by FDR
At first, the men could not believe the first lady was among them. Mrs. Roosevelt spent more than an hour at the camp. She sloshed through the mud, inspected mess facilities and living quarters, and reminisced about her experience in wartime Washington serving coffee, making sandwiches, and visiting the wounded. In the large convention tent she led the veterans in singing old Army songs and spoke briefly: “I never want to see another war. I would like to see fair consideration for everyone, and I shall always be grateful to those who served their country.”91
When Mrs. Roosevelt returned to her car, she found Louis Howe fast asleep. It was a boffo performance. “Hoover sent the Army,” said one veteran. “Roosevelt sent his wife.”92* Several days later the Bonus Army voted to disband. FDR waived the age rules (most of the veterans were in their forties), and some twenty-six hundred enlisted in the CCC. The remaining four hundred or so were given free rail transportation home.
The capstone of the one hundred days was the passage by Congress of the National Industrial Recovery Act on the last day of the session. The NIRA was the most inclusive, most ambitious legislation of the hundred days, yet, like FDR’s decision to go off gold, it was a response to circumstance. On April 6 the Senate, acting on its own initiative, passed a bill (53–30) introduced by Senator Hugo Black of Alabama that would bar from interstate commerce goods produced in plants where employees worked more than five days a week or six hours a day. By limiting the workweek to thirty hours, Black and his supporters claimed, the bill would create 6 million new jobs.
FDR was caught off guard. He believed the Black bill was unconstitutional,* that it was inflexible, and that it would retard recovery by forcing employers into a straitjacket.93 But with the vigorous support of organized labor, the bill appeared unstoppable. Rather than buck the tide, Roosevelt diverted the flow. Working with Moley, Frances Perkins, and Secretary of War Dern, he expanded the Black bill into an omnibus proposal governing the whole range of industrial recovery. On May 17 FDR sent a new bill to Congress that had something for everyone. Title I, based loosely on the experience of the War Industries Board during World War I, authorized business to establish production codes controlling prices and output in each industry, free from antitrust regulation. Section 7(a) of the bill, modeled on War Labor Board practices, guaranteed labor’s right to bargain collectively and stipulated that the industry codes should set minimum wages and maximum hours. Title II contained Roosevelt’s public works proposal, $3.3 billion in government spending parceled for the maximum legislative support.94 The House roared its approval, 325–76. The Senate was more narrowly divided. Progressives like Norris and La Follette objected to the blank check given business to set prices and production levels; conservatives like Carter Glass objected to the collective bargaining provisions for labor. But the center held, and as the clock ticked down on the closing minutes of the first session of the Seventy-third Congress, the Senate added its concurrence 46–39, 15 Democrats voting against.95
Earlier in the day Congress had enacted legislation establishing the Farm Credit Administration to consolidate agricultural credit programs, passed the Railroad Coordination Act FDR requested to reorganize the nation’s railroads, approved the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their banking functions, and voted the largest peacetime appropriation bill in the nation’s history. Of the four, the Glass-Steagall Act had the most far-reaching implications. In addition to decreeing that those who sold securities could no longer handle the bank accounts of those who bought them, the act gave the Federal Reserve Board authority to set interest rates and established a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to guarantee bank deposits up to $2,500—in effect more than 95 percent of all individual accounts in 1933.96 FDR had initially opposed the deposit guarantee because he believed it would encourage bankers to be reckless; the weak banks, as he put it, would bring down the strong.97 But congressional support for deposit insurance was overwhelming. Roosevelt threatened to veto the measure, but when it became clear his veto would be overridden, he gave way. Ironically, federal deposit insurance, a New Deal stepchild, so to speak, became the most successful of the many successful programs launched during the hundred days. The peril of bank failure was almost totally eliminated, and even when a bank did fail—which was rare after 1933—a depositor’s funds remained secure.
