What Makes a Great President?

What Makes a Great President?

You have probably heard the old saying that "anybody can grow up to be President." But, not everybody is cut out to be President. It takes a special kind of person, someone tough, smart, and driven, just to run for the job. It takes still more talent and character to hold up under the pressures of life in the White House. Great presidents are skilled party leaders. In the 1930s, FDR rebuilt his party by forging a coalition that delivered five straight presidential victories. Reagan also revived his party, in disarray after the scandals of the Nixon administration. He unified Southerners, laborers, entrepreneurs and religious conservatives into a powerful block that swept the Republicans to three victories in the 1980’s.

 



Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a very courageous and hardworking president. He saved the country during the great depression and he helped Europe get through WWII. FDR got back at the Japanese for attacking us on our own soil. He showed that the US is a powerful and a unified country. He was the greatest historical president.

In 1910, he was elected to the New York State Senate as a Democrat. Reelected in 1912. In 1920, his radiant personality and his war service resulted in his nomination for vice president as James M. Cox's running mate. After his defeat, he returned to law practice in New York. In the summer of 1921, when FDR was 39, disaster hit. He was stricken with poliomyelitis. He demonstrated indomitable courage by fighting to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. In 1924 and 1928, he led the fight at the Democratic national conventions for the nomination of Gov. Alfred E. Smith of New York, and in 1928 Roosevelt was himself induced to run for governor of New York. He was elected, and was reelected in 1930.In 1932, Roosevelt received the Democratic nomination for president and immediately launched a campaign that brought new spirit to a weary and discouraged nation. He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. He was reelected in 1936 over Gov. Alfred M. Landon of Kansas by the overwhelming electoral margin of 523 to 8. In 1940 He defeated Wendell L. Willkie. And in 1944 he was elected to a fourth term,

His first term was characterized by an unfolding of the New Deal program. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority. By 1935 the Nation had achieved a great measure of recovery. Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed helped the economy return to normal. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy. Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked..

At an early stage, Roosevelt became aware of the menace to world peace posed by totalitarian fascism, and from 1937 on he tried to focus public attention on the trend of events in Europe and Asia. As a result, he was widely denounced as a warmonger. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement. Roosevelt's program to bring maximum aid to Britain and, after June 1941, to Russia was opposed, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor restored national unity. During the war, Roosevelt shelved the New Deal in the interests of conciliating the business community, both in order to get full production during the war and to prepare the way for a united acceptance of the peace settlements after the war. A series of conferences with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin laid down the bases for the postwar. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations,