01-05-2025
‘Freedom From Fear': F.D.R.'s Granddaughter Contrasts Two Presidents
Image Credit... Nathan Howard/Reuters
To the Editor:
Re 'The New Deal Is a Stinging Rebuke to Trump and Trumpism,' by Jamelle Bouie (column, April 30):
In his first 100 days in office, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my grandfather, encouraged us to believe in ourselves, to trust and help our neighbors, and to put the country's stability and well-being as a whole at the forefront.
By contrast, the current administration has caused economic chaos at home and abroad, while exhibiting carelessness and cruelty to nearly everyone except billionaires. The early success of a presidential agenda should be defined by what it creates and not by what it destroys — the confidence in the American promise that it inspires, not the fear it sows.
All my life I have lived in the shadow — no, the glow — of the legacy of my grandparents' leadership, ideals and public accomplishments. I am 77 years old, and I hope I live to see that legacy give rise to a reborn America that treasures the freedoms they enshrined: the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom the live one's own faith, the freedom from desperation and want, and most especially, the freedom from fear.
Thank you, Mr. Bouie, for your clear declaration of what we must do and why.
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
Embden, Maine Credit... Pete Marovich for The New York Times
To the Editor:
Re 'There have never been 100 days like this' (front page, April 30):
The most dispiriting and shocking thing about Donald Trump's so rapidly and thoroughly transforming the presidency into a weapon of revenge is not what he has done, but how he has been able to do it.
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