When the hundred days ended in the early morning hours of June 16, Congress had shattered all precedent for legislative activity. Roosevelt had sent fifteen messages to the Hill, and Congress had responded with fifteen historic pieces of legislation.* FDR’s mastery of the legislative process was complete. He compromised when compromise was necessary, zigzagged when required, but in the end saw his program through. “It’s more than a New Deal,” said Interior secretary Harold Ickes. “It’s a new world.”98
Franklin H. Delano, 1882, Sara’s “Uncle Frank,” for whom FDR was named.
Sara Delano Roosevelt in Rome, on her honeymoon, in 1881.
Franklin, six years old, with a Campobello playmate, at the wheel of Half Moon, his father’s yacht.
At seven years old, on his pony “Debby.”
Age fifteen, at the Delano estate in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
Franklin and Sara in 1893.
James, Franklin, and Sara in 1899, one year before James’s death.
Springwood, the home of James and Sara in Hyde Park, as it appeared in 1885.
The Roosevelt twin town houses at 47–49 East Sixty-fifth Street in New York City. FDR and Eleanor occupied number 49 (right), Sara number 47. Note the common entry and the Roosevelt family crest between the third and fourth floors.
Algonac, the home of the Delano family in Newburgh, New York, where Sara was raised.
The Roosevelt home in Hyde Park as it appeared after Sara and FDR’s 1916–1917 renovations.
Groton first and second football teams. FDR (without school letter) is seated second from the left in the first row.
Reverend Peabody frowned on too much privacy for his charges.
The Harvard Crimson, 1904. Roosevelt (center) was president of the Crimson during his final year at Harvard—an incredibly important and prestigious position, the significance of which is best appreciated by Harvard grads.
Eleanor, as she appeared in Saint-Moritz in 1898.
Young marrieds at Hyde Park in 1905. In a reversal of roles, Franklin is knitting while Eleanor holds a cocktail glass.
Campobello, 1914, FDR’s thirty-four room “cottage,” given to him by Sara in 1909.
FDR and Eleanor with Elliott, James, and Anna, 1912.
FDR greeting Dutchess County voters during his first political campaign, running for the New York State Senate in 1910.
Flag Day, 1914. Left to right: Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, President Woodrow Wilson, Assistant Secretaries of State Breckinridge Long and William Phillips, and FDR.
Assistant Secretary Roosevelt leads the Washington Senators in a demonstration of patriotic solidarity, May 14, 1917.
FDR and Josephus Daniels standing on the balcony outside their offices in May 1918, gazing at the White House. “You are smiling,” said Daniels, “because you are from New York and you know that someday you might live there.”
FDR assisted from a seaplane following an aerial inspection of naval facilities in Pauillac, France, August 14, 1918.
FDR accompanies Daniels and the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) to inspect the brigade of midshipmen at Annapolis, November 1919.
Democratic presidential candidate James Cox named FDR as his running mate in 1920. They are shown here greeting voters at a Democratic parade in Dayton, Ohio.
Roosevelt and his political entourage relax after a day of campaigning in Billings, Montana. Left to right: Louis Howe, Thomas Lynch, FDR, Marvin McIntyre.
This family photo from July 27, 1920, was taken shortly after Franklin’s romance with Lucy Mercer was discovered. Sara seems to console Eleanor with her hand on Eleanor
’s knee. Children, left to right: Elliott, FDR, Jr., John, Anna, James. Chief is in the foreground.
Boy Scout encampment, Palisades Park, New York, July 27, 1921. FDR contracted the polio virus here. This is the last photograph to show Roosevelt walking unassisted.
Roosevelt spent the years from 1923 to 1926 in Florida attempting to regain his health, much of the time aboard the Larooco, a seventy-one-foot houseboat described by co-owner John Lawrence as “a floating tenement.”
On the beach in Florida with Frances (Dana) De Rahm. Aside from his slender legs, it would be difficult to recognize that FDR was paralyzed.
