Talk:Franklin D. Roosevelt/Archive 9

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I would like to suggest a link to FDR's four freedoms page in Wikipeida. This was a concept the capitalists hated and never really gained traction in the US. But they were imbraced in Europe and had great influence. They need to be included in his bio, they were early versions of human rights and no doubt helped directly or in directly inspired the civil rights movement and others. They are to a great degree being fought for in the Arab Spring movement and even the Occupy Movement here and now. The Link is as follows:

Recent reversions

@Hot Stop:, @Katydidit:, please stop reverting each other and discuss the issue. Katydidit, since you seem to want changes, please outline your concerns. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:20, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't have time to give a full response, but I am pinging @Rjensen: because they were reverted by the other party as well. Hot Stop 20:31, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

There has been numerous studies showing how the war impeded economic progress. That often-cited 2% (or less) unemployment rate was only achieved because the government either drafted or got by enlistment 16 million men out of the civilian economy, with the vast majority of them unemployed. Voila, they were now no longer unemployed or counted as part of the total civilian labor force. So, by simple mathematics, the unemployment rate plummeted to be less than that 2% figure. In the circumstances of a straitjacketed wartime economy, that usual measure of civilian unemployment does not mean what it is commonly taken to mean because the entire economy was changed to a command wartime one instead of producing civilian goods and services. Production of many important consumer goods was outlawed. Furthermore, a huge percentage of the lower number of civilian goods produced were strictly rationed, and that highly-regulated wartime economy bore no resemblance to a real peacetime economy with increasing choices of goods produced and services. Just ask anyone old enough to have lived through those years. Tanks, bombs, fighter planes, ships, and submarines have no useful purpose for ordinary people to use, except to destroy something in war. Government has no resources of its own. It has only the resources the private sector creates that it seizes for its own political uses. Finally, Real GNP fell during the war years 1942-1945, compared from the 1941 peak. 1939=100 index. 1940=108.7   1941=119.4   1942=108.4   1943=102.2   1944=105.4   1945=114.3. The first postwar year, 1946 showed a huge jump after the high taxation, highly-regulated economy transitioned to the usual peacetime, low-regulated economy. 1946=144.8   1947=147.3   1948=152.3. Source: Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s. --Katydidit (talk) 18:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

that's a very minor theory that is rejected by 99% of economists (including leaders like Milton Friedman). Ordinary people REALLY wanted the 16 million American soldiers & sailors & airmen to have lots of good tanks, warships & planes so they could win the war and come home safely. That was a genuine, real and important consumer demand. As for "Government has no resources of its own" that seems to miss projects like the Navy shipyards and the atomic bomb & computer projects, none of which were "seized" from the private sector. Real GNP (1958 dollars) rose from $227 billion (1940) to $261 billion (1944) [Hist Stats of US series F32). Higgs is in that 1% and he admits that the consensus is against him (he says "This consensus account, occasionally with minor qualifications or caveats, appears in the works of historians, economists, and other writers.") Rjensen (talk) 05:09, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

You're sadly mistaken if you somehow believe the people wanted tanks and fighter planes for some personal use, which is not what consumer demand meant in the normal economic definition of the term. Yes, they wanted them produced to win the war, which was an abstract concept pertaining to the war, but nothing to do with consumer demands for useful goods and services as economists define the term, to further satisfy their increasing wealth desires (transferring) from built-up savings accounts to tangible goods. You further degrade your argument by not understanding the basic fact of life that governments have no resources except by seizing them from the people who created the wealth in the first place. I don't mean physically seizing something already made from the people, which is what you alluded to with your ridiculous idea that the people made A-bombs or other war weapons at home that the government seized. It was from their savings, in running up huge deficits, financed by bonds that can only be collected in future years by taxation. Nothing is free, except the almost unlimited air and water. Everything else costs something to produce, whether by raw commodities and of course, in time. Back to the main point. You conveniently ignored the Real GNP index numbers that showed the index in 1945 was still lower than from the 1941 level when there was a true peacetime economy, as there was again in 1946 that showed a huge jump than the 1942-45 level. You also ignored the significant points that many consumer goods were illegal to make during the war, others were of lower quality than those made in peacetime, and still others were strictly rationed to consumers because they went to the war effort. Ask anyone who lived through that on how many shortages they had to endure (food, tires, gasoline, metal canned goods, etc.). And you call that making people more prosperous? That political propaganda has gone on for too long and that idea is now being called out for the fairly tale it was. The savings in those war years gathered pent-up demand for goods that manifested itself after the decontrols and lower tax rates were passed in 1946, that was the real cause of the higher GNP that was also documented from the source cited, from Simon Kuznets's calculations. Maybe you've heard of him before? Maybe not. There were also mentions of the dissenters to the casual, dominant view of "war prosperity" by William Nordhaus and James Tobin, both highly distinguished economists, as was Kuznets. So, you can't say it was "only" Robert Higgs, himself a distinguished economist, to so casually dismiss his article without understanding (or reading all of it, which I doubt you did), when others have contributed information that Higgs cited in their findings on how little truth there really was in the long-standard idea of consumer prosperity within a straitjacketed wartime economy. "Some economists appreciated the perils at the time. "Noting that the government had displaced the price system, Wesley Mitchell observed that comparisons of the war and prewar economies, even comparisons between successive years, had become “highly dubious”." Higgs mentioned in Table 3: "The change between 1941 and 1944 varies from 3.7 percent to 5 percent, depending on the series considered. But the population was growing at a rate of more than 1 percent per year, so the official data imply that real personal consumption per capita remained essentially unchanged between 1941 and 1944. Merely to maintain the level of 1941, a year in which the economy had yet to recover fully from the Depression, hardly signified “wartime prosperity”." Hugh Rockoff found out, “evasion and black markets were probably more severe outside the group of commodities that were covered by the consumer price index.” Speaking of Milton Friedman that you mentioned for your side, he and Anna Schwartz were cited by Higgs thusly, "perhaps the most credible alternative deflator has been produced by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz. They found the official deflator for NNP to be understated by 3.7 percent in 1943, 7.7 percent in 1944, 8.9 percent in 1945, and 3.3 percent in 1946. Their deflator is for NNP, not for just the consumption component of NNP. In using it as a deflator for consumption alone, one is taking a risk. It definitely moves in the right direction, however, as it implies larger adjustments than Rockoff’s admittedly incomplete adjustments of the official consumer price index. Moreover, it is well established that munitions prices rose much less than the prices of civilian goods; hence, a deflator for official NNP, which includes munitions, most likely still understates the extent to which the prices of consumer goods rose during the war." Using Friedman-Schwartz's data, here are the results of the Alternate Estimate of Real Consumption per Capita in Table 4, with 1939=100. 1940=104.2   1941=108.7   1942=104.2   1943=101.9   1944=102.0   1945=106.8   1946=126.1   1947=128.7   1948=128.3   1949=130.2. As Higgs also found: "When one adopts this position on the treatment of military outlays, that is, when one deducts all of them from GNP on the grounds that they purchase (at best) intermediate rather than final goods, one arrives at a starkly different understanding of economic performance in the 1940s." I could go on with quoting the data, but I think that is enough to thoroughly debunk the idea of World War 2 bringing the U.S. out of the Depression all by itself when consumers were severely hampered precisely by the war effort, the lack of goods, the lower quality of them, and others strictly rationed. Prosperity did not truly arrive for the beleaguered consumers with mountains of savings to spend, until the decontrols from the command economy plus lower tax rates in 1946. “Government spending on the military didn’t stimulate private consumption—it crowded it out.” "It is difficult to understand how working harder, longer, more inconveniently and dangerously in return for a diminished flow of consumer goods comports with the description that “economically speaking, Americans had never had it so good”." --Robert Higgs article --Katydidit (talk) 11:10, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

