F.D.R. – Page 5 – Old Magazine Articles

‘The Prospective First Lady”
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1932)

Besides teaching American history and English literature three days a week as vice principal in the Todhunter School in New York (having to commute from Albany), Mrs Roosevelt runs the Val Kill furniture factory where reproductions of early American furniture are made to give work to the unemployed on the environs of the big Roosevelt estate at Hyde Park, N.Y. She belongs to several women’s clubs but never neglects her duties as mistress of a governor’s mansion…

‘Tolerance is an Ugly Word”
(Coronet Magazine, 1945)

In 1947 former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt penned this nifty essay about her least favorite word:

I do not like the word tolerance.

If you tolerate something, you do not like it very much.

FDR’s Third Term: Vox Populi
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

Here are the results of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE‘s 1940 poll concerning FDR’s controversial run for a third term. The pollsters were interested in discovering the voter’s thoughts on the third term as a concept for future presidents – rather than gaining a better understanding as to the popularity of President Roosevelt.

The poll considered the opinions of citizens who voted for FDR in 1936 and those who sided with Republican Alf Landon in the same election. They concluded that 68.6% of poll’s participants were against a third presidential term.

The Big Spenders in Washington
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

The figure pictured in the far left of this image is one of the biggest spenders in FDR’s cabinet and

Can Congress Kill the New Deal?
(Click Magazine, 1943)

This is a 1943 editorial that was penned by Republican Senator Robert Taft (1889 – 1953) who explained in the most clinical terms that President Roosevelt’s loyal opposition on Capitol Hill can be relied upon to support him in all matters involving his roll as Commander-in-Chief. However, Taft implied, any further efforts to go gallivanting about the Capitol creating any more of those agencies with the New Deal trademark names like FSA, WPA, NYA, REA, TVA etc. etc. etc will be met with the stiffest opposition from the Republicans, who were well outnumbered, anyway.

Taft’s column was answered by his opposite number in the Democratic Party: New York Senator Robert F. Wagner (1877 – 1953); his column can also be read here.

The historian Henry Steele Commager chose to rank FDR at number 19 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning…

He was Too Tough on Businesses
(Collier’s Magazine, 1938)

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was well-known for cracking wise about the members of the American business community, such as stock brokers, speculators, company functionaries and the leading corporate executives during the Great Depression – believing that there actually could be an economy worth saving if they didn’t exist. Throughout the Thirties the New Deal launched numerous tax laws and assorted other pieces of legislation that served only to stymy competition, raise prices and slow all economic growth. The editors of COLLIER’S MAGAZINE published this spirited and rational defense of corporate America in 1938 and it is attached herein:

American business, whatever its limitations, has produced a better living for more people than any other system of production… The American big-business system has fed people better and more generously. It has provided more convenient and more wholesome shelter. It has distributed vastly more of the mechanical aids to civilized living.

Click here to read about FDR’s tax plan from 1935.

‘The House the New Deal Built”
(New Outlook, 1934)

Here is a short article that appeared a year and a half into the administration of President Roosevelt and it lays the nation’s economic short comings right upon the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The writer articulated how unrecognizable the nation had become in such a very short span of time. The president’s anti-competition policies were reeking havoc on an already damaged economy:

The New Deal plan for cotton is destroying nothing less than the principal industry of the South… There is freshly disclosed evidence that the Public Works Administration works directly toward the retardation of private enterprise.

‘Voting Strength”
(New Outlook, 1935)

As one wise old wag once pointed out:

When robbing Peter to pay Paul, you can pretty much be guaranteed of Paul’s support come election time.

This 1935 opinion piece went into greater detail on this matter believing that this is (and has been for the past 70 years) the campaign strategy of the Democratic Party.

He was a Dirty Campaigner…
(Collier’s Magazine, 1952)

FDR’s predecessor, Herbert Hoover, wrote a series of articles concerning his own presidency that appeared on the pages of COLLIER’S MAGAZINE throughout the spring of 1952. The sixth installment was devoted to his 1932 reelection bid against FDR and the Roosevelt Hoover remembered was an under-handed campaigner who surrounded himself with liars and all sorts of other aids and speechwriters who took liberties with the truth in all matter’s involving the record of Hoover’s administration.

CLICK HERE to read about President Hoover and the Bonus Army…

FDR and the House Republicans
(United States News, 1944)

The House of Representatives that was convening in early ’44 was composed of thirty additional Democrats – but this seemed not to matter to the President and his allies on the Hill; after eight years of practice, the opposition party had learned how to play the game.

Eleanor Roosevelt on the Death of FDR
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

This column, by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, was an articulate effort at make some sense of her husband’s death, which took place during one of the most critical periods in world history:

Perhaps in His wisdom, the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart a way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building. It cannot be the work of one man, nor can the responsibility be laid upon his shoulders, and so when the time comes for peoples to assume the burden more fully, he is given rest.

The First Lady’s Story
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

A column from a 1937 issue of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE included these two seemingly random tales from the life of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The brief remembrance on the second page is a bitter-sweet story about young Eleanor and her mother’s vision of her as a hopelessly plain-looking girl.

Read a 1951 profile of a future First Lady: the young Nancy Reagan.

A New Deal for Women
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

This historic article appeared during the opening weeks of Roosevelt’s first term administration announcing that the new president was taking a novel approach in granting various appointments to government positions of leadership by selecting numerous women who had proved their mettle in the fiery furnace of 1920s Democratic party politics.

1924 was a very important year for American women in politics…

FDR’s Sense of Charity
(A Magazine Advertisement)

The Mobilization for Human Needs charity campaign was the brain-child of President Roosevelt; it was based on his belief that private charities, when teamed with either county, state or the Federal government, could serve the public good better than these agencies could do when working separately.

The attached page appeared in hundreds of popular magazines during the Fall of 1933 imploring the readers to donate to the local charities that were associated with this campaign.