(Confident) 1
During the Great Depression, Americans needed a leader who displayed confidence in himself, his choices, his people, and his country. Roosevelt was confident that the United States would emerge successfully from the economic depression, and to that end he was willing to keep trying new programs until he found what worked to stabilize the US economy.
This excerpt from Goodwin’s essay highlights Roosevelt’s confidence:
Franklin Roosevelt once told a friend during the toughest years of his presidency, "at night when I lay my head on my pillow, and it is often pretty late, and I think of the things that have come before me during the day and the decisions that I have made, I say to myself—well, I have done the best I could and turn over and go to sleep."
(Courageous) 2
The Great Depression set Americans in a new, hostile environment. Their former beliefs about the economy no longer made sense and they didn’t know how to tackle the situation. In these hard times, FDR’s courage and ability to make bold decisions reassured Americans and helped keep them from panicking.
To underscore the president’s courage, Goodwin quotes FDR’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt on how FDR overcame his disability:
"I think," Eleanor Roosevelt observed, "probably the thing that took most courage in his life was his mastery and his meeting of polio. I never heard him complain."
(Conformable) 3
While FDR initiated plans and backed them until he saw results, he wasn’t averse to abandoning plans that failed to produce the desired results. His flexibility and resilience was what the nation needed when there wasn’t a tried-and-tested method to end the Depression. The Hoover Administration’s inertia contrasted unfavorably with FDR’s experimentation and action.
Again Goodwin illustrates Roosevelt’s conformable attitude through Eleanor’s words:
When he made up his mind to do something, Eleanor said, he did it to the best of his ability, but if it went sour, he simply started all over again and did something else. "He recognized the difficulties and often said that, while he did not know the answer, he was completely confident that there was an answer and that one had to try until one either found it for himself or got it from someone else."
Explanation:
Is the sample answer from Edmentum
