Jean Edward Smith

by FDR

  17. FDR, 3 Personal Letters 43.

  18. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 38.

  19. Quoted in Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 326 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971).

  20. Hugh Gregory Gallagher, FDR’s Splendid Deception 76–77 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1985).

  21. For background, see Will Swift, The Roosevelts and the Royals, especially 108–151 (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

  22. New York Evening Post, November 8, 1928.

  23. Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember 46 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949).

  24. Blanche Wiesen Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 381 (New York: Viking Penguin, 1992).

  25. The New York Times, December 2, 1928.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Nathan Miller, FDR: An Intimate History 229–230 (New York: Doubleday, 1983).

  28. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 36. Rosenman quotes FDR: “Once you’ve made a decision, there’s no use worrying about whether you were right or wrong. Events will prove whether you were right or wrong, and if there is still time you can change your decision. You and I know people who wear out the carpets walking up and down worrying whether they have decided something correctly. Do the very best you can in making up your mind, but once your mind is made up go ahead.”

  29. Frances Perkins interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.

  30. Senator George Norris of Nebraska, the national champion of public power, called Roosevelt’s speech to the legislature “a very brave step in the right direction.” He also pointed out that across the Saint Lawrence both Ontario and Quebec were providing electric power to the consumer at cost. The New York Times, March 15, 1929. Also see S. I. Rosenman, “Governor Roosevelt’s Power Program,” Nation, September 18, 1929.

  31. Alfred E. Smith, Up to Now 314 (New York: Viking Press, 1929).

  32. Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Forty-eighth Governor of the State of New York: 1929 40 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Co., 1930).

  33. “I am not an ‘Urban leader,’ ” FDR wrote the editor of the Mitchell, South Dakota, Republican in April 1931. “I was born and brought up and have always made my home on a farm in Dutchess County.” FDRL.

  34. For an extensive review of FDR’s agricultural program, see the chapter “Parity for the Farmer,” in Bernard Belluch, Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York 76–102 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955).

  35. FDR, 3 Personal Letters 24.

  36. The New York Times, July 5, 1929.

  37. Ibid. July 8, 1929.

  38. Howe deleted the persiflage before the statement was released to the press. The final version stated simply that FDR was not a candidate. 3 Personal Letters 40–41.

  39. Thomas Wilson, Fluctuations in Income and Employment: With Special Reference to Recent American Experience 118 (New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1948). Also see David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear 34–42 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

  40. The New York Times, October 26 (Hoover), November 22 (Rockefeller), December 11 (Schwab), 1929. John Edgerton, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said, “I can observe little on the horizon today to give us undue or great concern.” For a compilation of business predictions, see Review of Reviews (January 1930).

  41. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical History of the United States 283, 292–295 (Stamford, Conn.: Fairfield Publishers, 1965).

  42. Ibid. 140–141.

  43. FDR to Howe, December 1, 1929, 3 Personal Letters 92. The day after the market dipped on October 23, Roosevelt wired The New York Times from Warm Springs: “Do not know detailed conditions but firmly believe fundamental industrial and trade conditions are sound.” FDRL.

  44. The New York Times, December 11, 1929.

  45. “All the evidences,” said Hoover, “indicated that the worst effects of the crash upon employment will have been past during the next sixty days.” The New York Times, January 21, 1930; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 95–96.

  46. FDR statement, March 29, 1930, Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Forty-eighth Governor of the State of New York, 1930 506 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon Co., 1934).

  47. “I am convinced we have now passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover,” said Hoover. Herbert Hoover, 1 State Papers and Other Public Writings 289–296, William Starr Myers, ed. (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1934).

  48. The New York Times, April 27, 1930.

  49. Ibid.

  50. FDR to Nicholas Roosevelt, May 19, 1930, FDRL.

  51. FDR to Hollins N. Randolph, July 16, 1930, FDRL.

  52. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 45.

  53. Public Papers of Governor Roosevelt 1930 835–837; The New York Times, November 2, 1930.

  54. FDR received 1,770,342 (59.1%) votes to Tuttle’s 1,045,231 (34.9%). Professor Robert Paris Carroll of Syracuse University, running on the Prohibitionist ticket, received 181,000 (6.0%) votes.

