intend to win.
First we take care
of the opposition.
You know what to do.
Let them have it.
As the New York
governor, Roosevelt
had an opportunity to test
drive ideas at the state level
to see if they work, to
see if they're popular.
Franklin Roosevelt launched
a number of programs.
One of the most famous was
called TERA, the Temporary
Emergency Relief Act, which
put money into the hands
of the unemployed.
And so when he announces that
he's running for president
of United States in
1932, he can point
to a record of accomplishment.
Roosevelt could not have
been better positioned
to get the Democratic
nomination for president.
And he ran against a
president, Herbert Hoover,
very conservative Republican.
We have a perfect
day for this trip,
and I'm very happy to
be going out to Chicago,
and everybody knows the
reason why I'm so happy.
When Roosevelt goes
to the convention
and shows up where no
other nominee had shown up
in the past to accept
the nomination,
this is something
that is unprecedented.
It's because he wants to
make a statement to say,
I've been hobbled by my
physical constraints,
but I'm going to
be your president.
I pledge myself to a New
Deal for the American people.
Give me your help not
to win votes alone
but to win in this
crusade to restore America
to its own people!
[applause]
In that nominating speech,
he says, I pledge a New Deal
for the American people.
He means he's going to
change the relationship
between the federal
government and the common man,
the common woman.
Policy needs to be dominated
by the realities that we
discover and by the national
services that we seek.
Roosevelt was campaigning
on this New Deal.
It was saying that, I as
governor was able to deliver
for the people of my state.
What if we did that
across the country?
It was a campaign of optimism,
of hope about what can be done,
rather than Hoover
saying, I feel your pain,
but we're going to let someone
else manage how we come out
of this.
Herbert Hoover was
completely at a loss
as how to deal with
the Depression.
He believed in laissez-faire,
just let the government step
back.
He was negative,
he was pessimistic.
He refused to acknowledge
that there were things
that the government
should be doing.
He was unlike FDR, who
was confident and vibrant.
Every photograph you
see him in campaigning,
he's standing tall.
He projects absolute optimism
that the American public just
flocked to him.
And he wins the
election in a landslide.
Franklin Roosevelt, he was
elected in an hour of crisis.
Our fundamental economic
infrastructure had fallen apart
and we were only, what, 150
years old at that point.
And then, on January 30th, 1933,
FDR celebrates his birthday,
and Adolf Hitler comes
to power in Germany.
So in that season you have
Hitler and the Depression.
In the 1930s, people are looking
for solutions to the
problem, not only here,
but also in Europe.
It's a global depression.
In Germany and Italy,
Hitler and Mussolini said,
there's a Great Depression,
people are suffering.
It shows that democracy
is not a great idea.
You need a strong leader
managing the economy
and telling people what to do.
There were many in the United
States who thought, well, maybe
Hitler and Mussolini
have something.
FDR knew enough
about world history
to know that if he as president
did not pretty quickly solve
the Great Depression or at
least give people the idea
that help was on the way, that
they might turn to fascism.
He knew that American
democracy was literally
resting on his shoulders.
Those weeks before he
takes the inauguration are
extraordinarily
filled with panic.
Somebody said to FDR, if you
make this work, if you get
through the Depression, you'll
be one of the great presidents.
If you don't, you'll
be one of the worst.
He said, no, if it doesn't
work, I will be the last.
After Franklin Roosevelt's
landslide victory in November
of 1932, there's this long
period before he's actually
inaugurated in March of
1933, and during this period,
the country is suffering
catastrophic losses.
By 1933, thousands
of banks have failed,
thousands of businesses have
failed, thousands of farms
have been foreclosed upon,
prices have collapsed,
incomes have collapsed.
It is an absolute
economic catastrophe,
and people are experiencing
real suffering.
You seen vast encampments
of homeless people.
They call these Hoovervilles.
It hit old people,
it hit young people,
it hit rural people,
it hit urban people,
and the people were afraid.
They had no idea that
it would ever end.
They couldn't see where
it was going to change.
There was a feeling
of hopelessness,
that people who lost jobs
would never work again,
that their children
would always go hungry.
