This is the story of a political miracle -- the perfect match of
man and moment. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March of
1933 as America touched bottom. Banks were closing everywhere.
Millions of people lost everything. The Great Depression had caused
a national breakdown. With the craft of a master storyteller,
Jonathan Alter brings us closer than ever before to the Roosevelt
magic. Facing the gravest crisis since the Civil War, FDR used his
cagey political instincts and ebullient temperament in the storied
first Hundred Days of his presidency to pull off an astonishing
conjuring act that lifted the country and saved both democracy and
capitalism.
Who was this man? To revive the nation when it felt so hopeless
took an extraordinary display of optimism and self-confidence.
Alter shows us how a snobbish and apparently lightweight young
aristocrat was forged into an incandescent leader by his
domineering mother; his independent wife; his eccentric top
adviser, Louis Howe; and his ally-turned-bitter-rival, Al Smith,
the Tammany Hall street fighter FDR had to vanquish to complete his
preparation for the presidency.
"Old Doc Roosevelt" had learned at Warm Springs, Georgia, how to
lift others who suffered from polio, even if he could not cure
their paralysis, or his own. He brought the same talents to a
larger stage. Derided as weak and unprincipled by pundits, Governor
Roosevelt was barely nominated for president in 1932. As
president-elect, he escaped assassination in Miami by inches, then
stiffed President Herbert Hoover's efforts to pull him into
cooperating with him to deal with a terrifying crisis. In the most
tumultuous and dramatic presidential transition in history, the
entire banking structure came tumbling down just hours before FDR's
legendary "only thing we have to fear is fear itself" Inaugural
Address.
In a major historical find, Alter unearths the draft of a radio
speech in which Roosevelt considered enlisting a private army of
American Legion veterans on his first day in office. He did not.
Instead of circumventing Congress and becoming the dictator so many
thought they needed, FDR used his stunning debut to experiment. He
rescued banks, put men to work immediately, and revolutionized mass
communications with pioneering press conferences and the first
Fireside Chat. As he moved both right and left, Roosevelt's
insistence on "action now" did little to cure the Depression, but
he began to rewrite the nation's social contract and lay the
groundwork for his most ambitious achievements, including Social
Security.
From one of America's most respected journalists, rich in
insights and with fresh documentation and colorful detail, this
thrilling story of presidential leadership -- of what government is
for -- resonates through the events of today. It deepens our
understanding of how Franklin Delano Roosevelt restored hope and
transformed America.
"The Defining Moment" will take its place among our most
compelling works of political history.
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