LEADERSHIP

AND
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT

FIVE PRINCIPLES FOR

CHALLENGING TIMES

THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM
Copyright 2019
Thomas F. Winterbottom
All Rights Reserved
No part of this document may be
Reproduced or transmitted in any
Form or by any means, electronic,
Mechanical, photocopying,
Recording, or otherwise, without
Prior written permission of
Thomas Francis Winterbottom
For
L.M.V.
LEADERSHIP
AND
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT
 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of
the most consequential presidents in
American history. He helped steer
America through its greatest economic
crisis and its involvement in the most
widespread military conflict the world
had ever seen.
What was it about the character or
values of Roosevelt that enabled him to
accomplish this? In this book I will
examine five principles of leadership
that Roosevelt exhibited that made him
so effective. These are: vision,
experimentation, tactical compromise,
persistence, and courage. However,
Roosevelt did have his weaknesses, as
we all do. These included indecision, a
tendency to play aides and officials off
against each other, and overconfidence
that could approach hubris. Yet he
overcame all of this and his
achievements had a dramatic effect on
American and world history. His actions
restructured the world, and that order
largely continues today. This included
the stabilization of Europe, the
formation of an international monetary
system, the establishment of the United
Nations, and the introduction to America
of its first and most successful social
welfare program, Social Security.
Roosevelt came from a patrician
background, much like his cousin
Theodore, from which he inherited his
progressive streak, and also his driving
personal ambition. But there were also
basic temperamental differences
between the two Roosevelts. Theodore
was a much more aggressive personality,
while Franklin was known for his
lightness and gaiety, which was noted as
early as his college years at Harvard. He
was thought by his fellow students as an
amiable fellow, but a bit of a lightweight
and the belief was that he was not going
to measure up to the accomplishments
of his famous cousin. Even when he
became American president Franklin
Roosevelt could not quite shake the
accusation that he was not a top
intellect. The famous jurist Oliver
Wendell Holmes once said that Franklin
Roosevelt “had a first-rate
temperament, but a second-rate
intellect.” First, we have to remember
that Holmes was essentially a eugenicist,
and believed in the state ordered
sterilization of the mentally retarded.
So, like Darwin, Holmes had an
inaccurate understanding of genetics.
Mentally deficient offspring can come
from genius parents, as well as just
normal parents. There is no definitive
science about this. So this is a definite
indication that Holmes himself lacked a
first-rate intellect. But he is not alone.
Even today most scientists believe in the
mostly erroneous theory of evolution by
Charles Darwin. (See my recent book,
“Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: A New
Critique.”)
 Certainly, Roosevelt was no
intellectual, as few American politicians
are. But he liked people, and after he
suffered his physical disability, he
developed a compassion for people that
would become important to America in
the Depression and War years. Perhaps
if he had been an intellectual he may
have been aloof, like that later liberal
Democratic hero and American
presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson.
But this all forced Roosevelt to seek out
experts, although with his high self-
confidence, Roosevelt always let
everyone know who was in charge, since
HE was the president. People actively
sought to be around him, and he could
use this asset by playing off his advisors
against each other, all seeking his
approval.
Not being an intellectual also made
him practical. As we will see, he had a
vision of the kind of America that he
wanted to see but he believed in having
flexibility in getting there. And here he
had to try things, and not be too
concerned with short term failure, but to
focus on solutions and keep trying until
one got the desired result.

