“The Presidency of Franklin D Roosevelt” by Oscar Bernal Term Paper

From George Washington’s election in 1789 to George W. Bush’s exit in December 2008, 43 individuals have ascended to the highest office in the US. These individuals have served during times of hardship and plenty, peace and war, and for a duration of as long as 12 years and as short as one month (About the White House, 2009). Some Presidents positively utilized such factors to raise their reputation while others have been hurt by the same factors. In essence, it can be said that the “reputations of presidents rise and fall” (Lindgren, 2001, p1). But throughout US history, few presidents have managed to retain their reputations over time, and therefore are ranked highly in every survey conducted to determine the successes and failures of US presidents (Lindgren). Franklin Delano Roosevelt is among one them because he continues to rank highly in all the presidential ranking surveys done to date, by evaluating his leadership against the various categories used to rank US presidents.

The most used categories to rank presidents have been public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with congress, equal justice for all, etc. A good starting point to analyze the presidency can be the category of crisis leadership, in which the president has to be ranked according to his ability to manage the country during times of crisis (Lee, 2009). The crisis may arise from either internal or external factors. They may present themselves in form of external wars or internal catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina or the financial meltdown witnessed during the tenure of George W Bush. For instance, Bush scored exemplarily well on the war front especially after the attack on the World Trade Center but failed to deliver on the internal crisis. Also, the way he managed Hurricane Katrina made his approval ratings plummet drastically (McDonnell, 2006).

However, it becomes more difficult to rank Presidents using this category because crises are of different magnitudes; some have far-reaching implications while others may be viewed as “easy to manage”. The difference in magnitude has led some presidents to rank highly in this category despite their unpopular leadership style. Still, approval ratings based on crisis leadership are bound to be affected by what scholars call the ‘rally effects.’ All available information and documentation reveal that Americans almost unavoidably rally around their president no matter his popularity when American interests are threatened by external aggression, or during times of international crises (Gregg, 2003). The Job approval rating of George Bush rose overnight when Americans were attacked by a terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden. On his part, Franklin Roosevelt was ranked highly on account of the ‘New Deal’, a comprehensive social and economic program designed to counteract the Great Depression of the 1930s, and for his participation in World War II (Clements et al., 2008). Overall, this category of ranking presidents has serious misgivings as reflected above.

The second category used in the ranking of US presidents for this paper is Moral authority. Simply put, leadership is synonymous with moral authority (Covey, 2009). Leaders must always be able to demonstrate high morals that can always be enumerated by their subjects. This category makes sense in measuring presidential performance in that US Presidents who professed high moral ground by deed and actions were able to achieve much during their stay at the White House (Smith, 2006). Lincoln was one such President. According to Smith, President Lincoln repeatedly appealed to the Declaration of Independence and the Holy Bible as America’s basic source of moral authority. To Lincoln, “the ethical core of biblical religion and the rational principle of popular government were identical” (Smith, p114). Franklin D. Roosevelt is thought to be equal in greatness to Reagan (Dem, 2009). Notably though, George Bush ranked 35th in this category. His main interest seemed to be putting the country at war. It is his response to the war in Iraq that mostly put him on this scale about his moral orientation.

The third category used to rank US presidents is international relations. This category gives unbiased results in the ranking. The policies enacted by presidents in their relationship with other countries have either helped them rank high or low on the ranking scale. According to Healy (2006), presidents who have gone beyond the limits of the constitution, especially by starting wars that were not constitutionally necessary, have always ranked higher than presidents who are viewed to be whiling their time away in the office. However, this can be attributed to the ‘rally effect’ discussed before, whereby Americans rally behind their president during times of war despite his leadership qualities (Greg, 2003). In the 1996 Schlesinger rankings, for example, five of the top ten presidents had presided over wars. Among them were James Polk, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and others.

While Bush seemed to be actively involved with Africa, especially in the fight against AIDS, his [residency was marked by diplomatic tension with some countries that included the People’s Republic of China and Korea. Korea even threatened to use its nuclear weapons against America if were provoked. Though his foreign policies have been criticized as being hegemonic and interventionist, they successfully hindered another attack on the United States. This was a plus for Bush. On this front, Bush ranked 41 with only William Henry Harrison below him (Dem, 2009).

The fourth category employed to rank US presidents’ performance in office is public persuasion. President Lincoln first wrote about the significance of public persuasion that “in this age and this country, and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it nothing can succeed” (Winfred, 1990 p 89). The dominant view held among Presidents and scholars for half a century is that presidential power is all about persuasion. But persuasion, according to Winfred, is only attainable if the sitting president has the will and skill to persuade people so as to gain attention. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln have emerged winners in this category in all the US presidential rankings done to date (Span Poll, 2008). This is therefore one of the most important ways of measuring presidential performance. Unfortunately, even here, George Bush did not seem to be popular in the rankings where Dem says he appeared 36^th. It is almost evident that Bush had lost popularity with the people.

