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Easily winning re-election in 1936, Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to be inaugurated after the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Prior to this, presidents had been sworn into office on March 4th, but he was inaugurated on January 20th in 1937.
Also in 1937, Roosevelt delivered "The Quarantine Speech" in Chicago. In it he compared the outbreak of international violence to that of a communicable disease needing to be quarantined. This speech began debates over just how much the United States should be concerned with international diplomacy. News media responded that the speech represented "an attitude and not a program".
Frustrated with the opposition to his proposals in his own party's conservative wing, in 1938, Roosevelt openly campaigned against five southern Democratic senators, including Georgia's Sen. Walter F. George , hoping to purge the Democratic party of its conservative wing. Roosevelt's efforts were unsuccessful, however, as all five of the targeted senators won re-election.
In an unprecedented move, Roosevelt sought a third consecutive term in 1940. Unlike the 1936 election where he won the Democratic nomination uncontested, in 1940 he was opposed by several candidates, the most noteworthy of which was his own Vice President, John Nance Garner.
Roosevelt went on to defeat Garner for his party's nomination, then defeated Republican nominee Wendell L. Willkie in a landslide to win the election. Joining him as Vice President to replace Garner was Henry Agard Wallace.
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, President Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943
Roosevelt proclaimed that he would not send American boys to fight in foreign wars. However, in 1941 the conflicting interests of Japan and the United States in Asia and the Pacific, especially in China, resulted in a breakdown of diplomatic relations to the point where war seemed inevitable (see entry for Hull note). Some have suggested Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the Sunday, December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and welcomed it as a way to get the U.S. into World War II. Others point out, that while U.S. code-breakers had broken Japanese codes in Washington, D.C. and knew something was about to happen, communication delays prevented the messages from getting to Pearl Harbor until 4 hours after the attack. At best though the conspiracies can only claim that FDR knew an attack by the Japanese was going to happen some where in the Pacific not that it was going to take place at Pearl Harbor.
On Monday, May 18, 1942, Roosevelt wrote a private letter to William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, in which he discusses that the USA and Canada agree on an unwritten plan aiming to disperse French-Canadians in order to assimilate them more quickly.
On Thursday, January 14, 1943 Roosevelt became the first President of the United States to travel via airplane while in office with his flight from Miami, Florida to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill to discuss World War II. The meeting was concluded on Sunday, January 24.
In hindsight, perhaps the most controversial decision Roosevelt made was Executive Order 9066 which resulted in the internment in concentration camps of 110,000 Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent on the West Coast. Considered a major violation of civil liberties, it was even opposed at the time by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (who may have done it out of malice for FDR), Eleanor Roosevelt as well as many other groups. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Executive Order. Others have criticised him for failing to do anything to disrupt the Nazi operations in perpetrating the Holocaust despite having intelligence of the atrocity.
Roosevelt was the first President to regularly address the American public through the medium of radio. He instituted a tradition of weekly radio speeches, which he called "fireside chats." These "chats" gave him the opportunity to take his opinions to the American people, and they often bolstered his popularity as he campaigned for various changes. During World War II the fireside chats were seen as important morale boosters for Americans at home.
From left to right, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin.
One speech he is famous for delivering was his State of the Union Address in 1941. This speech is also known as the Four Freedoms Speech. His address to Congress and the nation on Monday, December 8, 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor entered history with the phrase, " December Seventh, 1941—a date which will live in infamy." Following that speech, the U.S entered World War II with the Allies.
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