Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1945: One of the Greatest Presidents in American History
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I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about one of the greatest American presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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| Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the most influential presidents in American history. He was elected president four times. He served more than twelve years, longer than any other president. He led the nation through its worst economic crisis, and through one of its worst wars.
Franklin Roosevelt was first elected president in nineteen thirty-two. As the Democratic candidate, he defeated President Herbert Hoover. Americans were suffering through a terrible economic depression. About twenty-five percent of American workers had lost their jobs. They had no money. They had no hope. They waited in long lines to receive free food.
Americans did not know if the new president could end the economic crisis.
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The new president, Franklin Roosevelt, was fifty-one years old. His family name was well known to the American public. Theodore Roosevelt, a distant relation, had been president of the United States thirty years before.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in eighteen eighty-two to a rich and important family in Hyde Park, New York. He was the only child of James and Sara Roosevelt. His mother tried to control Franklin’s life as long as she lived. His father made sure his son had the best of everything. But he also taught Franklin that being rich brought with it the responsibility of helping people who were not so lucky.
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Franklin married Eleanor Roosevelt in nineteen-oh-five. They were distant relations. In the next eleven years, they had six children.
In nineteen ten, Mister Roosevelt was elected to the New York state legislature. He showed he had great political skills as a state senator. His next job was in the federal government as assistant secretary of the navy under President Woodrow Wilson. Then in nineteen twenty, he was the Democratic Party’s unsuccessful candidate for vice president.
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In nineteen twenty-one, Franklin Roosevelt suffered a personal tragedy. He was with his family at their summer home. He began feeling very tired. Then he felt severe pain in his back and legs. He could not move. For weeks, he was forced to lie on his back.
His doctors discovered that he was a victim of the disabling disease polio. He lost the use of his legs. Franklin Roosevelt was thirty-nine years old. He had always been an active man who loved sports. But now he would never walk again without help.
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Many Americans thought the sickness would end Franklin Roosevelt’s political dreams. But they were wrong. He showed an inner strength that people respected. He was elected governor of New York State in nineteen twenty-eight and re-elected two years later. Franklin Roosevelt always appeared strong and friendly in public. He loved to laugh and enjoy life. But his friendly face hid a strong will. Throughout his life, Mister Roosevelt worked hard to improve life for the common man. He believed government had the power and responsibility to improve the lives of its citizens.
(MUSIC: – “Happy Days Are Here Again”)
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That music, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” was played during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential campaign in nineteen thirty-two. A large majority of voters decided that maybe he could make that song come true. On Inauguration Day in nineteen thirty-three, the nation waited to hear what the new president would say about the economic future of their country. This is what he said:
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT: “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
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President Roosevelt promised to end the Depression. He promised to put Americans back to work. He said the federal government would take an active part in creating jobs. During the next three months, he led Congress in passing more major new programs than the nation had seen for many years. President Roosevelt called his reform program “The New Deal.”
These are some of the programs created during this time: A National Recovery Administration allowed companies to cooperate to increase production. A Works Progress Administration provided jobs for unemployed workers. A Civilian Conservation Corps put young men to work protecting the nation’s natural resources. The Tennessee Valley Authority built dams, cleared rivers, expanded forests and provided electricity in the southeastern part of the country.
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In nineteen thirty-five, Congress passed two laws that would change the lives of working Americans for years to come. The National Labor Relations Act strengthened the rights of workers and gave more power to labor unions. The Social Security Act created a federal system to provide money for workers after they retired.
Franklin Roosevelt became one of the most loved and most hated presidents in the history of the country. The majority of Americans believed he was trying to save the country and protect common people. Opponents charged he was giving the federal government too much power and destroying private businesses.
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Franklin Roosevelt tried to establish a close relationship with the American people. He became known by the first letters of his full name — FDR. He talked to the American people by radio to explain what actions were being taken and what he planned for the future. These radio broadcasts helped him gain widespread support for his programs.
President Roosevelt ran for re-election in nineteen thirty-six. He defeated the Republican candidate Alfred Landon by one of the largest majorities in the nation’s history.
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In the late nineteen thirties, another crisis was growing more serious every day. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party in Germany threatened central Europe. Japanese forces carried out new aggression in Asia and the Pacific area. FDR warned Americans that a victory by these forces would threaten democracy everywhere in the world.