The fifth category used is relations to the Congress. The President’s cardinal role is to prepare a budget and then submit it to Congress for approval or otherwise. The Congress is also charged with the responsibility of passing crucial Bills that may affect the president’s ability to govern effectively (Aubuchon, 2008). Even if the budget or Bills submitted by the President may not automatically be signed and passed into law, a good working relationship with the congress may tilt crucial decisions made by Congress towards his favor. It is the duty of Congress to review the budget and determine what is to be passed and what need to be discussed between itself and the President. This requires communication. Relations to the Congress is therefore an important way in measuring presidential performance as poor relations means many programs will be halted owing to non passage of budgets.

While Bush ranked 36^th in this category too, Gagnon argues that a convincing theoretical explanation of the congressional relations and its reverence to George W. Bush focuses on three main aspects. These include its perception of the global threat to U.S national security, success in foreign affairs and an undivided government with both congress and presidency falling under the same party’s umbrella. The congress in this administration proved to be compliant in the legislative and executive relations. Gagnon says that the congressional relations of Bush created a Cold War-like consensus in the U.S.

The final category used to rank the US Presidents is administrative Skills. This category makes sense in ranking performance basically because presidential duties are basically administrative roles (Aberbach & Peterson, 2006). Indeed, the Constitution of America assigns the President the role of chief administrator and commander in chief of armed forces (World Book, 2009). The President must be a great administrator to be able to effectively prepare national budgets and enforce federal laws and treaties. President FDR had great administrative skills not so like Bush’s.

The greatest setback regarding these categories lies in the fact that Presidential qualities are arbitrarily measured without regard to quantifiable criteria. There is no actual tool for measuring one’s management abilities. This means that those people carrying out the research could be inclined to favor one president at the expense of another. For example, the 1999 C-Span survey on Presidential ranking had too many civil war historians (Nelson, 4). This means that they were likely to favor those Presidents who ruled during the civil war at the cost of other presidents. But that notwithstanding, it is imperative to note that the results of these surveys can never be willed away. However, the variables or categories of measurement need to be reconsidered so that they capture all relevant details in relation to variations of occurrences during a period of rule. It is not good to approve of a president merely because he led his country to war due to an aggression that happened in his tenure, and yet rate another poorly because no aggression happened in his tenure. Constructs must be developed in future surveys to capture such variations. There must be a way of ensuring consistency when ranking the presidents in relation to the periods they served in office.

The seventh category of ranking that can possibly be added to foster the above is ‘voter satisfaction’. Responses from this category must be sought on a huge sample of the population, preferably undertaken in conjunction with the presidential elections of the incoming president. Current surveys utilize minimal number of respondents. The first step in this category should include checking whether the president contended for the second term, and whether he won. Data collected from such a question will directly reflect on the individual’s approval rating in that he must have failed the voters if he didn’t win a second term in office. Such a response is bound to expose the successes and failures in terms of his foreign policy, public persuasion, administrative skills, and crisis leadership.

The second step would be to ask the voters to give an analysis of the president in his second term of office. His major achievements, policies, attitudes towards foreign policy, and economic management must be put under scrutiny by the electorate, specifically during the voting day. This means that for this strategy to work effectively, it must be arranged to coincide with the general election. Nevertheless, it is a workable strategy. Then, codes should be developed to rank the presidents in relation to the quantifiable responses given by the voters themselves without any bias. A strategy of measuring qualitative responses of attitudes and perceptions towards the president must be arrived at to ensure that all are given equal representation. The advantage of this design of measurement is that the respondents are American voters, whose interests are supposed to be upheld by the Presidents. However, we are less likely to recollect data of past presidents.

According to Lindgren (2001) in almost all the studies is Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is ranked among the top three US presidents. FDR had a privileged background before ascending to power in 1932. The greatest weapon that propelled him to defeat his opponent Herbert Hoover was his policies regarding the Great Depression (Kelly, 2009). This means that president FDR ranked highly in terms of crisis management. Without his exemplary policies, he would not have helped the United States out of the crisis.

