rubber stamp of approval

To place Franklin Roosevelt’s passion for collecting stamps and to a lesser degree him maritime collection in a meaningful context is not really possible without the backdrop of the depression. He worked on his stamp collection almost to his death. Its obvious he was a lackey to the Rockefeller and Morgan interests, and the idea of promoting a child hobby like stamps would have to bear relation to the plight of children during the Depression. The ideology of charity in the 1930′s had reached an unyielding and resolutely opposed form unless it was , as in the case say of an ideological weapon like Shirley Temple where profits could be sucked from compassion. FDR is not exactly like fiddling while the heartland burned but, was licking stamps a metaphor for the tongue in the great wealth’s backside…

When storms toss the Ship of State, the President finds diversion with his great collections. Modern Mechanix sent James N. Miller to the White House for this story of the nation’s great hobbyist.

by JAMES NEVIN MILLER

A SECRET service agent rapped on the door of the home of a retired minister in a suburb of Washington.

---During his administration, Roosevelt played a critical role in much of the creation, design and promotion of some 200 stamps released during his time in office (1933-1945). Whether celebrating Mother’s Day, Arctic exploration, National Parks or New Deal programs, FDR believed three cents of postage (the going rate back then) could deliver more than just a letter. --- Read More:http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2009/08/fdrs-stamp-collection-a-childhood-hobby-he-took-to-the-oval-office/ image:http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/history/page/4/

The clergyman opened the door. The government agent flashed his badge. Timidly, perhaps apprehensively, the minister asked the man to step into the living room.


Imagine his astonishment when the agent announced:

“Your Reverence, the President would like to have you drop in some day at the White House. He’d like to see you about your stamp collection. He says that you should bring it along so that he can take a look at it.” Read More:http://blog.modernmechanix.com/category/history/page/4/a

---The book centers on the exploits of the Confederate steamer Shenandoah, which preyed on whaling vessels supplying oil for the Union. The ship was skippered by Lieutenant James Iredell Wadell, who, along with capturing or sinking 38 ships (without a single casualty on either side), famously is said to have fired the last shot of the Civil War, two months after the war had ended. The ship is pictured in action in Arctic waters in the lithograph bel


from the collection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.---Read More:http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/whaling/

ADDENDUM:

While recovering from polio, he spent many bedridden hours arranging and annotating thousands of specimens. As President, there was scarcely a day when he did not spend some time with his collection….

---FDR suggested themes, images, colors, even designs. This small but compelling exhibition features six original stamp sketches by FDR—including a map tracing Byrd's Antarctic expedition, Whistler's famous painting of his mother for Mother's Day and a bust of Susan B. Anthony to mark an anniversary of women's suffrage. The issuance of 20 billion "Win the War" stamps—with a design selected by FDR, an eagle's wings forming a V for victory—turned letter-writing into a patriotic act. The president's wooden stamp box accompanied him everywhere, except on his final trip to Warm Springs, Georgia, where he died April 12, 1945. His friend Minnie Astor had borrowed the box to commission a leather replica for a Christmas gift. Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/From-the-Castle-FDRs-Stamps.html#ixzz1mPIxYajA---image:http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/pastevents2009.html

…At his death, his personal stamp collection numbered over 1,200,000 stamps, 80% of which was of little value-”scrap”" as the President called it. The collection was sold at public auction in accordance with his wishes and realized $228,000.00. The stamps he received officially from foreign governments were not sold, but are a part of the holdings of the Roosevelt Library.Read More:http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/facts.htmla

---Early in the depression William Green, President of the AFL, led organized labor in denouncing the dole and unemployment insurance as “paternalistic, demoralizing and destructive.” Governor Roosevelt of New York, thinking of the votes he would need to get in the White House, asked in Fall of 1931 for an increase in state taxes to give “necessary food, clothing and shelter” but noted that “under no circumstances shall any actual money be paid in the form of a dole.” Observed a writer in The Nation, “What an incredible absurdity. What is there about cold cash that makes a man like Governor Roosevelt think that giving dollar bills to a starving man or woman is worse for his character than presenting him with a suit of clothes which he might buy for himself?”--- Read More:http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC02folder/shirleytemple.html image:click for source

—————————————
Eckert: But Roosevelt was not only more politically expedient than Hoover, he was more culpable. Hoover was insulated from, and insensitive to mass thought and feeling. He could call children “cheerful human electrons” and think he would be understood. Roosevelt was a common sentimentalist. At Warm Springs in Georgia, he helped maintain a hospital for crippled children (he had suffered from polio himself) which he loved to visit. He also liked to lecture the children, on one occasion anticipating the thesis of this article with a bedtime exploration of the relation of economics to society.

“We hear much these days of two adjectives—social and economic … Here at Warm Springs we have proved that they go hand in hand.”

The proof, to summarize Roosevelt’s prolix demonstration, lay in the fact that almost every crippled child required the care of an adult; rehabilitation made the child a “useful member of society” and released the adult “to be an economically useful unit in the community.” In another address on the occasion of his birthday and the holding of over 6000 birthday balls to raise funds for Warm Springs, Roosevelt said,

“Let us well remember that every child and indeed every person who is restored to useful citizenship is an asset to the country and is enabled to ‘pull his own weight in the boat.’ In the long run, by helping this work we are not contributing to charity, but we are contributing to the building of a sound nation.”

The image of crippled children compelled to heave at the oars would be monstrous if it were not so ingenuously political.
One final anecdote. Roosevelt, a former boy scout, was asked to address the scouts upon the occasion of their twenty-fifth birthday in February, 1934. He asked Harry Hopkins, his relief administrator, for ideas. Hopkins suggested that the scouts be asked to collect furnishings, bedding and clothes for those on relief. Roosevelt liked the idea and announced it, adding,

“Already I have received offers of co-operation from Governors of States, from Mayors and other community leaders. I ask you to join with me and the Eagle Scouts and our President and Chief Scout Executive who are here with me in the White House in giving again the Scout oath. All stand! Give the Scout sign! Repeat with me the Scout oath! ‘On my honor …’” and so forth….

…As the second year of Roosevelt’s administration drew to a close in the winter of 1934, sufficient federal relief was no longer a serious possibility. Commentators noted that the impression that the Democrats would act had utterly demoralized charity efforts. And yet in New York alone there were 354, 000 on relief, 77,000 more than a year before. Relief applications were coming in at the rate of 1500 a day. One reporter passing through Ohio discovered families receiving one cent and a half per person.Read More:http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC02folder/shirleytemple.html

Related Posts

This entry was posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>