obituary: franklin delano roosevelt 1882-1945

American Geographical Society

Obituary: Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1882-1945Author(s): Isaiah BowmanSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Jul., 1945), pp. 349-351Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/211324 .

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The Geographical Review

VOLUME XXXV July, 1945 NUMBER 3

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT* 1882 - 1945

HE saddest face I have ever seen"-such was the comment of one member of the Council of the American Geographical Society at the close of the first meeting that Mr. Roosevelt attended after his illness.

He was then a private citizen who had just conquered a powerful enemy and who bore the marks of the struggle. The smiling crusader had not yet emerged. At the close of the meeting we got into a huddle over a new map that had excited him. The sailor in him was evident as he picked out details. His intimate knowledge of classic atlases had been known to us, and he spoke of the fun he had had with old atlases in the months of convalescence. Few people today are aware of the many thousands of miles of sailing he did in the Azores, along the coast of Brazil, in the Caribbean, and up and down the Atlantic coast. His memory of soundings and coastal profiles marked the true navigator. As his pencil worked over the map and ap- proached a shore line, he thought in fathoms, tides, and winds.

When he prepared to rise on that late afternoon, he refused help, request- ing only that the chair in which he sat be held firmly as he braced himself. After he had risen at last to his full height, his eyes swept the circle with a look of triumph, as if to say, "You see I can do it, and I mean to do it every time, alone."

He was advantaged by geographical sense and imagination as he directed a global war. His quick and sure handling of facts stimulated the minds of men about him. From admirals and generals no less than from foresters and meteorologists he wanted precise details. Although delighting in their intrinsic interest, he always turned to action about them, whether it was the shelter belt in 1933 or the North African campaign in I943. When he talked on political themes, he had a certain swagger. He liked a contest,

*This memorial is included in the resolution on the death of President Roosevelt passed by the Council of the American Geographical Society (see p. 474).

Copyright 1945, by the American Geographical Society of New York



THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

and he was quick to tell about it with boyish zest. But he had no vanity about his really great store of geographical knowledge. He was a good questioner and an excellent listener. Without technical training himself, he liked the lingo and firm confidence of technical men. Still more to his lik- ing were the applications from which the magic of human improvement was always expected.

Two problems illustrate his choice of values. He was determined to set- tle refugees in favorable sites wherever such sites could be found. It was pity for them that moved him most. He knew that the rich earth could

support all of us, but he was loath to admit that any part of it might be nig- gardly. In his view it was "system" that stood in the way, and he strove to cut through both system and difficulties in the physical environment. "Let me have a memorandum on the possibilities there . . .," and when he got it he brushed aside the incorrigible handicaps of climate or isolation. He

thought in terms of epic settlers' movements and bold plans of land use, not of the difficulties of one man on a remote piece of marginal land to be

paid for. Afterward one could be sure that his quick sympathy would be aroused by the plight of the unfortunately located settler! He expected engineers to study possibilities everywhere and produce exact figures as a basis for action. The studies are needed. But success or failure will be spelled out by real people and the wayward human will, by market possibilities, and by vast and presently elusive economic forces that will play upon the

postwar world. The second problem was hemispheric unity. Our Latin-American

neighbors have lost a great and true friend. His spiritual approach to the

present war was deeply colored by the catastrophic effects he foresaw if the Nazi system were imposed upon Hispanic culture in the Western Hemi-

sphere. His instinct respecting the hemisphere was protective as late as the

opening of 1941; his action was then restrictive, not venturesome. What were the limits of the hemisphere within which, perhaps, we might be safe? He consulted widely, listened to alternative proposals, debated, got mili-

tary opinion, scanned maps old and new, and was patient and thorough even with pedants and special pleaders. His decision was characteristically sweeping and courageous, following advice that he base his action upon a time-tried American policy: the seven seas should be free because restriction in one place threatened restriction in all. As the American people prepared themselves spiritually and intellectually for inescapable war, he sensed the change and helped create a favorable atmosphere by his empha- sis upon the permanent interests of America and by the far reach of his

350



FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

imagination. Acutely sensitive to popular feeling, he tuned in each diverse element of our people with an artist's skill.

The universal in his qualities is reflected in the remark heard everywhere in the days immediately following his death: "I differed with him, but. .." What is it that stops the sentence? Fifty men can and will write summary accounts like this one, and all will give different examples, yet all will

generalize about the same qualities. The breadth of his sympathy included all men. He wanted the support of everyone. Contradictions in policies followed as the night the day. He could not be the unwavering zealot, hew-

ing to one line. He was putting the ship through a rough sea, observing the wind more often than the compass, as storm succeeded storm. He would

stop a major discussion to tell about a new pocket device he had just seen for distilling fresh water from salt. It was not the science in it that mattered: he counted up the shipwrecked men it would save. He was everybody's friend as he sensed men's restrictions and anxieties the earth around. When he returned from Africa, he was full of criticism about the primitive plows he had seen in one of the coastal valleys. They were drawn by men and women. He thought that modern plows should be used. He did not know the disaster that the steel plow had brought to parts of Africa, or the importance of shallow ridge-and-furrow plowing in a land of little rain. Human beings were pulling primitive plows, and it ought to stop! It was people that mattered: let the earth conform, and let scientific techniques be bent to the human will.

He was pre-eminently a sailor,-a sailor without fear who traversed seas of profound darkness and danger, his compass the human heart.

ISAIAH BOWMAN

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obituary: franklin delano roosevelt 1882-1945

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