It was notable, though, that Roosevelt talked little about the future during his Western swing. He was making the New Deal record, not the New Deal promises, the issue. He implied that the New Deal would be enlarged if he stayed in office. But it was no more than an implication; and his speeches were studded with conciliatory remarks for businessmen, doctors, beet sugar growers, and others. Foreign policy he almost completely ignored.
When he wished to take a forthright position the President did so with a flourish. Such was his endorsement of Norris. Speaking in Omaha, the President said that outside of his own state of New York he had consistently refrained from taking part in state elections. But to this rule “I have made—and so long as he lives I always will make—one magnificently justified exception. George Norris’ candidacy transcends State and party lines.” Roosevelt appealed directly to the cheering crowd to help Norris win re-election.
Always Roosevelt was the gay campaigner, easy in his way with crowds, quick on the trigger, homey, laughing, waving, obviously enjoying himself. In Emporia, Kansas, he looked through the crowd for Editor White, who was supporting Landon. “I wish he were here,” the President said genially. “He is a very good friend of mine for three and a half out of every four years.”
There was a rustle in the crowd and White appeared. “Shoot not this old gray head,” he cried out in mock alarm as he went up to the rear platform of the train.
“Hello, Bill, glad to see you,” Roosevelt said. Then turning to the crowd: “Now that I see him, I shall not say anything about the other six months.” The crowd laughed and applauded as the two men shook hands, and the train pulled out.
By late October battle lines had stiffened between the two main parties. The Union party, denied a place on the ballot in a dozen states, riven by cleavages among the strange assortment of men who founded it, was visibly faltering. Coughlin had antagonized people by stripping off his black coat and Roman collar at the Union party convention and calling Roosevelt a betrayer and liar. Townsend in October was urging supporters to vote for Landon in states where they could not vote for the Union candidate, William Lemke. Greeted by deep, ominous booing and cold, dead silence in some cities, the Republican candidate was grimly plugging away at his anti-New Deal line. But his hopes ran high on the crest of support from the great majority of newspapers and of denunciations of the New Deal by Democrats Smith and Davis. Moreover, the Literary Digest, whose polls had been accurate in past elections, showed Landon holding a decisive edge over his opponent.
Roosevelt late in October set out on a ten-day tour of the urban Northeast. In an almost literal sense the tour was not a campaign trip but a triumphal procession. The President himself said that the trip brought out the “most amazing tidal wave of humanity” he had ever seen. There was something terrible about the crowds that lined the streets, Roosevelt remarked to Ickes—he could hear men and women crying out, “He saved my home,” “He gave me a job.” Roosevelt made the entire New England swing in an open car, and even hard-bitten reporters were incredulous over the wild enthusiasm of the crowds. For mile after mile people lined the roads, not only in the cities but in the outskirts as well. Boston Common was overrun by a seething mass of 150,000 people. In Connecticut cities the candidate’s entourage—including Eleanor Roosevelt—could hardly get through the crowded streets. In New York City the Roosevelt car traveled more than thirty miles without passing a block whose sidewalks were not jammed.
As he waved and talked to such crowds Roosevelt seemed to catch their militancy. His speeches took on a sharper edge, struck a more positive note. In New York City he promised national legislation for better housing. In Wilkes-Barre he attacked scathingly the “propaganda-spreading employers” who were putting anti-social security law slips into pay envelopes. In Brooklyn he stated the task still to be done—to destroy “the glaring inequalities of opportunity and security which, in the recent past, have set group against group and region against region.”
Before a wildly fervent, chanting crowd in Madison Square Garden, Roosevelt on the last day of October brought his campaign to a passionate climax.
“… We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you that we cannot go further without a struggle.
“For twelve years our Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to that Government but that Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! And, my friends, powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent to mankind.”
Explosive cheers were punctuating the President’s sentences. He was deftly modifying the transitions in his prepared text as he caught the rhythm of the crowd. “For nearly four years now you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. And I can assure you that we will keep our sleeves rolled up.
“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless barking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. And we know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”
Roosevelt’s voice had been in turn stern with indignation, sonorous with moral fervor, solemn, and even cheery. Now his tone hardened. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”
A raucous, almost animal-like roar burst from the crowd, died away, and then rose again in wave after wave. Roosevelt began again, gently.
“I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match.” The words came faster, rang with increasing militancy. “I should like to have it said—” Cheers, cowbells, horns, clackers drowned out the words.
“Wait a moment!” Roosevelt commanded. The old performer would not have his lines spoiled. The din subsided.
“I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.” The roar from the crowd was like that at a prize fight—a massive sound through which the promptings of individuals could be faintly heard.
A few days before, Landon had stood where the President was now standing, and had demanded that Roosevelt indicate his future course if re-elected. The President picked up the challenge but did so in his own terms. Again and again hitting the refrain “For all these we have only just begun to fight,” he said:
“This is our answer to those who, silent about their own plans, ask us to state our objectives.
