Today's Democrats Disdain FDR

Today's Democrats Disdain FDR by William Federer

Franklin D. Roosevelt held the following political offices:

New York State Senator, 1911-1912;
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1913-1920;
Governor of New York, 1929-1932;
32nd U.S. President, elected in 1932.

He is considered one of the most powerful Democrat politicians in history, he won the:

1932 election with 57.41% of the popular vote;
1936 election with 60.80% of the popular vote;
1940 election with 54.74% of the popular vote;
1944 election with 53.39% of the popular vote.

Elected President an unprecedented four times, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office longer than any other President, over 12 years, serving during the Great Depression and World War II. The 22nd Amendment, limiting future presidents to just two terms in office, passed with bipartisan support in Congress in 1947, and was ratified by the states in 1951.

It is interesting to ponder whether this highly popular Democrat President could have been nominated by the modern Democrat Party. Though considered a liberal 80 years ago, since then, both the Left and the Right have moved to the left politically, resulting in many of FDR's statements being such that even conservatives today would be attacked by the media for repeating them.

Here are some of those statements that would be considered controversial today:

"Those forces hate democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization. They oppose democracy because it is Christian. They oppose Christianity because it preaches democracy."

"We guard against the forces of anti-Christian aggression, which may attack us from without."

"This great war effort must be carried through ... It shall not be imperiled by the handful of noisy traitors -- betrayers of America, betrayers of Christianity itself."

Roosevelt stated in his Labor Day Address, September 1, 1941:

"Preservation of these rights is vitally important now, not only to us who enjoy them, but to the whole future of Christian civilization."

"I saw Sevastopol and Yalta! And I know that there is not room enough on earth for both German militarism and Christian decency."

"The whole world is divided between ... pagan brutality and the Christian ideal. We choose human freedom which is the Christian ideal."

"Early Christians challenged the pagan ethics of Greece and of Rome; We are wholly ready to challenge the pagan ethics ... of our boasted modern civilization."

"The world is too small ... for both Hitler and God ... Nazis have now announced their plan for enforcing their ... pagan religion all over the world -- a plan by which the Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be displaced by Mein Kampf and the swastika and the naked sword."

"We face one of the great choices of history ... the continuance of civilization as we know it versus the ultimate destruction of all that we have held dear -- religion against godlessness."

"On this 28th birthday of the Boy Scouts of America we should be especially thankful for a youth movement which seeks merely to preserve such simple fundamentals as physical strength, mental alertness and moral straightness."

"I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States ... Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again."

"We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic ... Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity."

"Our enemies are guided by ... unholy contempt for the human race. We are inspired by a faith that goes back ... to the Book of Genesis: 'God created man in His own image.'"

"I can't talk about my opponent the way I would like to, because I am a Christian....some day I will go to Heaven, and I don't believe there is anything to be gained in saying dreadful things about other people."

"I doubt if there is any problem in the world ... that would not find happy solution if approached in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount ... in conformity with the teaching of Him who is the Way, the Light and the Truth."

"An ordering of society which relegates the Christian religion ... to the background can find no place within it for the ideals of the Prince of Peace. The United States rejects such an ordering, and retains its ancient faith."

"There has been definite progress towards a spiritual reawakening ... I receive evidences of this from all our Protestant Churches; I get it from Catholic priests and from Jewish rabbis as well."

"Churches and government ... can work hand in hand … Government guarantees to the churches -- Gentile and Jewish -- the right to worship God in their own way ... State and Church are rightly united in a common aim."

"Democracy is the birthright of every citizen, the white and the colored; the Protestant, the Catholic, the Jew."

"Your government is working ... with representatives of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths. Without these three, all three of them ... things would not be as ... easy."

"With confidence in our armed forces -- with the unbounding determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God."