Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin D.Roosevelt became President of the USA during the Great Depression. Franklin D.Roosevelt was born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York. He attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. Franklin D.Roosevelt entered public service through politics as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

By the time of Franklin D.Roosevelt's election to Presidency in 1932 there were 13,000,000 unemployed in the USA, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days", he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed, and reform.

In 1936 he was reelected by a top-heavy margin. He passed a resolution according to which the Government could legally regulate the economy. Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbour" policy. He sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of war in Europe. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organisation of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the Unites States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.