A review of Conrad Black’s Franklin D.
Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (2001)
(Rating 5 of 5)
Lord Conrad Black’s plus one thousand-page biography of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt is one heck of a read. It is not only long but you are going to want
to find a thesaurus while going through it.
Your knowledge of vocabulary will rise a few points once you are done
with this book. This book is both my
second biography I have read about FDR and the second book that I have read by
Lord Black. What I appreciated about
Black is his ability to examine issues from multiple angles before coming to an
opinion of them. Lord Black is a
conservative politically, which makes his take on Roosevelt as a historical figure
mostly championed by the left very intriguing.
The recent right wing has taken to a renewed attack on the welfare
state. Black not only defends it—for
conservative reasons—he goes on to declare the Roosevelt was the most important
person of the twentieth century.
Lord Black
begins with the standard look at Roosevelt’s ancestry and the world that grew
up in.
The same thing was covered in
Smith’s biography and I will not go into any detail here only to say that
Roosevelt was a child of extreme economic privilege.
Black goes on to discuss his marriage to his
distant cousin
, who so
happened to be the niece of the great President Theodore Roosevelt, and FDR’s
early entry into politics.
FDR rises
fast and ends of becoming the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for President
Wilson—the same job TR had when joining the McKinley Administration. Roosevelt
was successful at his job with the Navy Department—so much that Wilson did not
let him leave to put on a uniform and fight in the field. When the war was over he was the Democratic
Party’s nominee for Vice President. Roosevelt
showed the party that he was a natural campaigner.
“Roosevelt was a popular performer
on the campaign trail and fulfilled the expectations Cox had when he chose him
as his running mate. He was remarkably
impressive in appearance, a confident and eloquent speaker already endowed with
the melodious voice, rich inflection and animated gestures that would
eventually become world famous. And he
was a tireless campaigner, prepared to go anywhere, no matter how remote or
politically hostile. He had not,
however, completely cured himself of the habit of talking liberties with the
truth that the press could expose.” (p.128)
Franklin
Roosevelt was distantly related to Theodore Roosevelt. They were from separate branches of the
family whose most common ancestor was a man named Nicholas Roosevelt who lived
in New Amsterdam (New York) when it was a Dutch colony. His son Johannes would father the branch that
became the Oyster Bay Roosevelts (TR and Eleanor) and the son Jacobus would
father the branch that would become the Hudson Valley Roosevelts
(Franklin). Oyster Bay was a Republican
branch, and Hudson Valley Roosevelts were Democrats. Yet Franklin would assume the mantle and
legacy of the whole Roosevelt family, so much that it would bother Theodore Roosevelt’s children, especially
the one named Theodore Roosevelt.
“Another family matter that became
a considerable vexation was the elevation of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. to the
family seat of assistant secretary of the navy in the Harding
administration. Franklin Roosevelt’s
exchanges with his cousin had been fairly acerbic during the campaign as young
TR was deployed by the Republican strategists to deny FDR the political
succession to President TR. There was
bound to be a rivalry, and this was heightened by the Oyster Bay view that
Franklin Roosevelt was a usurper of the family’s political renown and a shirker
for apparently ignoring his late distinguished cousin’s advice to wear the
country’s uniform during the Great War.
This skirmishing, with the inimitable Alice playing her predictable
role, would run and run.” (p. 135)
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| The First President Roosevelt, TR was Eleanor's uncle |
Lord Black
goes on to describe how Roosevelt viewed issues such as race and bigotry. His views were advanced for his times
although they are mostly behind ours. To
Black, Roosevelt general open-mindedness contributed to his humanitarian
polices and his ability to identify with what would become his core
constituency, the American underdogs.
“To Roosevelt bigotry was a good
deal more un-American than any individuals or groups who were the victims of
it. Beyond that, he was eventually
offended by the failure of his natural peers to support him as he set out to
make safe their sheltered world, which the Great Depression so morally
threatened.
This heightened his appreciation of
the groups that they despised and that voted in overwhelming numbers for
him. He enjoyed ethnic jokes, including
those directed against WASPS, but not ethnic or sectarian slurs. He believed in himself and in the
Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Yankee sociological type of which he was such an
exemplar. But he was more impressed with
those who strove and achieved in American society with a few initial advantages
than he was with those who claimed for themselves from the existence of their
well-placed forebears a license to condescend to the less fortunate.” (p.155)
One of the
subjects that Lord Black dives into that I find fascinating is the personal and
political relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and Alfred E. Smith. Smith and Roosevelt were occasional allies
but also adversaries. Roosevelt had
aided Smith in his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns. When Smith received the Democratic Nomination
for President in 1928 he realized that despite being a popular governor he was
weak in his home state. To help the
party against Herbert Hoover, Smith drafts Roosevelt to run to replace himself
as Governor of New York. Smith believes
that with popular Roosevelt running for governor would get more democrats
to vote and turn the election in his favor.
