President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Source:Wikipedia- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democrat, New York) 32nd President of the United States.

"Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York–now a national historic site–he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick’s Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.

Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as “the Happy Warrior.” In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first “hundred days,” he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority... 

From The White House

I realize today's Socialists (whether they're closeted or not) like to view President Franklin Roosevelt as one of them, because in 1944 he proposed the Economic Bill of Rights which was all sorts of universal, government economic programs for Americans and the EBR was one of the basis's of Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns. But FDR really was never a Socialist, at least as far as how he governed as President and what he actually got through Congress during his 12 years as President. 

If you put a list together of the great Progressive American President's, FDR would probably be at the top of the list. I prefer Barack Obama and Bill Clinton myself, but FDR could be number one, especially if you look at the fact that under FDR America saved the European Jews from total genocide during World War II. And that's why I have a page about him, as well as to talk about his progressivism, not socialism while he was President, like the New Deal which was the creation of the public safety net (not welfare state) for people who fall on hard times and need help getting on their feet. 

FDR