they wanted the tanks, planes etc so theirs sons, brothers and cousins (16 million of them) could return home alive. I think that's a pretty good motivation, don't you? The Higgs argument that only peacetime consumption items "really" count in an allout war is pretty extreme pacifism. It implies that civilians wanted 5 million more autos (say), even if it meant 5 million more American casualties because soldiers lacked weapons. Higgs repeatedly admits that all the other economists disagree with him. So why should we agree? As for Kuznets, he did look at many possible definitions. The definitions Higgs uses are ones that Kuznets and every other specialist in GNP rejects. As for built up savings account--no they were not used. Instead a large % of CURRENT weekly income was diverted to bond purchases & taxes. Rjensen (talk) 11:30, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you on one point I was making that you didn't understand you agreed with me, when you commented on their sacrifices (motivation), so they would win the war, and the soldiers returning home alive: "I think that's a pretty good motivation, don't you?" Now for your ridiculous, inaccurate assertion: Higgs did NOT say "all the other economists disagree with me." You are deliberately twisting his words to say something completely different. One big strike against your repeated making that point, and you are losing the argument by making-up that idea, so quit saying that junk! Pacifism, pro or con, has absolutely nothing to do with this debate on the wartime prosperity idea or not, so your non sequitur saying such drivel is a plainly false argument, and again you are twisting things that are not true to try to bias your side with an irrelevant aside. As I pointed out, he had other top economists who also agreed with him that you keep ignoring, to your shame. You are still not getting the main economic point made in the article at all. Forget about the desire to win the war. We all accept and understand that. The economic point Higgs and Kuznets, et al are making is that the people made great economic sacrifices on their end, precisely so the soldiers/sailors would have enough resources to beat the enemies! That alone verifies Higgs, et al. point on lower consumer goods made and available in exchange for the wartime goods necessary for the war effort. The entire summation sentence that I was trying to eliminate on the page, "The war ended the depression and restored prosperity" is completely wrong because it didn't end the hard years, and it certainly did not restore "prosperity" if you are looking at the Real GNP shown by the newer data available, and the newer price deflator that Friedman/Schwartz identified that had higher consumer prices, that resulted in lower demand for consumer goods. Meat was scarce and expensive, as were other key goods in ordinary living. Housing was scarce and expensive. New cars were not being manufactured (a huge percentage of the economy!), that you ignored, and the people had to keep driving their old used ones. The black markets sprung up for those wealthier people who could afford the highest prices for scarce goods they coveted the most. Consumers lost their freedom of choice in myriads of ways in those tough, wartime living conditions in those four years. Examples: many teenagers left school to work in the factories, farms, or elsewhere to provide for their family, women left their homes, and older people left retirement to work. These documented facts can't be expressed in simple economic terms. These were severe and real economic losses to those forced to change what activities they wanted to do, as shown prior to 1942, and in 1946 afterwards. This wasn't consumer prosperity in the slightest if you have any consistent idea on how many goods and services were simply not available in those years, and Russ Roberts' quote accurately summed it up: “Government spending on the military didn’t stimulate private consumption—it crowded it out.” And we all understand how the government artificially manufactured that extremely low unemployment figure, it took 11+ million men (22% of the total) out of the labor force by the draft or enlistees, who risked their lives. They wouldn't have done so unless they perceived a future worse possible danger to themselves and families. People worked an average of seven hours longer than in the peacetime 40-hours average work week. So that 1%-2% unemployment figure means absolutely nothing by itself and doesn't signify prosperity as it would have in peacetime calculation, as the context was radically changed in the new command economy. It is trying to equate the proverbial pile of apples with a pile of oranges and proclaiming one is better than the other or both are equal. Did you finally finish reading the entire article, or never read more than only the first paragraph? You haven't made your point by merely sticking to the old propaganda and the old figuring in concluding that wartime automatically makes people prosperous by itself, no matter how many economic sacrifices must be made in living with a lower amount of, and higher prices for those coveted goods, including food stuffs. According to you, it's ok for the people to suffer without the usual consumer goods/services and suffer the high transportation costs,(that Higgs also explains hurt the people), and strict wartime living conditions, regulations, as long as they are winning the war. Yes, the people did that as a shared sacrifice, but they had no idea how well-off they were economically compared to pre-1940! [sarcasm] The truth is they merely traded high unemployment for a shortage of vast numbers of consumer goods for those four years to win the war. It was no prosperity heaven, just ask anyone who lived through it to get the sacrifices made by a courageous people in doing that for those difficult years. Here is yet another analysis showing that war does NOT create prosperity, and it pertains to all wars, not just WW2. The article also has a specific section concerning WW2 ("World War II and American Prosperity") and its negative effects on the economy. "No one could buy a new car, house, or major appliance, since the government had forbidden their production entirely." A great many other goods were either unavailable or difficult to obtain, from chocolate bars and sugar to meat, gasoline, and rubber tires." You go without those essential goods for even one month, and then come back and tell us how you were so much better off. "As economist George Reisman writes in Capitalism, “People believed they were prosperous in World War II because they were piling up large amounts of unspendable income—in the form of paper money and government bonds. They confused this accumulation of paper assets with real wealth. Incredibly, most economic statisticians and historians make the same error when they measure the standard of living of World War II by the largely unspendable ‘national income’ of the period.” Common sense is right after all: death and destruction do not lead to prosperity. That should be obvious. But as George Orwell once said, “We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men”." Katydidit (talk) 17:08, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Katydidit may not appreciate that he is preaching a far-left ideology here in violation of NPOV rules (he thinks that government is theft --that's anarchism; he buys into Higgs pacifist notion that war is always a horrible mistake). Friedman, by the way, clearly stated that there was great prosperity in WW2. This quote by Katydidit says "Incredibly, most economic statisticians and historians make the same error..." -- thereby he admits that he is opposing "MOST" economic statisticians and historians. Wikipedia rules are that we emphasize what "MOST" experts say, not off-beat views of Higgs. Rjensen (talk) 07:09, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Whatever idiotic and inaccurate label you want to label and smear the idea, that has absolutely nothing to do with the facts of the case, which you refuse to refute with any verified facts. And, why do you keep insisting (again) that it is only Robert Higgs, and nobody else? That isn't close to the truth, so please stop lying about that inaccurate point. And Higgs never said all wars are mistakes, since he agrees with the American Revolution to throw-off the yoke of the British rule. And, the Wiki idea that goes by what the majority believe has to be the truth (and only the majority view allowed to stand) is plainly unfair, and there are a number of times in history where a once-minority view later became the majority, and vice versa. Few things are absolute, and that definitely applies to the changing ideas in economics over the years. The world once unanimously believed the world was flat. The world once believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. You still have not made your case on providing true facts of this "great prosperity" idea during the war years, besides the apples-to-oranges 2% unemployment rate, which has been shown as not the same thing as the peacetime rate compared to a government-run, straitjacketed economy. You also haven't figured out why economists always talk about the post-war boom. Why do they say that, instead of lumping the booming war years with the post-war years and proclaim the boom started during the war and merely continued at the same pace afterwards? Because they can't logically say that, because it wasn't the case at all! The post-war years economic growth was much, much stronger than anything in the war years themselves, as Simon Kuznets figures (Table 2) show in the Real GNP from 1939-1949 with the 1945 figure *lower* than in 1941, before the big jump starting in 1946 after the government started decontrolling the economy and lower tax rates. BTW, where is the reference cite always demanded by Wiki (WP:Cite) on making unverified statements with, "The war ended the depression and restored prosperity?" There is none shown after that line. You refuse to refute the black markets, the lack of transportation, the dangers in working in many economic categories, the lack of consumer goods by outright prohibition from the government, the lower quality of those, and the high number of goods that were strictly rationed because they were consumed by the war effort. When will you finally cite reliable sources that those wartime deficiencies did not make people more prosperous, if you can find any? You have not refuted or even tried to refute the findings of Simon Kuznets, George Reisman, Hugh Rockoff, Thomas Woods, William Nordhaus, James Tobin, or Wesley Mitchell (among others not mentioned) who also disagree with the standard propaganda government line that, "the war ended the depression and restored prosperity" with any sources, any figures, any facts, or anything but your own saying that tired, old, decrepit, propaganda line. Notice, those economists, and historian Woods are NOT Robert Higgs, so you can stop your constant lying about your saying it is only from Higgs. Would you at least do that and turn honest on that point, or do you want to continue lying with your repeated falsehood that has been proven untrue? If not, I can only surmise you don't want to honestly discuss this topic, and only want to smear and make-up stories because that is all you have to go on. --Katydidit (talk) 23:27, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Higgs rejects Kuznets (Higgs uses a model that Kuznets considered & explicitly rejected). Higgs rejects Friedman (who sees a 48% rise in prosperity in WW2) Tobin?? Actually I was a PhD student of Tobin at Yale and there's no Tobin there. Woods is a popular writer who copied Higgs. It all comes down to Higgs and he repeatedly says he is going against the consensus. What we do at Wikipedia is start with the consensus of scholars. Rjensen (talk) 23:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

