On 'The Roosevelt Presence' by Patrick Maney

Reading this biography published in 1992 on the charismatic president who brought America out of the depression, allowed it to slip into recession perhaps when capitalists went on an informal strike in protest of Roosevelt’s policies of liberalization, is to revisit one of the most trying and formative times in U.S. history and of the three term leader who guided the nation through it with his irrepressible optimism and innovative adaptability. I recommend this fine book for general reading.

F.D.R. destroyed isolationism as a political force during W.W. II with extraordinary leverage including smears, F.B.I. harassment and putting out the idea that isolationists were Nazi symps-an inherently false idea later balanced by the smears on Roosevelt’s New Deal populist liberalism as commie symps. Maney points out that some of Richard Nixon’s methods of attacking political opponents might have been inspired by the executive privilege methodologies of F.D.R. Today, globalists have run amok with U.S. economic power and isolationism is a dirty word making rational nationalism and ecospheric integrity, full employment and national focus on economic innovation difficult to sell to voters through bought and paid for politicians in the pockets of global corporatists.

President Roosevelt had several insights enabling the U.S.A. to move toward good historical footings to build upon, yet he did not bring all to become reality. Political positioning and uncertainties negated several initiatives. In 1944 Roosevelt perceived that European colonialism was dying and he worked-not hard enough though, to bring France to give up Indochina (Vietnam) and Britain to provide independence to India. Neither initiative worked of course and the tragedy of the Vietnam conflict was not avoided.

President Roosevelt never was awarded a Nobel prize, yet in some respects he earned one no less than President Obama. President Obama has encouraged revolutions and regime changes in North Africa and Syria; President Roosevelt sent Dwight Eisenhower and the Army to evict General Rommel and the Afrika Korps from the same region-people known to oppose upward mobility for the poor using harsh, repressive means. President Obama has allowed extraordinary rendition and kept offshore Interrogation facilities open at Guantanamo Bay and possibly elsewhere while continuing President Bush II’s war effort in Afghanistan and helped the Chinese Communist to extract Afghan copper from a large, new mine. President Roosevelt did not have such close relationships with Chinese Communists yet he did help China to develop peace and prosperity by encouraging the Japanese Imperial Army to exit Manchuria etc.

With America’s present high unemployment rate and borderline recovery from recession and stock market crash Roosevelt’s management of the nation between 1932 and 1945 is page-turning reading. One discovers so many similarities in the ways of thinking-even economically between the players of that day in politic and economics with those of contemporary America.

The unemployed at least may be interested in the phenomena of downward redistribution of wealth-modestly-that occurred during the war. The author points out that war spending was a government stimulus that was paid for with increased taxes on the rich largely.

With 50 million Americans out of work today and only half of working age American employed it is interesting to consider a little some of the effects of a downward redistribution of wealth.

1) When full employment occurs government welfare payments drop
2) With full employment the poor may save capital and have capital to invent in business development
3) With a concentration of wealth innovation and stagnation may set in, while with no class of poor people and all with basic goods for healthy living millions more are freed to be competitive, have good tools for progress, develop intellectual capital and so forth.
President Roosevelt developed only a few of the most significant ideas that became legislation creating the New Deal, and he also invented Lend-Lease to The British and Soviet governments, however Roosevelt as an unspoiled rich kid who grew up with everything including a desire for public service, also had the resolve to veto the military plans of about all his war leaders to open the U.S. entry into the European war with
A beach invasion of France and instead go with Churchill’s desire to capture North African areas held by Nazi Germany and its allies before attacking Europe-and of course the plan worked brilliantly allowing a multi-front invasion of Europe.

Roosevelt was quite liberal in allowing is military leaders to execute the war unlike Hitler and Stalin. He was far from being a perfect politician and made many wrong turns yet fewer than right turns, and the nation moved on to a few great post-war decades of economic and scientific achievement perhaps because of Roosevelt’s opening of doors to millions of Americans to experience a modern, technical, scientific world accessible to all citizens that they could help manufacture.

F.D.R. contracted polio at age 39 and did not let the fact keep him from taking the Presidency and accomplishing a better than average job.

As the day for his first inauguration approached Mr. Roosevelt returned from a cruise and got in a car (a convertible) in Miami. An assassin appeared and took shots from 35 feet away hitting five people, some critically and the secret service drove off. President-elect Roosevelt looked back and saw the Chicago Mayor lying wounded on the ground and ordered his driver to turn back so he could help. Mayor Cermak was loaded into the car and the President elect held Mayor Cermak who was critically injured on the way to hospital.

President Roosevelt also flew to Casablanca to meet with Churchill on something of an adventure. Churchill himself had previously met with French leaders while the Germans were just a hundred or so miles away. Churchill was a hard one to be outdone for calm and casualness in challenging circumstances. In some respects Roosevelt’s presidency was as stressful domestically with class and party economic differences of opinion to deal with as the technical complexities of managing foreign war. When the Japanese de facto declared war attacked Pearl Harbor December 7th 1941 followed by Germany and Italy declaring war on the U.S.A. December 11th 1941 it made for three piece of perturbing news that the President was readily able to overcome. He had faith in the future and reasonable tools to meet it, living in the present sometimes too much to make today’s actions consequential building members of a planned future. Much of today’s popular business philosophy relying upon an unplanned used of natural resource by special interests may generate a predictable non-chaotic filling in of the geography f the world. Even recurrent chaotic systems generate predictable outcome within given, known parameters. We may learn much today from reading of the Roosevelt presence.