  55. Quoted in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 336.

  56. Ida Tarbell, in the Delineator (October 1931).

  57. Roy Jenkins, Franklin Delano Roosevelt 61 (New York: Henry Holt, 2003).

  58. Marion Dickerman interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.

  59. Joseph P. Lash, Love, Eleanor 111–123 (New York: Doubleday, 1982). Also see Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 340–343. In A World of Love, published in 1984, Lash concedes, “There may have been an affair” (New York: Doubleday, 297n).

  60. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 429, 442.

  61. James Roosevelt with Bill Libby, My Parents: A Differing View 110–111 (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976). David B. Roosevelt, ER’s grandson and the author of Grandmere: A Personal History of Eleanor Roosevelt, accepts James’s judgment. (New York: Warner Books, 2002, 139–141).

  62. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 435. In 1937, when ER published This Is My Story, the first volume of her memoirs, she ordered four leather-bound copies. They were for FDR; her daughter, Anna; her longtime personal secretary, Malvina Thompson; and Earl Miller. Lash, Love, Eleanor 508–509.

  63. Miller later became chief inspector of prison guards in New York State. Lash reports that ER “wrote him faithfully, letters full of warmth and affection,” which suggests that Lash may have seen them. Eleanor and Franklin 481. In Love, Eleanor, published twenty years after ER’s death, Lash referred to “Eleanor’s many letters to Earl, which have disappeared” (page 116).

  64. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 436, 438.

  THIRTEEN | Nomination

  The epigraph is from FDR’s acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention, July 2, 1932. Official Report of the Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 374 (Washington, D.C.: Democratic National Committee, 1932).

  1. James A. Farley, Behind the Ballots 62 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938).

  2. Ibid.

  3. The New York World, November 6, 1930; The New York Times, November 8, 1930. The Times, apparently taken in, reported that Farley’s announcement came as an unwelcome surprise to Roosevelt.

  4. Edward J. Flynn, You’re the Boss 82 (New York: Viking, 1947).

  5. Farley, Behind the Ballots 67.

  6. Professor Raymond Moley of Columbia University, one of FDR’s original brain trusters, said that “Farley possessed and cultivated, more than any man of his generation, the primary talent of a politician mentally to catalogue names and faces, to learn and retain the facts of association among people, to know who is related to whom by blood, business or politics, to labor with meticulous diligence by mail or otherwise to make and retain contacts.” 27 Masters of Politics 107 (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1949).

  7. Herbert Hoover, 3 Memoirs 55–56 (New York: Macmillan, 1952).

  8. State of New York, 1931 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 173 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1937).

  9. Roosevelt first broached the necessity for “social consciousness” on the part of government in h
is June 17, 1929, commencement address to Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard. “A century and a half ago our forefathers spoke in theoretical terms of equality, meaning thereby the equality of right. Much later came the ideal of the equality of opportunity.” FDRL.

  10. Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph 223 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956).

  11. Immediately after the November 1930 election, Raskob composed a conciliatory open letter to President Hoover promising bipartisan support for the administration’s economic policies, including the historically high levels of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. The letter was signed by the last three Democratic presidential nominees, James Cox, John W. Davis, and Al Smith, as well as Senator Joseph T. Robinson, the Democratic leader of the Senate, and the incoming Speaker of the House, John Nance Garner of Texas. The New York Times, November 8, 1930.

  12. For background on the Raskob-Shouse strategy, see Charles Michelson, The Ghost Talks 135–137 (New York: Putnam, 1944). Michelson was publicity director for the DNC at the time and a co-conspirator with Raskob and Shouse.

  13. Hull and Roosevelt had met at the 1912 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore and remained in contact. Wheeler had been the first prominent Democrat to endorse Roosevelt for president. Byrd was acquainted with FDR through his brother, Admiral Richard Byrd, who had been an intimate friend and hunting companion of Franklin’s since FDR’s stint as assistant secretary of the Navy. In June 1930, Admiral Byrd stayed with the Roosevelts at Hyde Park following his flight to the South Pole and later was decorated by FDR with the Distinguished Service Medal of the State of New York. For Admiral Byrd’s medal ceremony, see 1930 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 745 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1931).