“Of course we will continue to seek to improve working conditions for the workers of America.… Of course we will continue to work for cheaper electricity in the homes and on the farms of America.… Of course we will continue our efforts in behalf of the farmers of America.… Of course we will continue our efforts for young men and women … for the crippled, for the blind, for the mothers, our insurance for the unemployed, our security for the aged. Of course we will continue to protect the consumer … will continue our successful efforts to increase his purchasing power and to keep it constant.
“For these things, too, and for a multitude of things like them, we have only just begun to fight.…”
ROOSEVELT AS A POLITICAL TACTICIAN
Reporters groped for words. The election results were a tidal wave, an earthquake, a landslide, the blizzard of ‘36. Roosevelt carried every state but Maine and Vermont. He won over Landon by 27,752,309 to 16,682,524 votes, the biggest popular plurality in history; his 523 to 8 ratio of electoral votes—exactly as predicted by Farley—was the biggest since 1820. He helped enlarge the already top-heavy Democra
tic margins in Congress. The new House would have 334 Democrats and 89 Republicans, against 321-104 before; sitting in the Senate would be 75 Democrats and only 17 Republicans, as compared to the old 70-23 ratio. If there had been a coattails effect, Roosevelt had the longer tails; Lehman in New York and Frank Murphy in Michigan had been urged to run to help the President; Roosevelt ran far ahead of both of them.
Roosevelt’s political reputation soared. Tumbling over one another, observers called him the master politician, the champion campaigner. What was the secret of his political sorcery? Some of his techniques were as old as politics itself; a few were new; all were invested with the deft Roosevelt touch. If categorized, they might go as follows.
Grasp of Public Opinion. Roosevelt showed such a sure sense of popular moods and attitudes that some believed he had intuition or a sixth sense in this field. Actually, his understanding was rooted in solid, day-to-day accumulation of facts on what people were thinking. Roosevelt read half a dozen newspapers a day. He kept up a vast correspondence. Tens of thousands of letters came to the White House every week reporting people’s views and problems. He got some understanding from crowds—the way they looked, how they reacted to certain passages in his speeches. As President he enjoyed special advantages. Through favored journalists he could put up trial balloons and test public reaction. He had special voting polls conducted, and he often received advance information on other polls. Administrators in regional and state offices sent in a good deal of information, as did state and local party leaders. A huge division of press intelligence clipped hundreds of newspapers and compiled digests.
Timing Roosevelt’s timing also seemed intuitive, but it too was largely calculated. Essential in his timing was the care he took not to confront his political opposition when it was mobilizing and moving hard and fast; he believed, for example, that presidents could expect to lose some popular support during congressional sessions, and that the President should wait until Congress adjourned before seizing the offensive again. Sometimes he moved fast, before the opposition could mobilize. “I am like a cat,” Roosevelt said once. “I make a quick stroke and then I relax.” More often, he waited for the crest of the opposition wave to subside, then he acted. In the 1936 campaign he was under intense pressure from his political advisers to attack Landon when the Republican tide was running strong in early summer, but he refused. When he told Rosenman that tides turned quickly in politics, he was recognizing a shiftiness and moodiness in certain sectors of public opinion that have since been tested and proved in opinion and voting studies.
Attention to Political Detail. Roosevelt showed infinite patience in dealing with the day-to-day routine of politics, involving in most cases the ambitions, hopes, and desire for recognition of countless politicians. The White House establishment was carefully organized for this purpose. A memo to Roosevelt during the campaign from one of his aides read:
Dan Tobin needs a little pat on the back. What do you think of taking him along on the New England trip? …
Jim [Farley] suggests the possibility of taking John J. O’Connor up through New England since he’s an old Massachusetts man—nose a bit out of joint, etc.
Jim thinks the Connecticut trip should include Meriden. It is Frank Maloney’s home town.…
Or take the case of David E. Fitzgerald, a Democratic leader in New Haven. In 1935 the White House sent him an autographed picture of the President. Fitzgerald traveled with Roosevelt’s entourage during the New England tour in 1936; his note of congratulations brought a “Dear Dave” reply from the President. Each of three Fitzgerald letters in 1940 was answered by a warm little note from Roosevelt; a postelection wire of congratulations brought a presidential letter in which “Dear Mr. Fitzgerald” was crossed out and “Dear Dave” substituted. When Fitzgerald caught cold campaigning, the White House sent him flowers. In 1941, another “Dear Dave” letter; a year later Fitzgerald died, and a warm presidential letter went to his widow, who replied, in a widow’s tremulous handwriting, “Mr. Fitzgerald was always an ardent admirer of yours.…”
Attention to Intragroup Factions. The White House checked carefully on the political situation within groups, in order both to keep on friendly terms with all the factions and to avoid being compromised by some faction of politically suspect leanings. Splits among Negroes, Jews, labor groups, bankers, veterans, and the like were followed with care. Through administration officials who had longtime connections with national associations, the White House got deeply involved in the internal politics of some groups, but always covertly. Pro-Roosevelt activities in the groups were often defensive, designed to offset opposing factions which might swing the formal association against the President during an election campaign.