VISION
Franklin Roosevelt had a vision for
America, most notably expressed
through his “Four Freedoms” speech, in
which he outlined a national basis for
human rights. Much of his ideas were to
respond to the economic depression,
but he did have other ideas that were
not just applicable to solving American
economic problems, but to solving other
problems that can often plague
Americans in good times or bad. The
Social Security Act of 1935 can be seen
as such a program, as it was directed at
solving the long problem of elderly
poverty. It was just too narrowly
focused to be a solution to all of
America’s problems in the Great
Depression.
This must all be contrasted with the
majority of American political leaders
today who really don’t express a grand
social vision of where they want to take
America beyond the promise of creating
more jobs. That is about as complicated
as it gets-there is not effort to aim at a
higher vision such as expressed in
Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms. Yet America
continues to face many of the problems
that plagued Franklin Roosevelt.
Roosevelt perhaps knew that his lofty
ideals were unlikely to be achieved in his
lifetime, but were something that
America could achieve in the near
future. He himself had to compromise
because of political expediency, in
particular with Democrats in the
American South, yet he could see that
with a few cultural changes America
could reach his ideals.
So FDR was at the same time the
most idealistic president in American
history, as well as its most practical.
Lyndon Johnson was also idealistic, and
claimed that he wanted to outdo his
hero FDR in terms of providing social
programs to improve American’s lives.
And in some respects he did: he got
Medicare passed, important Civil Rights
legislation, and programs aimed at the
poor. But his programs may have been
too narrowly focused, and FDR
expressed much higher ideals with his
“Four Freedoms” speech. As well,
Lyndon Johnson would seem to
contradict any kind of idealism with his
involvement in Vietnam. And FDR was
the most practical president in that he
knew that he had two goals: defeat the
Great Depression, and defeat Germany,
Japan and the Axis alliance. Abraham
Lincoln may be a rival to FDR on this
point in that Lincoln had the primary
goal from the start of his administration
to keep the American states unified, and
all of his maneuvers were directed at
this end. Lincoln did evolve and did
eventually pass the Emancipation
Proclamation to free African-Americans
from slavery, but he did not have a
grand vision to improve American’s lives,
along the lines of an ambition to provide
basic human rights. Lincoln was a man
of his times and in the 1860’s was mostly
concerned with preserving the Union.
The concern for human rights would
really start to arrive in America during
the rise of industrialization in the late
1800’s and the coming of the
Progressive Era. Woodrow Wilson was
mainly a state-to-state idealist, in that
he was mainly concerned with spreading
the idea of democracy around the world.
In fact, his justification for breaking the
American tradition of isolationism and
entering the United States in World War
I was to “make the world safe for
democracy.” And President Jimmy
Carter would make the encouragement
of human rights around the world the
major theme of his administration, yet
did not pursue the desire to achieve
human rights in America itself. This lack
of a grand vision of human rights for
American society led Carter to be
challenged for the 1980 Democratic
nomination for president by the liberal
Senator Ted Kennedy.
As for FDR’s idealism, he had to grow
into that role, which would probably be
seen as reaching its height when he gave
a speech at Madison Square Garden in
New York City on October 31, 1936,
when Roosevelt described how
American business interests hated him,
and that “he welcomed their hatred.”
It is hard to imagine such talk coming
from mainstream American politicians
today, and with those freewheeling
1980’s in which the businessman literally
became national heroes, it becomes
even more difficult. The lesson for
people who aspire to national leadership
in America is to find a great vision and
hold to those principles whether it wins
an election or not. And a big vision in
politics, if its purpose is to do good, must
be centered on creating a vision that has
the utmost concern for every American
as an uncompromising position. FDR
was not perfect, but he laid out the
grandest vision of any American
president. LBJ comes close, but his
overall vision was mainly focused on the
poor. America is currently in need of
leaders with a progressive vision that
can benefit Americans of all economic
classes.
 EXPERIMENTATION

