Franklin D. Roosevelt's Terms As Governor of New York - First Term

First Term

Roosevelt came to office in 1929 as a reform Democrat, but with no overall plan. He tackled official corruption by dismissing Smith's cronies and instituting the New York Public Service Commission. He addressed New York's growing need for power through the development of hydroelectricity on the St. Lawrence River. He reformed the state's prison administration and built a new state prison at Attica, New York|Attica. He had a long feud with Robert Moses, the state's most powerful public servant, whom he removed as Secretary of State but kept on as Parks Commissioner and head of urban planning. When the Wall Street crash in October 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, Roosevelt started a relief system that later became the model for the New Deal's Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Roosevelt followed President Herbert Hoover's advice and asked the state legislature for $20 million in relief funds, which he spent mainly on public works in the hope of stimulating demand and providing employment. Aid to the unemployed, he said, "must be extended by Government, not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of social duty." In his first term, Roosevelt famously said, "The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written." He was referring to the belief he had that the Federal government would need to use more power in order to bring the country out of the Depression.