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polloftheday community, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was voted as the greatest president, beating out Abraham Lincoln. I think FDR's historical esteem stems from the fact that, while many presidents faced down one crisis or another, FDR had the double whammy of a depression followed by a war. And through it all he was able to win re-election three times. (The Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1951, now limits the President to two terms.)
Roosevelt tackled the depression by way of the New Deal, mainly implemented in the first 100 days of his Presidency. He had defeated incumbent President Herbert Hoover in 1932 mainly because the latter had told people that there wasn't much the government could do about the great depression and people would just have to ride out the storm. FDR disagreed.
From March 9 to June 16, 1933, Roosevelt sent Congress a record number of bills, all of which passed easily. He saw the Depression caused in part by people no longer spending or investing because they were afraid.
His inauguration on March 4, 1933 occurred in the middle of a bank panic, leading to his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The very next day Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act which declared a "bank holiday" and announced a plan to allow banks to reopen. However, the number of banks that opened their doors after the "holiday" was fewer than the number that had been open before. This was his first proposed step to recovery. To give Americans confidence in the banks, Roosevelt signed the Glass-Steagall Act that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), through which the government guaranteed the deposits of average citizens.
The most popular of all New Deal agencies, and Roosevelt's favorite, was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which hired 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects. Congress also gave the Federal Trade Commission broad new regulatory powers and provided mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners.
Roosevelt made agriculture relief a high priority and set up the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to take land out of crops and to cut herds.
The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 tried to end cutthroat competition by forcing industries to come up with codes that established the rules of operation for all firms within specific industries, such as minimum prices, agreements not to compete, and production restrictions. Industry leaders negotiated the codes which were then approved by NIRA officials. Industry needed to raise wages as a condition for approval. Provisions encouraged unions and suspended anti-trust laws. The NIRA was found to be unconstitutional by unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on May 27, 1935. Roosevelt opposed the decision, saying "The fundamental purposes and principles of the NIRA are sound. To abandon them is unthinkable. It would spell the return to industrial and labor chaos."
In 1933, major new banking regulations were passed. In 1934, the Securities and Exchange Commission was created to regulate Wall Street, with 1932 campaign fundraiser Joseph P. Kennedy in charge.
Recovery was pursued through "pump-priming" (that is, federal spending). The NIRA included $3.3 billion of spending through the Public Works Administration to stimulate the economy, which was to be handled by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Roosevelt worked with Republican Senator George Norris to create the largest government-owned industrial enterprise in American history, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built dams and power stations, controlled floods, and modernized agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley. The repeal of prohibition also brought in new tax revenues and helped him keep a major campaign promise.
Contrary to popular belief, Roosevelt's policies didn't have an immediate effect. Unemployment rates declined slowly over his term from 24.1% in 1932 to 16.9% in 1936. It wasn't until wartime in 1941 that they dipped below 10%. Still, Roosevelt's popularity vested in the fact that he actively attacked the problem of the great depression, and that was what the people expected of him.