Another crucial leadership trait that

Franklin Roosevelt exhibited was the
willingness to experiment until he and
America attained their desired ends.
This was his stated intent as he began
his “First One Hundred Days.” It is
interesting to contrast FDR’s response to
the Great Depression of the 1930’s and
the American leaders response to what
is considered the next great economic
crisis, the Great Recession of 2007.
 Roosevelt had fewer tools to deal
with the crisis of the 1930’s, mainly
because America had never experienced
such a devastating economic crisis
before. FDR said he wanted to try
different things, experimentation, to see
what would solve the crisis and return
the American economy back to health.
The first thing that he did was to quell
panic by instituting a bank holiday,
which prevented depositors from
arriving at the bank and demanding their
funds. As we know, banks actually have
very little cash on hand, as when they
receive deposits they lend it out to seek
a profit from the funds. In normal times,
banks know that few people actually
withdraw their cash at any given time.
But in a panic, nearly everyone would
show up and the cash for everyone
would not be there.
This fear was not present in the 2007
economic crisis in that there was now a
law, first passed in the 1930’s, that
protected depositors assets, the FDIC
system. The temporary bank closure did
not solve the problem because even if
the bank’s assets were protected, it did
not alleviate the real problem in the
American economy, which was the lack
of demand. This led to falling prices,
which led to lower prices as consumers
were waiting then for even lower prices.
This is known as deflation, and results in
a phenomenon called the “paradox of
thrift.” By not spending, consumers
were actually bringing the American
economy to a halt. As a result, business
sold fewer items, so fewer workers were
needed, and the unemployment rate
would reach 25%.
In the wake of the 2007 economic
crisis in America, the Bush
administration and then the new Obama
administration did not display this
willingness to experiment that FDR did in
the 1930’s. Much of this was due to
politics: the current Republicans in
Congress would be normally against any
government spending to help failed
businesses, as well as would have been
typical of the economic philosophy of
President George W. Bush. But when
Treasury secretary Hank Paulson went to
Bush and gravely stated that the big
banks needed a bailout because they
were of such importance to the financial
system that if they failed it could lead to
another Great Depression or something
worse, Bush quickly pivoted and became
a born-again Keynesian, much as he
became a born-again Christian after his
struggle with alcohol and an ultimatum
from his wife Laura.
So here was the difference in how
both of these major crises were handled:
FDR did not attempt to revive the
American economy by way of the
banking system. Once he instated the
bank holiday and calmed fears, and then
returned to banks to normal functioning,
he began to use government action to
attempt to jumpstart the American
economy. In contrast, in attempting to
solve the economic crisis of 2007,
American leaders mainly centered their
attention on recapitalizing banks so that
their subsequent lending would
hopefully stimulate the American
economy. This was done mainly by the
Federal Reserve Bank, who, not
beholden to the direct elective process,
could take whatever reasonable steps
were necessary to stimulate the
economy. There was a $700 billion
stimulus package passed by the Obama
administration, and this action was
mainly outside of direct bank assistance,
and gave walk and talk to the phrase
“shovel ready projects,” and included
temporary programs such as tax cuts
and increases in food stamps. But the
Obama administration did not attempt
to involve itself directly into the
American economy by creating alphabet
agencies such as the NRA the WPA or
the AAA, as Roosevelt had done. The
Obama administration strategy was
mainly to wait out the crisis, or hopefully
to rely on the action of the Federal
Reserve Bank. The Fed is somewhat
safely out of the electoral process, and
could act without facing a direct
response from the voters.
The Obama administration could not
act with more flexibility,
experimentation, because any major
governmental intervention in the
American economy has been all but
completely discredited by the new
emphasis on the almost sole power of a
free market economy to provide
economic and social prosperity that
would supposedly reemerge in the late
1970’s in America and Great Britain. The
lesson from FDR for today’s political
leaders is that to have the ability to solve
important economic problems takes
flexibility, and the ability to experiment,
and you cannot do that by relying on the
uncertainty of the free market.
The American Federal Reserve Bank
was able to revive the American
economy by a process known as
quantitative easing, and reducing the
prime interest rate to near zero, where it
would remain for the next ten years.
But they are not able to make policy that
lies outside of the banking system.

