Master of His Fate

by James Tobin

“YOU’VE GOT TO PLAY THE GAME”

  “I’m telling everyone you are going to Houston without crutches,” Eleanor wrote him, “so mind you stick at it!”

  It was the summer of 1928. He was bound for Houston, Texas. At the Democratic National Convention, he would once again nominate Al Smith for president.

  And he went without crutches.

  For the third time in eight years, thousands of Democrats in a sweltering arena watched him advance to center stage at the Democratic National Convention. In 1920 in San Francisco he had been young, quick, and strong. In 1924 at Madison Square Garden he had been thin, shaky, and slow. Now, in 1928, the delegates saw yet another version of Franklin Roosevelt. He was still slow and obviously lame. But he was walking more confidently than he had four years earlier, “proud despite years of suffering,” as one observer put it. The crutches were gone. He gripped a cane with his right hand and his son Elliott’s arm with his left. And again he delivered a speech that provoked at least as much admiration for Roosevelt himself as it did for Governor Smith. “This is a civilized man,” a journalist wrote. “For a moment we are lifted up.”

  This time Smith won his party’s nomination easily.

  His opponent in the national campaign would be the Republican Herbert Hoover, a much-admired figure who had made a small fortune as an engineer consulting with mining corporations around the world. Then he had supervised the massive effort to help refugees displaced in World War I. He’d gone to Washington as President Coolidge’s secretary of commerce. In 1928, he was aiming for the White House—a businessman running for president just when a great many Americans were in thrall to business. Thanks to a great surge in manufacturing fueled by the spread of the automobile and easy credit for consumers, there was a sense in the air that permanent prosperity had arrived at last. Hoover was its herald. He appealed to people who were already comfortable or hoped to be very soon.

  Against Hoover, Al Smith was summoning the loyalty of those not included in the great ascendancy of the middle class, especially the masses of Catholic immigrants in the cities who wanted Prohibition overturned. If Smith could bring those new Americans into a coalition with the old Democratic stronghold of the South, he had a shot against Hoover. But even at the start, to anyone in the know, that outcome looked like a long shot.

  As the convention closed, FDR was expecting to play a big role in Smith’s campaign, perhaps as director of publicity. But he soon realized that Al’s top lieutenants meant to use him solely as “window dressing.” One of these was Belle Moskowitz, the campaign manager, a brilliant political tactician who brought her knitting to meetings of Smith’s inner circle. She had always regarded FDR as a “stuffed shirt”—a pompous phony—and a threat to her boss. Smith’s other key aide was Joseph Proskauer, a hard-nosed lawyer and judge who resented FDR for failing to give him credit for writing parts of Roosevelt’s big convention speech in 1924. Moskowitz and Proskauer stuck FDR on a couple of committees. When he wanted to talk with Al in person, they shooed him away.

  So now, as Smith made one risky decision after another, FDR could only watch from a distance. FDR thought Al should soft-pedal his opposition to Prohibition. Instead, Al played it up. FDR urged Smith to campaign against government by and for the wealthy classes, and to build bridges to “dry” Protestant voters in the South. So what did Smith do? When he had to pick the new national chairman of the Democratic Party, he chose his friend John J. Raskob, a corporate executive who was (a) one of the richest men in America, (b) a conservative Catholic who was a friend of the pope, and (c) even “wetter” than Al.

  “A number of southern states are in open revolt” against Smith, FDR wrote Van Lear Black. “Frankly, the campaign is working out in a way which I, personally, would not have followed and Smith is burning his bridges behind him. It is a situation in which you and I can find little room for very active work.”

  FDR couldn’t help but see a personal advantage. Day by day, it seemed ever more likely that Smith was going to lose, probably in a landslide. He would no longer be governor of New York, and he would never again be nominated for president. That meant that when Democrats looked for presidential nominees in later years, Al Smith would be out of the running.

  “We shall be in a more advantageous position in the long run,” FDR hinted to Black.

  All he had to do was steer clear of the wreckage. Not long before, he had thought 1928 might be the right year for him to run for governor of New York. Now he was determined to stay out of that race.

