Should the Death Penalty be fully abolished in the US

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Eleanor Wilson - Lower Sixth, Gloucester

THE ONLY PRESIDENT ELECTED FOUR TIMES, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT SHOWED HIMSELF TO BE ONE OF THE MOST, IF NOT, THE MOST EFFECTIVE PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY.

He led America through the most challenging political issues of the 20th century, World War II and the Great Depression. However, his smaller achievements and positive attributes must not be over-shadowed by the momentous; his excellent relationship with Congress, the media and the citizens of America are also very notable. Essentially, he played an integral part in transforming the US into the superpower that it is today.

In his early life, Roosevelt was brought up with very traditional Christian values, and later went on to use these values as moral influence over his later political activities. He went to a private preparatory school, and was raised to be a gentleman, and it is clear to see, that he fostered these values in his later presidential career. After attending Harvard and Columbia law schools, he was keen to launch his political career, due to considerable pressure from his uncle to enter public service. That opportunity to enter mainstream politics came in 1910, when party leaders of Duchess County, New York, persuaded him to run for a seat in the state senate. Surprisingly, he won the election, and emerged as a very promising political figure, who was extremely capable and successful.

These early successes eventually spiralled into his presidential career, and it was at this time that he showed himself to be the most influential and effective president in US history. In his first term, Roosevelt was faced with a massive domestic crisis. The Great Depression had gutted America, unemployment was over 20%, and GDP had declined by 30%. The US was in a dire situation and was arguably facing the most serious economic crisis in its history. Roosevelt showed himself to be the man to take on the momentous task of repairing America’s economic situation, and when he was elected in 1932, he quickly set to work on plans to solve this dire situation. Roosevelt managed to achieve much electoral success; his promise of A ‘New Deal’ to aid economic recovery, with focuses on limiting too much private economic power, balancing the budget, and making extensive use of the Federal Government for the purposes of economic recovery proved to be extremely appealing. This factor combined with Republican ‘laissez faire’ economic policies, which were becoming increasingly unpopular due to their perceived nature of being tired, old fashioned and ineffective, led to him winning the 1932 election by a massive margin, with 32 million popular votes compared to Hoover’s measly 16 million, and the Democratic Party winning extremely significant majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Roosevelt showed himself to be particularly effective in the way that he interacted with the American electorate during this time of great economic and social distress. He hosted a series of radio broadcasts cleverly named ‘fireside chats’ in which he clearly and informally explained his planned policies in order to gain the trust of the American people, and it certainly worked. Roosevelt’s clever use of the media meant that the American people trusted their president more than ever before, and to further this, it meant that the electorate felt more included in the political discourse than ever before; setting the bar very high for any future president regarding media presence. Not only did he have an exemplary media presence with regards to direct contact with the electorate, but he also held regular conferences with media outlets and journalists, to ensure that they felt included, and had access to the information they needed. This was an extremely clever move and is particularly telling of his excellent political capabilities and skills, as it made sure that he formed good relationships with the media, limiting the amount of bad press and media slander that he received. It is little achievements and shows of overall capability like this which make him the greatest and most effective President in US history; it is not just the large-scale achievements which matter.

Roosevelt’s New Deal was undoubtably one of his greatest achievements. Not only did it facilitate economic recovery, but it was also revolutionary in its ideology. You see, the US had never had such an expansive Federal Government prior to the implementation of the New Deal; it was a completely novel idea of high government fiscal and economic intervention, one which had been thought of but never actually put into practice before.

Roosevelt dealt with the banking crisis quickly prior to the implementation of this relief plan; he ordered all banks, even the Federal Reserve banks, to shut for four days, in order for Congress to act. This clever move bought a considerable amount of time for Roosevelt and Congress, meaning that he could put a suitable plan in place for economic recovery, which later materialised into the New Deal. Part of the New Deal were the Alphabet Agencies, which aimed to provide extensive employment opportunities for those who had lost great amounts of money on the stock market. Roosevelt really did have too many achievements to list, but he was arguably one of the most effective Presidents in US history. His accomplishments across the board, on both domestic and international levels were momentous, and their legacy have lived on throughout the 21st century.

Ronald Reagan

Tali Gibbons - Lower Sixth, Haslewood

RONALD WILSON REAGAN SERVED AS THE 40TH PRESIDENT FOR THE UNITED STATES FROM 1981 TO 1989, WHERE HE IMPLEMENTED NEW POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC IDEAS WHICH ULTIMATELY SAVED THE US ECONOMY.

He was raised in a low-income family in a small town of northern Illinois where he succeeded in serving as the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 prior to his presidency. Reagan was also the first president of the United States to have been divorced and his charisma and optimism further advanced his popularity.

Reagan became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism and he accelerated his supply-side economic policies to save the US economy, in which he succeeded significantly in doing so. Additionally, his policies also included the largest tax cut in American history as well as increased defence spending as part of his Soviet Strategy, whereby both policies effectively worked and succeeded in achieving his goal.

To begin his successful two term presidency, Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination and defeated the incumbent President, Jimmy Carter. At the time of his inauguration, he was the oldest first term US president at age 69, but this further highlights his success during his presidency because of all that he achieved. Furthermore, he was re-elected in 1984 where he won 58.8% of the national popular vote. Moreover, he only lost Washington DC and his opponent Walter Mondale’s home state of Minnesota, in one of the greatest landslide victories in American history. Thereby, his victory during his re-election illustrates his extreme popularity and displays that those opposing his political and economic ideas were of a minority in addition to achieving the greatest landslide victory in American history. This further instantiates the mass support for him and the success he brought to the country was definitively reflected in the result of the election. Reagan immediately began implementing new political and economic initiatives, as he successfully won over enough conservative democrats to pass his program through congress. Reagan’s policies stressed conservative economic values and were undoubtedly successful as over his two terms the economy saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4%. Additionally, real GDP grew over one third during his presidency with an over $2 trillion increase. The compound annual growth rate of GDP was 3.6% during Reagan’s eight years, compared to 2.7% during the preceding eight years. Furthermore, economic conditions had deteriorated under Carter, with slow growth and high inflation and Reagan impressively reversed this and constructed a new and booming economy. Reagan had promised his supply-side economic policies would turn around the economy with lower tax rates and economic deregulation and this proved to be effective, which further reflected his optimism for the country and his strong and stable leadership to save the deteriorating economy. Additionally, Reagan’s administration saw the longest period of economic growth in peacetime American history up to that point, lasting 44 months. This exemplifies the success he achieved with his economic initiatives and displays his strength, compared to predecessor Jimmy Carter. With the economy booming due to his brilliant ideas of supply side economics, foreign affair crises dominated his second term. Moreover, in foreign affairs, he denounced communism and invaded the island country of Grenada after communist elements took control. As a result, a new government was appointed by the Governor General; thereby, illuminating another success of his.

In June 1987, four years after he publicly described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”, Reagan challenged the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”, during a speech at the Berlin Wall. This ultimately captures his bold and powerful sense of character. Furthermore, Reagan then successfully transitioned Cold War policy from détente to rollback by escalating an arms race with the USSR. He then engaged in talks with Gorbachev that culminated in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The INF Treaty formally banned all the two nations’ land-based missiles and ultimately shrank both countries nuclear arsenals. His determination is evidently illustrated through this, as he believed in certain policies and diligently worked hard to achieve his desired goal which further reflects his strength and optimism that he displayed during his presidency.

Ronald Reagan left office in January 1989, and he held approval ratings of 68% which was one of the highest ratings for departing presidents in the 20th century. Still to this day, he is regarded as one of the most popular presidents in American history, largely due to his successes but also because of his self-pride and optimism for the country.