There was no reason
to believe that it
was going to get better.
The charities in the United
States were bankrupt.
There is no functioning
relief system.
People don't have
money to buy food.
You'd see thousands of people
in breadlines every day
in cities waiting for
handouts for food.
There were many Americans
living like scavengers
in the cities, who would follow
vegetable trucks as they made
their rounds in the hope that
a cabbage or a head of lettuce
would fall off the truck.
Children were malnourished.
They sat glassy-eyed in
classrooms in the schools that
were open.
Immigrants were returning
to their home countries.
100,000 Americans applied
for work in the Soviet Union.
This is how dire the
circumstances were.
And Americans also were dealing
with a lot of
terrible confusion,
because most Americans are
able to say, but I was honest,
I was hardworking, I was
sober, I pinched my pennies,
I worked really hard
I overcame adversity,
and here I am without
a job, without income,
hungry children, losing
my home, losing my car.
What?
What has happened?
Something has gone
terribly wrong.
Roosevelt realized that
the American people needed
to see that there were people
in Washington who were paying
attention to them, who
were trying to fix things.
I think he recognized
in some sense
that results were important,
but they were less important,
at least in the short
term, than the impression
that he could give that
the government cared,
that Washington cared
about people who lived
in the parts of the
country that were hardest
hit by the Depression.
March 4th, 1933.
FDR is finally going to be
inaugurated as president
of the United States.
400,000 people come out
for this transition.
It was an existential
hour, as important as 1861,
and what FDR brought is what
Lincoln brought to some extent,
which was a conviction that
democracy and capitalism must
survive, but a profound
flexibility on the means
to achieve those ends.
He was not ideologically rigid.
He was a juggler, he
was an improviser,
and it's what we needed.
But there's no escaping
the reality of disability
for Franklin.
From the moment he
wakes up, someone
has to pull him out of bed.
He needs help getting dressed.
He needs help getting
his braces on.
Big day.
That's for sure.
And his son Jimmy is
his constant source
of literal physical support, the
person whose arm he leans on.
I do sometimes wonder if
I'll have the strength
to do the job.
You'll do great.
I know everything will be fine.
Don't worry.
In the 1930s, in the
Great Depression,
there's a lot of
fear in the air,
but there's a lot of questions
in the air too about,
is he up to the task?
Come here.
I'll pray for strength.
I'll pray for guidance to
do the job and do it right.
I know you will.
NEWSREADER: The cars proceeded
down toward the Capitol,
bearing with them the hopes
of the country for a New Deal.
The Depression was a
tumultuous, complicated period
of time, but
Franklin Roosevelt's
fundamental conviction
was that you
had to show that the
system could respond
and that therefore the
system was worth defending.
The fate of democracy
hangs in the balance.
This is not an understatement.
This is a moment in which
leadership is vitally
important.
This is a day of
national consecration.
First of all, let me assert my
firm belief that the only thing
we have to fear is fear itself.
This nation asks for
action, and action now.
The people of the United
States have not failed.
In their need they want
direct, vigorous action.
[applause]
His first inaugural, he
talks about how we cannot let
the Depression paralyze our
efforts or convert advance
into retreat.
I've always thought it was
fascinating that he used
the word paralyze, and I don't
know how conscious it was,
but it was a sign that he
saw the world as motion,
and he no longer
could move literally,
so he would use all of his
energies to help the country
move figuratively.
He sets up a expectation
for the American public
that you have to help me.
If you want to get through this
problem, I can do some things,
but you have to do other things.
And the most important
thing he did was to say,
the people are not responsible
for this depression.
The failure of leadership
is responsible,
and I am here to
give that leadership.
And with that leadership,
there would be hope.
There would be jobs.
Here is this paralyzed man who
was making the people who feel
paralyzed feel hope once again.
And he said, we need action
and we need action right now.
And if the Congress will
not give me what I need,
I will use the broad
powers of the executive
as if we were at a war.
It wasn't quite clear
what he was going to do,
but in that period he
and his brain trust,
the experts that he was
assembling around himself,
worked out a plan of bold,
unprecedented action.
