Seventy-three years ago today, FDR became President

On March 4, 1933, in the pit of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd president of the United States. In his famous address, delivered outside the east wing of the U.S. Capitol, Roosevelt outlined the "New Deal's" expansion of the federal government as an instrument of change and social security. He told desperate Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Two years into his first term as President, the Nation began a slow recovery. But the fat cats turned against Roosevelt's New Deal. They feared his social experiments, and his removing the nation from the gold standard. And they feared the deficits he was running up (which Republicans now pile up at the greatest rate ever).

Roosevelt's response to the fat cats: a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.

In 1936 (and in 1940 and in 1944) he was re-elected by huge margins. And he blew it for a bit. Sure that his mandate in '36 gave him carte blanche, he sought to pack the Supreme Court (which had invalidated numerous New Deal programs) by increasing the number of justices (all of whom would be his nominees). He lost that battle, but now the government itself could and did regulate the economy.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt led us into a global war and worked closely with England and Russia and their leaders Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin to take out the Axis.

President Roosevelt felt the future of the world depended on relations between the Americans and Russians, and he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations organization.

As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health declined, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a brain hemorrhage, reportedly with his girlfriend at his side.

Largely in response to FDR's unprecedented four terms, the 22nd amendment was enacted and ratified by the necessary number of states. I wish we would repeal this law. You never know when the next FDR will come on the scene. You may argue that recent history shows that two terms are more than enough. But you just never know. . .
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