Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born 130 years ago today

[No Elephants]

What you get on the right side of your screen, if you google his name

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during ... Wikipedia
Born: January 30, 1882, Hyde Park
Died: April 12, 1945, Warm Springs
Presidential term: March 4, 1933 – April 12, 1945
Party: Democratic Party
Children: James Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., More
Vice presidents: Harry S. Truman, John Nance Garner, Henry A. Wallace

What I learned to day about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from Bill Gates, of all people, on Morning Joe, of all shows.

FDR started the March of Dimes. From the March of Dimes came the money that culminated in development of the polio vaccine.

Before that, the horrrifying sight of children and adults living in "iron lungs" was all too common.

http://childrenshospital.org/cfapps/research/data_admin/Site3022/mainpageS3022P61.html

So, here's more gratitude to FDR than words can possibly express. :toast:




Something else, however, was said on Morning Joe this morning that was not so, namely, that Eisenhower came up with the national highway system. Not exactly.

The United States government's efforts at constructing a national network of highways began on an ad hoc basis with the passage of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided for $75 million over a five-year period for matching funds to the states for the construction and improvement of highways.<6> While the nation's revenue needs associated with World War I intervened to prevent any premature expansion of this policy, by the 1921 expiration of the original legislation American troops had returned from Europe and a policy of so-called "normalcy" had returned, despite an economic downturn.

As the landmark 1916 law expired, new legislation was moved forward—the Federal Highway Act of 1921. This new road construction initiative once again provided for federal matching funds for road construction and improvement, although now on the far more generous basis of $75 million annually.<6> Moreover, rather than leaving road building decisions up to the states themselves, this new legislation for the first time sought to target these funds to the construction of a coherent national road grid of interconnected "primary highways."<6>

The Bureau of Public Roads asked the Army to provide a list of roads it considered necessary for national defense.<7> In 1922 General John J. Pershing, former head of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during the war, complied by submitting a detailed network of 200,000 miles of interconnected primary highways—the so-called Pershing Map.<6>

A boom in road construction followed throughout the decade of the 1920s, with such projects as the New York parkway system constructed as part of a new national highway system. As automobile traffic increased, planners saw a need for such an interconnected national system to supplement the existing, largely non-freeway, United States Numbered Highways system. By the late 1930s, planning had expanded to a system of new superhighways.

In 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Thomas MacDonald, chief at the Bureau of Public Roads, a hand-drawn map of the United States marked with eight superhighway corridors for study.<7> In 1939, Bureau of Public Roads Division of Information chief Herbert S. Fairbank wrote a report called Toll Roads and Free Roads, "the first formal description of what became the interstate highway system", and in 1944 the similarly themed Interregional Highways.<8><9>

However, the war and the Manhattan Project intervened and FDR did not live to see the end of the war. Nonetheless, FDR had set in motions studies of a national highway system and a legal framework that set things up for building of an interstate highway system. In 1956, Congress, again controlled by Democrats in both houses, passed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956<12>—authorizing construction of the National Highway System.


After fifty years in the making, Eisenhower got hold of the project ust in time to have it named after him and it's official name is The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

Sic transit gloria mundi. But Eisenhower had not "come up" with squat.





In 1916, the concept of a national highway system in the U.S. must have been quite visionary and I cannot imagine what $75 million in 1916 dollars would equal in 2013 dollars. In 1916, Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House and in the Oval Office sat Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Interestingly enough, Wilson's wiki compares the programs of his administration to those of FDR's.

In his first term as President, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms. Historian John M. Cooper argues that, in his first term, Wilson successfully pushed a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled, and remained unmatched up until the New Deal.<1>

This agenda included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was curtailed by the Keating–Owen Act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918.

He also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads.<2> Wilson, at first unsympathetic, became a major advocate for women's suffrage after public pressure convinced him that to oppose woman's suffrage was politically unwise. Although Wilson promised African Americans "fair dealing...in advancing the interests of their race in the United States" the Wilson administration implemented a policy of racial segregation for federal employees.<3>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson



So, thanks for that, too, President Wilson and Roosevelt. (Ike gets more than enough glory for this already.)




March of Dimes.

Salk vaccine

National highway system.

New Deal, including securities law, a new bankruptcy code, Social Security, and so much more.

Aiding the Britih against Hitler.

WW II.


And all while crippled and not far from death.

Thank you so very, very much, Mr. President.

[formercia]

1. I have some of FDR's flowers growing in my yard.

It's a Solinaciae from Peru that was growing at Campobello, his Summer retreat. I absconded with a ripe seed pod many years ago. It's an annual but reseeds itself. It has blue flowers and looks a little like an Eggplant, but taller.

[No Elephants]

2. You're a pod snatcher?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_the_Body_Snatchers_%281978_film%29

But, seriously folks......



That is more than cool, formercia.

Is this it?

[formercia]

3. Yup, that's it.

Good catch. :hi:

[Enthusiast]

5. Incredible, formercia!

The FDR flower!

[Enthusiast]

4. Happy Birthday, FDR! nt