By James Finck, Ph.D. | Southwest Ledger
A few weeks ago saw the indictment and guilty plea of Hunter Biden, son of President Joseph Biden, on two counts of misdemeanor tax evasion. While these were the first crimes the younger Biden has been charged with, they are far from the only ones to which he has been linked.
Republicans have charged Biden for years with corruption and influence peddling mostly with Ukraine and China. These recent charges and Republican allegations will surely be major issues in the upcoming presidential election. Republicans are already claiming coverups and former President Donald Trump, who is under investigation himself, has weighed in writing, “Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN.”
Historically speaking, having a wild child is not new for presidents, yet there are few who have had the potential of wrecking a campaign like Hunter Biden. Yet in the 1940 campaign, FDR’s favoritism of his son Elliott did lead to real problems for Roosevelt’s reelection.
Kids embarrassing their parents is nothing new, and that goes for presidents as well as for most of us. Ronald Reagan’s daughter Patti posed for Playboy and released a tell-all book. Amy Carter, daughter of Jimmy Carter was arrested four times while at college for protesting. George W. Bush’s twins were hellraisers when they were young. Not unlike their father when he was a president’s son, several times the twins were caught drinking while underage.
Malia Obama, daughter of Barack Obama was caught smoking what some claimed was marijuana. But my favorite was Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt, who had a reputation of outlandish behavior, especially partying. When asked if he could please control his daughter, TR stated, “I can either be President of The United States or I can control Alice, I cannot possibly do both.” The situation and accusations with Hunter Biden go beyond embarrassment to criminality, and if are proven true, could derail Biden’s hopes for a second term.
While neither FDR nor his son’s actions in 1940 were criminal, the president’s favoritism was seen by some as corruption. In 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was already susceptible to the accusation of authoritarianism as he was the only the second president to run for a third term (TR had run but lost his bid for a third term). With the outbreak of WWII in Europe, FDR felt his leadership was needed more than ever, even though it did cause some in his party to jump ship.
Most Democrats supported the move and insisted Roosevelt was indispensable with the uncertain future. Republicans ran an unlikely candidate in Wendell Willkie, a corporate lawyer from Indiana. What made Willkie unlikely, apart from not holding office before, was that he was an interventionist in a party full of isolationists and actually supported FDR on most of his New Deal policies.
Willkie attacked Roosevelt for running for a third term, claiming, “if one man is indispensable, then none of us is free.” But what really gave him momentum is when he claimed FDR would pull American boys off to Europe to fight. Roosevelt had given Willkie all the ammunition he needed, when in September of 1940 FDR signed the Selective Service Act which required men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register with their local draft boards.
Americans were hesitant to join another European war, and so when FDR’s numbers dropped, it forced him to come out and state, “While I am talking to you mothers and fathers, I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”
While Roosevelt’s statement seemed to calm most voters’ fears, there was one issue with the draft that he could not shake. Instead of having to sign up for the draft, FDR commissioned his second eldest son Elliott as a Captain in the Air Corps leading to cries of “I want to be a Captain too.”
Suddenly there were songs with the same title and even clubs formed calling out the president for his favoritism. One editorial criticized FDR in a similar vein as Trump towards Biden, “President Roosevelt is a master at soft-soaping the people on special privileges to none, equal rights for all and similar commendable ideals come election time…While Roosevelt is engendering class hate by his hypocritical appeal to the so-called “average man,” he approves when his family receives the boons of special privilege…The appointment of Elliott Roosevelt, the president’s second son, as captain in the Army Air Corps Specialists Reserve is a good example of how President Roosevelt espouses the principle of equal rights to all.”
Baltimore Sun columnist Frank Kent wrote, “The First and most obvious thing, of course, is to say that Elliott could not have secured a captaincy in any such way and any such speed but for the fact that his father is in the White House…Here is a man well within draft age, utterly lacking in any sort of military training, experience or special equipment, who simply makes an application and immediately is made a captain in the army, assigned to the procurement service, which is an office job…this of course, makes Elliott exempt from the draft.” Kent ended his column with, “Compare this lavish treatment with the military record of Wendell L. Willkie. Mr. Willkie enlisted as a private the first day America entered the World War and he had served six months in France before he earned the right to a captain’s title.”
Elliott’s appointment did hurt Roosevelt with the veteran crowd. One prominent WWI vet, Henry Lee, wrote a broadside in which he imagined Elliott saying the position “ought to make Mother feel swell,” to which he answered, “But maybe 16 million other mothers won’t feel so swell.” With all the controversy, Elliott decided to resign his commission, but his superior officer denied his resignation claiming Elliott was indispensable. The wording led to criticism of FDR who one editorial claimed he was also calling himself indispensable while running for a third term.
In the end, criticism of Elliott nor Republican calls of authoritarianism made a difference. Roosevelt’s promise not to enter the war seemed to calm the fears of voters who elected him to a third term 54%-44%. Roosevelt would go on to serve four terms as president even though a year after he won his third term, he asked for a declaration of war against Japan and Germany.
Like with Elliott, Hunter’s two tax convictions alone are probably not enough to sink Biden’s reelection bid. However, unlike Elliott, these charges may remind voters that there are other crimes under investigation — some involving his father — and, in that case, these crimes could play a part in convincing voters that Biden is not trustworthy.
James Finck, Ph.D. is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at Historicallyspeaking1776@gmail.com.