His cabinet includes Louis Howe
as chief of staff,
Democratic Party leader Steve
Early as press secretary.
For secretary of labor, Franklin
brings in Frances Perkins,
the first ever female
cabinet member.
He also brings in a progressive
Republican named Harold Ickes
to be secretary of the
interior, and Jim Farley
is postmaster general.
You all look great
from where I'm sitting.
Then you need glasses.
[laughter]
We all know what
we're up against,
but now it's our turn to fix it.
The economy has been
plunging for three years,
and it still hadn't
found bottom.
And the critical thing
at that particular moment
was that the banking
system had seized up.
One of the reasons
the banks failed
is the banks had
taken that money
and invested it in
the stock market.
And so when the stock
market went down,
they didn't have enough money
to pay their depositors,
so banks were simply closing.
They had already closed
by the thousands,
and it looked as
though America's
national financial system was
on the verge of utter collapse.
It's important to realize
there was no safety
net in those days.
If a bank collapsed,
the federal government
wasn't going to help you.
It is a real crisis, a
crisis that no one could ever
have imagined hitting
one of the wealthiest
countries in the world.
Was capitalism failing?
Had capitalism actually failed?
Many people thought the
United States of America
as a political entity was over,
that our capitalist system was
over.
The country's on
the edge of a cliff,
but we're not going
to let it fall.
The first thing
we're going to do
is to declare a banking holiday.
It'll prevent further runs and
buy time for Secretary Woodin
to draft some legislation.
You're going to have to expand
presidential authority if you
want to get anything done.
Precisely.
But first we have to figure
out which banks can be saved
and which have to close.
My team put this together.
Arrows are the banks.
Color denotes its status.
But where do we start?
Let's start in New York.
March 5th, essentially
his first act
as president of
the United States
is to close every
bank in America.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: The banks
were going to close for a week.
They're going to
open Monday morning.
And he uses a wonderful phrase.
He calls it a bank holiday.
And that gave Franklin a
chance to call Congress
into an emergency session.
And incredibly, in the
space of several hours,
they passed this huge
emergency banking bill.
Divide up the banks
into three categories.
Those banks that are
healthy enough to reopen,
those banks that can reopen
but are going to need help
from the federal government,
and those banks that
are so bad that there's not
much we can do about them.
NEWSREADER: New money
back buy real assets
from Uncle Sam's Treasury
to revitalize the country's
commerce.
This emergency banking bill will
allow them to have currency
shipped to the banks that
are stable enough to handle it.
Planes are on the tarmac
ready to fly the currency
to each one of the banks.
Before Roosevelt, before this
moment in American history,
the federal government had never
taken it upon itself to bolster
an industry the way
the federal government
was bolstering the
banking industry.
It was quite a striking,
even a revolutionary thing
for the government to undertake.
Franklin is afraid that once
they've opened the banks again,
that people will then rush
to take their money out
because they haven't
had it for a whole week,
and then the whole
system would collapse.
This was zero hour.
So FDR has got the biggest
challenge for a leader, which
is make people feel a
little bit reassured,
and at the same time,
get them to do something
that their instincts tell
them not to, which is keep
your money in the banks.
Franklin decides
on a Sunday night
before the Monday opening, he's
going to give a fireside chat
to the people.
This is really the first
presidential fireside chat.
Nervous?
What's there to
be nervous about?
I just have to convince the
entire American public to trust
me with their life savings.
In 13 minutes.
[phone rings]
Got it.
NBC says ready to go.
CBS is live.
10 seconds, Mr. President.
In 5, 4.
Ladies and gentlemen, the
president of the United States.
My friends, I want to talk for
a few minutes with the people
of the United States
about banking.
I want to tell you what has
been done in the last few days
and why it has been done, and
what the next steps are going
to be.
This bank holiday,
while resulting
in great inconvenience, is
affording us the opportunity
to supply the currency
necessary to meet the situation.
It is possible that
when the banks resume,
people who have not
recovered from their fear
may again begin withdrawals.
Let me make it clear
that the banks will
take care of all needs.
I can assure you
that it is safer
to keep your money in a reopened
bank than under the mattress.
