Kid Carolina

by Heidi Schnakenberg

  Since the sloops had launched from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francsico for the brutal 2,085-mile race, reporters already wondered if the Blitzen might be the surprise winner. On July 6, the Blitzen reported in at 130 miles southwest toward Honolulu and was in second place. By July 16, the Blitzen was 605 miles from Honolulu, but the Fandango was still ahead at 585 miles to the finish. On July 17, Dick’s yacht lost its headsail and they had to press on using only the lower sails. Dick slipped to third place.

  As the race neared its end, Dick and his crew had gone for days without sleep, and they were wet and worn from the salt spray. Some crewmembers were seasick. But Dick’s expression was intent—his eyes steely and focused on Diamond Head in the distance as the sun disappeared on the horizon. The beautiful Blitzen had inched back to second place in the race, which was proving to be one of the most competitive in history. Dick was coming down the home stretch with the 106-foot Contender ahead and the Fandango behind him, while the glistening blue Pacific pushed them along.

  At thirty-three, Dick had acquired his impressive fleet of yachts and sailboats, like he always wanted since he was a little boy playing on Lake Katharine. He joined the Sea Island Yacht Club and the exclusive New York Yacht Club in 1937, with its sloping, yacht-shaped windows and nautical architectural design, the same year he built the Blitzen. After he first raced her in Bermuda, where he obtained a handicap allowance based on Blitzen’s weight, he then took her to the British Fastnet and made a third place showing. Next was second prize in the Miami–Nassau run, and first prize in a Nassau course, which Blitz watched from the air on a chartered plane. Then he earned two more firsts from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Havana, and Havana to Key West, barely beating his friend Harkness Edwards both times. Dick was a bona fide expert yachtsman, reearning his title, “Kid Carolina.”

  Kid Carolina Strikes Again

  As Dick sailed, he thought about Blitz. The marriage was starting to falter and their petty arguments intensified. Each time they fought, Dick showered her with gifts, but they would fight soon again anyway. He rarely saw his young boys anymore. It seemed only yesterday that Blitz had become pregnant with their first child in 1933, and shortly after the news hit the press, trouble began. On October 28 of that year, a note arrived at Reynolda threatening to kidnap Blitz unless a ransom of $10,000 was paid. Without even telling Blitz about it, Dick immediately called J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Bureau of Investigation—the predecessor to the soon-to-be-formed FBI—who advised him to make a decoy package, while federal authorities kept a night vigil at the drop-off site. When a former Reynolds security guard and unemployed textile worker, John Lanier, showed up to retrieve it, he was arrested on the spot. Dick had compassion for Lanier and asked the court to treat him fairly. When he was sentenced to five years in prison, Dick lobbied for his parole. But it was an ordeal that reminded Dick that he had to protect his family from the curse of wealth.

  Dick sold his sister Mary his share of Reynolda in 1934, and she moved into their childhood home permanently. Mary refurbished the property and added an indoor swimming pool, shooting range, bowling alley, billiard room, squash courts, and a complete bar. To honor her brother’s love of yachting, Mary had a large mural painted in Reynolda’s basement art deco bar featuring Dick and Blitz at the bridge of the Blitzen.

  Lately Dick had felt disconnected from his sisters. Mary had devoted herself to her marriage and Nancy had moved to Connecticut. And Dick still missed his brother, Smith, whom he felt had really understood him.

  It had been only seven years since Smith was shot in their family home. The young man had been poised on the brink of glory, almost circling the world by plane and breaking aviation records. Dick recalled their excitement over receiving their pilot’s licenses from Orville Wright. Smith loved boats, too. They spent wonderful years together during Smith’s short life.

  Professionally, Dick had everything to be happy about. He had just invested heavily in Chrysler, General Motors, and Cannon Mills, all of which were bringing in healthy returns. He had made significant strides with Autolite and the Fortune 500 company Atlas Powder. At home, he was in the process of successfully memorializing Smith with the development of the Z. Smith Reynolds Airport, another WPA effort, in Winston-Salem. The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, which was headquartered in his office at Sapelo, was already making huge advances in eradicating syphilis through its $7 million donation to research. It was so successful that the federal government had been using the foundation’s approach with their own national health campaigns.