World War Two began in nineteen thirty-nine when Germany invaded Poland. Americans hoped Britain, France and the other Allied powers would defeat Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Yet Congress passed a law declaring the United States would remain neutral.
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| The USS West Virginia burns during the attack on Pearl Harbor |
FDR was re-elected in nineteen forty. He was the only president to win a third term in the White House. On December seventh, nineteen forty-one, Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States was forced to enter the war. President Roosevelt cooperated closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the war effort. He discussed war efforts with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.
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FDR was re-elected president for the fourth time in nineteen forty-four. Most Americans believed the country should not change its leader in the middle of a war. When he was sworn in, President Roosevelt’s speech lasted only six minutes. He declared that America had learned “that we cannot live alone at peace, that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of nations far away.”
President Roosevelt did not live to see the victory of the Allies and the end of World War Two. He died less than three months later, on April twelfth, nineteen forty-five, in Warm Springs, Georgia.
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Winston Churchill wrote about the day he heard the news of the death of his close friend: “I felt as if I had been struck with a physical blow. My relations with this shining man had played so large a part in the long, terrible years we had worked together. Now that had come to an end. And I was overpowered by a sense of deep and permanent loss.” Millions of people around the world joined Winston Churchill in mourning the death of America’s thirty-second president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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This program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week when we tell about Franklin Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, on People in America in VOA Special English.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962: She Was the Most Influential Wife of Any American President
VOICE ONE:
I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Shirley Griffith with People in America in VOA Special English. Today, we tell about the woman who was the most influential wife of any American president, Eleanor Roosevelt.
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| Eleanor Roosevelt |
Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of America’s thirty-second president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She helped her husband in many ways during his long political life. She also became one of the most influential people in America. She fought for equal rights for all people — workers, women, poor people, black people. And she sought peace among nations.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City in eighteen eighty-four. Eleanor’s family had great wealth and influence. But Eleanor did not have a happy childhood. Her mother was sick and nervous. Her father did not work. He drank too much alcohol. He was not like his older brother, Theodore Roosevelt, who was later elected president. When Eleanor was eight years old, her mother died. Two years later, her father died. Eleanor’s grandmother raised the Roosevelt children. Eleanor remembered that as a child, her greatest happiness came from helping others.
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In the early nineteen hundreds, many people were concerned about the problems of poor people who came to America in search of a better life. Eleanor Roosevelt could not understand how people lived in such poor conditions while she and others had so much wealth.
After she finished school, Eleanor began teaching children to read in one of the poorest areas of New York City, called “Hell’s Kitchen.” She investigated factories where workers were said to be badly treated. She saw little children of four and five years old working until they dropped to the floor. She became involved with other women who shared the same ideas about improving social conditions.
Franklin Roosevelt began visiting Eleanor. Franklin belonged to another part of the Roosevelt family. Franklin and Eleanor were married in nineteen-oh-five. In the next eleven years, they had six children.
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Franklin Roosevelt began his life in politics in New York. He was elected to be a state legislator. Later, President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to be assistant secretary of the Navy. The Roosevelts moved to Washington in nineteen thirteen.
It was there, after thirteen years of marriage, that Eleanor Roosevelt went through one of the hardest periods of her life. She discovered that her husband had fallen in love with another woman. She wanted to end the marriage. But her husband urged her to remain his wife. She did. Yet her relationship with her husband changed. She decided she would no longer play the part of a politician’s wife. Instead, she began to build a life with interests of her own.
In nineteen twenty-one, Franklin Roosevelt was struck by the terrible disease polio. He would never walk again without help. His political life seemed over, but his wife helped him return to politics. He was elected governor of New York two times.
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Eleanor Roosevelt learned about politics and became involved in issues and groups that interested her. In nineteen twenty-two, she became part of the Women’s Trade Union League. She also joined the debate about ways to stop war. In those years after World War One, she argued that America must be involved in the world to prevent another war.
“Peace is the question of the hour,” she once told a group of women. “Women must work for peace to keep from losing their loved ones.”
The question of war and peace was forgotten as the United States entered a severe economic depression in nineteen twenty-nine. Prices suddenly dropped on the New York stock market. Banks lost their money. People lost their jobs.
(MUSIC: “Happy Days Are Here Again”)
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Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in nineteen thirty-two. He promised to end the Depression and put Americans back to work.
