Down the rabbit hole of research

I was reading through a Facebook group today and came across an interesting posting that led me to do so some research. Here, thanks mainly to Wikipedia, is the story of an attempted coup in the US and calls for an American Dictator.

First off, I need to set the tone, for this all occurred during the ’30s, in a far different time than today. Then, the Italian Dictator Mussolini was quite popular, and fascist regimes existed in several countries. This was, of course, before World War Two and the US, and much of the world was in the grip of the great depression.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president that would rise to the world stage in the Second World War, was newly elected, waiting on his inauguration. People at the time, including some newspapers, were calling on him to be given extraordinary powers, including the ability to abolish government departments and suspend congressional appropriations.

At his inauguration address of March 1933, he stated that he was considering taking authority equal to what a president might be granted during an invasion. Shortly after taking office, he addressed the American Legion in his first public speech. Thanks to archives, it is now known that the first draft of his speech included a call to arm them and have them swear allegiance to him, personally.

In the end, he changed his mind, coming to the conclusion that dictatorship was unnecessary, but his political adversaries continued to use the threat of this suggested dictatorship against him. Roosevelt went on to become one of the most respected presidents in history, guiding the US through one of the most challenging events of the twentieth century, World War Two.

For more detail on this fascinating subject, simply search Wikipedia for “Roosevelt Dictatorship”.

Until next time, Happy Reading!