  * * *

  As August turned to September and the national campaign moved into full swing, Democratic chieftains across the state of New York were giving Al the same urgent advice: He had to do whatever it took to get Franklin Roosevelt to run for governor.

  Smith had ruled Albany for eight of the last ten years. That had meant good things for Democrats. It wasn’t just that Democratic policies could be enacted, though that was important. A governor also appoints many people to jobs in state government and has a big say in the awarding of contracts to companies that do projects for the state, from building roads to cleaning state parks. If a Republican came in, those political appointees would be out of work, and the contracts would go to other companies.

  So who would follow Al as governor—another Democrat, who would preserve the party’s power statewide? Or a Republican, who would cut short the Democrats’ glory days?

  The Republicans were putting up a strong candidate, Albert Ottinger, the state’s attorney general. For the Democrats, it was bad enough that Ottinger was effective and popular. What really scared them was his religion. He was Jewish. In New York, a Jewish Republican with a solid record was the Democrats’ worst nightmare.

  This was the reason:

  In the 1920s, the population of New York State—10.3 million—was split fairly evenly between New York City (5.6 million) and the rest of the state (4.7 million). The city voted for Democrats by lopsided margins. Upstate—the vast region from the city’s northern suburbs all the way west to the Great Lakes—was Republican territory, apart from a few urban enclaves.

  Upstate, a great many people were Protestants who favored Prohibition and didn’t care for Al Smith, the Tammany man with his flashy suits and low manners. They tended to vote Republican.

  Downstate, many voters were Jewish liberals. Early in Al Smith’s career, many of those voters had distrusted him because of his connections to the Tammany machine. But they had since come to trust him as a true progressive who looked out for their interests. Most voted Democratic. But in Albert Ottinger they were being offered the first Jewish candidate ever nominated for statewide office in New York. Even Jewish voters accustomed to voting for Smith would be tempted to switch to Ottinger.

  Anyone could do the math. If the Republicans could add any sizable number of downstate Jewish voters to their traditional majorities upstate, they had a winner in Albert Ottinger.

  Could any candidate beat him?

  No Democrat based in New York City enjoyed anything like Al’s popularity. Smith had been too popular. In his shadow it had been hard for any younger politician in the city to make a sizable reputation.

  Upstate, on the other hand, Democrats spied one figure who could mount a strong threat to Attorney General Ottinger.

  He was a Democrat, of course. He spent much of his time—when he wasn’t in Georgia—at home in Manhattan. But in politics, he was identified with his ancestral home in the Hudson Valley, with its air of country estates and “good breeding.” He had none of the low-class reputation that upstaters associated with Tammany Hall. He was against Prohibition, but he seldom talked about it. And he carried the same last name as the greatest Republican since Lincoln.

  Democrats could do their own math. With FDR as their candidate for governor, they could fight for a respectable share of upstate Republicans still loyal to the name Roosevelt. As a well-known progressive, FDR could compete for Jewish votes in the city. Add Smith loyalists downstate who would favor
the Democratic nominee no matter what, and he’d be in the running against Ottinger.

  But what about infantile paralysis?

  Well, the leaders of New York’s Democratic strongholds from Brooklyn to Buffalo had just watched FDR walk across that stage at the Houston convention—with help, yes, but he looked so much stronger than he had four years earlier. And hadn’t they been reading newspaper stories about his inspiring recovery? As his admirers were saying, you didn’t have to be an acrobat to be governor of New York. He looked well. He looked ready. They had to pick a nominee for governor at the state convention in Rochester in just a few weeks. Roosevelt was their best shot, probably their only shot. And they said so to Al with increasing urgency every day.

  But Al wasn’t so sure.

  Sure, he would say, he liked Frank (as he called Roosevelt) pretty well. Who didn’t? But he just couldn’t take him seriously. Being governor of New York was a tough job, too tough for a fancy-pants fellow from the Ivy League. “Smith thinks of Roosevelt as kind of a Boy Scout,” said a party veteran. FDR was the sort of man who could make a fine speech but wasn’t built for the kind of backroom dealing that real politics required. He “just isn’t the kind of man you can take into the pissroom and talk intimately with,” Smith told a friend.