FDR posing on horseback in Warm Springs, Georgia, with Missy LeHand and Sergeant Earl Miller of the New York State Police.
FDR with Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis and New York governor Al Smith at Hyde Park, August 7, 1924.
Franklin and Eleanor with Anna and her husband, Curtis Dall, at Hyde Park, June 1926.
Eleanor poses for a snapshot with her friends Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman at Val-Kill, July 1926. The depth of their friendship continues to be a subject of speculation.
Eleanor developed a lasting relationship with New York State Police sergeant Earl Miller that continued throughout her life. This photo is from 1930.
Governor Roosevelt rides with Missy LeHand and Eleanor from the governor’s mansion to the state capitol.
Roosevelt read four newspapers daily and scanned a dozen others. Here, he is checking the Times at Warm Springs in 1931.
FDR sailing with his sons. Left to right: John, Elliott, James, and FDR, Jr., off Campobello, September 15, 1931. Roosevelt enjoyed blue-water sailing and used his nautical ability with telling effect in the early 1930s to discount rumors of his invalidism.
Strategy session with vice presidential nominee John Nance Garner at Hyde Park. On the decisive fourth ballot at Chicago, Garner had thrown his support to Roosevelt, ensuring FDR’s nomination.
Presidential candidate Roosevelt attending the third game of the 1932 World Series in Chicago. Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm and the Yankees’ Joe McCarthy are in the foreground. Chicago mayor Anton Cermak is behind McCarthy. Eleanor is behind Franklin.
Campaigning in Seattle, FDR greets fellow polio victim Melidy Bresina, September 22, 1932. (The young boy is unidentified.)
Despite the opposition of UMW president John L. Lewis, FDR carried the coal fields of West Virginia overwhelmingly. He is shown here greeting Zeno Santello in Elm Grove, West Virginia, October 19, 1932.
FDR reviews final election returns with a jubilant James Farley and Louis Howe. Howe’s tepid smile is the closest he came to expressing genuine pleasure.
January 23, 1933. President-elect Roosevelt poses with Anna outside his residence at Warm Springs before departing to inspect the giant hydroelectric dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
FDR spoke briefly to American Legionnaires at Bay Front Park in Miami the evening of February 15, 1933. Chicago mayor Anton Cermak was shot moments later when an assassin’s bullet aimed at Roosevelt misfired.
* The Roosevelts sat in their old pew, the one they had used when FDR was assistant secretary of the Navy, eight rows from the front on the left. Because it was Communion Day the service was especially long, and Roosevelt did not get back to the White House until 1:30. The New York Times, March 6, 1933.
* FDR’s proclamation closing the banks reflected extraordinary input from leading members of the Hoover administration. Woodin was without staff support when he took office, and Secretary Mills, Undersecretary Arthur A. Ballantine (a Harvard classmate of FDR’s), Comptroller of the Currency Gloyd Awalt, and Walter Wyatt, general counsel of the Federal Reserve Board, helped put the proclamation into final form. “Mills, Woodin, Ballantine, Awalt, and I had forgotten to be Republicans or Democrats,” wrote Raymond Moley. “We were just a bunch of men trying to save the banking system.” After Seven Years 148 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939).
† FDR relished the “quarterback” metaphor. As he described his role calling plays to his press conference on April 13, 1933: “It is a little bit like a football team that has a general game plan against the other side. Now the captain and the quarterback of that team know pretty well what the next play is going to be and they know the general strategy of the team; but they cannot tell you what the play after the next play is going to be until the next play is run off. If the play makes ten yards, the succeeding play will be different from what it would have been if they had been thrown for a loss. I think that is the easiest way to explain it.” 2 The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 139, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Random House, 1938).
* FDR’s working majority in the Senate was far greater than 60–35, since Farmer-Labor Senator Henrik Shipstead of Minnesota and four Republicans—Hiram Johnson of California, George Norris of Nebraska, Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, and Bronson Cutting of New Mexico—were solidly behind the president. In future years, when Shipstead, Johnson, Norris, La Follette, and Cutting faced reelection, FDR did his utmost to ensure that there was no serious Democratic opposition.
