by FDR
Daniels sought to dissuade FDR. “I told him that I had a hunch he could not win in the primary, and even if he did the indications were that the Republicans would carry the State [in November].”29 Franklin refused to be deterred. “I had no more idea or desire of offering myself as a ‘white hope’ than I had of attempting to succeed Kaiser Wilhelm,” he disingenuously told a friend shortly after he announced. “I protested, but finally agreed to be the goat. Now I am going into the fight as hard as I can.”30 FDR was confident that the Democratic nomination was his for the taking. He remained at Campobello for the remainder of August and did not bother to appear at the campaign kickoff rally Howe organized at New York City’s Cooper Union on September 2. Primary day was September 28, and thus far no opposition candidate had announced.
Early press reports indicated New York publisher William Randolph Hearst might seek the nomination. FDR wrote Howe he was “offering up prayers” that the reports were true. “It would be magnificent sport and also a magnificent service to run against him.” But Hearst stepped back.31
In late August, Governor Glynn endorsed Roosevelt, and hope rose that Tammany would let the nomination pass by default. “The truth is that they haven’t a thing to say against you,” Howe told Franklin. “No one is anxious to bell the cat—particularly when they have an idea that the President occasionally pats him on the back and calls him ‘pretty pussy.’ ”32
Once again FDR underestimated the political skill of Charles Murphy. On September 6, the next-to-the-last day for filing, Tammany unveiled its candidate: James W. Gerard, United States ambassador to Germany and former State Supreme Court justice, an independently wealthy, impeccably honest adherent of the New York City organization who had already distinguished himself assisting Americans stranded in Germany by the war. Even worse for Roosevelt, Gerard had cleared his candidacy with the White House.33 The ambassador said his duties in Berlin would not permit his return to campaign, which compounded FDR’s problem. Not only did he have no visible opponent to attack, but he could scarcely pose as the administration’s candidate when Wilson’s personal representative in Berlin remained at his post with the president’s approval. With one bold stroke Murphy undercut Roosevelt’s campaign and proved why under his leadership Tammany had become so formidable.
FDR was caught unprepared. He had not expected a rival and was not ready to campaign. He crisscrossed the state several times but made little impression on the voters. Roosevelt had no particular message other than his opposition to “bossism” and he had surprisingly little grasp of the issues facing the state. “When compared to such a man as Elihu Root he cuts a sorry figure as a great statesman,” commented one upstate paper.34
When the votes were counted on September 28, FDR was swamped by his absentee opponent. Gerard received 210,765 votes to Roosevelt’s 76,888. The ambassador led FDR 4 to 1 in New York City and 2 to 1 upstate. Franklin’s only consolation was to carry twenty-two of the state’s sixty-one counties, including Dutchess, which he won 461–93. “I wonder if you are disappointed,” his mother wrote. “I hope you are not. You made a brave fight and can now return to the good and necessary work of the Navy Department, which you have missed all these weeks.”35
Franklin assured Sara that he was not disappointed and cheerily told the press it had been a good fight.36 Within weeks he put a Roosevelt twist on the disaster, claiming to have carried a majority of the state’s counties and losing only because of “the solid lineup of New York City,” ignoring the fact that Gerard had trounced him 2 to 1 upstate.37 Daniels, who had watched the campaign from a distance, believed the loss hurt FDR more than he cared to admit. “I refrained from telling him ‘I told you so.’ ”38
As Daniels had predicted, November was a bad month for Democrats. In the general election, the GOP gained 69 seats in the House of Representatives and picked up seven governorships. In New York, Gerard, who remained at his post in Berlin, lost the Senate race to James Wadsworth of Geneseo by 70,000 votes; Glynn lost his bid for reelection as governor to Charles S. Whitman; and the Republicans recaptured both houses of the legislature.
