Fdr Meant So Much To So Many

Wed., April 12, 1995

Bill First Special To Roundtable

It was midafternoon on a mild spring day at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center north of Chicago when I first heard the news of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. I was walking past one of the many twostory wooden barracks buildings.

A solemn voice announced over the loudspeaker system: “President Roosevelt has just died at Warm Springs, Ga. I repeat, President Roosevelt just died.”

That was 50 years ago this week and I remember it vividly. I was a young sailor and most of my friends at our electricians training school were saddened by the loss of this key leader of the Allied cause in World War II. We had completed our training and were awaiting transfer to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, to ship out to the Philippines and an uncertain future.

Roosevelt had been like a father figure to people like me. He had been president of the United States since I was in third grade.

This was not a war like Vietnam, which bitterly divided our country. Most Americans strongly supported Roosevelt’s leadership in World War II, even though there was a growing disenchantment with his domestic policies.

The surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a few years earlier had brought our people together after years of divisive debate between isolationists and interventionists.

Most daily newspapers had not been very kind to FDR when he was alive. Now they were running respectful stories about his death and his accomplishments.

Many of us at the base were wondering whether FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, was big enough for the job. As it turned out, he was.

Most people at that time, including myself, were not aware of the seriousness of FDR’s physical disabilities, the result of polio. We thought of him as a man of iron constitution. Recent news pictures showed that he was aging and he looked tired. But there was always that jaunty smile that exuded confidence.

In fact, confidence may have been his greatest legacy.

Even as a small child, I was aware of the severe economic hardship of the 1930s. The fathers of many of my friends at school had no job and their families were deep in poverty. FDR’s programs seemed to generate hope. By the time war came, most of us were convinced that Roosevelt would lead us to victory. The day he died, we were so close to winning that we felt sure our confidence in him was well deserved.

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