Master of His Fate

by James Tobin

  * * *

  Monday, October 1, was the day there had to be a decision on the nomination for governor.

  In Rochester, Smith and his team arrived by train and went directly into meetings at the Seneca Hotel.

  Meanwhile, down in Georgia, FDR sorted through the latest pile of telegrams urging him to accept the nomination. One was one from his daughter: “GO AHEAD AND TAKE IT! MUCH LOVE. ANNA.” (He wired back: “YOU OUGHT TO BE SPANKED. MUCH LOVE. PA.”)

  Missy was against it. She glared at FDR and said: “Don’t … you … dare!”

  FDR asked for a car to be brought up to the cottage. At the wheel was Egbert Curtis, the young manager of the Meriwether Inn, a favorite of FDR’s whom he called by the nickname Curt. FDR, Missy, and Irvin McDuffie got in. FDR was scheduled to give a speech in Manchester, the next town to the southeast, down State Route 41. He wasn’t supposed to speak until evening, but he wanted to get out of Warm Springs early, just to make sure he couldn’t be called to the telephone.

  * * *

  At the convention in Rochester, Eleanor was going from meeting to meeting as head of the women’s division of the Democratic State Committee. But she was due to catch an evening train back to New York so she could teach the next morning.

  Then she saw one of Al Smith’s men trying to get her attention.

  Would she mind coming up to speak to the governor for a moment?

  It’s hard to be sure how Eleanor felt about the idea of her husband running for governor. Later she told her son Jimmy that she had not opposed it. She still believed Franklin was overcommitted to Warm Springs, moneywise and timewise, and she thought a race for governor, win or lose, might help pull him away from Georgia. She was deeply committed to Al Smith’s campaign for president, and she thought FDR could help Smith win.

  But she and FDR had agreed that he would make his own decisions about whether and when he would run for office.

  When Smith and his lieutenants brought her in, she said straight off that she would not urge Franklin to take the nomination.

  That was fine, they said. What they wanted to know was this: What was the real truth about his health? Would it actually endanger his well-being if he made the race? Was that why he was saying no?

  She recalled later: “I had to say I didn’t think it would hurt Franklin’s health, but Franklin believed that he might go further in his ability to [walk] and therefore he wanted to keep himself free to go on with his Warm Springs treatment.”

  She was just repeating what FDR had said. But at least Smith now had reason to think a race for governor wouldn’t actually cause Roosevelt harm.

  Ed Flynn, the Bronx Democratic boss, had been saying he thought FDR was refusing to run because he had to safeguard his investment in Warm Springs. So Smith pulled the multimillionaire John Raskob into the conversation with Eleanor. What if Raskob promised to take over FDR’s obligation for Warm Springs? Would that change his mind?

  As Eleanor recalled this part of the conversation, she said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  Raskob didn’t hear it that way. He thought Eleanor was saying—or implying, at least—that FDR’s real reason for not running was financial.

  So maybe Raskob could change FDR’s mind. He said he could eliminate FDR’s worries about paying for Warm Springs with the stroke of a pen.

  The hour was getting late. Smith asked Eleanor for one more favor: Would she please call her husband for them? Maybe she could get him to come to the phone. She said she would try.

  The governor’s people had found out that FDR was in Manchester to give a speech. They placed a call to the local drugstore. The manager of the store sent someone over to find FDR. His wife wanted him on the telephone, they said. So he came over to the store, and when he picked up the phone, Eleanor said Governor Smith wished to speak to him. Then she handed the receiver to Al.

  Right away FDR told Smith the phone connection was bad, and he hung up. But the operator called back a minute later and said Governor Smith would phone Mr. Roosevelt at the Meriwether Inn in a few minutes.

  On the ride back Missy kept saying: “Don’t you dare.”

  At the inn FDR took the call. On the other end he heard Raskob’s voice. He was offering to take responsibility for FDR’s debt.

  Then Smith himself was back on the line, saying FDR could be governor and still spend nine months a year in Georgia if he wanted to.