Both Franklin and Charles Murphy learned from the debacle. Murphy recognized that while Tammany could dictate the party’s nominee, it could not guarantee victory in the general election. FDR learned that running statewide was far more complicated than contesting a three-county Senate seat. He also learned he could not defy the New York City organization if he wanted the nomination, nor could he win in November without Tammany’s support. Howe suggested to Franklin that it was time to make peace, and FDR needed little coaxing. Never again did he publicly criticize Tammany Hall.39
By 1915 Roosevelt had become a virtual regular in the New York organization. He endorsed Al Smith, Tammany’s candidate for sheriff of New York County, supported Senate leader Robert Wagner for postmaster of New York City,* and posed happily with Charles Murphy at Tammany’s annual Fourth of July celebration. There was even talk that FDR might head the ticket in 1916 as Murphy’s candidate for governor.40
FDR made peace with Tammany because his political career required it. But he never forgave Gerard for having defeated him. In October 1914, Colonel House, Wilson’s political majordomo, wrote McAdoo to urge Franklin to come out strongly for Gerard before the November election. Roosevelt returned the note with “NUTS F.D.R.” scrawled across the top.41 Years later, as president, Roosevelt still held a grudge. James Farley, whose job it was to keep tabs on Democratic donors, urged that Gerard (one of the largest contributors and in Farley’s words “a faithful servant of the Democratic Party”) be appointed ambassador to Italy. “Roosevelt was evasive,” said Farley, “and William Phillips was nominated. I proposed Gerard for Paris, but William C. Bullitt was named.” Eventually Farley persuaded FDR to name Gerard as his representative to the coronation of King George VI in 1937, but that was a one-shot ceremonial appearance.42 In 1943, Eleanor attempted to make peace between the president and Gerard, but Roosevelt’s answer was still no.43
Back in Washington, FDR turned his attention to the Navy’s preparedness. From an Allied point of view, the war was not going well. The great German offensive in the West had been blunted, but the battle line was forty miles from Paris. The French government had decamped for Bordeaux, virtually all of Belgium was in German hands, and trenches stretched from Ostend on the English Channel to the Swiss border. In the East, General Paul von Hindenburg had turned back the Russian invasion of East Prussia and was moving eastward toward the Vistula. On the Serbian front, the Austrians advanced, retreated, and advanced again, taking Belgrade for the second time. The one glimmer of hope was the war at sea, where the powerful British Navy kept the German High Seas Fleet bottled up in ports along the North Sea, reluctant to risk a direct engagement.
Smarting from his defeat in the New York primary, Roosevelt was eager to resume the struggle to put the Navy on a war footing. In late October, when Daniels left Washington to inspect facilities on the Gulf Coast, FDR took advantage of the secretary’s absence to release a memorandum prepared by the Navy’s brass documenting the fleet’s deficiencies. Thirteen battleships were laid up because the Navy lacked sailors to man them. Eighteen thousand men were needed urgently, but Congress had failed to authorize them. The New York Times printed the memorandum in full, much to the discomfort of the White House.44 “The country needs the truth about the Army and Navy instead of a lot of soft mush about everlasting peace,” Franklin wrote Eleanor. “I am perfectly willing to stand by [the memorandum] even if it gets me into trouble.”45
Trouble may have come more swiftly than FDR anticipated. Daniels was not happy with his deputy’s performance, and when he returned to Washington he took Franklin to the woodshed. The next day Roosevelt issued a disclaimer. “I have not recommended 18,000 more men,” he told the press, “nor would I consider it within my province to make any recommendation on the matter one way or the other.”46
On December 8, 1914, Wilson forcefully restated the administration’s poli
cy. Speaking to Congress on the state of the union,* the president counseled against turning the United States into an armed camp:
We are at peace with the world. We mean to live our own lives as we will; but we also mean to let live. We are, indeed, a true friend to all the nations of the world, because we threaten none, covet the possessions of none, desire the overthrow of none. Therein lies our greatness.
