'The Spirit of America' vs. 'America First': Revisiting FDR's war of words with Charles Limbaugh

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

WAMU 88.5

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🗓️ 30 May 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

In 1939 fascism was on the march around the world and America found itself at a crossroads.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed Hitler and the Nazis posed an existential threat to democracy. But the American public, still reeling from the Great Depression, remained wary of getting involved.

Fascist sympathizers and powerful right-wing media groups egged on the isolationists. Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh became the voice of this opposition and over the ensuing two years a war of words played out between Lindbergh and Roosevelt.

Paul Sparrow, the former director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, tells this story in a new book, “Awakening the Spirit of America.”

“Awakening the Spirit” will be released on June 4, 2024.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi it's Diane on my mind FTR's War of Words with Charles Lindbergh. In 1939, fascism was on the march around the world and America
0:20.7	found itself at a crossroads.
0:23.8	President Franklin D Roosevelt believed Hitler and the Nazis
0:29.3	posed a great threat to democracy.
0:33.0	When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he is struck before you crushed him.
0:44.0	But the American public remained wary of getting involved.
0:49.0	fascist sympathizers and powerful right-wing media groups eked on the isolationist.
0:58.0	Fained Idiator Charles Lindbergh became the voice of this opposition.
1:05.0	The greatest lesson we can draw from Europe today
1:09.2	is that national strength must be built within a nation itself and cannot be achieved by limiting the
1:16.4	strength of others.
1:18.4	I talked with Paul Sparrow, the former director of Franklin D Roosevelt Presidential Library about his new book,
1:29.2	Awakening the Spirit of America.
1:32.3	All used in the spirit of America.
1:38.0	All you start your book with the sentence. No president in American history had a more significant impact on both American and world history
1:49.4	than Franklin Roosevelt.
1:52.3	How is so?
1:53.0	Well, first of all, he served for 12 years.
1:56.0	He was elected four times, but he didn't serve his fourth term because he died.
2:00.0	So he already, he's already served four years longer than any other president.
2:04.0	And he guided us through two of the greatest crises in American history, one of which is one of the greatest crises in world history.
2:11.0	The Great Depression, he became president at a point in which
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