  “Don’t hand me that baloney,” FDR said. No governor with any self-respect could neglect the job that way.

  Well, Smith said, how about if they put Herbert Lehman on the ticket for lieutenant governor? He would make a great backup. He could fill in if FDR needed him.

  At one point FDR asked to speak to Eleanor again. Frances Perkins, who was in the room, reported the conversation as follows, based on what she heard Eleanor say and what she learned later that FDR said:

  FDR: “Do you think carrying New York [for Smith] depends on my running for governor?”

  Eleanor: “I’m afraid it does.”

  FDR: “It appears that they think I have an obligation to run. What do you think?”

  Eleanor: “I know it’s hard, but that’s what they believe.”

  Al Smith got back on the line. He put his need as plainly and forcefully as he could.

  As a personal favor, he said, would FDR please take the nomination for governor to improve Smith’s chances to win the presidency?

  To answer once and for all, FDR had to think about several other questions at once.

  If he said yes and lost the race for governor—and he thought he probably would lose, just as he thought Smith would lose to Herbert Hoover—then his future in politics would look grim indeed. In 1920, when he was the Democratic nominee for vice president, his ticket had lost the state of New York. This would be a second statewide loss. After that, who would want a two-time loser to run for anything?

  But if he said no and then Smith lost the White House by a hair, how would his fellow Democrats feel about the man who had said no when Al Smith begged for his help?

  But what about his legs?

  If he ran for governor and won, would he be sacrificing his last chance at walking? Dr. Hubbard had told him he might regain 20 percent more strength below the waist. Would that be enough to walk without braces?

  Maybe, but only if he stuck to his exercises for many more months, which he could never do as governor of New York—certainly not at Warm Springs, the only place where he could make real progress.

  If he didn’t run, maybe he’d be able to walk.

  If he ran, maybe he’d be governor. As governor, he would be in a much better position to run for president.

  He still hadn’t given Smith an answer. The governor tried his final angle.

  If the convention went ahead and nominated FDR on Tuesday without his consent in advance, Smith asked, would he refuse to run?

  “Don’t … you … dare!” Missy whispered.

  FDR hesitated.

  This is what he told his uncle Fred in a letter several days later: “The convention was in a hopeless quandary—there was no one else to satisfy all parts of the State. It was a condition which spelt defeat not only for the State, but also in all probability for the National ticket in New York. That being so there was literally nothing that I could do but to tell the Governor not that I would allow the use of my name before the convention, but that if in the final analysis the convention insisted on nominating me, I should feel under definite obligation to accept the nomination.”

  That was good enough for Al. He hung up the phone in triumph and told his boys to pass the word: Nominate Roosevelt!

  FDR got in the car for the brief ride from the inn back to his cottage.

  Behind the wheel was Egbert Curtis. He asked, So … are you going to run?

  “Curt,” he said, “when you’re in politics, you’ve got to play the game.”

  * * *

  The next day the convention nominated FDR in a storm of applause.
r />   He accepted by telegram.

  EVERY PERSONAL AND FAMILY CONSIDERATION HAS BEEN AND IS AGAINST MY BECOMING THE CANDIDATE OF THE CONVENTION, he wrote, BUT IF BY ACCEPTING I CAN HELP THE SPLENDID CAUSE OF OUR BELOVED GOVERNOR I WILL YIELD TO YOUR JUDGMENT … IF ELECTED, I SHALL GIVE MY BEST SERVICE TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE HIGH EXAMPLE SET DURING ALL THESE YEARS BY GOVERNOR SMITH AND TO THE FURTHERANCE OF THE CAUSE OF GOOD GOVERNMENT IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

  He kept a couple of appointments in Georgia. Then, on Friday, October 5, he boarded a northbound train.

  The election was thirty-two days away.

  Chapter 14

  “ON MY FEET”

  The Democrats of New York had done something no political party had done before. They had chosen a man most people would call a cripple to run for statewide office.

