FDR

Today after church we went to the Aurora history museum to hear FDR. Well, ok, not the real FDR, a guy that takes on the persona of FDR. We saw Mr. Lincoln a couple of years ago and he was pretty good, but this guy was great. The director of the museum talked about the campaign exhibit that was going on and gave a few facts about Franklin Roosevelt and then said, ‘Please welcome President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.’ He wheeled into the room in a handmade wheelchair made to 1920’s style. He started to talk about his early life, his marriage, his conventions, polio and the health spas he visited, his Presidential campaigns and WWII. He was asked to focus on conventions that he had attended (to correspond with the exhibit.) So he told of the 1928 convention in Houston, TX. ‘Why they decided to hold it there in the middle of summer I have no idea.’ He talked about a time when the Democrats went 17 days and 103 ballots of voting to get their candidate. Remarking about his polio he said that he did not try to hide the fact that he couldn’t walk, but thought that flaunting it would concern people. His friend Al Smith said (after the Republicans kept asking why people would want a cripple in the White House) that no where in the constitution does it say that a President needs to be an acrobat.

He talked about his run for the White House and how in the first 100 days as President he got congress to pass 15 of his laws. He started FDR’s alphabet soup of economic reforms and job opportunities. Here in Colorado the Mt. Evans road, Red rock amphitheater and more were built by young men involved in the CCC. It was one of FDR’s programs that gave a man a job, food, shelter and $1 a day (75 cents of which was sent home to his family.) FDR said that $1 a day doesn’t sound like much, but it was the essence of survival then. He talked about how the 1920 election was the first time that many people in the room in front of him got to vote, because that was the year women gained the right to vote (although Colorado was a progressive state, women here had that ability since 1893.) He talked about his cousin Teddy and how at the wedding of Eleanor and himself, Theodore gave the bride away. FDR said that most people came to the wedding just to see the President. He told some stories of Teddy that showed what a vigorous bull-headed man he was. He talked about WWII and insisted that he was in talks with the Emperor of Japan trying to work out a peace treaty when Pearl Harbor happened. He talked about the Japanese internment camps in the US and how fear had made the government tighten the civil liberties of people. When he was done he gave time for questions and the real fun began.

Bethany’s question was: What did he admire most about his cousin Teddy? FDR replied that he admired Theodore, Franklin and Jefferson for these qualities: They read voraciously, they absorbed books and read with understanding and to gain knowledge. Secondly, they were great writers; Jefferson of course wrote the Declaration of Independence, Franklin was a printer, newspaperman, and writer, and Teddy wrote more books as President than any other president. Joel asked: How did it feel to be the first President to use television, was it any different than radio? FDR replied that he was in a room much like the one we were in and they taped him in the room next door. He said it wasn’t a big deal and really the fireside chats drew 75% of Americans to listen to him. After all most Americans didn’t have a TV in their home until much later, so it wasn’t like the whole nation could get the signal. Grace asked: What was his worst day as President? He said his worst year was 1941. In September of that year his mother died and in December Pearl Harbor was attacked.

There were lots of interesting questions like: Do you feel bad about the internment camps? Did you know about Pearl Harbor before it happened? How did you get along with Churchill? What was it like to live in the White House? How much money did you make? ($75K a year.) Why didn’t you stop the trains in Europe from going into the death camps? Why did you start the Manhattan project? Why did you change vice presidents if you were going to keep running for office? Why did you stay 4 terms? One comment that I loved was from a woman who was probably in her late 80’s. She said, “I met your wife in San Diego, CA during a lecture (or maybe one of Eleanor’s pet projects) and I must tell you she was the best speaker I ever heard. I loved her right there, she was just wonderful.” At this point I must say that other than my 4 children there were only 2 other children there, everyone else was over 70 (about 60 people or so total.) I’m not sure why more kids didn’t show up, this was a great living history opportunity. It was very cool to hear this lady say that she met the real Eleanor Roosevelt. Anyway, more questions followed and then the man behind the President stood up and took questions about himself.

He’s been doing this for 6 years and he travels all over impersonating FDR. He can give lectures about his life, campaigns, presidency, Eleanor and more. He has an amazing memory and no question was too hard, although some questions were out of his time frame (like how did you feel about the red scare and blacklisting of movie actors. He said, ‘That’s a question for Mr. Truman or later.’) I give Mr. Richard Marold a 5 star rating (and we asked that next time they do Washington or Jefferson.) Here is a pic of him and the kids.

Here he is alone and here is a pic of the real FDR.

And HAH! to you people who took my free tix to see ‘The Maltese Falcon’, we got it from the library and watched it tonight.

Brigid O’Shaughnessy: Help me.
Sam Spade: You won’t need much of anybody’s help. You’re good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you say things like ‘Be generous, Mr. Spade.’

Detective Tom Polhaus: [picks up the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
Sam Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.