  And was he really strong enough? The job had worn Smith out, and he was healthy, more or less. How could a “crippled” man handle it?

  But the boys in the party kept pushing him. It had to be Roosevelt, they said. He was the only prospect with vote-getting power both upstate and down.

  Then, as the last days of August passed away, Smith’s need grew more desperate.

  Even in New York State, public opinion seemed to be swinging in favor of Herbert Hoover. Nothing could be harder for Smith to hear. New York was not only his political base and the foundation of his chance for the presidency but also the place he loved, the place where he had made good as a kid who’d sold fish to pay his mother’s bills. It would be bad enough to lose the presidency to Hoover. But losing the electoral votes of his home state would be a catastrophic blow to Al’s pride. He needed every advantage he could find, including the strongest possible Democrat for governor to share the ballot with him.

  So Smith got FDR on the phone down in Warm Springs. What about it? The party needed him. Would he run?

  Absolutely not, FDR said—doctors’ orders.

  But Al wasn’t giving up. He called in Ed Flynn, the young Democratic boss of the Bronx, who was friendly with FDR. You talk to him, Smith told Flynn.

  Then he set off on a long campaign tour by train, heading west toward towns where a Catholic product of big-city politics had never before presented himself as a nominee for the presidency.

  * * *

  In Warm Springs, FDR had settled in at his new cottage. Eleanor was in New York, knee-deep in the Smith campaign, but Missy was with him, as was Irvin McDuffie, an Atlanta barber FDR had hired to take over as his valet, the “body man” who helped with the everyday tasks of dressing, bathing, and moving by wheelchair in private.

  FDR had been thinking about where to station himself at public occasions when he would be chatting with a lot of people. He couldn’t very well sit in a chair while talking with someone who was standing. Staying seated while everyone else was standing called attention to his handicap. Standing with canes or crutches was even more conspicuous, and with both his hands occupied, he wouldn’t be able to shake hands. He could stand by himself while leaning against a lectern, but that was for giving a speech, not chatting at a reception.

  Maybe he could stand with his back against a wall. Could he stay standing without a cane and shake hands over and over? He practiced it, but he kept losing his balance.

  Then one of his Warm Springs neighbors, Leighton MacPherson, went up to Roosevelt’s screen door one day and called out to see if he was home. He heard FDR call back, inviting him to come inside. MacPherson went into the main room and there was Roosevelt, standing with his braces on, his back to a wall and extending his arms to right and left, like a trapeze walker on a wire.

  “Look at me, Leighton,” he said. “I’m standing alone.”

  * * *

  Obeying Al Smith’s orders, Ed Flynn, calling from the Bronx, got FDR on the phone, long-distance.

  No dice, Eddie, Roosevelt said. He could not and would not run for governor.

  * * *

  On Sunday mornings in rural Virginia, preachers were instructing their congregations to stand and split up into two groups. Those for righteousness and Herbert Hoover should stand on one side of the room, those for Satan and Al Smith on the other. Tennessee had voted Democratic in thirteen of the last fourteen presidential elections. But in the fall of 1928, throngs of female Tennessee Democrats were attending meetings of pro-Hoover women’s clubs. The rising sentiment against Smith drew on fear of immigrants, fear of gangland crime, and fear that as president, Smith would bring about the repeal of Prohibition.

  The greatest fear drew on ancient beliefs among some Protestant Americans that the Roman Catholic Church was greedy, corrupt, and sinister. In Methodist and Baptist pulpits throughout the South, ministers were echoing the Ku Klux Klan’s warning that if Smith took over the White House, the pope would rule the United States from behind the scenes. In the rural Southwest, enemies of Smith distributed copies of a photograph showing him celebrating the opening of the famous Holland Tunnel, which linked Manhattan to New Jersey. But the caption on the photo said Smith was preparing to extend the tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean to the world headquarters of the Catholic Church in Rome. A western journalist said Democrats in his state who opposed Smith “do not hesitate to say they are against him because he is a Roman Catholic,” he said. “You can find men and women, and they are by no means few, who seem to believe that Smith’s election would result in civil war.”