  Dick had many projects that he wanted to undertake for the community. After Smith’s death, he had softened toward his hometown and had been inspired to do good things with Smith’s money. Although Dick had always sought to help the poor since his days in London, he was now driven to do even more for those less fortunate. It gave him a sense of purpose that he otherwise found hard to come by. He had already built Reynolds Park for the poor, donated RJR stock (which yielded dividends of $5,000 per year) to North Carolina State University and become one of that institution’s most prominent benefactors and trustees, and worked to rebuild Winston-Salem’s hospitals—but he wanted to do more.

  Meanwhile, back at the yacht race, night fell and Dick was rounding the bend at Diamond Head. The Contender was ahead of him and Dick knew he wasn’t going to catch up under the weight of the Blitzen. The Fandango was inching closer and closer behind. They pressed on hard and crossed the finish line. The Contender was already resting in front of them. They beat the Fandango by fifty-two seconds.

  As the winners were announced for the toughest and most revered yacht race of the year, Dick’s Blitzen was declared the winner due to the handicaps it faced in the last three days of the race. It was the most prized American yacht trophy, and Dick was crowned one of the world’s leading yacht racing captains.

  The Honolulu race was a stunning example of what Dick was capable of achieving when he committed himself to a goal and stuck with it long enough to see it through. Whether he could repeat such challenging exploits, in life and in love, was uncertain. While the Blitzen had won, the real Blitz was herself in need of some of the same attention.

  After the race, Blitz flew to Pearl Harbor clipper base to meet Dick and celebrate with him. They stayed in Honolulu for several weeks and attended parties and took cruises. By this time, Dick was spending about $1 million per year, and $20,000 sailing with Blitz to Europe whenever he could convince her. In addition to the sailing, they went to the Caribbean regularly and flew hundreds of guests and musicians to meet them at Sapelo for parties and hunting trips. But it remained to be seen if the good times between them would last.

  Political Ventures

  Soon, the dimpled, sandy-haired prince who had already worn so many hats in his professional life would take a new direction. Dick had proven to be charismatic, jovial, and welcoming on the home front, and had a genuine compassion for people of every background and social status. In public life Dick was respected and admired, even in the face of brewing controversy over the danger of the cigarettes that made him and his family so wealthy. That led him to the inevitable transition to politics.

  In 1940 and 1941, Dick traded in yacht racing, temporarily, for the national political stage. He jumped into politics headfirst and full bore, as he did all his endeavors. On January 4, 1941, he was appointed treasurer and chair of the finance committee of the Democratic National Committee by chairman Ed Flynn. This honor came after he had successfully helped Franklin Delano Roosevelt win his third term as president. In late 1940, the DNC had looked to Dick for help when FDR was losing in key states and the election was in jeopardy. They had run out of money to continue the expensive radio ads they needed to swing the election back in his favor. In September of 1940, Dick, having already given FDR a $10,000 donation in his first election and another $20,000 for this one, jumped in and loaned the Democratic Party a total of $300,000 in cash through the New York, New Jersey, and Illinois organizations.
The campaign turned out to be the country’s most expensive in history to that time. Financially, he gave the Democrats unprecedented power and leverage against the wealthy Republicans, who had long been subsidized by the Rockefellers and DuPonts. At a time when his entire hometown, including his own family, had come out in support of Wendell Willkie, Dick favored FDR, whom he had loved since he first ran in 1932. At the time, Dick was so swept up in the spirit of reform that he got involved with the North Carolina Democratic Party. Dick was quoted saying he backed Roosevelt because “I liked his program.” Dick fully credited FDR with inspiring him to become politically active.

  Dick became very good friends with FDR, and Dick’s funding was considered the turning point in FDR’s third-term win. Even before he became treasurer, Dick had already proven to be a talented political fund-raiser, and FDR had commissioned Dick’s assistance for his campaign. Dick campaigned hard for FDR, making calls and raising money wherever he could. This was scandalous to the Reynoldses, especially Uncle Will and his wife. They and almost all of his family opposed a third-term election for FDR because FDR had overseen the filing of a price-fixing antitrust suit against several tobacco companies, including RJR. As Dick moved to Raleigh to campaign exclusively for FDR, Will stopped speaking to him. Blitz even said publicly that her marriage might be in trouble if FDR was reelected. None of Dick’s friends and peers would donate, and Dick even got into a fistfight with one of them over it.

