Jean Edward Smith

by FDR

  55. ER to FDR, November 22, 1936, quoted in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 487.

  56. Roosevelt and Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 284.

  57. “Possibly I should have been sufficiently mature and considerate enough of Father’s position to have withdrawn from the insurance business entirely,” wrote James. “But I was young, ambitious, and spoiled so I went right ahead in pursuit of what seemed to me the easiest solution.” Ibid. 218.

  58. William O. Douglas, Go East, Young Man 302 (New York: Random House, 1974). Cf. James Roosevelt, My Parents: A Differing View 245–246 (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976).

  59. Roosevelt and Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 310–311.

  60. Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography 464 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985). Also see Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 495.

  61. Morgenthau Diary, December 6, 8, 1938. FDRL.

  62. Elliott Roosevelt interview, cited in Peter Collier with David Horowitz, The Roosevelts: An American Saga 371 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

  63. Lillian Rogers Parks, The Roosevelts: A Family in Turmoil 142 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981).

  64. Quoted in Morgan, FDR 459.

  65. Elliott Roosevelt and James Brough, A Rendezvous with Destiny: The Roosevelts of the White House 39 (New York: Putnam, 1975).

  66. Joseph P. Lash interview with Anna Halstead, quoted in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 490. “When I called [FDR] from Chicago and told him Elliott was going to marry right away, he was very annoyed, but his annoyance was at Elliott’s doing it so quickly.”

  67. The New York Times, October 7, 8, 1936.

  68. Ibid.

  69. Elliott Roosevelt, Rendezvous with Destiny 37 ff.

  70. Quoted in Collier, The Roosevelts 362.

  71. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 489.

  72. Roosevelt and Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 305.

  73. For The New York Times’ front-page coverage, see August 18 and August 19, 1937.

  74. Quoted in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 492. Also see The New York Times, August 21, 1937.

  75. The act provided for a gradual two-year phase-in and allowed numerous exemptions. See Paul Douglas and Joseph Hackman, “The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,” 53 Political Science Quarterly 491–515 (1938).

  76. Michael Barone, Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan 117 (New York: Free Press, 1990).

  77. Hill received 90,601 votes to Heflin’s 50,189. Congressional Quarterly, Guide to U.S. Elections 909 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1975).

  78. For the full text, see Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 120–121.

  79. Ibid. 121.

  80. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm 239–240.

  81. Professor James T. Patterson provides a useful table of the support senators gave the New Deal in the Appendix (pages 348–349) of his Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967). Gillette’s voting record indicates he supported the New Deal three quarters of the time. That was better than twenty-three of his Democratic colleagues.

  82. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm 249.

  83. The Indianapolis Star, June 6, 1938.

  84. 7 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 391–400, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1941).

  85. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 125.

  86. 7 Public Papers and Addresses 432–439, at 438.

  87. The unofficial results of the August 9 Kentucky primary showed Barkley with 274,131; Chandler 184,266. Mrs. Chandler, with down-home directness, said she hoped her husband would quit politics. “You know, you can’t make any money in politics, especially when you’re a psychopathic case of honesty such as Happy is.” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 9, 1938, quoted in Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 267n.

  88. Quoted in Thomas L. Stokes, Chip off My Shoulder 536 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940). Stokes, a Scripps-Howard syndicated columnist, broke the Kentucky story in a series of eight articles that won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize.

  89. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism 348–349. Glass voted against the New Deal 81 percent of the time.

  90. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story.

  91. 7 Public Papers and Addresses 463–471.

  92. Augusta Chronicle, August 12, 1938.

  93. Ibid., August 16, 1938.

  94. Congressional Quarterly, Guide to U.S. Elections 912.

  95. V. O. Key, Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation 139 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950).

  96. Smith received 186,519 votes (55.4%) to Johnston’s 150,437 (44.7%). Six years later Johnston defeated Smith 138,440 to 88,045. Ibid. 915.