  In the Klan stronghold of Oklahoma, Smith raged against a “spirit of hatred” abroad in the land. John J. Raskob, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, insisted that every Catholic American would defend the U.S. Constitution to the death. But their protests did little good among those who believed Smith was the apostle of everything wrong with the country. At the end of September, as his campaign train retreated toward New York, he looked out the window at night and saw giant crosses that Klansmen had set afire.

  * * *

  On Saturday, September 29, 1928, Governor Smith’s train rolled into Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In just two days, New York’s Democrats would open their convention in Rochester, and one day later, they would have to nominate someone for governor.

  Smith called FDR again. He conceded that he might lose New York’s electoral votes to Hoover. To keep alive any hope of winning the White House, he needed the strongest possible nominee for governor to share the top of New York’s ticket.

  They went back and forth. Again FDR told Al he wished he could run, but his legs simply weren’t ready.

  Finally Al said, “Well, you’re the doctor,” and hung up.

  A follow-up telegram from Warm Springs confirmed FDR’s “no,” and Louis Howe made sure reporters got copies. “My doctors are very definite in stating that the continued improvement in my condition is dependent on my avoidance of cold climate,” FDR wrote, “and on taking exercises here at Warm Springs during the cold Winter months. It probably means getting rid of leg braces during the next two Winters and that would be impossible if I had to remain in Albany. As I am only 46 years of age, I feel that I owe it to my family and myself to give the present constant improvement a chance to continue. I must therefore with great regret confirm my decision not to accept the nomination and I know you will understand.”

  Smith went into a huddle with his aides. Once again, fingers ran down dog-eared lists of next-best candidates.

  How about Herbert Lehman, a New York City banker and Democratic activist who could pay for his own campaign? As a Jew, he would be an especially strong choice to oppose Ottinger.

  No, said the ups
taters—no one outside the city had ever heard of Lehman.

  What about Townsend Scudder, a respected justice of the New York State Supreme Court and Al’s personal favorite for the nomination?

  No, said the city men—Scudder was out of touch, a poor candidate.

  Owen D. Young, the president of General Electric? He would be a long shot, and he didn’t want to run.

  U.S. Senator Robert Wagner? No, he liked the Senate and wanted to stay there.

  It was Roosevelt or disaster.

  It’s tempting to think FDR was secretly hoping the Democrats would force him to run by nominating him against his stated wishes. Then his campaign would appear to be a noble gesture for the good of the party. But FDR calculated every step with an eye toward the long run. If he ran for governor now and lost, his hopes for the presidency would take a terrible hit. A race for governor in 1928 was just too risky—both he and Howe were convinced of it. In a private note to his mother, FDR wrote: “I have had a difficult time turning down the Governorship—letters and telegrams by the dozen begging me to save the situation by running. But I have been perfectly firm—I only hope they don’t try to stampede the Convention—nominate me and then adjourn!”

  It wasn’t just the idea of losing that was keeping him from running. There was something happening with his legs. We don’t know exactly what it was. The only evidence comes to us thirdhand from a friend of Missy LeHand’s, Grace Tully, who would become another of FDR’s assistants. Many years later, Tully wrote of a conversation she had with Missy about what happened at Warm Springs that weekend. Missy told Tully that while FDR was practicing his walking in the presence of Missy, Dr. Hubbard, and Helena Mahoney, he had taken a few steps on his own across the living room of his cottage—without canes or crutches. If true, that was extraordinary. But it is very hard to believe, given everything we know about the state of FDR’s legs in 1928. He just didn’t have the strength in his lower body to keep his balance without support. But even if Tully was wrong about the details, the mere fact that Missy told Tully this story suggests that something significant happened—something that may have given FDR new hope that he might be able to walk on his own, if only he could give enough time to more exercise.