On this day 80 years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated President on the last March 4 Inauguration Day, taking the oath at the worst time since Abraham Lincoln took the oath on this day in 1861.
The economy was never worse, spurred on by Republican policies of the 1920s, primarily under Calvin Coolidge, but made worse by Herbert Hoover’s slow, inadequate response to the Great Crash on Wall Street in 1929.
FDR brought confidence, hope, and dignity to millions of Americans, and despite great opposition, brought about a series of programs that came to be known as the New Deal. FDR experimented, improvised, and admitted failures when necessary, but he was notable for never letting faults and shortcomings in programs to deter him from a great transformation of the role of the federal government.
FDR was a true savior, and became a model for future Democratic Presidents, and Barack Obama today faces much the same intense opposition, as he continues to deal with the worst economic situation since the Great Depression, making his time in office the third most challenging in American history, after Lincoln and FDR!