My mother didn’t talk about politics very much when I was young, but the one thing that I do recall her mentioning, several times, was how Franklin D. Roosevelt dealt with the depression when he became president.
He closed the banks.
I had no idea what closing the banks had to do with the depression or how it solved it, but my mother seemed to think it was the right thing to do.
Both my parents were very strong Democrats. The only thing I recall my father saying, at least when I was young, was that he enjoyed better times when Democrats were in office than when Republicans were there.
As best as I can tell, neither of my parents suffered very much during the Great Depression. My father grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, so they could continue to grow all the things that they needed, and my mother grew up in a small town, Richland, that I don’t think was hit as hard as some places were. At least I never heard her complain about being deprived of anything during the Depression, nor do I recall anyone else in Richland moaning about those days. Since Richland was primarily a Republican town, I think if it had been hit hard by the Depression, I would have heard some stories.
Most of my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side are, or were, pretty solid Republicans; I’m not sure about those on my father’s side. When I got older, I asked my parents about the political leanings of my grandparents, and they thought for a bit, and they had to admit that they just weren’t sure; politics wasn’t discussed when they were growing up.
When I got older and FDR was finally taught in history class… Actually, my recollection is that most of our high school American history courses never actually made it as far as FDR, or if they did, he was covered very briefly. American history was always taught from the beginning, and by the time we got to the Civil War, April had rolled around and there wasn’t much time left to get to more modern stuff.
But somewhere along the line I did find out more about FDR closing the banks to stop the run by depositors and restore some semblance of confidence in the banking system.
These days most historians rank FDR right up there with Washington and Lincoln as one of the greats, for his dealing with the Great Depression, his radio fireside chats that helped to keep Americans confident in the government, his handling of the war, the TVA, the WPA, etc.
Not to overlook his internment of Japanese Americans and other shit that he pulled. There ain’t no such thing as a perfect president.
Still he’s definitely one of the greats.
Most folks probably don’t know about the assassination attempt on FDR, but I vividly remember watching the episode of The Untouchables where that was dramatized. It happened in Miami where FDR gave a speech along with Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak; naturalized citizen Giuseppe Zangara targeted FDR but only hit Mayor Cermak, killing him, and as I recall from the TV show, his dying words to FDR were, “Better me than you.” Or something like that.
Weidman and Sondheim included this attempt on FDR in Assassins, but the emphasis was on the aftermath as a radio announcer interviews a group of bystanders each of whom claims their actions saved Roosevelt.
Sondheim:
With “Please Hello” in Pacific Overtures, I took great care about the accuracy of the information being sung: the order of the countries sending envoys to Japan, the specific demands, the kinds of goods offered, all were historically correct. I can say with gratification that the song has been used in high school and college history classes as a relatively painless outline of the facts. So it is with “How I Saved Roosevelt.” There were in fact five bystanders who claimed to take the actions described in the song, although no one deflected Zangara by pushing his arm in the air. He had the misfortune to be only five feet tall and had arrived too late at the arena to get a seat close to the front. Roosevelt’s speech was unusually brief and, as he started to sit down, Zangara was hastening to shoot when the entire audience rose to its feet in applause and blocked his view, forcing him to stand on his seat, which wobbled just enough to ruin his aim. Thus Roosevelt was indeed saved. (I should add that “El Capitan,” the Sousa march to which the Bystanders sing, was the tune playing when Roosevelt entered the park in his car.)
Here’s the audio of the Original Off-Broadway Cast recording.
Here is the Westchester Sandbox version cued to start at “How I Saved Roosevelt”. I’d like to explain to the director that one should not have the actors move needlessly because it interferes with the lyrics. Oh well. Still, it’s not a bad production overall.