Did you
know that in the office of President of the United States coincide the same
powers that in Italy are split between the President of the Republic and of the
Council? And did you know that in 1929 there had been a crisis of global
proportions similar to today? A
crisis of overproduction combined with financial speculation led to the crisis
of ’29. Collapsed the stock titles in the Wall Street stock market. It
had a heavy impact on the U.S. economy and the effects reached the shores of
Europe.
In ’33 was elected
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (the only one to be re-elected four times,
driving the country from ’33 to ’45). He had in front of him about 13 million of
unemployed people. The 32nd president had faced personal vicissitudes: he was
struck by polio that left him paralyzed and not self-sufficient. The
fight against the disease to recover normality marked his character, making it
tough and determined. Roosevelt embodied the face of an America that wanted to
resurrect. He implemented an
effective internal policy to allow the country out of depression. He
traced the lines of the New Deal, the new course to be offered to the country. The winning formula was the innovative
concept of “state employer”. The recovery program consisted in the creation of
welfare state that would guarantee citizens basic goods and a minimum level of
income. Were promoted large public works (bridges, dams, canals) run by
organizations Feds. So the
state would absorb the unemployment and increase industrial supplies. It was
determined a growth of production and of workers. It provided for a
gradual U.S. exit from the crisis. One of the great public works aimed at
creating jobs was a bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a suspension bridge
spanning the Golden Gate, the strait that connects the San Francisco Bay with
the Pacific Ocean. Connects
the northern tip of San Francisco peninsula with the southern part of the Marin
County where there’s the small coastal town of Sausalito. It was erected in this
years and ended in ’37. It’s one of the masterpieces of the New Deal and of modern
architecture. That bridge, stamped on countless films, it’s my passion and now
I share it with you.
But in
Italy we have never had someone who looked like F. D. Roosevelt?
In the image: since 1946, the portrait of Roosevelt appears
on the obverse of the ten cents coin, the Dime, nickname of a ten cents coin.
Source: “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno”, an italian newspaper,
March 17, 2012, p. 40.
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