80% of the adult radio
audiences are listening,
and it was said that streets
were empty at the time
because everybody is sitting
staring at their radio.
We have provided the
machinery to restore
our financial situation.
It is up to you to
support and make it work.
It is your problem no
less than it is mine.
Together we cannot fail.
Remarkable piece
of work in a space
of just less than 15 minutes.
He calls on the American
people and he says,
basically, we have done what
we can do here in Washington.
Now we look to you,
and with your support,
our work will succeed.
And so he puts the
American people
essentially into
potential cooperation
with the administration.
Franklin gives his
address on Sunday night,
and the big question is,
what's going to happen tomorrow
morning when we
reopen the banks?
The next day would
be the true test.
Did this work?
If it fails, then it will mean,
the whole financial system
will fail in the very first
week of his presidency.
It is not an exaggeration
to say that the country is
on the verge of collapse.
Miss LeHand, today's lunch menu.
Jellied bouillon.
Mrs. Nesbitt says
it's nutritious.
Don't like it.
Have you heard anything?
Not yet.
Maybe we should cancel
the president's lunch.
Because of the bouillon?
Well, now there's two reasons.
No, I'm concerned if things
don't go our way with banks.
They will.
They have to.
It's Monday morning and
there's long lines at the bank
again, and they panic.
Maybe they've come to
take their money out.
Did this work?
We should have heard
something by now.
Do you think it's a bad sign?
No news is no news.
[phone rings]
Yes?
I see.
Thank you.
They're standing in line.
They're bringing
their money back.
We're going to be OK.
They're actually carrying
satchels of money
to bring their money
back to the banks.
So that night, headlines,
confidence in banking system
resume.
Banking crisis over.
And the only thing
that has changed
is FDR's leadership
and his ability
to convince the American
public that he has solutions
that things will get better, and
it is an extraordinary moment
in American history.
FDR essentially ends
the banking crisis
in one simple radio broadcast.
The immediate resolution
of the banking crisis
instantly lifted
spirits, and that
began to suggest that Franklin
knew what he was doing
and that, in fact, the
system would endure.
And then he decides, hey,
this momentum is pretty good.
Maybe I'll keep
Congress in session.
They stay for 100 days, and
that's where the famous 100 day
marker comes, and every
president has said, why do we
have to be compared to this?
It's not fair.
No president and no Congress
had ever passed so much
legislation so quickly.
In those 100 days, FDR will
sign into law 15 massive pieces
of legislation.
If you were somebody who
paid attention to politics,
this was indeed the most
exciting time in history,
because nothing had
ever happened this fast.
Big programs were being
passed, boom, boom, boom, boom.
FDR rolled out the New Deal
really in three phases.
The first part was relief
just to get people to survive,
and that meant unemployment
insurance, immediate short term
jobs.
What the country was facing
was a lost generation
of young people, so FDR came
up with the CCC, the Civilian
Conservation Corps.
PAUL SPARROW: They would
build roads and farms
and they would work
on national parks.
I now take great pleasure in
dedicating Shenandoah National
Park.
The idea was $1 a day.
So this immediately pushes
money into the community,
and FDR loved the CCC.
He would go to their camps
and he would visit with them.
The next thing was recovery
which meant priming the pump
to get the economy
going again, and those
were the big
infrastructure projects.
But then the third
part was reform,
and that meant that you had to
change what it was that caused
the problems of the
Depression in the first place.
So he regulated the stock
market, he regulated the banks.
All of this was reforming
the system itself.
The New Deal has given
us a square deal,
and we're all back
to work and we
hope we may be able
to continue to do so
without any outside
interference.
The first 100 days also saw
HLC, the Homeowners Loan
Corporation.
This is an emergency
program set up
to give people loans to help
them stay in their homes.
FDR provides immediate
satisfaction and relief
to the American people, and that
is a defining moment and that
completely changes the role
of the American federal
government.
The mood of the country
changed overnight.
NEWSREADER: To this
address every week
are delivered
thousands of letters.
My favorite letter
came from a guy
who said, "I've lost my dog.
I've lost my job.
My wife is mad at me.