You twisted the facts around again to suit your own unverified assertions! How come you can't fight honestly, and resort to dishonest wordplay that twist the truth into pretzels? Higgs is using KUZNETS' findings in the article, not the other way around! Where is the cite to your made-up "48% rise in prosperity"--and what amount does that 48% increase represent, since you never say. No Tobin? You were a Ph.D. student of his, but he wasn't really there? Somebody just made his name-tag up and planted a dummy with it in your class who talked to the students via a hidden microphone? Woods only copies others? It all comes down to Higgs? You are mad, thoroughly, completely mad to make-up such outrageous, amateurish gibberish in vainly trying to support your unverified assertion, and that you refuse to add one cite as I have repeatedly asked. Blind, and mind completely shut tight, not just incredibly biased to the facts of consumer shortages, but blind and mindshut. I suggest you read the authors I cited (Reisman, Nordhaus, Mitchell, Woods, etc.), and quit making Higgs your personal scapegoat for your weird view on how the people had a "great boom during the war" and loved the lack of consumer goods, although they sacrificed absolutely nothing as though it were peacetime with no restrictions--according to your twisted economic "report." Oh, and it might help if you would finally post a valid reference citation after, "The war ended the depression and restored prosperity." Otherwise, it is susceptible per Wiki's rules of always posting a valid reference after an assertion to being altered or removed due to lack of one. At any rate, it certainly is strangely out-of-place in a section talking about foreign policy. I presume it was you who added that unverified assertion, since you are the only one vociferously attacking its removal, or on merely asking for a cite to keep it there. If you don't have a cite, just admit it already, and quit trying to defend that out-of-place assertion without one. Obey the Wiki rules. How does that sound to you? If you want to talk about scholars so much (but never add a formal cite from one), why don't you finally add one to prove your grand assertion on this "great boom that ended the depression, plus the post-war years (1946-1950) doing the exact opposite made bad times return, and previous wars never created prosperity, but somehow WW2 did?" I know why you won't--you can't find any, and/or you are afraid to even try finding one or you would have done so by now. Just one. And, if you don't (can't or won't), this discussion seems to be between you and me, therefore I can post a change to the unverified assertion that will cite a number of different authors. Here is Peter Ferrara, just in the last month, who does not cite Higgs, but he does cite George Gilder. Ever hear of him, wiseguy? I guess now, you are going to trash Peter Ferrara in some mindless ranting that again will make no sense. When will you finally wake-up to the truth and stop believing the government's propaganda that an increasing number of people are realizing are just a pack of lies? --Katydidit (talk) 07:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

You misused Tobin--he never said that wartime military expenditure was wasteful because consumers did not individually get victory and return of the soldiers--that is a collective good shared by 140 million Americans. As for Friedman better read his famous article "Price, Income, and Monetary Changes in Three Wartime Periods," American Economic Review Vol. 42, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Sixty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1952), pp. 612–625 in JSTOR.. And please try to be more civil -- you are in constant violation of WP:CIVIL and will get banned unless you stop. Rjensen (talk) 13:48, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Some quotes: 1) "The depression ended with the U.S. involvement in World War II in 1941" in Utopias in American History (2008) - Page 153; 2) " the depression ended with the onset of World War II" in Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History (2010) - Page 219; 3) "the U.S. economy fully emerged from the Great Depression only with World War II in the early 1940s" from Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy (2004) - Page 123; 4) " Most historians believe that depression did not end until the early years of World War II" from The Postcatastrophe Economy: (2010); 5) "Once the United States became involved in the Second World War in 1941, the Depression ended" in Homelessness in America (2008) Page 85; 6) "the Great Depression ended in 1940" in That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World (2011); 7) " after the troubles of the Great Depression ended and World War II began" in Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink - Page 97; 8) "With this overnight conversion to a full war economy, the Great Depression ended" in America in the 20th Century: 1940-1949 - Page 608; 9) "the Great Depression ended and World War II began" in Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink (2011); 10) "the American Depression did not end until the outbreal of World War II" in Romer, "The nation in depression" The Journal of Economic Perspectives 1993 p 35. Rjensen (talk) 14:53, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, now you finally make the cites I was asking for earlier, after I had replied about your earlier report on me, and that could have been avoided had you made these cites earlier. Why did you not do this previously after all this time? I was actually asking you to add one of those cites in the article itself after that sentence that is out-of-place in talking about foreign policy, which looks very strange. But you still get a major deduction for refusing to acknowledge the other authors I cited who have the opposite view and are getting a more receptive and growing audience that you can't refute, and those other authors are not Robert Higgs. --Katydidit (talk) 15:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

My first response provided the data (above) from Historical Statistics and it was ignored. I cited Kuznets and Friedman in rejecting the Higgs-line. There are no major historians or economists (except Higgs himself) who support the idea that prosperity did not return in WW2. Rjensen (talk) 15:27, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm done with your stubbornness, in your continuing to ignore the other authors I have cited, along with the links. That's your problem. --Katydidit (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

A less viewed side page

Hi, about a week and a half ago I made my first edit on wikipedia to Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness after a poor quality history channel documentary piqued my interest about a hypothesis floated concerning his polio diagnosis. Most of the page was written well and in good order, but the section titled "Polio vs Guillen-Barre" was... schizophrenic in how it was written. After reading over the talk pages, it seems the section was hotly debated about 12 months ago, involving a conflict of interest of one of the authors of the one paper disputing whether the illness was polio or not. Anyhow, I came to the article trying to discern how legitimate the idea was, and the provisional conclusion I made was that the viewpoint discussed is a minority viewpoint, but not necessarily a crackpot or fringe one. The way the article was written made it blatantly obvious that two separate writers had written the section, but did not delete the others edit. I had to do a double take to make sure I wasn't on the talk page, as the section within the article was written in a very argumentative back-and-forth way. I did my best to clean up the section, leaving in the main points of both sides, while keeping in perspective that it is a minority viewpoint from a few academics. There were a number of assertions that really ought to be referenced, and I did not actually check the references previously given to make sure they actually said what the editor claimed they said. I essentially accepted on good faith the content (referenced and should-be-referenced) written by both sides, and tried to make the writing more professional and encyclopedic rather than colloquial and argumentative.

This was my first edit, and I was waiting to see if anyone would revert/revise/comment on it, but it seems no one is really monitoring the page anymore. So I was wondering if any FDR/wikipedia buffs would be willing to take a look, and make any revisions they see fit. Its the Polio vs Guillen Barre section within Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness page. Again, I didnt generate any new content, and was simply trying to improve the existing text. Oh and my IP when I made the edits is different than now, as I am at my parents house for christmas. I signed all posts as -Paul , -Paul 7:45ish pm Christmas Day, 68.111.84.132 (talk) 03:54, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

controversial claim

The following is a controversial claim. "The war ended the depression and restored prosperity." I'm sure there's another Wikipedia article that deals with this very issue. 24.12.6.25 (talk) 05:22, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

The mainstream view is perfectly expressed by that sentence. What's the problem? Binksternet (talk) 05:33, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

England, Scotland and Wales?

