A good friend recommended that I watch the docudrama on FDR on the History Channel. I’d seen the one they’d done a while back on Grant, which was good. The one on FDR, however, left me feeling that while it likely illuminated FDR’s amazing career for many who had not really known much about him, it added little new to what we generally are aware about his life.
That he was one of the very best presidents—I’d rank him with Lincoln and Washington—is clear. Those who didn’t like him were political and economic opponents he rightly labeled “economic royalists” (in a marvelous speech where he “welcomed their hate.” He saved the nation economically and probably politically as well. He also did more than anyone for the now truly benighted middle class.
And he was aware of what was happening worldwide during the 1930’s and also that eventually the isolationist-focused USA would have to take the lead in demolishing the Axis powers. He knew, too, that the US was not yet ready to follow him in supporting the last holdout in Europe—Britain. During World War II, he also knew that he didn’t have the political backing to open the immigration gates to refugees who met their deaths when they were unable to get to the US.
The History Channel program suffered from mixing historic photos with acting by performers who did not at all resemble, for example, either Franklin or Eleanor Roosevelt. It lent an air of strangeness to the docudrama because one of FDR’s strongest attributes was his distinctive voice and how he used it. This was also true of Eleanor: often today, her voice sounds wildly high-pitched and more aristocratic than even FDR’s, but that added to her amazing ability to win over audiences and represent the often-unrepresented.
The program, however, did discuss FDR’s ability to work around obstacles even by subterfuge. I’ve just spent a few days in Detroit and happened to find a reference in the list of tourist sites to the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica in Royal Oak, Michigan. Some may recall that this was the pulpit of the more than notorious priest, Charles Coughlin, who is remembered today as one of the major demagogues of the 1930’s.
Coughlin changed his political views a number of times, moving from being pro-FDR to being an America Firster. He was opposed to communism, socialism, and, yes, capitalism, because he claimed to speak to and for the working class. He never changed his rampantly antisemitic views and acquired a radio audience that amounted to many millions.
When his demagoguery became both more extreme and seemingly popular, FDR took steps against him. He sent Joseph P. Kennedy to see what could be done to get the Catholic Church hierarchy to deal with Coughlin. The Bishop of Detroit had been a Coughlin supporter but when a new bishop (later Cardinal) Mooney was installed, he was inclined to limit Coughlin’s activities other than his serving as a parish priest.
But FDR didn’t rely solely on Kennedy. He also drew in Bishop (later Cardinal) Spellman of New York and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, soon to be Pope Pius XII. These were all, including Kennedy, extremely conservative men, but they responded to FDR’s efforts, and Coughlin was off the air by the late 30’s. All of this was done quietly but apparently most effectively.
Many of his maneuvers were mentioned on the program—such as FDR’s inviting King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to an American-style picnic at Hyde Park when they visited in 1939. It noted that the King was not a fan of hot dogs but went along with saying how much he liked them. And most significantly, it propounded FDR’s genius for using language and images that the public could grasp and accept. A great example was his likening Lend-Lease supplying Britain with desperately needed planes and tanks to one’s coming a neighbor’s aid when his house was on fire by providing a garden hose.
We will never have a president like FDR again, because today, the media would depict him as too physically-challenged for the job. He was the man who rose to the occasions—both the Depression and World War ii. It is tragic that we have not seen his like since his passing in 1945.
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