As a society, we often judge people solely by what is said about them or by them; but not for what they did. We forget to take into consideration the legacy we leave behind when we sometimes fail to complete the task at hand. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the charismatic man who led the American government during the most difficult decade of our short history, the 1930s, aimed to help the “common man” through various programs. Many historians, forgetting the “alphabet soup” legacy of agencies that FDR left behind, argue that he did not solve the Great Depression and therefore failed in his goal. What this essay aims to argue is that those historians are completely right. Through his many programs to help the economy, workers, and all disenfranchised people, President Roosevelt did not end the Great Depression; however, it adapted the federal government to its new role as protector of the people. Perhaps Roosevelt's greatest mistakes occurred in his attempts to repair the economy. The Nation stated that “some [of its programs] helped and others retarded the resumption of industrial activity.” They went so far as to say that “six billion dollars has been added to the national debt.” All this is true. Roosevelt's deficit spending, prompted by English economist John Maynard Keynes, added to the already high national debt, while his programs did not address the record unemployment rate. This “enormous outpouring of federal money for human relief and immense sums for public works projects [that] began to flow to all points of the compass” and nearly doubled the nation's debt also brought about many changes that were, in a broad sense , revolutionary (Document C).Then......middle of paper......black waves of war crossed both the Atlantic and the Pacific and threatened to drown the "sleeping giant" that lay in between. Only then did the unemployment rate drop dramatically because instead of more people needing jobs, more people were needed for jobs that would help produce weapons for Britain and, eventually, the United States. It also, in a sense, damaged the economy through deficit spending. However, he expanded the federal government, and especially the executive branch, so that it could help the American people for decades to come. He set a precedent and established a legacy that, if elected politicians remember to serve the people, will live on. Through his aggressive legislation, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the way to a future where workers are respected, minorities are treated fairly, and government is truly “for the people”..”