  97. Quoted in Kennedy, Freedom from Fear 348.

  98. Address at Denton, Maryland, September 5, 1938. FDR also spoke at Morgantown, Berlin, Sharptown, Salisbury, and Annapolis. 7 Public Papers and Addresses 512–520, at 515. Some of the most incisive coverage of the Maryland primary is provided by Caroline H. Keith in “For Hell and a Brown Mule”: The Biography of Senator Millard E. Tydings 329–361 (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1991).

  99. FDR to James H. Fay, September 23, 1938, FDRL. O’Connor was succeeded as chairman of the Rules Committee by Adolph J. Sabath of Illinois, the dean of the House and a staunch New Dealer. Under Sabath the Rules Committee was no longer the roadblock it had been, but on the other hand the House itself was no longer under firm New Deal control.

  100. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 148.

  101. Timmons, Garner of Texas 239 (Garner’s emphasis).

  102. Raymond Clapper, “Return of the Two-Party System,” 49 Current History 14 (December 1938).

  NINETEEN | On the Brink

  The epigraph is from the address FDR gave at Chapel Hill, December 5, 1938, upon receipt of an honorary degree from the University of North Carolina. 7 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 613–621, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1941).

  1. 8 Ibid. 1–12.

  2. Thomas L. Stokes, Chip off My Shoulder 505 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940).

  3. Combatant casualties in the Spanish Civil War are from Melvin Small and J. David Singer, Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars, 1816–1980 229 (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982).

  4. Quoted in Nathan Miller, FDR: An Intimate History 421–422 (New York: Doubleday, 1983).

  5. On May 9, 1938, FDR told Harold Ickes that to lift the embargo and allow arms to be shipped to the Spanish government “would mean the loss of every Catholic vote next fall and the Democratic members of Congress … didn’t want it done.” The cat was out of the bag, wrote Ickes, “and it is the mangiest, scabbiest cat ever.” 2 Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes 389–390 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954).

  6. Address at Chautauqua, New York, August 14, 1936, 5 Public Papers and Addresses 289.

  7. A Gallup Poll in late 1937 found that 57 percent of American respondents favored China while only 1 percent backed Japan. Hadley Cantril, Public Opinion 1935–1946 1081–1082 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951).

  8. 6 Public Papers and Addresses 406–411.

  9. The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 1937.

  10. Time, October 18, 1937.

  11. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 167 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).

  12. 10 Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt 232–252 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972).

  13. The Times (London), October 7, 1937.

  14. FDR to Peabody, October 16, 1937, 3 The Roosevelt Letters 220, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1952).

  15. Manny T. Koginos, The Panay Incident: Prelude to War 26–31 (Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Studies, 1967).

  16. Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm 154–155 (New York: Random House, 1993); The New York Times, December 13–26, 1937.

  17. Ickes, 2 Secret Diaries 274. Also see John Morton Blum, From the Morgenthau Diaries: Years of Crisis,
1928–1938 485–492 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959).

  18. The Christian Science Monitor, December 13, 1937.

  19. Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932–1945 154 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).

  20. Quoted in William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 229 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).

  21. “Memorandum to the Secretary of State,” December 13, 1937, 6 Public Papers and Addresses 541–542.

  22. Ibid. 542n. In addition to the shipping and personnel losses, the U.S. bill included $74.27 to reimburse the Post Office Department for lost stamps. Koginos, Panay Incident 73.

  23. United States Congress, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., Congressional Directory 33 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1937).

  24. George Gallup, 1 The Gallup Polls: Public Opinion, 1935–1971 71 (New York: Random House, 1972).

  25. Radio Address by Louis Ludlow, November 29, 1937, Legislative Division, National Archives.

  26. Cordell Hull, 1 The Memoirs of Cordell Hull 563–564 (New York: Macmillan, 1948).

  27. FDR to Bankhead, January 6, 1938, 7 Public Papers and Addresses 36–37.

  28. In a public telegram to FDR on December 20, 1937, Landon congratulated the president for the uncompromising stand he had taken opposing the amendment. “Many members of Congress from both parties,” he said, “seem to have forgotten the basic principle of American politics and wish to create the impression on foreign governments that they do not trust your administration of foreign affairs.” Quoted in The Christian Science Monitor, December 21, 1937.