  Following the election, Blitz set aside the political differences when she and Dick were invited to FDR’s inauguration. At the same time, Dick was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury over the funds he had loaned the party, which had not been repaid and far exceeded the cap on the amount of money an individual could donate. Dick was forced to demand repayment on the loans so they wouldn’t get in trouble, which left the party in debt. Dick went to work and announced that they would hold a five-week fund-raising drive, saying the party “must rely upon relatively small donations to carry on its work, and this is more true now than it ever was before.” Dick held fund-raisers and $100-a-plate Andrew Jackson dinners, held by North Carolina’s Young Democrats club, to help refill the party’s coffers. Dick said, “These dinners are the chief source of revenue for the national committee, and we hope that sufficient funds will be raised to pay the deficit.” The first time Dick attempted to host the famous dinners, the event was abruptly canceled when FDR announced that he wouldn’t be able to attend. The following year, Dick’s hosting duties were much more successful.

  When he wasn’t busy with the Democratic Party, Dick took an interest in his airlines again. Dick allowed his much neglected airline, Camel Flying Service, to fold and sold the planes to Thomas H. Davis, who renamed the company Piedmont Airlines. Then Dick invested heavily in Eastern Airlines and became its largest stockholder, under the condition that the airline move its North Carolina hub to the Z. Smith Reynolds Airport, which Dick was in the process of building. Dick also went back to his Uncle Will and again asked for a seat on the board of RJR. Since Dick decided to name his fourth son—William Neal, born in 1940—after his uncle, the tensions between them over politics had healed. Since Dick seemed to be settling down in Winston-Salem for good and had exhibited more responsible behavior, Will would consider the request more seriously this time.

  In April of 1941, Dick decided to run for mayor of Winston-Salem. Former mayor Marshall Kurfees had urged Dick to run, and withdrew his own candidacy to support him. Some thought Dick’s mayoral ambitions were another one of his adventures or stunts, intended to capture the imagination of an easily bored playboy, but those who knew him well said he was serious. He was called a neophyte by the newspapers, and when asked why he was getting involved in politics now, Dick said, “I’ve always had a deep interest in social legislation.” Three weeks before voting, Dick had already won. The last Democrat opposing him for the nomination withdrew, and Dick had no Republican challenger.

  At the same time, Dick ran for a recently vacated North Carolina congressional seat, which would be filled via a special election among Democratic state delegates. But he faced heavy opposition from another candidate named Clyde Hoey, who had the support of former governor O. Max Gardner. Although many of the state’s delegates liked Dick, Hoey and Gardner had much more political clout and threatened some of the delegates with their political jobs if they voted for Dick. Just before he took office as mayor of Winston-Salem, Dick was defeated by Hoey in a landslide.

  At home, Dick would be the city’s youngest mayor at the age of thirty-five when he took office on May 12, 1941. He pledged to work with the Board of Aldermen to make Winston-Salem one of the greatest industrial cities of the South, and he became tremendously popular for clearing out slums and building housing for the poor and expanding tax burdens to residents outside the city limits who worked inside the city. His efforts again faced major opposition from the city’s wealthy, including his family, who had large estates outside the city limits and had managed to escape paying property taxes for the city until then. Dick wasn’t intimidated and, with the help of a supportive City Council, passed the tax laws.