During his first tenure in office, he amicably resolved the great banking crisis by presiding over the Congress to pass a bill that saw the return to government custody of all privately held gold (Oyez, 2009). However, the continuality of this Bill was upheld by five-to-four vote in the Supreme Court. The events that followed, culminating in some critics accusing Roosevelt over trying to ‘pack the court,’ revealed his abilities in crisis leadership. FDR argued that private property could not be held in high esteem than the main object of the constitution, which was to principally establish an enduring nation (Oyez, 2009). He decried that although the Legislature and the Executive was pulling in the same direction, the Judiciary was headed for the other direction, therefore making the American people to suffer. The Court was accused of assuming a policy-making role rather than a judicial role. According to Roosevelt, the Court had to be guaranteed its independence, but this independence was not meant to deny the existence of universally recognized facts. The judges were seen to be out of touch with the reality since one could work for life. In reprimand, Roosevelt proposed that all federal judges must retire at the age of 70 and ‘fresh blood’ who were in touch with the harsh social and economic realities pumped into the system. His critics argued that he was trying to ‘pack the Court’ with puppets who will never question his administration. Eventually, his crisis leadership style carried the day.

The overwhelming victory of FDR could be attributed to his prowess in public persuasion. Alf Landon, his opponent in the presidential elections of 1936 was against the policies enacted by FDR concerning the Depression. This made FDR step up his campaign outlining the effectiveness of the campaign. He got the support of traditional Democrats across the country, as well as Jews, Catholics and other religious afflictions, labor unions, political liberals, and African Americans, leading to an overwhelming victory of 523 electoral votes versus his opponent’s 8 (Hines, 2008). Others who rendered him support included the intellectuals, big city machines, and the Solid South. All these groups were united by Roosevelt’s prowess in public persuasion. One of his most captivating quotes during the great revolution was, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (Clements et al., 2009). This motivated the people not to lose hope.

Roosevelt’s relation with the Congress could be termed as above average. During the first 100 days in office, 15 major laws were passed by Congress (Kelly, 2009). These laws were aimed at improving the economy of the United States. He passed the bill that enabled farmers to be paid subsidies to encourage farming. He also persuaded his congress, which then passed the Full Employment Act. During his tenure, the New York Stock Exchange and the Wall Street were put under the government supervision. He had a good working relationship with the Congress judging by the way the Emergency Banking Act was passed to save more banks from collapse in the Great Depression. The Economy Act, which sought to limit federal government’s spending and cut the salaries of federal employees, was also passed by the Congress. Indeed, the many bills that were passed during his presidency reinforces that Roosevelt was ranked highly during that time as he is now.

Although FDR could mainly be popular as a result of the social democratic guiding principles that he strongly advocated for, nevertheless his inaugural address in March 1933 mainly touched strongly on policies of international relations (Barry et al, 2005). Dubbed ‘the Good Neighbour policy’, this policy that was the brainchild of FDR sought to direct ‘effective international strategies’, as well as actions during complex and confusing times (Barry et al, 2005). In light of this, such problems as global terrorism or global changes in climate may be seen to be covered in this policy, as long as the practices of a good neighbor (for instance, mutual respect, self-respect and a cooperative spirit) are cultivated amongst the various nations. Through the ‘Good Neighbour policy’, FDR has managed to do exceedingly well in matters international relations, through his actions of gaining international allies to the United States.

We could also judge FDR’s administrative skills as effective based on the performance during his term. He solved the issue of depression making it evident that without a good administration; it could have resulted into failure. Roosevelt showed exemplary administrative characters in party leadership. He had the ability to connect with people, was committed to party and public service, had vision, character, and political skills to reflect the ideologies of Party (Democratic) across all the corners of the US (Madison, 2005). Roosevelt was also known to permanently alter presidential powers granted in the constitution. For instance, during the Second World War, Roosevelt circumvented the Neutrality Act to provide the British government with Arms and Ammunition (The Presidents, 2002).

Judging by the overall criteria used to rank US presidents, FDR would still rank in the top three. In Presidential elections, he defeated his opponents with an overwhelming majority. In his third term, he did not publicly declare his intention to run for the elections but his name appeared on the ballot papers. Again he emerged the winner. Eventually he went back to the White House for the fourth term despite his ill health (Kelly, 2009). This means that FDR was exemplary in terms of protecting the welfare of the American citizens.

In his book, “ThePresidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House” Barber (1992) has identified four basic personality characters that befit a president: the active-negative, active-positive, passive-negative and passive-positive. In the case of an active-positive president, such a president is often seen to be not only enjoying politics, but also is active and has a deep interest in the presidency, along with the associated challenges (Barber, 1992).

Barbers (1992) also discovered that active positives are endowed with high levels of confidence, are keen on attaining results, and places a greater value on productiveness. Through this analysis, president FDR comes out as one who enjoys his presidency, seeing that he was in office for a record four terms, and also enjoys establishing decision, like the revert the privatized gold back into the hands of the government following the aftermath of the great depression. This can further be exemplified by the way he managed to turn a nation in shambles inherited from President Hoover into productivity by injecting working policies and the right frame of mind. He had the aggressiveness needed to undertake the necessary reforms to see America move forward.