In the third sentence of the fourth paragraph, the article mentions "countries fighting against Nazi Germany with England, Scotland and Wales." Debates about the differences between what constitutes a 'country', 'nation' or 'state' to one side, wouldn't it make more sense if this read "countries fighting against Nazi Germany with Britain/The UK". "England, Scotland and Wales" just seems like odd usage in an international context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.198.98 (talk) 20:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

"Britain" is a somewhat ambiguous term since it is a union of four countries (which is why "British" is also ambiguous), I personally wouldn't use it when only referring to one of its countries (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales). XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 21:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Harriman's name is incomplete needs "W"

76.170.88.72 (talk) 05:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

lead too long

The lead section of this article is way too long. It violates the policy at WP:lead.TheQ Editor (Talk) 00:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

no "violation" here. the lede follows the main points of the guideline: "As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs. The length of the lead should conform to readers' expectations of a short, but useful and complete, summary of the topic. A lead that is too short leaves the reader unsatisfied; a lead that is too long is difficult to read and may cause the reader to lose interest halfway." it needs to cover the main points of an extremely complex career. For most people it has all they will want to know about FDR, and there is no reason they have to read the whole thing. They may want to know chiefly about FDR in WW2, the topic of many long books. Rjensen (talk) 01:33, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Biographical facts

For British readers, the statement that R. was placed in a flag draped c o f f i n can be misleading, as a coffin is a certain type of burial receptacle, namely one with a hexagonal shape. In addition to that, the statement is not precise. Therefore,the following sentence: On the morning of April 13, Roosevelt's body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train. should be changed by the editor to (suggestion): ... body was placed in a bronze colored copper deposit casket, which was flag-draped and loaded .... (Informatinon source: talk with a person who worked for the National Casket Co. which had manufactured the casket). Profunditer (talk) 09:31, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Note that this information classifies as original research. I recommend you try and find a published source that can cite the same information. ♥ Solarra ♥ ^{♪ 話 ♪} ߷ _{♀ 投稿 ♀} 04:26, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 June 2014

Under Section 7, "Civil Right", 5th paragraph down, "Beginning in the 1960s" should be corrected to the '1930's' 50.193.9.158 (talk) 22:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Not done: The critique first came in the 1960s. Have a look at the sources. Sam Sailor ^Sing 04:33, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Commonwealth Club Address

Article is too short at this point. Needs to either be flushed out or merged pbp 16:52, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• Support as it relies solely on one source. Snuggums (talk • contributions) 16:58, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose the other article now has several sources. It should be longer indeed, but moving it here would cause this article to be much too long. Rjensen (talk) 17:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. In two minutes' worth of Google searching I found 16 reliable sources discussing the importance of the speech. Binksternet (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
• Change vote to oppose due to addition of sources, though it definitely needs expansion Snuggums (talk • contributions) 18:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
• OpposeDeletion is possible if it is unnotable (which I disagree), but its information is enough for it to stand. Feeling some WP:SNOW.Forbidden User (talk) 08:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

See Talk:Commonwealth Club Address for one suggestion for article improvement... AnonMoos (talk) 23:14, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Extend section "Civil rights"

I propose to include very important fact from the life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, probably little known to American public, but obvious to everyone in Europe. In 1943, represent of Polish government, Jacek Karski made his travel to United States in order (among other things) to inform American president about the Holocaust. Polish government had up to date information about it from Polish underground army "Home Army" and keep informed British authorities on regular basis about it. Karski presented written statement, described the situation and showed even pictures from massive execution. Those all evidence were met with refusal and ignorance from Roosevelt. If there is a sentence that FDR made some moves against saving Jews from Holocaust, there is more on that ... Links ... 1) https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nota_Raczy%C5%84skiego 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Karski (chapter Reporting Nazi atrocities to the Western Allies) 3) http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/the_karski_report_lanzmann 4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paP02Us8CyM 5) http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/karski.asp 6) http://www.amazon.com/Story-Secret-State-Jan-Karski/dp/1931541396 and hundreds others — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcus19771107 (talk • contribs) 22:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• First of all, not all of those are reliable sources. Secondly, not one reliable source supports the claims you are trying to make in your edits. Dave Dial (talk) 23:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Dave Dial. FDR did hear Karski out, and in fact FDR was pushing all American resources very hard indeed to bomb the German cities and destroy the Nazi regime. for example the atomic bomb was meant for Germany. Rjensen (talk) 23:38, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, In this case, let at least mention the fact that such a meeting took place, one sentence that Karski came to Washington on request from the Polish government and informed Roosevelt about the oncoming massacres. Do you agree ?

"On 28 of July 1943, Roosevelt had been paid a visit by Polish emissary from the Polish government in London, Jan Karski, who gave him a full report on the Holocaust and extermination of Jews by Germans"

Thanks for the comments!--Marcus19771107 (talk) 00:08, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I do not see any response. If you have nothing against I will include the sentence → "On 28 of July 1943, Roosevelt had been paid a visit by Polish emissary from the Polish government in London, Jan Karski, who gave him a full report on the Holocaust and extermination of Jews by Germans" into the page of FDR Marcus19771107 (talk) 22:40, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

FDR already was well informed on this issue & Karski did not tell anything new, so this story does not belong here. Karski only reported on Poland, not what was happening in USSR, Baltics, Yugoslavia, France, Netherlands etc etc Rjensen (talk) 22:47, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Two questions

1) If FDR had known about the Holocaust before Karski came to Washington why there is no info in the web page ? 2) Could you provide any source about the FDR's knowledge ? Thanks in advance! Marcus19771107 (talk) 23:41, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

1) FDR had a meeting with top Jewish leaders Dec 1942 and got a full report. see Jean Smith FDR pp 608-9. see also Black pp 816-7 2)The coverage in this article is unfortunately very thin (see footnote 261-64) and a new article is needed. Why don't you start it? The extreme attacks on FDR appear in The Abandonment of the Jews article. For the large published literature start here at google scholar and also this listing. Some books look at ROSEN (defends FDR); and Feingold says acted reasonably and responsibly; most recent = Breitman, and Lichtman, (2013) FDR and the Jews Rjensen (talk) 01:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Lillian Cross

"but his attempt to murder Roosevelt failed when an alert spectator, Lillian Cross, who hit his arm with her purse deflected the bullet" should read "but his attempt to murder Roosevelt failed when an alert spectator, Lillian Cross, hit his arm with her purse deflected the bullet" (i.e., delete "who"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.124.186.10 (talk) 08:10, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Polio and "Affairs"

Since the incubation period for the polio virus is 6 to 20 days, historians should attempt to identify the source of the infected fecal material that FDR ingested -- presumably while at Campobella itself? And why did not other members of the same party get infected, if it came from an infected house servant/cook or from swimming in a "pond" or similar, as FDR liked to do. Didn't Eleanor swim there, too, and eat the same food that had been handled by the same cooks? Or, did FDR consume something (or engage in some activity such as swimming), 6-20 days earlier, that only HE consumed (or did), and not the entire household?

Presumably the polio paralyzation affected the male sexual organs, too, correct? Notice that none of the children are conceived after 1921. If this is true, then all the article references after 1921 to "affairs" or a "girlfriend" must, by definition, refer to a platonic relationship only, right? If that is true, then this should be made clear in the article and by historians who mention various women around FDR.

Starhistory22 (talk) 07:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Template produces poor PDF (print) output

PDF output using Google Chrome's built-in distiller produces poor results with this page. (Use the Ctrl P command in Chrome to preview). Issue may be with the template used or (more likely) the the way content was entered (coded) into the template and saved by the contributor. For example, when printing this article with Google's PDF converter,

• the font size is scaled down too much
• the info-box column on the right side is scaled to less than 45% of the total page width when printed

Note that the font size should not dynamically scale up or down to fit a page; font size of the main-body text content should be about 12 points on outputted PDF page(s); it is the images and table cells that should dynamically scale up or down to fit the info box and template in order to maintain the two-column Wikipedia layout.