Missus Roosevelt helped her husband by spreading information about his new economic program. It was called the New Deal. She traveled around the country giving speeches and visiting areas that needed economic aid.
Missus Roosevelt was different from the wives of earlier presidents. She was the first to become active in political and social issues. While her husband was president, Missus Roosevelt held more than three hundred news conferences for female reporters. She wrote a daily newspaper commentary. She wrote for many magazines. These activities helped spread her ideas to all Americans and showed that women had important things to say.
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One issue Missus Roosevelt became involved in was equal rights for black Americans. She met publicly with black leaders to hear their problems. Few American politicians did this during the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties. One incident involving Missus Roosevelt became international news.
In nineteen thirty-nine, an American singer, Marian Anderson, planned a performance at Constitution Hall in Washington. But a conservative women’s group refused to permit her to sing there because she was black.
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Missus Roosevelt was a member of that organization, the Daughters of the American Revolution. She publicly resigned her membership to protest the action of the group. An opinion study showed that most Americans thought she was right. Eleanor Roosevelt helped the performance to be held outdoors, around the Lincoln Memorial. More than seventy thousand people heard Marian Anderson sing. Missus Roosevelt was always considered one of its strongest supporters of the civil rights movement.
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The United States was forced to enter World War Two when Japanese forces attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in nineteen forty-one.
Missus Roosevelt made many speeches over the radio praising the soldiers she saw on her travels. She called on people to urge their government to work for peace after the war was over.
Franklin Roosevelt died in nineteen forty-five, soon after he was elected to a fourth term as president. When his wife heard the news she said: “I am more sorry for the people of this country than I am for myself.”
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| Eleanor Roosevelt holding a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Lake Success, New York, in November 1949 |
Harry Truman became president after Franklin Roosevelt died. World War Two ended a few months later. The leaders of the world recognized the need for peace. So they joined together to form the United Nations. President Truman appointed Missus Roosevelt as a delegate to the first meeting of the UN. A newspaper wrote at the time: “Missus Roosevelt, better than any other person, can best represent the little people of America, or even the world.”
Later, Missus Roosevelt was elected chairman of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. She helped write a resolution called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That declaration became an accepted part of international law.
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Missus Roosevelt spent the last years of her life visiting foreign countries. She became America’s unofficial ambassador. She returned home troubled by what she saw. She recognized that the needs of the developing world were great. She called on Americans to help the people in developing countries.
A few years before she died, Eleanor Roosevelt spoke about what she believed in life. This is what she said.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: “This life always seems to me to be a continuing process of education and development. What we are preparing for, none of us can be sure. But, that we must do our best while we are here and develop all our capacities is absolutely certain. We face whatever we have to face in this life. And if we do it bravely and sincerely, we’re probably accomplishing that growth which we were put here to accomplish.”
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Eleanor Roosevelt gave the best she had all through her life. People around the world recognized their loss when she died in nineteen sixty-two.
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This program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.
Louis Armstrong, 1901-1971: ‘The Ambassador of American Jazz’
VOICE ONE:
This is Gwen Outen.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Louis Armstrong, one of the greatest jazz musicians. His voice, trumpet-playing skill and creativity continue to influence jazz artists today. One of Louis Armstrong’s biggest hits was “Hello Dolly.”
(MUSIC: “Hello Dolly”)
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| Louis Armstrong at Voice of America |
Louis Armstrong played jazz, sang jazz and wrote jazz. He recorded hit songs for fifty years and his music is still heard today on television, radio and in movies.
Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August fourth, nineteen-oh-one. New Orleans is a port city at the mouth of the Mississippi River. It is a city where the customs of many different people mixed together.
Louis Armstrong grew up in Storyville, one of the poorest areas of New Orleans.
His father left the family shortly after he was born. His mother worked to support him and his sister. But Armstrong spent most of his time with his grandmother.
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Jazz was just beginning to develop when Louis was a boy. It grew out of the blues songs and ragtime music that had been popular at the turn of the century.
Louis discovered music early in life. He was surrounded by it. The music of churches, bands, parades and drinking places were all a daily part of New Orleans culture. Louis sang with other boys on the streets for money. There he began to develop his musical skills.
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When he was eleven years old, Louis was sent to a reform school for firing a gun outside to celebrate New Year’s Eve. At the school, he learned to play the trumpet in the school’s brass band.
