President and Mrs. Roosevelt and Senator Joseph T. Robinson on Inauguration Day. March 4, 1933.

Arkansas Senator Joseph T. Robinson appears in the president’s appointment book, 177 times between 1933 and July, 1937, when Senator Robinson suddenly died. He was the Senate Majority Leader, nicknamed “the fightingest man in the Senate.”

As Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal marshal, he ensured the passage of countless bills relating to the Depression and social policy during Roosevelt’s first term.  His most impressive victory was the Emergency Banking Act, which he pushed through both houses of Congress in just seven hours.  He died of a fatal heart attack during his campaign for Roosevelt’s controversial “court packing” plan.