  Knox, publisher of the Chicago Daily News, called the amendment “an idea that could be harbored only by persons utterly ignorant of the realities of international life and death,” Chicago Daily News, December 18, 1937. Stimson, whose letter occupied three quarters of the editorial page in the Times, and who was also given extensive front-page coverage, said of the proposal that “No more effective engine for the disruption of national unity on the threshold of a national crisis could ingeniously have been devised.” The New York Times, December 22, 1937.

  29. U.S. Congress, Congressional Record 276–283 (January 10, 1938).

  30. Ibid. In addition to the official 188–209 tally, 10 members were paired, 2 voted present, 23 abstained, and there were 3 vacancies. Bertrand Snell of New York, the Republican leader, voted against the resolution.

  31. Article 88 of the Treaty of Saint-Germain, one of the “suburb treaties” negotiated simultaneously with the Treaty of Versailles, proclaimed Austria’s independence to be inalienable and made the League of Nations its guarantor.

  32. On March 10, 1938, Premier Camille Chautemps and his cabinet resigned, and it was not until the thirteenth of March that a new government under Léon Blum was installed.

  33. In his testimony at Nuremberg on August 9, 1946, Field Marshal Erich von Manstein said the chief worry of the military at the time of the Anschluss was whether Italy would intervene because “Italy always sided with Austria and the Hapsburgs.” Quoted in William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich 345n (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959).

  34. “The hard fact is that nothing could have arrested what actually has happened unless this country and other countries had been prepared to use force,” Chamberlain told Parliament on March 14, 1938. Ibid. 353.

  35. Ibid. 350.

  36. 11 Complete Presidential Press Conferences 223–226.

  37. FDR to John Cudahy (U.S. minister to the Irish Free State), March 9, 1938, 3 Roosevelt Letters 232.

  38. Quoted in Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom 449 (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003). Also see Kennedy, Freedom from Fear 408–409.

  39. Chamberlain’s remarks were made September 27, 1938, and reported in all major newspapers the following day.

  40. Quoted in Joachim C. Fest, Hitler 567, 572 (New York: Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1974); Black, FDR 476. Mussolini was the only one of the four at Munich who spoke all four languages. As a result he played a role in the negotiations that was not always appreciated. Note that the Czech government was not represented. That was at Hitler’s insistence, to which Britain and France agreed.

  41. Ickes, 2 Secret Diaries 469. FDR feared that Chamberlain was so eager to appease Hitler that “in the interest of world peace” he might cede Trinidad to Germany and convince France to yield Martinique. If that happened, Roosevelt told Ickes, he would send the U.S. fleet to take both islands. Ibid. 484.

  42. The ranking is that of Army chief of staff Malin Craig, in U.S. Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941 55 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943).

  43. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear 419, quoting Robert A. Divine, The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II 55 (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969).

  44. 7 Public Papers and Addresses 491–494. Secretary Hull, with FDR’s approval, spoke to the National Press Club on March 17, 1938, stressing the need for rearmament. For Welles, see Cordell Hull, 1 Memoirs 576–577 (New York: Macmillan, 1948).

  45. Radio Address to the Herald Tribune Forum, October 26, 1938. 7 Public Papers and Addresses 563–566.

  46. Gallup Poll, October 14, 1938. 1 The Gallup Polls 121.

  47. The New York Times, November 11, 1938.

  48. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich 430–434. To preserve their international credit ratings, the insurance companies paid the claims, but the German government confiscated the money and returned most of it to the insurers.

  49. Press Conference, November 15, 1938, 7 Public Papers and Addresses 596–598.

  50. Ibid.

  51. Herbert Hoover, 1 Public Papers of the President … Messages, Speeches, and Statements 36–40 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974). Proclamation 1872, “Limiting the Immigration of Aliens into the United States on the Basis of National Origin.”

  52. Arthur Morse, While Six Million Died 288 (New York: Random House, 1968).

  53. Cantril, Public Opinion 1081.

  54. Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt 491.

  55. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear 414.

  56. Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 348–349 (New York: Viking Press, 1946).