TACTICAL COMPROMISE

Another leadership trait that Franklin

Roosevelt exhibited was his willingness
to compromise to lead him to his goals,
some of which were not directly related
to the issue on which he compromised.
He kept his high ideals in mind, but he
knew to ask for everything could leave
the most important issues in jeopardy.
 Today’s political leaders could learn a
lesson from this tactic, in particular
many who have been part of the
Democratic Party in recent decades.
Unfortunately, moderate elements of
the Party began to take charge around
1985 and mistakenly began to focus on
the need to win elections as their
primary aim instead of taking important
policy positions on problems to which
the American people have relied on the
Democratic Party to take, since at least
from the administration of Woodrow
Wilson.
It is more important for the
progressive elements of American
society to take an ambitious position
regarding the pursuit of social and
economic human rights. And that is the
problem: Americans can’t agree on
what constitutes human rights. All
American economic problems may be
summed up in one sentence: is an
American entitled to social and
economic benefits that he does not
receive directly from his employer? FDR
believed that Americans are entitled to
these benefits, at least as he stated in
his ideals in his “Four Freedoms.”
Roosevelt had to famously
compromise with the Democrats in the
American South about some of his
ambitions because he needed them for
the bulk of his “New Deal” programs.
There was the tacit agreement between
FDR and the Southern Democratic
congressional delegation that FDR would
not push for social legislation for
American Negroes (to use the
nomenclature in use at the time) if the
Southerners would back his New Deal
legislative proposals. Lynching was still
going on in the 1940’s, and poverty
among the Negro population was high,
and the American black individual still
could not effectively vote, eighty years
after Reconstruction.
Roosevelt also had to compromise
with the more liberal movements that
arose in American society as a result of
the Great Depression. Rival Huey Long
from Louisiana wanted to implement a
near communist state in America, with a
guaranteed national income, a national
heath plan, and other radical concepts.
FDR partially instituted Social Security as
a result of leftist movements.
During World War II, Roosevelt had to
compromise with the Soviet Union, as he
realized that they had a communist
society, but he needed them to defeat
the Germans. He would also need the
Soviets in the establishment of the post-
war economic order which was
established at the Bretton Woods
conference in Vermont near the end of
World War II. Here, the American dollar
would be set as the world’s reserve
currency, there would be the creation of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Bank. Also Roosevelt
needed the Soviets in his establishment
of the United Nations.
Was it right for Roosevelt to
compromise not only with American
Southern Democrats, but with the Soviet
Union? Remember, as we said earlier,
Roosevelt was not an intellectual trying
to implement an idealistic vision in
American society. He was a practical
American politician, which means he was
as far from the intellectual world as he
could get.
Those of us who consider themselves
political philosophers take on the task of
investigating the deepest questions
involving human behavior in order to
understand why humans do what they
do, and also to consider what can be
done to improve human life.
But it is frustrating when you see year
after year the same human problems
remain. And we political philosophers
don’t compromise: each of us believes
that his version of reality is accurate.
But all of us are driven by an honorable
motive, which is the desire to know the
truth about everything. But as a 2020
American Democratic presidential
candidate, I also exist in the world of
practical politics. It is very frustrating
when important problems in American
society continue to go unsolved,
especially when there are other nations
in the world who have solved the same
problems. We Americans have strong
reservations against our government
taking the reins to solve social and
economic problems. I have the same
reservations myself. But what is the
answer? In the late 1970’s, when
America began to experience serious
macroeconomic problems for the first
time since 1946, it was erroneously
believed that there were no real
structural flaws in the American
economy, that it was onerous business
regulations that were inhibiting the
economy, and the answer was to cut
regulation. There are many problems
that profit-seeking free enterprise
system can’t solve. That is why, as a
2020 American presidential candidate, I
am writing books such as this to reach
influential people as yourself so that
together we can improve America and
the world.
Hopefully, someday we Americans as
well as all of the world, will be able to
merge the philosophical with the
practical. Then man will have used his
great pragmatic skills to achieve some
high ideals.

PERSISTENCE
The next leadership trait that Franklin
Roosevelt exhibited was persistence.
This began with his personal disability, as
he contracted polio, and was never to
walk on his own again. But he always
vowed that someday he would, and
would travel often during his presidency
to Warm Springs, Georgia to experience
its therapeutic waters which he thought
would return him to his prior strength.
More than anything, this displayed a
positive mental attitude, which is an
important trait for a leader who must
always be focused on solving problems
for the good of the people he leads. In
our modern era, leaders do not seem to
be providing positive leadership but are
more focused on what their opponents
are saying instead of being focused on
solving a problem.
An important reason for this is that
the two major entities to which
Americans turn to for political
leadership, the Democratic and
Republican parties, have pointed
themselves into a corner. The major
portions of both political parties
continue to propose ideas that cannot
and never have adequately addressed
important problems that Americans
face. I am an elected official of the great
Democratic Party, so any criticism that I
have is given out of tough love. Our
great Party has to transform itself and
become in reality what it has generally
been assumed to be in the public mind-a
liberal, progressive Party dedicated to
enhancing the lives of all Americans.
The current debate between
Republicans and conservative Democrats
has to be seen as a good cop, bad cop
situation. But perhaps this is changing:
the liberal wing of the Democratic Party
is currently reasserting itself, with me,
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and
Kamala Harris in the 2020 American
presidential election.
But even if one of these liberals were
to be elected to the American
presidency, would it make a difference?
Could what is now considered a liberal
program in the current state of
American culture be implemented? It
would be difficult because of America’s
separation of powers form of
government. Woodrow Wilson, who
before he became American President
wrote a book entitled “Congressional
Government” in which he advocated
that America abandon its current form
of government and adopt a European-
style parliamentary system. But I don’t
think that this would have much effect
since the root of this situation is cultural,
and it can be said that the very structure
of the American Constitution reflects the
country’s cultural values, the highest
which may be a bias toward naturalism
over idealism.
There is also the false notion that the
Republicans are just for the free market
and have no concern for the average
worker, but the Democrats do, and if
just the good elements of our society
came forth the Democratic Party would
be in power at all levels and there would
be paradise in America. The reality is
that the dominant parts of the American
Democratic Party have never gone far
enough in advocating the
implementation of social programs that
would be adequate to solve many of
America’s endemic problems such as
poverty and the lack of a national health
care plan that offers universal coverage
at reasonable cost and delivers optimal
outcomes.
It is hard for America’s current
political leaders to show persistence
when they have no real economic and
social goals that they are aiming at.
There is just that perennial prescription
that an adequate free market and a
strong economy will solve all problems,
and an example is the monthly focus on
the national unemployment statistics as
the central barometer as to how well the
American economy is functioning.
If FDR were alive today he would
probably be hard at work in attempting
to achieve those high goals that he set
for America in the “Four Freedoms”
speech in January of 1941. America in
the post-war period lost any focus on a
social vision such as this, as it became
more concerned with maintaining its
new dominance in the world. Any idea
of social progress in America became too
intertwined with the competition with
the Soviets and communism for
influence in the world.
 COURAGE