  14. Harry F. Byrd to FDR, February 27, 1931, Virginia preconvention file (1932), DNC. Hull also warned FDR: “I am thoroughly confirmed in the belief that the paramount purpose of the meeting thus far has been to make a wet recommendation to the next national convention and to write all those seeking important special privileges from the government to join the Democratic party on a wet issue alone, by virtually merging the two parties on economics, including special privileges.” February 22, 1931, FDRL.

  15. FDR to Harry F. Byrd, March 2, 1931, ibid.

  16. FDR to Al Smith, February 28, 1931. 3 The Roosevelt Letters 67, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1952) (FDR’s emphasis).

  17. The New York Times, March 3, 1931.

  18. Ibid.

  19. FDR to Norman E. Mack, March 9, 1931. Mack was New York’s national committeeman and had accompanied Farley to the meeting. FDRL. Also see Farley, Behind the Ballots 73–76.

  20. Cordell Hull, 1 The Memoirs of Cordell Hull 143–145 (New York: Macmillan, 1948).

  21. Farley, Behind the Ballots 73.

  22. Other early contributors included William A. Julian of Ohio, Laurence Steinhardt, Guy Helvering, Dave Hennen Morris, Eugene Lorton, and E. J. Machette, all of New York. Steinhardt later served as FDR’s ambassador to Peru (1937–39), the Soviet Union (1939–41), Turkey (1941–44), and Czechoslovakia (1944–48). Julian became treasurer of the United States; Helvering, commissioner of internal revenue; Morris, ambassador to Belgium; and Lorton a member of the International Joint Commission.

  23. The New York Times, March 30, 1931. Also see Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph 205.

  24. There were no replies from Oregon, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Straus did not poll New York, ostensibly because he thought it safe for Governor Roosevelt. More likely, he recognized it would spell trouble, given Tammany’s long affection for Smith. See Steve Neal, Happy Days Are Here Again 24 (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

  25. The New York Times, March 30, 31, 1931. The remaining votes were scattered among thirteen favorite sons, of whom ex-senator Reed of Missouri led with 15.

  26. Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly, The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis 60–61 (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935).

  27. Flynn, You’re the Boss 84.

  28. Farley, Behind the Ballots 82.

  29. Ibid. 83.

  30. Ibid. 85.

  31. “I’ve just come back from New England,” Harris added, “and I found there as much enthusiasm for Governor Roosevelt as I have found in the South. There is no question that Governor Roosevelt is the most popular man … in the country.” The New York Times, October 14, 1931.

  32. FDR to James J. Hoey, September 11, 1931, 3 Roosevelt Letters 73.

  33. Time, April 27, 1931. The comment was made by Mrs. Jesse W. Nicholson, president of the National Women’s Democratic Law Enforcement League.

  34. FDR to Hamilton V. Miles, May 4, 1931, FDRL.

  35. Looker to FDR, February 23, 1931. Reprinted in Earle Looker, This Man Roosevelt 134–135 (New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1932).

  36. “Being assured of your integrity,” Roosevelt wrote Looker, “I am prepared to permit you to make an investigation of my physical fitness, to give you every facility for thoroughly making it, and authority for you to publish its results without censorship from me.” Ibid. 135.

  37. Ibid. 156–157. The technical portion of the report, which was not reprinted in Looker, was first published by John Gunther in Roosevelt in Retrospect 267 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950). It states:

  Heart: regular; rate, 80; no increased cardiac dullness; no murmurs; aortic dullness is not widened. Blood pressure 140/100.

  Pulse: Regular 80—after examination by three physicians rate is 84, returning to 80 after 3 minutes. Electrocardiogram—left preponderance. Inverted T3. PR and QRS intervals normal.

  Lungs: No dullness, no changes in respiratory murmurs, no extraneous sounds or rales; no abnormalities in voice sounds or fremitus. Chest expansion good.