“Roosevelt conducted a vigorous
campaign for governor, violently attacking bigotry in every form, which endured
him to the huge Catholic and Jewish (and perhaps even black) populations of New
York. He promised to complete the
reforms sought by Al Smith, especially the eight-hour and forty-eight hour work
week for women and children industrial workers. He called for an old-age pension and, in
moving terms, for the abrogation ‘forever and ever’ of the Poor Law and the
County Poor House. Even more evocative
was his cal for better care for handicapped and crippled people. He referred straightforwardly to his own
experience, asserting that only his and his family’s resources had enabled him
to make the recovery he had, and that the same care should be available to
everyone (as it was in Warm Springs).” (p.184)
In many
ways Smith created a monster.
Smith lost
the presidential election and now the chief executive position of one the
largest and richest states was no longer his.
Roosevelt was now in the driver’s seat.
“In barely six weeks, Al Smith had
been eclipsed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had wanted to remain a while longer
in the shadows. But he was now the
unofficial leader of the opposition.
Should anything go awry with the endless prosperity of the time, he
would be the president in waiting. At
the decisive moments of their political lives, Al Smith’s judgment was
defective, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s luck was good, and Herbert Hoover would
prove to be both lacking in judgment and highly unlucky. Thus were the greatest political fortunes won
and lost and the world changed.” (p.188)
Smith would
find himself completely usurped. When
the Great Depression hit it was Governor Roosevelt not Governor Smith who was
active in taking action. When the 1932
Democratic Convention assembled Smith discovered the monster he created. Smith encountered the hard bitter truth that
most of those who get the presidential bug have to eventually swallow: you will
never be the President of the United States.
“A disgusted Smith left the hall in
Chicago before the vote was officially announced, without releasing his delegates,
preventing the customary move to unanimous acclamation. Roosevelt’s old adversary and now ardent
recent supporter James Gerard, the party treasurer, sent Mrs. Charles Dana
Gibson, a close friend of Smith’s, to the gallery to ask Smith to move a
unanimous nomination. She returned after
a few minutes with Smith’s reply: ‘I won’t do it,’ repeated mindlessly and
fixedly as in a mantra. The proportions
of his underestimation of Roosevelt and the madness take his place as governor
of New York must have finally become evident to him. It was an unsportsmanlike and therefore
uncharacteristic and unseemly end to Smith’s great career as the official
Democratic Party leader. Even now he
could have salvaged a significant role for himself, albeit in a subordinate
position to someone formally junior to him, had he behaved sensibly. Instead he opted for a bitter exile and was
marginalized as an ever-popular figure of a receding past.” (p.237)
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| Smith helped get FDR to Albany as governor and killed his own presidential dreams |
The part of President Roosevelt's New Deal that is still felt today is
the Social Security system. Politicians
since do not want to mess with it and those who do generally get burned in the
attempt. Paul Ryan attempted to and backlash was so that he had to change his tune. In 2012, while running for Vice President, he had to go around the county calling Obama a Medicare Scrooge.
“Social Security was an idea whose
hour had come. At a time when the United
States had been stricken by an economic crisis that had left nearly a third of
the county destitute, it gave promise of an imminent time when there would be
emergency support for everyone. This
measure raised the hope of the nation that it would never again be defenseless
against the vagaries of economic fortune, which had shown itself more
capricious and dangerous than most Americans had ever imagined possible.”
(p.343)
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| President Roosevelt |
New Deal-bashing
has been become very popular in modern times especially by those who would like
to dismantle the welfare state and go back to the world of the 1890s. The current ‘Tea Party’ movement on the
ground and some of the higher end think tanks have often criticized the New
Deal with revisionist history. Black
debunks critics and praises the New Deal from a conservative point of view.
“The myth has lingered that the New
Deal was ineffectual, because progress in the private-sector reduction of
unemployment was sluggish until late in the thirties. But the Roosevelt administration’s policies
greatly alleviated the condition of most of the needy and permanently reformed
the economic system without greatly disrupting it. The New Deal bears comparison with the
performance of other advanced industrial countries and was certainly judged
preferable to what was on offer from the domestic opposition.” (p.382)
One of the
more interesting points that Black raises is how Roosevelt’s example helped
other nations see the legitimacy of liberal democracy. In a time of international economic
depression, young republics and developing nations were looking for systems to
emulate. Franklin Roosevelt’s United States provided a good democratic example
as opposed to Britain or France.
