On this day 70 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and requested a declaration of war against Japan following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor the day before. Roosevelt’s words carried forth across the nation via radio, and the consequences of the actions America would take would be felt around the world–and across history. The lessons America learned in those fateful days should be remembered even today. Roosevelt noted that the day of Japan’s attack would be “a date which will live in infamy,” and …
During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised to act in the name of “the forgotten man,” that is, the poor man, the old man, the man “at the bottom of the economic pyramid” in need of government help. Amity Shlaes explained that FDR redefined the forgotten man and his plight. “As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil …
Three weeks ago, Democrats took what President Obama dubbed a “shellacking” at the polls: Republicans picked up 62 seats in the House, enough to gain a majority, and six in the Senate. The next day, the post-election analysis and finger-pointing began. Defeated Democrats blamed the President. Defeated Republicans blamed the media and the Washington establishment. The President (whose usual reaction is to blame Bush) blamed the American people’s anxiety over not feeling the change he had promised. All blame games aside, the real question remains unanswered: what did the 2010 …
Herbert Hoover was no laissez-faire president like Calvin Coolidge, however he did respect the constitution, and he never was willing to go as far as Franklin Roosevelt. He made a speech just before Roosevelt’s election to a third term, in which he made some salient points—ones we would still be wise to consider today. With Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin in power, and with a myriad of other dictators and authoritarian powers sprinkled across Europe, it was critical that the free citizens of America see the danger of handing over the …
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.” Sound like, oh, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio or some other exasperated Republican stalwart lamenting proposals to spend our way out of the recession? Listen again: “I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises.” Sound more like a liberal Democrat pushing job creation — say, Harlem’s …
President-elect Barack Obama and liberal members of Congress are gearing up this week to make their case for an economic stimulus bill that costs upwards of $775 billion. Obama has said he wants to secure as many as 80 votes in the Senate in hopes of striking a bipartisan deal. Unfortunately, most of the talk so far about the stimulus has focused on failed economic policies. Some of them even resemble the approach of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s when the United States was mired in the Great …
“A Conservative,” that anonymous scribe within Heritage, surfaces again for the second time in three days with a cautionary tale for the Big Three about Henry Ford, FDR and Big Government strings. This latest edition of New Common Sense, titled “Ford Faced Down FDR’s Blue Eagle,” reads as follows: Out of the rubble of the proposed bailout of the Big Three automakers, a phoenix may rise — or is it a blue eagle? President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson just might speed $10 billion or more to Detroit regardless …
