Franklin Delano Roosevelt
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT -- (Senate - January 30, 2007)
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it is with great honor that I rise to recognize our 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. One hundred and twenty-five years ago today, FDR was born at Hyde Park, NY. During his childhood, Franklin developed a lifelong love for the natural beauty and history of the Hudson River Valley.
Like his famous cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, FDR enjoyed a rapid rise in politics. A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School, FDR was first elected to the New York State Senate in 1910. Following service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Woodrow Wilson administration, he was the Democratic Party's unsuccessful nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1920.
Just months later, his personal and political world was upended when polio left him paralyzed below the waist. Most assumed his public life was over. Yet Roosevelt turned aside all thought of retreat. With the help of his wife Eleanor, he maintained his political contacts and was determined to continue serving his State and country.
Roosevelt's resolve was rewarded in 1928 when he triumphantly reentered political office, winning election as Governor of New York. Two years later, with America now in the grip of the Great Depression, he was reelected in a landslide. He set out to make New York a laboratory for aggressive efforts to use government to provide economic relief and put people back to work.
In 1932, the darkest year of the Depression, the Democratic Party turned to FDR as its nominee for President. His resounding victory gave him a mandate for fundamental change. When he took the oath of office on March 4, 1933, our Nation was on the brink of economic collapse, with 13 million Americans unemployed. FDR quickly sprang into action to meet this challenge. Declaring that the only thing the Nation had to fear was ``fear itself,' he created Federal programs that put millions of people back to work and provided aid for others so that they could feed their families. He reformed banking, aided organized labor, invested in the Nation's infrastructure, and established social programs, including Social Security, that changed the way in which Americans and their government interact. Most important, he restored people's hope and self-respect.
On December 7, 1941--a date that Roosevelt said would live ``in infamy'--America entered the war. During the daunting years that followed, FDR led the Nation as Commander in Chief. He directed a massive effort to convert America's economy to wartime production, encouraged his fellow citizens to sacrifice for the common good, and helped lead an international coalition in a global war to defeat the Axis Powers. Roosevelt envisioned a postwar world shaped by four fundamental human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. To help achieve this vision, he was a forceful advocate for a postwar United Nations Organization.
In 1944, with the war still underway, FDR faced a decision on whether to run for an unprecedented fourth term as President. ``All that is within me,' he declared, ``cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River, to avoid public responsibilities, and to avoid also the publicity which in our democracy follows every step of the Nation's Chief Executive.' Yet despite his yearning to retire to the quiet of Hyde Park, FDR answered the call of duty to finish the job of winning the war. In November 1944 he was elected President once again.
In March 1945, with the war nearly won, an exhausted Roosevelt made what would be his final visit to Hyde Park. Worn down by heart disease and the stresses of wartime leadership, he then departed for a brief stay in Washington, DC, before heading to his retreat at Warm Springs, GA for a short vacation. Two weeks later, on April 12, 1945, he died there of a cerebral hemorrhage. On April 15, 1945, he came home to his beloved Hyde Park for the last time and was buried in a large rose garden just steps from his home and library.
Today, as we mark the 125th birthday of a great 20th century President, we also remember his special connection to New York State. In the Roosevelt Library, among millions of documents preserved for historians, is the draft of a speech FDR was working on the day before his death. The speech outlined his hopes for the postwar world. The final lines of that speech, handwritten in pencil by the President, speak eloquently of Franklin Roosevelt's unconquerable optimism and idealism: ``The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.'
So today let us remember our 32nd President, and let us also honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to overcome our own doubts of today in order to realize our visions of tomorrow.
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