Refer to some of the other U.S. President articles for proper coding; you can start with George Washington, since that article produces and excellent print result.

Printchecker (talk) 06:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's extractions

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is not a descendant of a French hugenot. The family Delano is from Wallonia (especially in the Hainaut Province). The original form of the name was "de la Noy"). Could we, please, change the mention of a so called French hugenot to the mention of a Walloon hugenot (like President Theodore Roosevelt said it) ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Le Gaulois courageux (talk • contribs) 14:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

 Question: where is your source for this? Snuggums (talk / edits) 15:27, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 December 2014

The section where it says in office and 'Succeeded by' should link to Harry S Truman but it doesn't (its plain text). Please change the black Succeeded by Harry S. Truman to a version where the Harry S Truman part is blue because that's the way the other pages are usually formatted. 88.105.59.153 (talk) 03:19, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done per WP:OVERLINK. Truman is linked immediately above. -- Calidum 04:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 February 2015

The picture of FDR in 1884 (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Franklin-Roosevelt-1884.jpg/220px-Franklin-Roosevelt-1884.jpg) is clearly a little girl. I don't know if his parents dressed him in drag, but I'm fairly confident this is not him. 70.168.135.235 (talk) 18:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Not done: More confident than someone from the Smithsonian? She uses the same picture in this source and says it's him. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/?no-ist= Cannolis (talk) 18:48, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 December 2014

Please add a link to FDR's presidential successor in the right column

Preceded by Herbert Hoover

Succeeded by Harry S. Truman

Atgion (talk) 03:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Done Cannolis (talk) 09:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

 Not done Sorry, but I just reverted on the basis of a similar change having been reverted earlier (although not by me) as an example of over-linking, which I think is the case, since Truman is linked just above as a vice-president. I had not seen this Talk page request. The linking should be discussed, at least. I've changed the request answered parameter back to No for now. Dhtwiki (talk) 11:25, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

If you read the over-linking policy, I think it specifically exempts this situation. Other US president articles (e.g., Reagan) include the repeated links. WP:OVERLINK: "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead." 66.71.50.186 (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

This isn't one of those cases- a link only needs to be used once within an infobox. Snuggums (talk / edits) 23:24, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Discrepancy between Wikipedia articles re: pictures of FDR in a wheelchair

According to a sentence in this article "Only two photographs taken of FDR while he was in his wheelchair are known to exist;". However, in the Wikipedia article "Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness", there is a caption under one of these pictures which states "One of only three known photographs of Roosevelt in a wheelchair" Bunkyray5 (talk) 14:59, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

The FDR Library says that it owns three candid photos of FDR in a wheelchair, without exactly saying that that is an upper limit to how many exist. Dhtwiki (talk) 16:33, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I suppose we have to take them at their word. About 10 years ago, while researching a book, I went through the Library's entire photo collection. They knew of only two wheelchair photos at that time -- the two that Margaret Suckley took, both published in the book Closest Companion -- and they didn't have either of them. So whether they have since acquired the two Suckley photos, plus a third -- or whether they are talking about three entirely different photos -- quien sabe? My contact at the Library has retired, but I shall try to find out -- unless somebody already knows. DoctorJoeE ^{review transgressions}/_{talk to me!} 06:46, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I changed it to three photographs. Rjensen (talk) 07:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, the correct answer could be five, as mentioned -- but for now, that'll do. DoctorJoeE ^{review transgressions}/_{talk to me!} 13:02, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Vice presidents dont lose elections to each other

No one talks like that its nonsensical. People mainly vote for the presidents. Article should either say the president who was elected or discuss the tickets a whole because no one considers only the VPs when voting. AaronY (talk) 03:33, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that legally, the vice president is elected separately from the president, on a separate ballot on the electoral college. Theoretically the electoral college could confirm Hoover as Presidnt and Roosevelt as VP. So the question here is whether we want to be technically correct or use a more common understanding of presidential elections. I will leave that question to other editors.Awnman (talk) 03:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

"Vice Presidents don't lose election to each other". Yes, they do. The Vice-President is elected on a separate ballot from the president. Coolidge defeated FDR and Harding defeated Cox. pbp 14:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

FDR defeated by Coolidge or Harding?

There seems to be some disagreement between User:AaronY and myself as to the wording in the lead regarding the 1920 presidential election.

• I want it to read as: "In 1920, he was the Democratic nominee for Vice-President of the United States, but was defeated by Calvin Coolidge."
• He wants it to read as: In 1920, he was the Democratic nominee for Vice-President of the United States, but their ticket was defeated by Republican candidate Warren Harding.

To me, the Coolidge wording is the correct way. FDR ran against Coolidge and lost; James Cox ran against Harding and lost. It's also the most succinct way to summarize what happened. I'd also note that AaronY's version contains a "their" without an antecedent. So let's take a little straw poll as to how we like it. pbp 13:54, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Defeated by Coolidge (Purplebackpack89)

1. pbp 13:54, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Defeated by Harding (AaronY)

Discussion

• Neither choice is satisfying to me. How about the following? "In 1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president under presidential candidate James M. Cox but the Cox/Roosevelt ticket lost to Harding/Coolidge." Binksternet (talk) 15:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

the latest idea by Binksternet works for me. Rjensen (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not as succinct as what's there now, and if enacted, should say "the Republican ticket of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge" rather than just "Harding/Coolidge" pbp 18:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Like this? "In 1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president under presidential candidate James M. Cox but the Cox/Roosevelt ticket lost to the Republican ticket of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge." I would be fine with this. Binksternet (talk) 19:05, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess I could acquiesce to that. pbp 22:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

try this: Roosevelt's wartime activity, and his famous name, attracted Democrats who put him on the national ticket in 1920 as candidate for vice president. The ticket lost in a landslide." This formulation has the advantage of putting the emphasis on Roosevelt, where it belongs in this biography, let people click on links to find out about Cox, who is otherwise quite important. Rjensen (talk) 22:27, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Binksters last wording looks good to me. AaronY (talk) 07:04, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Since we all seem to be in agreement, I went ahead and made the change. pbp 14:37, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

However, "under" doesn't sound quite right. What about "with"? Otherwise it's fine. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:36, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Personal victory?

What does "personal victory over polio" mean? I don't understand the etiology of the disease, nor what Roosevelt did as a result of his infection, but this phrase reads as overly symbolic instead of being factual. Any ideas? I think it could be improved upon. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:20, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

it's standard terminology and means he overcame the negative elements of the severe handicap by positive action on his part. Rjensen (talk) 13:24, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

It could be phrased better. (Hohum ^@) 13:55, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Herbert Lehman not linked in infobox

The next governor of New York is not linked in the infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.204.5.77 (talk) 19:22, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

He looks linked to me. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:28, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be a reprise of the recently closed Truman issue. Lehman is linked as Lieutenant Governor but not as successor. 2600:1006:B12C:E4B8:B945:D20A:9451:85D (talk) 22:05, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. While consensus favors keeping a link to the successor President of the United States, I'm not so sure on the successor governors, senators and mayors. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:20, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Conformity within the presidential infoboxes

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus was reached in Support of the proposal. The issue only presents itself when a vice president is elected president directly after holding the former office (I am unsure how many times this has occurred). With the goal of consistency in mind, (assuming this is not the only time this type of succession has happened) a larger discussion at another Wikipedia forum on the style of presidential info boxes when this occurs would be beneficial. The consensus for this article, is that it should conform to the perceived regular/normal style of other infoboxes about U.S. Presidents mainly for "ease of navigation" (along with other reasons) by linking the successor, even though it is already linked once previously. Godsy (talk) 07:40, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

---

Should the Franklin D. Roosevelt infobox conform and link the successor President (in this case Harry S. Truman) as all other presidential bios do? Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Support

1. Support for conformity with all other U.S. President articles and ease of use for our readers. It is a natural click for thumbing through the Presidents. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Support—it only makes sense. Even if there is a guideline that says to avoid extra links to the same article, WP:IAR and common sense trumps that. Imzadi 1979 → 22:52, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

