by Thomas Kessner  An enlistment poster for the Arizona Civilian
Conservation Corps, 1938. (Gilder Lehrman Collection)  Franklin
Delano Roosevelt’s protean presidency from 1933 to 1945 (the
longest term of leadership in this nation’s history) has
provoked many debates about the man and his policies. For some
he is the brilliant tactician who wrestled mightily with the
deadlocking forces of economic crisis and totalitarianism to
save capitalism and liberal democracy in its time of grave
danger. Others view him as a devious and unprincipled
compromiser, a broker president who fragmented the national
polity as he built electoral coalitions around self-serving
interest groups. Yet others charge him with dramatically
expanding the welfare state, undermining the free enterprise
economy and sapping American initiative. Few disagree though
that his response to the worst depression in American history is
the defining feature of his presidency.  Well born and favored
with an elite education, Franklin Roosevelt (1882–19