The last leadership trait of FDR that

we will examine that could have lessons
for today’s leaders is that of courage. It
is the ability to take a firm moral stand
on a position that one believes in or the
ability to face difficult situations without
losing ones cool and the ability to stay
focused on solutions.
Franklin Roosevelt would experience
both during his public life. During his
first inauguration speech in March of
1934 (it would be the last time that
American presidents would be
inaugurated in March) FDR uttered
probably the most famous line in
presidential inaugural history, “the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The
line was supposedly the idea of personal
development author Napoleon Hill, the
author of “Think and Grow Rich,” who
was an advisor to Roosevelt at the time.
Elected leaders throughout the world
show great courage in assuming
positions of high national leadership.
This is particularly true when a nation
faces a crisis. FDR was elected because
of the crisis of the Great Depression, and
it took courage to become the focal
point of Americans hopes and fears at
such a time. This has never before
happened in American history, but a
leader could be overthrown at such a
time, and it was not inconceivable that
such a fate could have met Franklin
Roosevelt. Barack Obama faced a similar
situation when he assumed office in
2009 amid what is considered the
greatest economic crisis in America since
the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
And Roosevelt faced a similar
situation as he waged war against
Germany and the other Axis powers.
Had Germany prevailed, and who knows,
with a few unlikely historical turns it
might have, Roosevelt and other top
allied leaders like Churchill would have
been in serious trouble. But thankfully,
top leaders do not let themselves think
that way as they must always be focused
on the positive results of any problem
that confronts them. This does not
mean these men were perfect;
Roosevelt could probably have been
more effective in dealing with racial
segregation in the American South, and
Churchill opposed the dawning of the
new British social welfare state in the
immediate post-war period for which
the voters removed him from office.
Today’s leaders can often show such
courage, and this behavior could be
greatly increased if political leaders
could become more concerned with
taking stands on matters of principle
instead of taking positions that they
might not truly believe but that poll well
with an electorate in this highly scientific
and data driven age. This effect may
have been greater in recent years as
many leaders of the Baby Boom
generation saw national politics as the
next step in their career path in the
relatively new American educational
meritocracy. The main economic and
political issue of their lives was the
ideological battle of capitalism versus
communism, and as this issue was pretty
much settled in most Americans minds,
there was little room for them to
maneuver and to do so would only open
themselves up to social and political
criticism-thus not a good career move in
such a status-driven and risk adverse
Baby Boom generation. That may have
been why much of what the American
social welfare state does comprise was
conceived of and implemented by earlier
generations.
 Every year, the John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library in Boston,
Massachusetts awards The Profile in
Courage Award, by which a recipient is
acknowledged for taking a moral stand
on a principle that at times risked his
political career, and at times ended it.
Politics can be a career based on a life
purpose of the desire to improve human
life and not to have as an end goal the
desire to hold public office in a kind of
maintenance mode where there is no
desire to achieve high social goals.
And to work toward high social ideals
takes great courage. But if you are
reading this book for inspiration,
remember that all great people
throughout history have thought this
way. They saw a problem or an injustice
that was not being dealt with and they
took it on as their mission to solve it. A
major problem in America today is
conformity, and if one proposes to solve
some basic human problems, one is seen
as a radical or as un-American. What
America needs more than ever are
individuals with courage to pursue high
ideals despite strong cultural opposition.
Can you be one of those people?