Wilson rejected any increase in the size of the regular Army, dismissed an expansion of the reserves, and said an accelerated naval construction program would require greater study to determine precisely what type of ships should be built. “We shall not alter our attitude because some amongst us are nervous and excited.”47
The following day Daniels assured the House Naval Affairs Committee that ship for ship the U.S. Navy was the equal of any navy in the world. He said the Navy would continue its program of building two battleships a year and requested no increase in the number of enlisted men.48
The committee called FDR to testify on December 16. He had plainly learned his lesson. “It would not be my place to discuss purely matters of policy,” Roosevelt told the congressmen at the outset.49 Pressed repeatedly during the five hours he was at the witness table, he steadfastly declined to discuss administration policy and did not contradict Daniels or the president at any point. In his testimony, FDR hewed closely to the facts. He had the details of every program at his fingertips and frequently cited Navy department studies to make the point that if war should come, a rapid expansion would be necessary. He was anything but shrill, and at times he was even amusing. “It is a necessity as a matter of economy that all our ships should not be in commission all the time,” he told the committee. “No navy does that except that of one country.”
“What country is that?” demanded several members in unison.
“Haiti,” replied Roosevelt, smiling broadly. “She has two gunboats and they are in commission all the year around.”50
FDR’s testimony was a success. The New York Herald praised him for his promptness in answering questions and his candor. “He showed that in the short time he has been Assistant Secretary he has made a most complete study of the problems of national defense.” The Sun said Roosevelt “exhibited a grasp of naval affairs that seemed to astonish members of the committee who had been studying the question for years.”51
Franklin wrote Sara that the hearings had been “really great fun … as the members who tried to quizz me and put me in a hole did not know much about their subject and I was able not only to parry but to come back at them with thrusts that went home. Also I was able to get in my own views without particular embarrassment to the Secretary.”52
Eleanor wrote afterward to her friend Isabella Ferguson, “War is in all our thoughts and the horror of it grows. We are distinctly ‘not ready,’ and Franklin tried to make his testimony before Congress very plain and I think brought out his facts clearly without saying anything about the administration policy which would of course, be disloyal.”53
FDR was eager to see the naval war firsthand. In mid-December, immediately after his House testimony, he sought to go to London to study the workings of the Admiralty. Winston Churchill was then first lord of the Admiralty, the British equivalent of secretary of the Navy, and he was piqued that the United States had not yet entered the war. He claimed he was far too busy to receive a delegation of visiting Americans. “I have asked the First Lord as to the possibility of affording facilities to Mr. F. D. Roosevelt and a staff of United States Naval Officers,” the permanent undersecretary of the Admiralty informed the American embassy on December 19. “The First Lord desires me to express his regret that the present pressure of work in the Department would render it impossible to offer the assistance necessary for the accomplishment of the object of such a visit.”54 That was FDR’s only brush with Churchill until the two met four years later at a dinner given for the British war cabinet by Lloyd George. That too was unpromising.55 Twenty-three years later, when the two statesmen met off Newfoundland to frame the Atlantic Charter, Churchill (to FDR’s chagrin) had no recollection of their prior meeting.56
In 1915 the war at sea accelerated. On February 4 Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles a war zone: Allied vessels would be sunk on sight; neutral merchantmen that entered did so at their own risk.57 Britain responded on March 1 with a counterblockade of German ports.58 Wilson composed the United States’ reply to the German announcement at his own typewriter and warned Berlin it would be held to “strict accountability” for the loss of American lives or property.59 The response to Britain, prepared jointly by Wilson, Secretary Bryan, and Department of State counselor Robert Lansing, was milder in tone and enjoined London to treat American shipping according to the “recognized rules of international law.”60
Wilson’s effort to maintain American neutrality suffered a severe shock on May 7, 1915, when the Cunard liner Lusitania, the largest and fastest on the North Atlantic run, was torpedoed in the Irish Sea and sank in eighteen minutes. Of the 2,000 persons on board, 1,198 perished, including 128 Americans. Public opinion was outraged. Newspapers railed against the “wanton murder” of helpless civilians.*