  Surely, many Republicans thought, that would give their own nominee a huge advantage.

  But it would not be a simple matter to turn Roosevelt’s infirmity against him. By the rules of good sportsmanship, it would be bad behavior to strike at a man who was physically vulnerable. A boxer drew a penalty if he hit an opponent who was down on one knee. Boy Scouts were forbidden from hurting “the weak and helpless.” Even in the tough game of politics, voters didn’t like it if you took a cheap shot at an opponent with a visible weakness.

  Albert Ottinger had no taste for exploiting FDR’s handicap. He announced he would make no speeches until the last two weeks of the campaign, and when he did speak, he would refrain from any “mudslinging” or “destructive criticism.”

  So editorial writers for the state’s powerful Republican newspapers stepped up to fight on Ottinger’s behalf.

  Some went right ahead and broke the rules of good sportsmanship, saying FDR was “a sick man … in a sanitarium,” that he “cannot stand the strain.”

  But most were more clever. They saw a chance to undermine confidence in FDR by striking at the bigger target of Al Smith himself.

  Franklin Roosevelt, the Republican writers said, was the finest of men, “a thorough gentleman,” “able and honest.” The one who deserved the public’s scorn, they said, was not FDR but Al Smith, who had cruelly pressured his friend to sacrifice his health to advance Smith’s chances for the White House.

  “There is something both pathetic and pitiless in the ‘drafting’ of Franklin D. Roosevelt by Alfred E. Smith,” said the Republican editorial page of the New York Evening Post. Even FDR’s closest friends should refrain from voting for him, the Post argued, since “they will know that not only the ‘cold climate’ of Albany but also its killing hard work are no curatives for a man struggling out of one of the most relentless of modern diseases.”

  “Nothing has been more amazing in the career of Gov. Smith,” said the Buffalo News, “than his display of callousness with respect to his friend’s health.”

  FDR hit back hard and fast. Even before he left Warm Springs for New York, he had a statement dictated to New York reporters by telephone.

  “I am amazed to hear that efforts are being made to make it appear that I have been ‘sacrificed’ by Gov. Smith to further his own election,” he said, “and that my personal friends should vote against me to prevent such sacrifice. Let me set this matter straight at once. I was not dragooned into running by the governor … I was drafted because all of the party leaders … insisted that my often-expressed belief in the policies of Governor Smith made my nomination the best assurance to the voters that these policies would be continued … I trust this statement will eliminate this particular bit of nonsense from the campaign from the very beginning.”

  Smith, too, debunked the charge that he had forced a sick man to do his bidding.

  No, he told reporters at the state capital, of course he had not promised Roosevelt that if the Democratic ticket was elected, Herbert Lehman, as lieutenant governor, would do most of the governor’s day-to-day work—that was an “absurdity.” (In fact, Smith had proposed just that to FDR.)

  “The real fact is this,” Smith said. “Frank Roosevelt is mentally as good today as he ever was in his life. Physically he is as good as he ever was in his life. His whole problem is in his lack of muscular control of his lower limbs. But the answer to that is a governor does not have to be an acrobat. We do not elect him for his ability to do a double back flip or a handspring. The work of a governor is brain work. Ninety-five percent of it is accomplished sitting at a desk. There is no doubt about his ability to do it.”

  But just a few hours earlier, aboard his private railroad car, Smith had said something quite different. He’d been riding from Rochester back to Albany with a few pals from Tammany Hall, sharing in the general satisfaction over getting FDR on the ticket. But one of the men, Daniel Finn, an up-and-comer in the Tammany organization, wasn’t so sure that nominating Roosevelt would work out well for Smith.

  “Al,” Finn said, “aren’t you afraid you’re raising up a rival who will one day cause you trouble?”

  According to a Democratic official who got the story from a man who was listening in, Smith replied: “No, Dan—he won’t live a year.”