“By 1937, as had been demonstrated
in South America, Franklin D. Roosevelt enjoyed very great prestige not only in
every region of the United States but throughout the world. He was the only leader of a major county who
appeared decisive, energetic, and benign.
The French and British statesmen seemed dyspeptic, ineffective, and
unimaginative, as, with few exceptions, they were. The same adjectives could not be applied to
Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, and they all had their admirers in the Western
democracies. But to the great majority
in the democratic countries, these were sinister men with blood-stained hands
preaching and practicing hatred and violence.
There were much-admired leaders in secondary countries, but only
Roosevelt carried the ideals of Western liberal democracy with the originality,
courage, and panache that could universally attract admirers, reassure
democratic believers, and refute the widespread theory that democracy was
doomed to be surpassed by the Fascists or the Communists.” (p.403)
“If Hitler were allowed to
consolidate this position, not only could Germany rival America as an
industrial power, but Nazism could more successfully compete with democracy for
imitators than it already had. This competition
could become bothersome in Latin America, where attachment to democracy was
tenuous, and where Hitler and Mussolini had no shortage of swaggering emulators
in overstuffed uniforms.” (p.564)
In the early days of World War II
the British Government, with Roosevelt’s approval, began courting American
public.
The largest propaganda push came
with the arrival of King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth.
Over one hundred and seventy years prior Americans
revolted against their current guest’s great-great-great-grandfather, King
George III.
Yet, you would not have been
able to guess Americans harbored any ill feelings against any British king with the amount of enthusiastic crowds welcoming the first
British monarch to visit America
.
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| The Roosevelts taking the Windsors for a ride, King George is looking really nervous |
“The king and queen made a great
and very positive impression on American opinion. They were not physically imposing people as
Franklin D. Roosevelt was, but were regal gracious and pleasant looking. The king was rather handsome and the queen
quite pretty. There was not a hint of
British stiffness, much less condescension.
Millions of Americans realized for the first time how close their
country really was to Great Britain, especially in a world where strident
dictators apply brute force in domestic and international affairs were so
prevalent.” (p.524)
1940 would
be the most important presidential election since 1864.
It would decide the fate of the world.
Roosevelt was breaking a tradition that had
been held since the days of Pre
sident George Washington: that the President of
the United States serve no more than two terms.
Black presents in his book a Roosevelt who vanquishes all of his
enemies.
“Willkie’s mighty effort broke the
momentum of his career. Disliked by and
disliking the conservative Republicans, he became friendlier with his opponent
than his erstwhile followers. But his health
and political fortunes began to deteriorate.
John L. Lewis resigned as head of the CIO as he promised he would. He came back as head of the United Mine
Workers, but never had a fraction of the credibility in the country he had
enjoyed though Roosevelt’s first two terms.
Charles Lindbergh continued to speak to smaller and less respectable
audiences about the virtues of isolationism, but he would forever be seen as
almost a neo-Nazi.” (p.600)
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| Roosevelt's biggest enemy was aboard |
Lord Black
makes a strong case that United States under President Roosevelt was fighting
World War II long before the United States was officially fighting it. While doing this Black also gives an
incredible explanation to why Hitler attacked the Soviet Union that I have
never heard before: Hitler was afraid that Stalin was going to use the U.S.
entry into the war as a means of blackmailing him.
“Now that Roosevelt was reelected
and had extended the U.S. territorial waters almost half-way across the
Atlantic Ocean, and Lend-Lease was coming into effect, Hitler had to worry
about the possibility of eventually facing the British, Americans, and Russians
simultaneously. He must have become
convinced by now that, as his embassy in Washington had continually warned him
for several years was the case, Roosevelt was dedicated to the destruction of
the Nazi regime. The contemplation of
that fact, more than any other consideration, may have caused Hitler, the
supreme gambler, to think of a preemptive strike against Russia. If Hitler did nothing while Britain and America
became steadily stronger, Stalin would be in a position to blackmail him, an
opportunity Stalin would be unlikely to resist.
If Hitler struck at the Soviet Union now with overwhelming force, while
Britain was still recovering from Dunkirk and the United States was just
emerging from pacifist isolationism, Germany might be able to secure a fastness
in continental Europe that the British and Americans would be unable to shake
or assault for generations.” (p.617)
When
reading Black’s take on Hitler I kept thinking about the Joker in the second
Nolan Batman movie ‘the Dark Knight’. In
the movie Alfred explains to Bruce Wayne that Batman forced the mob in desperation to turn to
the Joker a man ‘who they didn’t understand’.