  57. Press conference, November 18, 1938, 7 Public Papers and Addresses 603–604. Despite widespread public disapproval, Roosevelt assisted some 150,000 refugees to enter the United States between the Anschluss and Pearl Harbor. “I only wish I could do more,” he wrote investment banker Robert Lehman in New York. Harry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938–1945 24 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1970).

  58. Among those present were Morgenthau; Hopkins; Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson; Solicitor General Robert Jackson; Army chief of staff General Malin Craig; Major General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, chief of the Army Air Corps; and Brigadier General George C. Marshall, deputy chief of staff.

  59. John Morton Blum, 2 From the Morgenthau Diaries 48–49 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965).

  60. Quoted in David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor 48 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001).

  61. “Supplemental Appropriations for National Defense,” Message to Congress, January 12, 1939, 8 Public Papers and Addresses 70–74.

  62. 7 Public Papers and Addresses 613–621.

  63. Hopkins memorandum, FDRL, quoted in Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins 114 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948).

  64. A useful summary of FDR’s role is provided in William L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, 1 The Challenge to Isolation: The World Crisis of 1937–1940 and American Foreign Policy 45–49 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).

  65. 13 Complete Presidential Press Conferences 91.

  66. Transcript, Conference with the Senate Military Affairs Committee, January 31, 1939, Item 1565, 8 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, Donald B. Schewe, ed. (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1
979). The transcript indicates FDR’s statement was met with applause from the senators.

  67. Ibid.

  68. Gallup Polls, September 29, 1939, 1 Gallup Polls 182–183. Also see Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: Into the Storm 409 (New York: Random House, 1993).

  69. “They have crucified my husband,” said Mrs. Craig, speaking of the rivalry between Woodring and Johnson. Quoted in Forrest C. Pogue, 1 George C. Marshall: Education of a General 318 (New York: Viking Press, 1963).

  70. Ibid. 325–330.

  71. The amendment was narrowly adopted 159–157 after many administration supporters had left the chamber for the night. One of the Democrats voting for the amendment was Franklin and Eleanor’s close friend Caroline O’Day of New York. FDR immediately rebuked her:

  Dear Caroline:

  I think it may interest you to tell you in great confidence that two of our Embassies abroad tell us this afternoon that the action of the House last night has caused dismay in democratic peaceful circles. The anti-war nations believe that a definite stimulus has been given Hitler by the vote of the House, and that if war breaks out in Europe … an important part of the responsibility will rest with last night’s action.

  FDR to Caroline O’Day, Item 1907, 10 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs.

  72. FDR to George VI, September 17, 1938, Item 1282a, 7 Ibid. Roosevelt addressed the letter “My dear King George” and concluded it “Faithfully yours.” George VI posted his acceptance October 8, addressing FDR in longhand “My dear President Roosevelt” and concluding, also in longhand, “Believe me, yours very sincerely, George R.I.” Ibid, Item 1333.

  73. John W. Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI: His Life and Reign 389 (London: Macmillan, 1958). Also see Will Swift, The Roosevelts and the Royals: Franklin and Eleanor, The King and Queen of England, and the Friendship That Changed History 135–137 (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2004).

  74. For the text of the German-Soviet Pact and of the secret additional protocol signed in Moscow, August 23, 1939, see U.S. Department of State, 7 Documents on German Foreign Policy 245–247 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1957).

  75. The initial assault wave, supported by Stuka dive-bombers, was followed by sixteen reserve divisions and two SS divisions. Ultimately 1.3 million men would take part in the invasion. To meet the assault, Poland deployed thirty infantry divisions, eleven cavalry brigades, one mountain brigade, and only two armored brigades. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, then chief of staff of Southern Army Group (Rundstedt commanding) and one of the most reflective German officers, notes that the Poles massed their forces at or near the frontier, determined to defend every foot of Polish soil. That facilitated a German breakthrough. Manstein argued that the Poles would have been better served to withdraw, mass their forces, and stall for time, particularly since the German west wall, facing France, was held only by a light screening force and no armor whatever. Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories 34–63 (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1958).