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FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
Simon and Schuster
May 2006
432 pages
ISBN: 0743246004
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political
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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