Separating Opposition Leaders from Rank and File. Splitting enemy leaders from their followers is an old political tactic, but few politicians have used it as persistently or as meticulously as Roosevelt. Almost invariably he attacked “Republican leaders” or “Republican spokesmen,” never the Republican party or Republicans generally. “There are thousands of people,” Roosevelt had said to Rosenman as far back as 1930, “who think as you and I do about government. They are enrolled as Republicans because their families have been Republicans for generations—that’s the only reason; some of them think it is infra dig to be called a Democrat; the Democrats in their village are not the socially ‘nice’ people the enrolled Republicans are. So never attack the Republicans or the Republican party—only the Republican leaders. Then any Republican voter who hears it will say to himself: ‘Well, he doesn’t mean me.…’”
Fighting on Your Own Battleground. Offensively this meant attacking the opposition at its weakest point in an effort to force it to accept the gage of battle on the worst ground for it. Defensively it meant answering the opposition’s most extreme or absurd attacks. In 1930 Roosevelt ignored Republican charges against his handling of the New York City situation until almost the end of the campaign. In his Madison Square Garden speech in 1936 he skillfully converted Landon’s effort to put him on the defensive into a superb defense of the New Deal on his own terms.
Personal Charm and Political Craft. No political technique is effective unless employed with skill in a given situation. Immensely strengthening all Roosevelt’s tactics were the calculated flattery he could use in winning over critics and the sheer astuteness with which he outmaneuvered rival leaders. An example of the latter was his handling of John L. Lewis’s campaign donation in 1936. The CIO chief came into Roosevelt’s office one day with a check for $250,000 and with a photographer to record the ceremony. Roosevelt was all smiles, but he would not take the check.
“No, John,” he said. “Just keep it, and I’ll call on you if and when any small need arises.”
Lewis left, grumbling that he had been outsmarted. He had been. During the next few weeks requests for money flowed in from Farley and from independent Roosevelt groups. In vain Lewis tried to stem the torrent by insisting on a written order from the President. Roosevelt backed up the requests with orders or with telephone calls. In the end Lewis’s treasury was drained of almost half a million dollars—and without undue notice in the press.
Undeniably, the triumph was largely a personal victory for Roosevelt. “I am the issue,” he had said to Moley; and Farley had built his campaign around the Roosevelt personality. So the post-election huzzas were justifiably for Roosevelt, rather than for his party or even for his cause.
Drowned out by the applause were some misgivings about certain aspects of the election results. Roosevelt himself, according to one report, was disturbed by the shriveled Republican strength in House and Senate. Without strong party opposition, he foresaw that splits might more easily develop within the huge Democratic majorities as shifting factions fought with one another. Ickes said bluntly that the President had pulled through to victory men whose defeat would have been better for the country. On the other hand, Roosevelt was pleased with his own sweep. If Landon had gained over Hoover he
feared that the “reactionary element” would exploit that fact during the next Congress.
The personal nature of the sweep had other implications. For one thing, it left in some obscurity the nature of the mandate the voters had given him. He had run mainly on the New Deal record; what was the New Deal future to be—a continuation of the present program, an enlargement, a shift in new directions? To be sure, Roosevelt in the eleventh hour of the campaign had uttered his magnificent “we-have-only-just-begun-to-fight” statement. Was this a bit of campaign oratory, or a pledge to an expanded New Deal?
Roosevelt’s victory, too, had been realized at some expense to the party that he headed. In several states the Democratic organization was left stranded, and in New York State the American Labor Party, composed largely of unionists suspicious of both major parties, boasted of the voters who had supported the President on its ticket. It was odd, and yet significant, that within a few days of the Democratic party nominee’s great victory, observers were predicting a party realignment, and possibly even a national labor party, by 1940.
Another aspect of the personal nature of Roosevelt’s victory was the ambiguity of the class groupings supporting him. In 1932 voters from all income classes had flocked to his standard out of their common deprivations during the Depression. Roosevelt’s fuzzy position on many issues that year had made it possible for his vote to cut across class lines. What had happened in 1936? Polling results suggested that a class cleavage had begun to divide the voters at a point about midway through the first term, and had widened considerably by 1936. But later studies were to show that the cleavage in 1936 was not as sharp as some had supposed. This was due in part to the breadth of the President’s appeal—he won votes not only from the great majority of the poor, but from a surprising percentage of the better off too.
The Definitive FDR Page 39