   IAR doesn't apply; there's no good reason to ignore a highly upheld guideline. "Common sense" doesn't say to go against it either in this case. Snuggums (talk / edits) 22:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

3. Support. I'm all for deleting overlinks, but ease of navigation trumps here, to my mind. --Coemgenus (talk) 12:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
4. Support. I support this.Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
5. Support. The article should conform with all other U.S President Wiki articles. Cheers, Comatmebro ^{~Come at me~} 01:12, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
6. Support I think that for these porposes it makes it a lot easier to navigate to do both and I consider @SNUGGUMS:'s actions to be bad faith. I also think that it is common sense to link all of them. StudiesWorld (talk) 00:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
7. Support, it should be the same as the other presidents, regardless of the overlinking (which I'm traditionally opposed to), it just makes it easier to use in general. Kharkiv07^Talk 04:29, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
8. Support. Summoned by bot. I don't see the harm of another link. By the way, I had been given to understand that there was no period after the "S" in Harry S. Truman, as it stood for nothing but was just an initial he added. Coretheapple (talk) 19:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
9. Support. This is the strangest overlinking argument I've ever seen. The guideline is meant to avoid distracting prose; links in infoboxes are nothing but a utility for the reader, no? The guideline even addresses this situation: "a link may be repeated in infoboxes..." Cool Hand Luke 22:39, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
10. Support. Why make things harder for readers in order to follow the absolute letter of a guideline that is, after all, only a guideline? We all know that exceptions are perfectly acceptable if they improve the encyclopedia. Besides that, those opposed seem to be invoking WP:OVERLINK; but WP:OVERLINK specifically says, "if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes". Isn't that clear enough? DoctorJoeE ^{review transgressions}/_{talk to me!} 23:52, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
11. Support – It is only logical, and some of the arguments previously brought up against doing so only apply to prose. Dustin (talk) 21:58, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
12. Support - Seems to fit with WP:OVERLINK ("Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead.") and standard procedure. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
13. Support - It's funny that people opposing this are quoting WP:OVERLINK which specifically states that repeating links in infoboxes is acceptable if it's helpful for readers (who are the customers and the people we are trying to please, NOT the editors, often times Wikipedia is too editor driven due to it's very nature). In my opinion, the link in the infobox is important for ease of "scrolling" through presidents, much like you would scroll through NFL seasons or similar. If we are so concerned about overlinking, why is no one concerned about the fact that Harry Truman is linked twice within the body of the article? We could probably remove those links and keep only the links in the infobox, that would be fine, but the infobox links are important and should be there on every article. -War wizard90 (talk) 03:23, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
14. Support. It's beneficial to readers and really not a big deal. Calidum T|C 15:54, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose per long standing consensus that terms shouldn't be linked more than once within an infobox per WP:OVERLINK. Other Presidential articles shouldn't link terms more than once within an infobox either. Snuggums (talk / edits) 20:47, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose I'm one of those who have been reverting the linking, which has been going on for some time, but not well explained in any edit summary that I can remember. And now, for the first time, we have some explanation of what's happening. If you want to talk about disruptive editing... It's usual, on Wikipedia, for terms to be left unlinked, where they have been wiki-linked above; and the aware reader is expected to come to know that. In this infobox, as well as that of every other president who died in office, the successor should be linked, as vice-president, just above, not a few sentences or a paragraph or two, but just above, in a very small textual space. I see that this article is inconsistent with those of others' who have died in office, but I too am tempted to want to resolve that inconsistency in favor of this article's format. It is considerably different, after all, for a president to be succeeded by a vice president because of death in office, as opposed to a elected successor at the end of a presidential term. Dhtwiki (talk) 03:43, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

   Are you saying that only in the case of a President leaving office early is it ok to leave the succeeded by unlinked? The Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, Kennedy and Nixon articles are all different than this one. What makes dying in office different for our infoboxes, and remember not all our readers are "aware" of our nuances. There are plenty of kids and first-time adult readers using wikipedia too. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:42, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

   My idea of overlinking would leave "succeeded by" unlinked in the case of any president who is immediately succeeded by his vice president, and that would add George Washington (where John Adams is unlinked in the second postition), as well as John Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Ronald Reagan (all overlinked, according to my point of view). I have found no discussion with regard to overlinking at George Washington or at Thomas Jefferson (whose infobox shows some considerable overlinking). Thus, I'm not aware of any considered discussion as to why infoboxes should be treated differently than the article body. The Overlink policy must be in place for good reason, because it would be more convenient to have linked terms so linked in all positions. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:25, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

   Thanks for the clarification. Two things...Overlink is a guideline that we treat with common sense, not a policy, and George Washington has Adams linked... it was only removed once I brought this RfC here. It has since been fixed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

   If anything, common sense would say linking things more than once in an infobox is repetitive. Snuggums (talk / edits) 06:17, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

3. Oppose as been stated. We have guidelines for a reason. It makes no sense (common or otherwise) to repeat links in an infobox. --Musdan77 (talk) 18:13, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

   To me, it makes no sense as to why it makes no sense to you. Having links in the infoboxes helps readers to better navigate. What more is there to it? Dustin (talk) 15:50, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Helping my little cousin last night we were going through the Presidents one by one gathering info, clicking on each Succeeded by, sometimes going back to the Preceded by to gather his information. The little guy ran into a road block at FDR since Truman isn't linked. Even though Truman was listed and linked as the third vice president it wasn't readily apparent to check there since every other presidential bio had a quick link to his successor. This is such an important item in the infobox I think it should be linked regardless of whether a person is linked as a vice-President. And having FDR as pretty much the only case where this is not linked is a pretty poor choice for our readers.

Since this is an anomaly I thought it best to correct the change here first. Otherwise we can take it to places like "WikiProject United States Presidents" or "WikiProject United States" where consensus can be formed to either remove all the President successor links (if also linked as a VP) or link all the President successors regardless. Either choice is far better than one or two non-conforming articles that can confuse our readers. I tried to change it but was reverted with a summary of WP:OVERLINK and that conformity of Presidential articles doesn't matter. WP:OVERLINK is a guideline, not a policy, and it also tells us to "Use common sense in applying it." I lean for simply adding the extra link in this case because of the importance of the infobox category... it's a natural item for our readers to try and click on. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:ONLYGUIDELINE is really a poor rationale as it overlooks and undermines the value that guidelines bring. We have guidelines for a reason, so they should be put to use. No other Presidential articles should link people more than once within an infobox. Snuggums (talk / edits) 20:47, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

They are guidelines because they can't possibly cover everything. WikiProjects take over for the minutia. But the guideline specifically says to use common sense. If the vast majority consensus seems to follow that the specific successor entry is important enough to link, it stands to reason that they feel common sense is our guideline in this case. I think common sense and ease of searching for our many readers takes precedence here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Interesting.... while this discussion is going on, user SNUGGUMS is going through all the Presidents and removing the successor links. I consider this bad faith and disruptive. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:06, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, it isn't disruptive or bad faith at all; I'm simply abiding by MoS guidelines. If anything, "common sense" would say not to link terms more than needed. Excess infobox links have been repeatedly removed, and with good reason. Snuggums (talk / edits) 21:35, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

You may be shown to be correct in your assessment of having the successor President of the United States unlinked, but when it's under discussion here, and you know it is under discussion here, it is both bad faith and disruptive to change every article to conform to your view. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:44, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Fyunck(click), that is clearly disruptive behavior on the part of Snuggums, it would be one thing had you already been unlinking the articles, but to go unlink them as a direct result of the RfC, is clearly an attempt to undermine community discussion regarding a valid RfC debate. A discussion BTW, that isn't even leaning in your favor at this point. If the community consensus is to keep these links do you plan to go and revert all of your edits? -War wizard90 (talk) 03:28, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Wiz....Actually, I reverted them all at the time (at least I think I got them all), and no more problems have happened since. So let's consider this aspect dropped as water under the bridge. I have. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:14, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