Wilson sought to calm the nation. “There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight,” he declared and dispatched a protest note to Berlin reasserting the right of Americans to sail the high seas and demanding indemnity for the loss of American lives.61 Except for war hawks like TR, the note struck a responsive chord with the public: “a model of restraint and understatement,” said The New Republic. “It reproduces with remarkable skill the mean of American opinion.”62 Berlin’s reply, drafted with an eye to German public opinion, expressed regret, placed the blame on Cunard for carrying passengers and munitions on the same ship, and requested a delay in settling the matter until the facts could be established.63 At the same time, and unknown to Washington, the German government ordered its U-boat commanders not to attack large passenger liners, “not even an enemy one,” until further notice.64
The American press greeted the German reply harshly. Wilson believed Berlin was unresponsive and stalling for time. Again he pecked out a rejoinder, this time insisting that Germany renounce its “ruthless” submarine warfare and condemning the sinking of Lusitania as a crime against humanity.65 Bryan, who thought the German response more than adequate, welcomed the delay Berlin requested so tempers might cool. He was certain the president’s note carried the risk of war and, rather than sign it, submitted his resignation. “A person would have to be very much biased in favor of the Allies to insist that ammunitions intended for one of the belligerents should be safeguarded in transit by the lives of American citizens.”66
Bryan’s resignation threw Washington into an uproar. The secretary was assailed for unspeakable treachery, weakening the president’s hand and suggesting to foreign nations that the United States was divided. FDR joined the chorus. “What d’ y’ think of W. Jay B.?” he asked Eleanor. “It’s all too long to write about, but I can only say I’m disgusted clear through. J. D. will not resign.”67*
Daniels and the other members of the cabinet rallied to the president’s support, as did FDR. To Wilson he wrote, “I want to tell you simply that you have been in my thoughts during these days and that I realize to the full all that you have had to go through—I need not repeat to you my own earlier loyalty and devotion—that I hope you know. But I feel most strongly that the Nation approves and sustains your course and that it is American in the highest sense.”68
Wilson’s longhand reply was heartfelt. “Your letter touched me very much,” said the president. “Such messages make the performance of duty worthwhile, because, after all, the people who are nearest are those whose judgment we most value and most need to be supported by.”69
In the months following Bryan’s resignation, FDR toiled diligently to enhance the Navy’s readiness—but always within the policy bounds Wilson and Daniels had established. Charles Murphy had taught Roosevelt the importa
nce of disparate political alliances and Democratic solidarity: “They may be sons-of-bitches, but they’re our sons-of-bitches.” Daniels taught him to be a team player—a lesson TR never learned. Franklin sometimes chomped at the restraint and occasionally overstepped, but he was careful never to challenge administration policy directly.
FDR was recuperating at Campobello from a bout of appendicitis in late July 1915 when Daniels summoned him to Washington to help draft plans for the Navy’s expansion.† Wilson had become increasingly worried about Germany’s intentions as well as his reelection chances. Public opinion, particularly on the East Coast and in the South, had become increasingly militant and the president decided it prudent to stay in step. On July 21 he instructed Daniels and Secretary of War Lindley Garrison to prepare a program for “an adequate national defense” that might be submitted to Congress when it convened in December.70 FDR was elated. He returned to Washington in mid-August to serve as acting secretary while Daniels vacationed, and helped pull plans together. To achieve supremacy at sea, the Navy’s General Board urged immediate construction of 176 ships at a cost of $600 million—the largest peacetime construction program in the nation’s history. The proposal included ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten light cruisers, fifty destroyers, and one hundred submarines, along with the sailors to man them.71 Wilson approved the plan and submitted it to Congress on December 7, 1915. Daniels, whose peace-loving credentials were unassailable, undermined the pacifist opposition and shepherded the legislation through Congress, which authorized completion of the entire program within three years.*
For the next fourteen months the argument within the administration turned on how rapidly the United States should mobilize, not whether mobilization was necessary. FDR devised a plan for a Council of National Defense to oversee war production and took it directly to Wilson, who was unwilling to go that far. “It seems that I can accomplish little just now,” Franklin wrote Eleanor. “The President does not want to ‘rattle the sword,’ but he was interested and will I think really take it up soon.”72 Roosevelt continued to press the project, and the council came into being in August 1916, the proposal attached as a rider to the Army appropriations bill. The council was empowered to place defense contracts directly with suppliers and draw plans for the “immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the nation.”73 FDR played an important role in establishing the council and would draw on that experience in 1940, after the fall of France, when he reactivated the council’s advisory panel as the first significant defense agency of World War II.74
