Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt congressional Democratic leadership was dominated by conservative Southerners, over half of the members of the incoming 73rd Congress had been elected since 1930. Many of these new members were eager to take action to combat the Depression, even if it meant defying the political orthodoxy of the previous years. Roosevelt appointed powerful men to top positions but made certain he made all the major decisions, regardless of delays, inefficiency or resentment. Analyzing the president's administrative style, historian James MacGregor Burns concludes: For his first Secretary of State, Roosevelt selected Cordell Hull, a prominent Tennessean who had served in the House
Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt hydrotherapy led him to found a rehabilitation center at Warm Springs, Georgia. He avoided being seen using his wheelchair in public, but his disability was well known and became a major part of his image. In 1938, he founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, leading to the development of polio vaccines. In August 1921, 39-year-old Franklin D. Roosevelt, at the time a practicing lawyer in New York, joined his family at their vacation home at Campobello, a Canadian island off the coast of Maine. As former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he had spent two weeks in mid-July in