Letters to the Editor: Don't diminish the legacies of great leaders San Francisco Chronicle FacebookTwitterEmail In this June 12, 1944, file photo President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks on a national radio program from the White House in Washington. Roosevelt was diagnosed early in 1944 as suffering from high blood pressure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiac failure and acute bronchitis.Eugene Abbott/Associated Press Regarding “Lincoln’s legacy not aging well, school panel decides” (Front Page, Dec. 16): I am shocked that a school district advisory committee recommends expunging the names of former presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt from local school sites. I fully support removing statues and honorifics dedicated to those who defended slavery and worked to construct the cruel system of racist segregation and oppression that replaced it. But I am offended by efforts to diminish the historical legacy of two of America’s greatest presidents. Of course, they were not perfect, but they represented the best in the thinking of their eras, and each made a difference at a critical time in this nation’s history — and they were loved by those to whom they made a difference. The advisory committee lacks a sense of history, of the long, tortuous path that we as a people have followed to get to where we are today. Lincoln and Roosevelt are our heroes, bright spots along this difficult journey.