This RfC has expired... I think the consensus is clear. Dustin (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Started a larger discussion on the issue at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Should the holder of a political office be linked within an infobox more than once (i.e. as the successor), when they have already been linked (e.g. as the vice president, predecessor, lieutenant, etc.)?. —Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 06:32, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Why? This almost snowballed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:45, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

To quote you, "While consensus favors keeping a link to the successor President of the United States, I'm not so sure on the successor governors, senators and mayors." The RfC is not just for presidents, it's for all office holders. —Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 06:52, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Gotcha. This one is much more broadly based. I commented there but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I will let all those who commented here know about the new proposal. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:21, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good. I had considered doing that as well, but had not gotten to it. Thanks,—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 07:27, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

 Done all (pro or con) have been notified. Thanks again. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:45, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I've been trying to bring capitalization comformity to John Adams, these last few years. For some reason, I'm not succeeding :( GoodDay (talk) 19:24, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closing per request at WP:ANRFC, though seems unnecessary. The proposal did not find support and was abandoned. --GRuban (talk) 17:25, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

---

I propose mergingCriticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt into Franklin D. Roosevelt to create a single artile with a NPOV. if the article becomes too long we can create sub articles like "History of FDR" or "FDR stuff" or something. Bryce Carmony (talk) 00:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

FDR was (and still is) the target of an enormous amount of criticism, that's why we need a separate article on the topic. The FDR article itself is already very long. Another couple thousand words will be problematic. Rjensen (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Hey Rjensen I appreciate you weighing in with your viewpoint. I must respectfully disagree with you and here is why. the Article "Franklin D. Roosevelt" is required to be written in the Neutral Point of View (NPOV) which requires 3 things: 1- all information must be portrayed Fairly (saying the article is immune to anything we arbitraily call "criticism" is not fair to the reader ) 2- all information must be portrayed proportionately (by banning the "unflattering" proportions of the article, we are not giving the whole story to the ready) and 3- without Bias (which should come as no surprise, I think denying the reader of an accurate picture is showing a bias). NPOV is an important ideal for wikipedia. so important that it has a immunity clause that a consensus of editors cannot override it. and a supremacy clause that no other guideline can over ride it ( like WP:Article Size)

What I propose is merging the two articles (neither of which gives the full picture since they both lack NPOV ) and create a single NPOV article weaving all sides and sources into the narrative. some sections will become long enough to spin off into their own articles. for example we can have an article for each term he served ( possibly each year if he has that much information ) we can break down articles into individuals laws passed if needed. The way we break down this information is by TOPICS ( History of, etc ) not POV ( Criticism, vs non crticism ) Bryce Carmony (talk) 02:56, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

better look closely at the NPOV rules--they deal with debates among scholars, not the general public. I do not see them violated here. What I did was copy the lede from the Criticism article and make it a new section here. Readers who want the details can get it with a click. Rjensen (talk) 04:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Such sections in biographies are discouraged per WP:Criticism. Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:06, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Usually yes. But in this case criticism of FDR became a little industry in its own, with political reverberations especially for politics on the right. So it's appropriate to have a separate article. What I did is add a paragraph or so to the main biography. Rjensen (talk) 04:19, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Saying that "Criticism of FDR" is it's own "topic" is not true. the topic is the same (FDR) if you want to see an article where criticism becomes the topic I think a great example is Art criticism look at the topics. the topics are "History" "Methodology" "definition" it really flushes out what art criticism is. Let's look at Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt what we see is different. There isn't a narrative, there's just a disjointed list of random "criticism" it looks unencyclopedic and it isn't giving the full picture. We can merge the two articles together. and then spin off topics needed. for example there could be "Franklin D. Roosevelt Controversies" this would be a great article because controversy is a TOPIC not a POV. another great perk is when you write a controversy it's easy (almost hard not to) write both sides of the story. Situation, Party A did this, Party B did this in response. it's so easy to write controversy NPOV. the Criticism article is not NPOV , it isn't encyclopedic, I'll start prepping the Criticism of article by breaking down the information into its main article components then we can take it section by section weaving the content into the main articles and then delete it. Bryce Carmony (talk) 04:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Well art Criticism is a major scholarly discipline with its own journals and conferences. Criticism of FDR is a hodgepodge, and indeed there isn't any "narrative." History does not need a narrative. The lack of narrative makes it even more awkward inside this biographical FDR article. One curious characteristic of all the criticism is that it continued long after his death. It continues today. The reason I think is that modern liberalism and modern conservatism have made FDR a hero and a villain. In this regard the criticism of FDR stands out as practically unique in American political history--- no other president or public official even comes close. The criticism is not closely linked to his biography. Rather it is about his policies, or more exactly the controversial policies in which he was in overall charge but which many other people and Congress contributed. All in all, that makes for very good reason have a long separate article on the criticisms controversies attacks counterattacks and defenses of FDR. Rjensen (talk) 04:53, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

That is why Art Criticism has an article that I do not propose merging :) . History doesn't need a narrative but Encyclapedic content does, every one of these criticisms happens in a point of time, either 1 of 2 things happens. 1- the criticism has a corresponding counter-part in the main article and can be woven in. or 2- there is no corresponding section in the main article in which case we make that section ( of course putting all sources into the section not just the criticism ). I'm not saying we wedge a "criticism" section into the FDR article I'm saying we weave the content together into a single article ( with spin off topics as needed of course ). I think "FDR Controversies" would make an exellent Article. and a lot of the content in "Criticism of FDR" would end up there. but the reason controversy > criticism is that we write controversies showing both sides in a single narrative. ( an example of this is how we write about WWII . it'd be hard to write the entire narrative only mentioning germany and never mentioning another country ). Let's say that there is controversy around the "new deal" then we get that into the article "new deal" or make an article "New deal controversy" or "Funding of Social Security controversy" or whatever we need to do. Those are good solutions. right now we have a bad solution by saying "We will have 2 articles about FDR one criticism and one no criticism allowed" that's not NPOV. I think we agree on a lot of steps we can take to get towards this. I'll look at starting a "FDR Controversies" article in the morning and see what content from "criticism of FDR" can find a home there. Bryce Carmony (talk) 05:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Well no ---it's very hard to Take a traditional chronological narrative like this biography, and "weave" into it debates that took place in the 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s....2010s. That would certainly be out of kilter, and it's a technique that historians do not use. Furthermore, controversies are usually structured in terms of A versus B, or maybe a third position C. But these are more accurately called criticisms, because they are not necessarily part of a debate among historians. When political ideologies are polarized left and right, it is not necessarily true that the two sides actually talk to each other. They talk past each other. There is very little debate, for example, about Roosevelt's internment of the Japanese in the camps. What happened is that there was a very widespread consensus in favor of the movement at the time, followed by decades of silence, followed by an outburst of criticism in the 1970s in which (almost) nobody was defending the policy. That would be very hard to weave into this biography. The criticism of FDR made in say 1937 regarding his policies of 1937 are indeed covered in this article in the proper chronological place. It is not true that criticism of him has been suppressed. (example 1: This "court packing" plan ran into intense political opposition from his own party, led by Vice President Garner, since it upset the separation of powers and gave the President control over the Court. Roosevelt's proposal to expand the court failed. Example 2: His targets denounced Roosevelt for trying to take over the Democratic party and to win reelection, using the argument that they were independent. Roosevelt failed badly, managing to defeat only one target, a conservative Democrat from New York City. Example 3: There was no consensus on how much the US should risk war in helping Britain.[191] In July 1940, FDR appointed two interventionist Republican leaders, Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox, as Secretaries of War and the Navy, respectively. Both parties gave support to his plans for a rapid build-up the American military, but the isolationists warned that Roosevelt would get the nation into an unnecessary war with Germany.) Rjensen (talk) 07:55, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

We aren't writing a history book about FDR we are writing an encyclopedia. writing NPOV is hard but it is something we can do. Bryce Carmony (talk) 09:13, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