He took the Supreme Judges head on during the 1937 ‘Court-Packing’ case, and won. His high esteem, political drive, and flexibility prior to his entry at the White show he was ‘Active-Positive’ President during his tenure. FDR applied his reasoning, political and good governance skills to uplift Americans during the Great Depression. He carried with him a communication of excitement, conviction of capability, investment without immersion, and a sense of the future. These qualities belong to Active-Positive presidents. However, the qualities are in sharp contrast to the ones held by President George W. Bush of chest thumping, poor international relations, and forcing unpopular policies on people without dialogue. Bush also failed to control the financial meltdown on its onset. FDR managed to resolve the great banking crisis while Bush could not deal with a national disaster undertaking such as Hurricane Katrina. In the same vein, FDR public persuasion was excellent while President Bush almost took decisions unilaterally due to lack of public support especially during the final phase of his leadership. The only category where President Bush can be ranked together with FDR is in relation to Congress, where both scored averagely. President Bush has been ranked lowly on Moral authority judging by the war he handled in Iraq (Branigin, 2008).

In conclusion, the categories of ranking the Presidents of US have been put under the spotlight for failure to present all the presidents with a level playing ground. A President serving during the time of war or conflict may end up getting undue advantage over his counterpart serving during times of peace. In addition, the Academic historians overly used in these surveys of ranking presidents may be politically inclined towards one direction or one political party at the expense of the other (Nelson, 2006).

To solve this problem, the best method of ranking could be use of voters. The results of the presidential elections could show that the Americans were pleased with a certain president’s policies concerning all the ranking categories. Franklin Roosevelt could still rank highly despite the methods used due to his accomplishments during his tenure in office.

FDR saved Americans from the Great Depression and navigated them through the trying moments of the Second World War. This coupled with his great persuasive power, effective economic and administrative skills, and exemplary international relations record justifies his ranking as one of the most outstanding Presidents in American history.

References

Aberbach, J.D. & Peterson, M.A. 2006. The Executive Branch. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0195309154

About The White House. 2009. Presidents. Web.

Aubuchon, D. 2008. “The relationship between the President and Congress.” The Chronicle. Web.

Barber, J. D. The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House. (3^rd edition). Prentice Hall: New Jersey, (1992).

Barry, T, Booker, S, Carlsen, L, Dennis, M & Gershman, J. 2005. Neighbour ethics for international relations. 2009. Web.

Branigin, W. “Bush Urged to Renounce Torture, Restore Moral Authority.” The Washington Post. 2009. Web.

Clements, C., Keene, L., Fredrick, M., & Anderson, D. 2008. Fredrick Delano Roosevelt’s Home Page. Web.

Covey, S.R. 2009. “Leadership is Moral Authority.” Business Standard. Web.

Dean, J.W. 2008. Predicting the Nature of Obama’s Presidency. Web.

Dem, Beltway, 2009. George W. Bush’s first ranking: 36^th of 42. Web.

Demkid. 2009. Ranking the chief executives: 2009 presidential leadership survey. The bright Coast. Web.

Gagnon, F., 2004 “A Cold War-like Consensus? Toward a Theoretical Explanation of U.S. Congressional-Executive Relations Concerning National Security Policy After 9/11”. Web.

Gregg, G. 2003. Crises Leadership: The symbolic transformation of the Bush Presidency. Web.

Healy, G. 2009. Went to war? Good president. Kept peace? Not so hot. CATO Institute. Web.

Hines, N. 2008. “The Greatest US Presidents”. Timesonline. Web.

Kelly, M. 2009, Franklin Roosevelt- 32^nd President of the United States. Web.

Lee. 2009. Presidential rankings by C-Span. Two edged sword blog spot. Web.

Lindgren, J. 2000. Ranking our presidents: how did 78 Scholars decided to rank the Presidents from Washington to Clinton. Web.

McDonnell, S. 2006. “Bush Criticized for handling Katrina aftermath.” Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Web.

Madison, J. 2005. Franklin Roosevelt as a Leader. Web.

Nelson, M. 2006. The American Presidency and the Political System. (6^th Ed). Congressional Quarterly books: Washington D.C.

Oyez. 2009. Fire Chart on Reorganization of the Judiciary, 1937. Web.

The Presidents. 2002. Franklin D. Roosevelt.Web.

Smith, G.S. 2006. Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0195300602

Span Poll. 2008. C-Span on Presidential Leadership: TR Ranked 3^rd by Viewers, 4^th by Historians. Web.

Winfred, B.H. 1990. FDR and the News Media. University of Illinois Press. ISBN: 0252016726

World Book. 2009. Roles of the President. Web.