✱ Historical File ✱
The Docket · Investigative Profile Series
The Parts That Aren't Taught
Franklin D. Roosevelt — New Deal, WWII, Four Terms — and the Incarceration of 110,000 Japanese Americans, the Turning Away of Jewish Refugees, and the Inadequate Response to the Holocaust While It Was Happening
Born: January 30, 1882 · Died: April 12, 1945 · President: 1933–1945 · Series: The Docket
Evidence Tier System
C1C1Executive Order 9066, State Department cables, Treasury Department reports, SS St. Louis records
C2Named major historians
LILogical inference from documented facts
OAOpen analysis — labeled
C3Contested — noted
Editor's Note
Franklin Roosevelt saved American capitalism, led the United States through the worst economic catastrophe and the most destructive war in history, and died in office after transforming the role of the federal government in American life. He also signed the order incarcerating 110,000 Japanese Americans — two-thirds of them U.S. citizens — based on racial suspicion alone. His State Department turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, including 937 passengers on the MS St. Louis in 1939, approximately 254 of whom were later killed in the Holocaust. His administration received intelligence about the Holocaust while it was happening and responded inadequately. These things coexist in the same presidency. American history requires holding both.
Born / Died
January 30, 1882, Hyde Park, New York — April 12, 1945, Warm Springs, Georgia (aged 63)
Presidency
32nd President, 1933–1945. Four terms. Only president to serve more than two terms.
Japanese internment
Signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the forced relocation and incarceration of 110,000–120,000 Japanese Americans. Approximately two-thirds were U.S. citizens. The basis was racial, not individual evidence of disloyalty. C1
MS St. Louis
In June 1939, the MS St. Louis carrying 937 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany was turned away from Cuba, then the United States. The State Department refused them entry. The ship returned to Europe. Approximately 254 passengers were subsequently killed in the Holocaust. C1
Holocaust response
U.S. intelligence received detailed reports of the systematic murder of European Jews beginning in 1942. The Roosevelt administration's response was widely criticized as inadequate by contemporaries. The War Refugee Board was not established until 1944. C1 C2
New Deal exclusions
The Social Security Act (1935) and National Labor Relations Act (1935) explicitly excluded agricultural workers and domestic servants — occupations disproportionately held by Black Americans — largely to secure Southern Democratic votes. C1 C2
Anti-lynching bill
Roosevelt refused to support federal anti-lynching legislation, fearing it would cost him Southern Democratic votes needed for New Deal programs. Black advocacy groups repeatedly urged him to act. He repeatedly declined. C1
On February 19, 1942 — ten weeks after Pearl Harbor — Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to designate military areas from which any person could be excluded. In practice, it authorized the forced relocation of all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United States. C1 Approximately 110,000 to 120,000 people were removed from their homes and incarcerated in camps. Approximately two-thirds of them were American citizens. None were charged with a crime. None were given individual hearings or evidence-based determinations of disloyalty. C1
The legal basis was military necessity. The actual basis was race. German Americans and Italian Americans — citizens of nations also at war with the United States — were not subjected to mass incarceration. The Supreme Court upheld the order in Korematsu v. United States (1944) — one of the most widely condemned decisions in the Court's history, formally repudiated by the Court in 2018. C1
The internees lost homes, businesses, farms, and life savings. The federal government eventually paid reparations — the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 provided $20,000 to surviving internees and a formal presidential apology. The apology was signed by Ronald Reagan. C1
The MS St. Louis carried 937 Jewish refugees from Hamburg to Havana in May 1939. Cuba refused most passengers entry. The ship sailed to Florida. The U.S. State Department declined to grant asylum. The ship returned to Europe, where Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Britain took the passengers. After the Nazi conquest of western Europe, approximately 254 were killed in the Holocaust.
— U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; SS St. Louis passenger records C1
The U.S. government received detailed intelligence about the systematic murder of European Jews beginning in 1942. The State Department had information about the Holocaust from multiple sources — diplomatic cables, reports from Jewish organizations, intelligence from occupied Europe. C1 State Department officials, including Breckinridge Long, actively worked to suppress this information and restrict Jewish immigration. Long doctored statistics to make it appear the United States was meeting its immigration quotas when it was not. C1
Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. commissioned an internal report in 1943 that documented the State Department's deliberate obstruction of Jewish rescue efforts. The report's title — "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews" — summarizes its findings. C1 Morgenthau presented this to Roosevelt in January 1944. Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board one week later. The Board is credited with helping save approximately 200,000 Jews — but it was established in January 1944, three years into the systematic murder of six million people. C1 C2
The MythFDR led the United States into WWII to defeat fascism and save democracy
The RecordSimultaneously, he incarcerated 110,000 U.S. residents of Japanese ancestry without charge, turned away Jewish refugees fleeing fascism, and allowed State Department officials to obstruct Jewish rescue for three years. C1
The MythThe New Deal was a universally progressive program that helped all Americans
The RecordThe Social Security Act and National Labor Relations Act explicitly excluded agricultural and domestic workers — occupations disproportionately held by Black Americans — to secure Southern Democratic votes. The New Deal was racially structured. C1 C2
The MythJapanese internment was a wartime emergency measure subsequently corrected
The RecordNo comparable action was taken against German Americans or Italian Americans. The racial basis is documented. The Supreme Court's Korematsu upholding was formally repudiated in 2018. C1
The Docket · Historical Verdict
"Franklin Roosevelt saved American capitalism through the New Deal, led the Allied war effort that defeated Nazi Germany, and transformed the relationship between the federal government and the American people. He also imprisoned 110,000 Japanese Americans by race, turned away Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany who were later killed in the Holocaust, allowed his State Department to obstruct Jewish rescue efforts for three years while millions died, and refused to support federal anti-lynching legislation to preserve his political coalition. These are not separate histories. They are the same presidency."
C1 Primary
Executive Order 9066 (February 19, 1942); Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944); Treasury Department "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews" (1944); SS St. Louis passenger records (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)
C2 Scholarship
Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law (2017); David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews (1984); Greg Robinson, By Order of the President (2001); Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (2013)