  When Dick had first approached the Board of Aldermen about clearing the slums, they responded that Winston-Salem had no slums and rocked their chairs in silence. Dick exhibited his unpolished diplomatic skills when he replied angrily, “You mean you’re going to sit there and rock like a bunch of dictators and not even consider the question?” Dick had photos taken and put together a report that directly countered the board’s claims and angered slumlord owners. The photos showed overflowing sewage in some of the city’s neighborhoods and notices of condemnation on homes that were owned by city officials and politicians. In one area, thirty-two families had a single cold water pump. After a contentious town hall meeting, the City Council voted to approve Dick’s plan to receive federal Housing Authority grants. This gave him the chance to apply for funds he needed to tear down the slums and build new housing units. Dick raced to Washington to obtain a special hearing with the Federal Housing Authority and was granted $1.4 million to build 338 housing units for the poor. He named Strat Coyner the head of the local Housing Authority. Dick also irked the Board of Aldermen when he required that the city’s movie theater open every Sunday for visiting soldiers. Needless to say, Dick was very popular among the common people of Winston-Salem.

  Breakdown Ahead

  President Roosevelt became close to Dick, especially after the election. He and Eleanor often extended White House invitations to Dick and Blitz. Blitz put aside the political disagreements when these invitations came along, and she became a familiar face in Washington’s social scene. She even chaired and hosted some political dinners and activities on Dick’s behalf during the first part of FDR’s third term. But her interest didn’t last long.

  After about ten years of marriage, the tension between Dick and Blitz was running high. Since 1937, Dick had been traveling to Washington and Raleigh often, first to work on his boats, and later to attend to his DNC business on a near weekly basis. He traveled to state conventions all over the country giving speeches and fund-raising, and even when he was in Winston-Salem, he was tending to his mayoral duties. The more involved he got in politics, the more he was gone. Dick’s political endeavors continued to be a point of contention between Dick and Blitz. She mocked his Democratic principles and told him that he had “no sense, no education, and stayed drunk all the time.”

  In December of 1941, Roosevelt wrote Dick a letter, saying he would make it to this year’s Jackson Day Dinner, barring any “wars” or “catastrophes,” and invited Dick to meet with him on December 7 to discuss DNC affairs. That very day, the bombing of Pearl Harbor put an end to the FDR visit, while Mayor Dick Reynolds called on Winston-Salem residents to remain alert.

  At the time, Dick was also considered a prime candidate for the Senate but gave up those plans when the war started. Dick was a patriot at heart and he would do everything in his power to serve his country. That meant dr
opping whatever he was doing to support the war full-time. Dick purchased the bankrupt Seattle-based American Mail Line, which he rehabilitated to aid the war effort. He renovated the company’s existing ships and built new freighters to service the war. In May of 1941, Blitz served as hostess for the launch of the first completed ship—a new, 450-foot C-2 called China Mail, which was built in Chester, Pennsylvania. Shortly after, Dick loaned the Zapala to the military and turned his attention to the U.S. Navy.

  CHAPTER 7

  Love and War

  1942–1950

  In 1942, much to everyone’s dismay, Dick abandoned his mayoral post in order to join the war effort. It would make his mayoral career the briefest in Winston-Salem’s history, and the city was sorry to lose him. He’d just finished improving and paving city streets in addition to all of his prior accomplishments. The many hats Dick wore served him well with the people of Winston-Salem. When the city was threatened with a taxi strike, Dick sided with the drivers and told them, “I understand your position, fellows. I used to be a taxi cab driver myself.” It was true—Dick had driven a cab in Norfolk, Virginia, during one of his excursions running away from Ed Johnston. His willingness to associate with ordinary citizens and find common ground helped them reach a deal much more quickly.

  In the spring of 1942, Dick’s ailing Uncle Will finally gave him a seat on the board of RJR, which he had long sought. Will resigned as chairman of the board of directors and Dick was appointed in his place. But by that time, Dick had made up his mind to volunteer for the Navy. It was the last time he would ever take an interest in working for RJR.

  President Roosevelt assured Dick he could be excused from active combat, especially as a politician, a young man with four children, the owner of AML, and as the treasurer for the DNC, but Dick insisted. He would give it all up for the chance to serve. Neither the president nor Blitz, nor Mary and Nancy, were pleased with his decision. Dick formally resigned from the DNC on June 4, 1942. After only two years, he had eliminated the party’s debt, except the money that had to be repaid to Dick for his radio loans. Dick offered to donate the note in honor of FDR’s Warm Springs Foundation in Georgia, but Roosevelt said it wouldn’t be necessary. The president expressed gratitude for all that Dick had done for the Democratic Party.