Louis spent eighteen months at the reform school. Then he went back to work. He sold newspapers, unloaded boats and sold coal from a horse and cart. He also listened to bands at popular clubs in Storyville. Joe “King” Oliver played with the Kid Ory Band. He soon became young Louis’s teacher. As Louis’s skills developed, he began to perform professionally.
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At the age of eighteen, Armstrong joined the Kid Ory Band, one of the finest bands in New Orleans. The experience helped him develop his music skills. Armstrong later replaced King Oliver in the band when Oliver moved to Chicago, Illinois. In nineteen-nineteen, Armstrong joined Fate Marable’s band in Saint Louis, Missouri. Marable’s band played on steamboats that traveled up and down the Mississippi River. Working with Marable helped prepare Armstrong to play for white audiences.
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In nineteen twenty-two, Armstrong left the Marable Band to play with King Oliver in Chicago. By then, Chicago had become the center of jazz music.
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| The Hot Five |
A year later, Armstrong made his first recordings as a member of King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. He later moved to New York City, where he influenced the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra with his creativity.
Armstrong returned to Chicago in nineteen twenty-six and formed his own group. They were called the Hot Five and later the Hot Seven. Their recordings are considered some of the most influential in jazz history.
Armstrong could make his voice sound like a musical instrument. He could make an instrument sound like a singer’s voice. The song “Heebie Jeebies” is said to be the first recorded example of what became known as scat singing. He recorded it with the Hot Five.
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By nineteen twenty-nine, Armstrong was becoming very popular. He returned to New York to play in an all-black Broadway musical called “Hot Chocolates.” The show included the music of Fats Waller. Armstrong’s version of Waller’s song, “Ain’t Misbehavin’, was a huge hit.
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| “Satchmo” |
By the end of the nineteen twenties, Armstrong had formed his own band. In nineteen thirty-two, he sailed to England, and had great success. A reporter there called him “Satchmo,” and he kept that nickname for the rest of his life. For the next three years, Armstrong played in cities across the United States and Europe.
Louis Armstrong returned to the United States in nineteen thirty-five. He hired Joe Glaser to be his manager. Glaser proved to be a great manager and friend.
Glaser organized a big band called Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra. It was one of the most popular groups of the “swing” music period. Swing was a style of jazz played by big bands in the nineteen thirties.
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The group played together for the next ten years. During that time, Armstrong became one of the most famous men in America. He experienced racial unfairness during his life. But he rarely made public statements. One time, however, he criticized the way the government treated blacks in the American South in the nineteen fifties. Newspapers accused him of being a troublemaker for speaking out.
In the nineteen forties, Armstrong grew tired of leading a large group. For the remaining years of his life, he led a six-member group called the All Stars. The group included some of the best musicians in America. They performed extensively in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
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| Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” |
Over the years, Armstrong recorded with many famous musicians. For example, he worked with singers Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby and the great composer Duke Ellington. Armstrong was known as friendly and easy to work with.
Armstrong’s biggest hits came later in his life. The song “Mack the Knife” was a big hit in nineteen fifty-five. In nineteen sixty-four, his version of the song “Hello Dolly” was the top hit around the world. It even replaced a top-selling hit by the hugely popular British rock group, the Beatles. Three years later, he appeared in the motion picture version of “Hello Dolly” with singer Barbra Streisand. The song “What a Wonderful World,” recorded in nineteen sixty-eight, was his final big hit.
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Louis Armstrong never finished the fifth grade in school. Yet he wrote two books about his life and many stories for magazines. He appeared in more than thirty movies. He composed many jazz pieces. He won several gold records and many other awards. Armstrong performed an average of three hundred concerts each year, traveling all over the world. He became known as the ambassador of American Jazz.
Louis Armstrong was married four times. Lucille Armstrong was his fourth wife. They married in nineteen forty-two and stayed together for the rest of his life. They had no children.
Louis Armstrong died in nineteen seventy-one. His death was front page news around the world. In nineteen seventy-seven, his home in Queens, New York, was declared a national historic place. It is now a museum. For more information about Louis Armstrong and his house, you can go to the museum’s Internet Web site. The address is www.satchmo.net.
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written and produced by Cynthia Kirk. This is Gwen Outen.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Listen again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.