  Abdomen: Liver and spleen, not enlarged, no pain, no masses. Abdominal muscles show slight bulging on left. No hernia. Umbilical excursion upward.

  No evidence of columnar degeneration of spinal cord. Both optic nerves normal. A false Babinski reflex is present on both sides (old “polio” symptom). Right knee jerk absent. Left shows responses in upper and outer portion of quadriceps extensor.

  Some coldness of feet below knees; cocktail makes them right. The lower erector spinae are slightly affected. Gluteus medius partial R. and L.

  Wassermann—negative with both alcoholic and cholesterinized antigen.

  No symptoms of impotentia coeundi.

  38. Looker, This Man Roosevelt 154–155.

  39. Ibid. 140.

  40. Earle Looker, “Is Franklin D. Roosevelt Fit to Be President?” Liberty 7–8, July 25, 1931.

  41. The New York Times, November 22, 24, 1931.

  42. Farley, Behind the Ballots 93.

  43. Roosevelt’s announcement was made in a handwritten letter to Fred W. McLean, secretary of the Democratic State Committee of North Dakota, authorizing McLean to enter FDR’s name in the upcoming North Dakota primary. “I willingly give my consent, with full appreciation of the honor that has been done me.” The letter was dated January 22, 1932, but not released until the twenty-third. 1 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 623–624, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Random House, 1938).

  44. In 1932, U.S. territories and possessions enjoyed thirty-eight votes at the Democratic National Convention, the same number as Michigan. The territorial vote was divided among Alaska, the Canal Zone, District of Columbia, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico, each of which had six, and the Virgin Islands, which had two. Thanks to the labors of Farley and Howe, Roosevelt won all the territorial vote save for the Philippines, which voted for Smith.

  45. Farley, Behind the Ballots 94.

  46. The New York Times, February 8, 1932.

  47. Ibid., January 24, 1932. There were 1,154 delegates to the 1932 Democratic Convention, 54 more than in 1928, the increase (reflecting the 1930 census) coming principally in California (+18), New York (+4), Ohio (+4), and Texas (+6). With the two-thirds rule in place, it required 770 to nominate.

  48. Robert Jack
son memorandum of meeting with Al Smith, January 26, 1932. James A. Farley Papers, Library of Congress.

  49. When the Minnesota credentials fight went to the floor of the convention, the Roosevelt delegation was seated 658¼ to 492¾, a clear indication of FDR’s strength. The vote for Roosevelt was very close to Farley’s January 23 prediction.

  50. The New York Times, March 4, 1932.

  51. Wheeler spoke the argot of embattled plainsmen. “Murray was a good man,” he told radio listeners in North Dakota, “but he was being used by a corrupt gang in the East, which for want of better name might be called the ‘Wall Street Crowd.’ ” Quoted in Keith L. Bryant, Jr., Alfalfa Bill Murray 229 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968).

  52. FDR defeated Murray 52,634 to 32,036, with almost 85,000 votes cast. That contrasts to the 11,000 votes cast in the 1928 Democratic primary. Contemporary reports from North Dakota suggest at least 70,000 Republicans crossed over—apparently identifying Hoover with the Depression and wishing to vote for change. Bismarck Tribune, Valley City Times-Record, March 17, 1932. Also see The New York Times, March 16, 17, 1932.

  53. Against the advice of party elders, including Sam Rayburn, Judge G. H. Howard of Atlanta filed as a proxy candidate for Speaker of the House John Garner. Roosevelt carried all 159 counties and defeated Howard roughly 60,000 to 8,000.

  54. “It would have been absolutely impossible to have gotten an instructed delegation if Mr. James A. Farley had not come to Davenport,” Iowa Democrat John T. Sullivan wrote FDR. “As soon as Mr. Farley appeared, the opposition melted away.”

  55. Farley, Behind the Ballots 99.

  56. William Crawford to Howe, January 29, 1932, Howe Papers, FDRL.

  57. Albert C. Ritchie, “Give Us Democracy,” North American Review (October 1930). Also see The New York Times, January 8, 1932.