† Woodin’s decision to issue federal reserve notes backed by the assets of the nation’s banking system is the basis of American currency today. A quick look at a bill in one’s pocketbook will show the words “FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE” clearly printed on the front. The usage dates from the emergency banking legislation of March 1933.
* As one reporter noted, “Mr. Roosevelt’s features expressed amazement, curiosity, sympathy, decision, playfulness, dignity, and surpassing charm. Yet he said almost nothing. Questions were deflected, diverted, diluted. Answers—when they did come—were concise and clear. But I never met anyone who showed greater capacity for avoiding a direct answer while giving the questioner a feeling it had been answered.” Quoted in Bernard Asbell, The F.D.R. Memoirs 58 (New York: Doubleday, 1973).
† The day before the inauguration, a testy Herbert Hoover told FDR, “Mr. Roosevelt, when you are in Washington as long as I have been, you will learn that the President of the United States calls on nobody.” Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Coming of the New Deal 14 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959).
* Two years later to the day, on what would have been his ninety-fourth birthday, Holmes was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Roosevelt was among the mourners at the graveside. A soft spring rain was falling, but, as one of Holmes’s admirers said, “Soldiers don’t mind the rain.” Liva Baker, The Justice from Beacon Hill 643 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).
* Eleanor Roosevelt observed the proceedings from the House gallery. When ER was recognized, she was given a standing ovation. “The House rose as one man,” said The New York Times. “The informality of the new occupants of the White House was never more forcefully evident. Not only did [ER] wear no hat, but she knitted almost constantly.” March 10, 1933.
* Congressional leaders attending included Speaker Rainey and House minority leader Snell; Senate majority leader Robinson; Congressmen John McDuffie of Alabama, chairman of the House Economy Committee; Sam Rayburn (D., Tex.); John Rankin (D., Miss.); William Connery (D., Mass.); and Senators Glass, La Follette, Wagner, Edward Costigan (D., Colo.), and James Byrnes (D., S.C.). Also in attendance were Secretaries Ickes, Wallace, and Dern, plus Director of the Budget Lewis Douglas. The New York Times, March 10, 1933.
* “This is not a Democratic bill and it is not a Republican bill,” said Mary Norton of New Jersey. “It is a bill to maintain the credit of the United States, and I shall support it.” The New York Times, March 12, 1933.
* The lame-duck Seventy-second Congress had voted on February 20, 1933, to repeal the Eighteenth (Prohibition) Amendment, but the proposal, which subsequently became the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, did not become effective until ratified by the thirty-sixth state (Utah) on December 5, 1933. Amending the Volstead Act provided interim relief.
* Roosevelt was true to his word. At the end of the session Tim
e reported that of the hundred thousand appointments available, FDR had made only 272, all at the highest level. The remaining jobs were being held in limbo by Postmaster General James A. Farley—whom Time called the party’s chief patronage dispenser. Farley had a “white list” of Democrats who had consistently supported the president and a “sinners’ roll” of party members who had deserted on crucial roll calls. The constituents of those on the “sinners’ roll” could expect slim pickings. June 26, 1933.
* The processors eventually had their day in court and temporarily prevailed when the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Owen Roberts, overturned the Agricultural Adjustment Act in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936). The decision is well known to constitutional scholars for Roberts’s remarkable description of constitutional adjudication. The Court’s duty, as Roberts would have it, was simply “to lay the Article of the Constitution which is invoked beside the statute which is challenged and to decide whether the latter squares with the former.” The decision in Butler was explicitly overruled in Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38 (1939), and Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). Of more than passing interest, the decision in Mulford v. Smith reversing Butler was also written by Justice Roberts, who apparently found a new set of carpenter’s tools.
