Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day – May

Memorial Day celebrations in the United States began after the Civil War to commemorate the lives of those lost during the war. During FDR’s presidency, Decoration Day honored the lives of all Americans who had died in military service for the United States. The name of the holiday was officially changed to Memorial Day in 1967 and starting in 1971 the date was moved from May 30th to the last Monday in May.

In 1936, FDR received the following message from King Leopold III of Belgium in observance of Decoration Day.

FDR’s response:

This document and others from the collections of the FDR Library can be found on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day website.

One thought on “Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day – May

  1. Let’s see; what kind of a month did FDR have in May of 1933?

    Here are just a few of the pieces of legislation FDR got enacted:

    May 12, 1933 — Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which alleviated rural misery by reducing farm output and raising prices.

    May 12, 1933 — FDR proposed and, on May 12, 1933 , Congress passed the Federal Emergency Relief Act, distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the states for dispersal to the one-fourth of the national workforce unable to obtain jobs.

    May 18, 1933 — President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Act . The purpose of the TVA was to build dams and provide cheap public power, irrigation, and fertilizer while promoting economic development in the impoverished Tennessee River Valley. The Tennessee Valley Authority is the nation’s largest public power provider.

    May 1933 — FDR proposed and, on May 26, 1933, Congress passed the Federal Securities Act (FSA) requiring full disclosure of information on stocks being sold. The FSA was a key component of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Federal Securities Act committed the federal government — for the first time — to the regulation of Wall Street.

    – –
    All in all, in his First 100 Days as President, FDR initiated and got Congress to pass 15 major pieces of legislation to halt the suffering of the American people; he thus began to restore this country to stability and solvency.

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