Germany, humiliated at Versailles and broken by the continued failures of the
Weimar Republic, was in a desperate position. In desperation they
turn to man, named Hitler, who in many ways they didn't totally understand.
“He concluded by announcing that
Germany and Italy had declared war on the United States. Roosevelt and Churchill were greatly
relieved. Hitler’s speech was insane,
both in its torrent of paranoid resentments and in its strategic
misjudgment. Though Goebbels thought it
a brilliant speech, no other Germans seemed to be uplifted by the prospect of
making war simultaneously on the Americans, British, and Russians. In addition to the imbalance of strategic
forces and potential in Germany’s disfavor, Hitler, who had so easily outwitted
his rivals in Europe in the min-and late thirties, was no match as a perceptive
statesmen for Roosevelt, Churchill, or Stalin.
He retained his maniacal tenacity and his power to rouse the Germans,
but he was now less astute than his rivals.” (p.698)
Black also
treats Eleanor Roosevelt as fairly as Franklin.
Although she is not the subject of the book, as his wife she is hard to
ignore. From Black’s point of view
Eleanor was in some ways politically naive, especially to the faults of the far
left. Yet she was an absolute hero when
it came for championing the rights of the oppressed and the ignored. This ended up helping the U.S. war effort by
taking up the cause of African-American servicemen who would do a great deal of
damage to Hitler’s domain in the skies of Europe.
“Eleanor Roosevelt also played an
important and entirely admirable role in improving the lot of African-American
servicemen. The beautiful and talented
black singer Lena Horne concluded that German prisoners of war had a better
chance of hearing her when she performed than her own people in the U.S. armed
forces did. Eleanor received a great
quantity of information about the segregation of African-American service and
bombarded General Marshall with such a volume of questions and suggestions on
the subject that he ultimately had to engage two assistants just to deal with
that one important correspondent.” (p.824)
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| Mr and Mrs Roosevelt |
I also
enjoyed Black’s take on President Roosevelt’s view on the Post-War World. When you see the big three of Roosevelt, Stalin,
and Churchill; you have the representative of the former great Hyperpower of
British Empire that was now in the final phases of decline, and the two great
Superpowers that would battle to replace it.
“He was also convinced that
imperialism generally was doomed.
Roosevelt thought that sophisticated colonial entities like India should
quickly become self-governing. Others,
like Indochina, should be in limited-duration transitional trusteeships. And more primitive areas, like much of
sub-Saharan Africa, should be started on what would be a long process of
preparation for independence. Roosevelt
was an authentic Anglophile, and liked and respected Churchill, but they were
now seeking somewhat different ends.
Roosevelt feared (again with good reason) that Communism could have
considerable appeal to colonized peoples.
As we have seen, unlike Churchill, he also thought Stalin could be
prevented from surging to the English Channel or recomposing his differences
with Germany only to by a prompt Anglo-American invasion of Western
Europe. Churchill, thought largely
resigned to Overlord, continued to be tempted by strategically nonsensical
alternatives involving Norway, Turkey, and Slovenia.” (p.850)
“Roosevelt’s attitude was not
greatly more positive of Communism as much as Churchill did, he was less afraid
of it. He was convinced that progressive
democratic government would easily be seen as preferable in every way to
Communism, as long as the West did not become mired in lost causes such as the
defense of untenable imperial commitments.” (p.984)
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| Churchill sitting to the left represents a dying empire. Roosevelt and Stalin the new superpowers |
Also Black takes apart the Yalta myth that Roosevelt was too
old or too sick to deal with Yalta effectively.
Black correctly points out that the Yalta meeting was handled very
well. The problem was not what happened
at Yalta the problem was what happened after.
“At Yalta the United States and its
leaders achieved virtually everything they sought. If the agreement had been adhered to, it
would have been a triumph of diplomacy.
That this proved not to be the case was because of the noncompliance of
the Soviet Union with the agreements.
The forty-five year Cold War ensued, which had many vicissitudes, but
never a shot fired between Soviet and Western forces, and eventually the
Western victory in the Second World War was completed with the total
disintegration of the Soviet Union.” (p.1079)
I would say in conclusion that this
is a very advanced look into the life of President Franklin Roosevelt.
I would still recommend Jean Edward Smith’s
book to a person who is just discovering an interest in President Roosevelt;
Black’s work is for the advanced reader.