But it's OK because
now, Franklin Roosevelt,
you are there."
Franklin Roosevelt
made government
an ambient force in the lives of
people who might otherwise have
only encountered the
government at the post office
or perhaps the subsidized
railroad or something.
People felt that FDR had
saved their lives, saved
their children's life, given
them a chance, a chance
to go forward.
But in the early
days of the New Deal,
when Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt moved to Washington
D.C., it was a difficult
experience for Eleanor.
She was so worried that
the ceremonial functions
of the first lady would overtake
all the real work that she'd
been doing out in the field.
And she dreads being
confined to a life of tea
and white glove tests.
But then she meets
the great journalist
Lorena Hickok, who was the most
significant woman journalist
of her era.
I think Lorena
Hickok, her friend,
helped to make her know
that she could change
the role of the first
lady and it would be OK.
It was more than OK.
Lorena Hickok said to Eleanor,
if you do press conferences,
you can get more jobs for women.
So Eleanor makes it very
clear to every outlet that
wants to cover her that they
must send a woman reporter.
Thank you all for coming.
Let me start by saying that
the subjects I plan to cover
will not encroach on
politics, or as I call it,
my husband's side of the news.
I plan to discuss
my daily schedule,
prints on the White House
walls, low cost recipes
for housewives, and
other household matters.
What's your view on the
subsistence homestead program?
Oh, I'm sorry, I said
no political questions.
What about old age pensions?
And what do you think of
women in the workforce?
I'm sure these questions
would all be better suited
to the president.
We want to hear what you think.
Right now, legislation is
being drafted to set fair labor
practices, but the wages
being set for women
are far lower than
those for men.
If you ask, me our jobs as
teachers, nurses, homemakers,
and seamstresses have never
been more important or more
in demand, yet we're not
being fairly compensated.
This is especially
true for colored women.
So what do you plan
to do about it?
Well, that's the first really
good question of the day.
Through the press conferences,
Eleanor was really
finding her voice, and
an entire generation
of female journalists
got their start.
In the meantime, she was
traveling around the country
inspecting the New Deal
programs for her husband,
and she was able to find
out which ones were working
and which ones weren't.
And the New Deal programs
became better as a result.
That does not mean, my
friends, that I am satisfied
or that you are satisfied
that our work is ended.
We have a long way to go,
but we are on the way.
FDR had tremendous success in
restoring people's confidence.
But at the same time, both
Hitler and Mussolini are also
responding to the
Depression, to want and need,
but they're doing it through
the mechanism of exciting fear
and division and hatred.
In Hitler's case, hatred
of the Jews, and those
are powerful hatreds,
and they work.
But Hitler and Mussolini also
stimulate their economies
by building these
magnificent war machines.
It means jobs, factory jobs
building tanks and planes.
Roosevelt sees all this
and he's deeply concerned.
He says, the state has to have
a big role to impress voters
with what we're trying to do
so that we can say, hey, look,
we're working just as hard as
Nazi Germany or fascist Italy,
just in a more democratic way.
FDR sees this looming
threat from totalitarianism,
from fascism, from Hitler,
that the very end of democracy
is on the table, that if
he can't put America back
on the global stage, that the
fascists are going to take
control, and he
dedicates himself
to not allowing that to happen.
[speaking german]
[speaking german]
Franklin hated what Hitler
and Nazism was threatening
to produce, a world of tyranny,
a world where democracy would
come to an end.
This is Western
civilization at risk
right now from the greatest
challenge that it's ever faced.
Going to be a tough campaign.
The Supreme Court wants
to throw out the New Deal.
[people shouting questions]
Now, hold on, boys.
What are you planning
to do with this power?
Roosevelt is deeply concerned
about the rising tension
in Europe and the
inevitability of a big war.
The situation in France
changes everything.
I'd rather have a declaration
of war from America
and no supplies for six
months than double the supply
and no declaration.
He is the dealer in hope for
the entire free world, not
an inconsequential
responsibility.
Mr. President, we
have intelligence
which suggests the Japanese
fleet is on the move.
Yesterday, December
7th, 1941, a date
which will live in infamy.