  That sounds unbelievably cold. It was true that Smith “could be extremely harsh on occasions in private conversation,” as a politician who knew him well put it, “and he always said what was on his mind regardless of the effect it had on the other fellow’s feelings.” But harsh though he might have been, Smith was not a cold man. So maybe that report of what he said got a word or two wrong. Maybe what Smith really said was: “He won’t last a year,” meaning he thought simply that FDR lacked the physical stamina to remain in office for long. If so, Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman would succeed to the governorship, a result that Smith probably would have preferred in the first place.

  But whether he said “live” or “last,” it’s clear that Governor Smith had deep doubts about FDR’s fitness either to make the campaign or to hold the governorship.

  Al’s political chieftains—the ones who kept pressing for a draft of FDR—harbored the same doubts. They said he should take the campaign slow and easy, giving just a few major speeches.

  Louis Howe was pressing the same advice on his boss. “Insist on limiting speeches to the four big cities with a radio hookup,” he urged FDR. And he was all for having Lehman do most of the campaigning. “He wants to relieve you of all routine work as Governor, and it is a grand time to start now.”

  Howe was still distraught over the nomination, which he had opposed with every argument he could muster. On the morning after FDR signaled his consent to be drafted, Howe was at work at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in New York City. A party official named Adolphus Ragan looked up to see Howe coming into his office. Howe held a telegram in his hand. Without a word he handed the slip of paper to Ragan. It was from FDR, giving Howe the news about his decision to run, contrary to all Howe’s advice.

  Ragan read the telegram, then looked up to see tears on Howe’s cheeks.

  “Ragan,” Howe said, “they are killing the best friend I ever had in the world.”

  Howe and Al Smith held entirely different views of Roosevelt. Smith still saw FDR as a fancy-pants political amateur. Howe admired and revered him and thought that with more time and physical therapy he could do anything.

  But both men looked at FDR and could not believe he was up to the challenges of campaigning and governing. Despite all his progress at Warm Springs, all the improvements in his ability to walk, other people still saw him as a man deeply compromised.

  That was how most people who knew him felt. Certainly it was the view of Missy LeHand, who spent more time with FDR than anyone. Strangers got the same impression. The reaction of Missy’s friend, Grace Tully, was typical. One day, in an office corridor, she saw Louis Howe walking slowly at the side of a man Tully recognized instantly as FDR. He “was moving on crutches and with the labored gait taught to infantile paralysis cripples at the Warm Springs Foundation. Louie stopped me and presented me to his boss …
FDR smiled broadly and shook hands. The vitality in his face contrasted sharply with the helplessness of his legs and I couldn’t help but feel the tragedy of such a physical misfortune.” When Tully was brought onto FDR’s staff that fall, she got another shock. “The first time I saw him lifted out of his wheelchair and carried by valet and chauffeur to a place in his automobile, I turned away and cried.”

  FDR was acutely aware of reactions like Tully’s. So now, whether by deliberate calculation or sheer instinct—probably a combination of the two—he set out to assert control over how he appeared to a vast public of ten million strangers.

  * * *

  Three weeks was only enough time for one long loop of the state. He would start with a westward trek across New York’s “lower tier” counties all the way out to Jamestown, just short of the Pennsylvania line; then north to Buffalo; then back east through Rochester and Syracuse to Albany; then down to New York City for the last few days before Election Day.

  He started out on the morning of Wednesday, October 17, 1928, when he boarded the auto ferry that would take him across the Hudson to Hoboken, New Jersey. From there he would ride the Erie Railroad to the upstate town of Binghamton, where he would give his first major speech of the campaign that night.

  On the auto ferry that morning FDR was sitting in a passenger seat in his car, chatting about the traffic of ships and boats on the lower Hudson. A few big-league Democrats down from Albany stood around talking with him. One of them was Maurice Bloch, leader of the Democrats in the state assembly, whom the party had installed as FDR’s campaign manager. Bloch had told FDR he could restrict his campaigning to a few speeches in the big cities to preserve his strength.