What about an article "Franklin D. Roosevelt Legacy" Where we can put all information about the aftermath of his life. Modern critics can be listed there under "reception" and information on statistics could be put there. I think that article would be more useful than "Criticism of FDR" since the criticism article makes no sense by itself and the FDR article is not NPOV without the criticism parts. I'm all about making useful subtopics. but I'm not in favor of splitting single topics into 2 POV articles. Bryce Carmony (talk) 09:20, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• This is a case where Wikipedia:Merge Test can be used, and the merger idea fails on both points - overlong article and inevitable loss of encyclopaedic content. Also, I fail to see any signs of POV in the criticism article - it's an acknowledged fact that FDR has been heavily criticised and the article seems balanced and well referenced. Hacking the article about is a bad idea and an unnecessary one. andy (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I have been doing research, of the 44 articles of US presidents. not a single one of them has a criticism page except for FDR. many don't even have the word "criticize" in the article. the only president besides FDR who has a criticism section is Jimmy Carter and it isn't even a criticism section about him, it is specific criticisms he's made against the US government, George Bush, and Barack Obama. Presidents like Nixon certainly have critics, but talented editors have woven those criticisms into the article about him. We can do the same thing with FDR. doing so will comply with NPOV Bryce Carmony (talk) 22:37, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

How much research did you do on Franklin Roosevelt?? I take it you've never read any of the many books that have been cited. Start with All but the people: Franklin D. Roosevelt and his critics, 1933-39 by George Wolfskill and John A. Hudson, And then you'll be in a position to comment on the issues involved. Rjensen (talk) 22:40, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I read the article Franklin D. Roosevelt but I don't know a lot about him since that article isn't written with a NPOV it is written with a criticism is banned POV. The content in Criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt would really help flush out the article. if the article gets to long we can spin off some of the articles by topic. Would that be agreeable to you? Bryce Carmony (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Well no, Not really credible editor of such an complex subject with such a large Bibliography. Furthermore you been highly disruptive according to many editors, and according to me. Rjensen (talk) 22:50, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I am not being disruptive, Why is it you think that it is possible to weave a NPOV article about every single president in the history of the united states with the exception of FDR. You clearly know a lot about him, and I admire your knowledge, but I don't see how anything in Criticism of FDR can't find a home in a main article of FDR or in a new topic about FDR. Bryce Carmony (talk) 22:58, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

You're being disruptive because a) you're trying to reshape a major article on a topic you admit you know nothing about. That's leading from ignorance. Furthermore you have no credibility on any other presidential article-- can you name some of the major presidential biographies you have read? b) you ignore what other people say for example just now you ignored my three examples of serious criticism inside this article. You completely ignored my analysis of why the criticism of FDR is in a world of its own, separated by decades from the actual events being criticized. Rjensen (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

One of the strengths of not "knowing" much about topics is it makes me unlikely to commit original research. I think editors who aren't too close to the subject can be able to see the forest through the trees. that being said, I've removed the merger request. Rjensen I think you're a solid editor, I said that in ANI and I'll say it again, we are lucky to have you here at Wikipedia I appreciate your feedback in discussion Bryce Carmony (talk) 01:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Ignorance has very few virtues when it comes to writing encyclopedias. Rjensen (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

So you're saying people who read FDR are ignorant of FDR? must not be a good article, but we can work on it :) Bryce Carmony (talk) 07:00, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

The FDR article received over a quarter million hits in the last month. People who have never looked at even one reliable source on FDR need to glance at a real book before they plunge into serious writing for all these people, many of whom are currently studying FDR in high schools and universities around the world. Rjensen (talk) 07:12, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Alright keep up the good work Rjensen Bryce Carmony (talk) 07:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ahnentafel Chart

Genealogy is one of the fastest growing hobbies in the United States. More and more people want to learn about their ancestors - and the ancestors of others, especially those who were or are famous. The ancestry of the U.S. Presidents have been extensively researched and documented. Already, the early life sections of many U.S. Presidents on Wikipedia include some ancestral information, however, this information is not formatted in a way that is easy to follow for most readers. I have attempted to add a five generational ahnentafel template (chart displaying an individual's ancestors) for Franklin D. Roosevelt. I believe many readers will find this information interesting and useful, not trivial as some editors have suggested. I appreciate feedback from the community, especially those with an interest in genealogy. Thank you. Daytripper07 (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

How many presidents have a chart as yours? When you say "ancestral information" that is not "easy to follow", that tells me that not many do. Your ancestry table, though collapsible and otherwise well done, would cause, I think, a lot of additional information to be loaded, where this large article is already slow to load. I didn't notice many notable people whose own biographies are linkable and where one might find something to explain FDR's political allegiances and modus operandi. Since FDR was considered a "traitor to his class" such a table might even have less relevance than otherwise. There is already a wiki-link to "Roosevelt family", etc., where I found a fuller treatment of his ancestry than provided in your table. Dhtwiki (talk) 03:04, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I've done genealogy for 30 years, and yes it's more popular now because of so many records now available on the net. What does that have to do with the price of eggs? This is an encyclopedia not a book on the family history of all the presidents. If you have 300 pages of info and you include that tree it fits in perfectly. With this tiny encyclopaedic entry it's trivial and undue weight imho. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:33, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 July 2015

change editor3-last = Frank J to editor3-first = Frank J 198.102.153.1 (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Done. Thank you for being so observing! Favonian (talk) 22:21, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

New Progressive/liberal party

As mentioned, FDR said in 1932 that there will be progressive Party when he leaves office eight years later. After this did not happen, insn't it worth to mention, that he seriously thought about estabishing a new liberal/progressive Party in the early-mid 1940s together with his former opponent Wendell Willkie? --Jerchel (talk) 09:32, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Pearl Harbor attack during World War Two

Hi to all dear users on FDR's talk page! I'm regarding to know is that F.D.Roosevelt had already knew that pearl harbor attack by Japanese Fascist was going to occurrence and decision for entering war to Anti-fascism during World War Two as world police act before on that??? SA 13 Bro (talk) 15:00, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Roosevelt (and every one else in the US) did not know that Hawaii was the target of the Japanese. The Japanese attack on Hawaii was a perfect surprise. Instead, Roosevelt and the military leaders in the US thought that Japan would probably attack in the South Pacific where there was oil, rubber, food, etc. Of course, the Japanese did attack in the South Pacific, so that guess was correct. Binksternet (talk) 15:25, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Binksternet Than why German Nazi's Hitler and Italian Fascist want to declare war with U.S.; just because of axis alliance? SA 13 Bro (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Everything I have read suggests that Hitler made a huge mistake in declaring war on the US. Which is why I don't want to try and explain his thinking. Binksternet (talk) 16:11, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Binksternet Hitler was really a huge maniac that massacre over a million of innocents Jewish, he's a insanity racialism rather than perform an good strategic that he should. Thank to your discussion... SA 13 Bro (talk) 16:40, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Semi-Restricted Edit for 'Election of 1940' section.

Would change wording of the second paragraph where it describes Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt being attacked for trying to obtain a third non-consecutive term to them being criticized for it. Had been reading it out loud and thought it odd that with the Attack on Pearl Harbor being such a prominent chapter of his presidency, the severity of saying they were attacked felt like the article transitions from literal to figurative too casually. A minor edit but I felt motivated enough to post on its behalf and the section sounding more formal / scholarly. CxMPxSxD (talk) 13:28, 12 November 2015‎ (UTC)

The word "attack" is used throughout the article to refer to political attacks as well as the military attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't see the two uses being spatially too close, as the mention of the military attack occurs in the next section. The word is commonly used to label antagonistic political behavior, so its application to the political arena can't be regarded as lurid hyperbole or slipshod extension. I don't know that "attack", as coming from "attach", meaning to join together, is literal in either sense; it looks to be figurative in both. I would mark this "not done", but will wait for others to voice their opinions. Dhtwiki (talk) 00:25, 13 November 2015 (UTC)