“Jim, I don’t want to run and I’m going to tell the convention so.” If the President hoped that Farley would urge him to run, he was disappointed.
Having steeled himself against the President’s persuasiveness, Farley said bluntly: “If you make it specific, the convention will not nominate you.” Farley then launched into a brief against the third term.
“What would you do if you were in my place?” the President finally asked.
“Exactly what General Sherman did many years ago—issue a statement saying I would refuse to run if nominated and would not serve if elected.”
“Jim, if nominated and elected, I could not in these times refuse to take the inaugural oath, even if I knew I would be dead within thirty days.”
Farley would never forget the President’s appearance at that moment—“his right hand clasping the arm of his chair as he leaned back, his left bent at the elbow to hold his cigarette, his face and eyes deadly earnest.” There was a pause, and then more talk. When the political charade was over, each man had got the information he wanted. Roosevelt knew that Farley’s name would go before the convention. Farley knew that Roosevelt would run—but wanted an emphatic and uncontrollable draft.
Next day Farley left for Chicago grimly determined that Roosevelt would not get that kind of draft. A week later began one of the most extraordinary conventions in history.
The Chicago Stadium, Monday morning, July 15, 1940. The corridor ringing the arena was a long congested bazaar, where bellowing hawkers peddled souvenirs, pennants, pop, hot dogs, popcorn, pictures of Roosevelt. Inside, a huge sickly gray portrait of the President looked down through the smoky haze on the gathering. The bunting around the hall was bright, the tiers of seats were gleaming red, but on the convention floor all was dull and cold. Delegates, alternates, and spectators milled about dejectedly. What’s going to happen? they asked one another. What’s the score? No one knew. Even the Very Important were uncertain. Ickes, watching sourly from the platform, had got no directions from the President, nor had others of the inner circle. Big Jim Farley, presiding over the convention, wanted none. Mayor Kelly mentioned the President in his welcome, but even the magic name of Roosevelt fell flat on the listless delegates and the half-filled galleries.
Soon word was spreading quickly around the floor that Hopkins was the man to see. He was in the know. Sprawling on his bed in the Blackstone Hotel, his bony frame showing through his shirt and baggy trousers, hair falling down over his pallid skull, Hopkins did indeed have a special line to the White House—a telephone in the bathroom, the only place where he was sure of privacy.
Yet even Hopkins did not really know.
Roosevelt was acting out his curious role down to the last scene. He had given no final plan or instructions to anyone—not even to Hopkins—because he was determined that the party must summon him on its own. He still wanted a genuine and emphatic draft. He would not stop Hopkins, Ickes, and the rest from working for such a draft, but neither would he help them. When they had begged him just before the convention to give them sailing orders, he had only smiled and repeated that the convention must decide. God would provide a candidate, he said. The telephone in Hopkins’ bathroom was less an instrument of presidential command than a means of keeping the President informed. But that private wire, along with the sick man’s residence in the White House, were the stuff and symbol of Hopkins’ authority.
Only once did Roosevelt act directly to help the draft. When it was still certain, as the convention opened, that Farley was the main obstacle to a unanimous summons, the President telephoned him and gingerly—ever so gingerly—intimated that there might be no need for a ballot. “That’s perfectly silly,” Farley said shortly, and Roosevelt let the matter drop. In any event, the President’s indirect tactics of the past year were paying off. No other strong candidate was available now. Even those party leaders who had little love for Roosevelt wanted this supreme vote-getter at the head of the ticket. And the bandwagon jumpers, waiting to see the drift of things, could sense the temper of the convention. It would be Roosevelt.
Still, the delegates were worried—worried about Willkie’s popularity, worried about the third term, worried about the President’s plans. Tuesday was another dull day, full of turgid oratory and restless, milling delegates. The Roosevelt men were worried too. What was Farley up to? Would Garner, Farley, and the others still work out a coalition? Byrnes, Jackson, and Ickes cooked up a scheme to take control of the convention and push the President’s nomination through. Hopkins, still lacking instructions, notified the White House about the plan. Roosevelt vetoed it. He did not mind if the convention was drab, Hopkins reported back. The regular procedure must go on.
THIS CONVENTION IS BLEEDING TO DEATH, Ickes wired the President. YOUR REPUTATION AND PRESTIGE MAY BLEED WITH IT. He begged his chief to come to Chicago and supply leadership. There was no answer. Roosevelt awaited his draft. To make it seem genuine, he had devised one final twist.
Tuesday night Barkley delivered an old-fashioned, stem-winding speech. Part way through, an incidental mention of Roosevelt’s name unleashed a spontaneous demonstration, but Barkley, pounding his gavel, managed to quiet the hall. Finally he came to his climax—a message Roosevelt had sent him to deliver. The President had tried “in no way whatsoever,” the message began, to influence the selection or opinions of delegates. His voice rising to a roar, Barkley went on:
“Tonight, at the specific request and authorization of the President, I am making this simple fact clear to the Convention.
“The President has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the Convention for that office.”
A hush spread over the hall.
“He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all the delegates to this Convention are free to vote for any candidate.
“That is the message I bear to you from the President of the United States.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Delegates looked at one another uncertainly. Then, from loud-speakers around the hall, came the cry of a single, thunderous voice.
“WE WANT ROOSEVELT!”
A few delegates seized their state standards and started parading down the aisles. “EVERYBODY WANTS ROOSEVELT!” roared the loud-speakers. More delegates filed out; hundreds of spectators started pouring from the galleries onto the floor. “THE WORLD WANTS ROOSEVELT!” A long serpentine parade began weaving toward the rostrum. Down in a basement room Kelly’s superintendent of sewers, a leather-lunged, potbellied little man, pressed his lips against the microphone. “ROOSEVELT!” The parade was now a wild, screaming mob. “ROOSEVELT!” Cheerleaders, bands, noise-makers added to the din, but the voice could still be heard, now a driving, drumming, ear-splitting chorus, carrying everything before it. “ROOSEVELT!” The mob surged down the aisles, waving banners, knocking down chairs, pushing people aside. “ROOSEVELT! … ROOSEVELT! … ROOSEVELT! …”
In an hour order was restored, but everything now was anti-climactic. Next day Roosevelt’s name was put in nomination; then ailing old Senator Glass nominated Farley in a few rasping words that could hardly be heard over the scrape and shuffle and occasional boos and catcalls from the floor. Impatiently the convention waited while Garner, Tydings, and Hull were nominated, seconded, and given sad little demonstrations. The only ballot was the first: Roosevelt 946, Farley 72, Garner 61, Tydings 9, Hull 5. Then Farley, a party man to the end, moved Roosevelt’s nomination by acclamation, to a roar of “ayes.”
In the White House the President, surrounded by friends and aides, had listened intently to the proceedings. His draft secured, he turned immediately to the vice-presidential nomination. Until now he had not announced his choice, partly because he had hoped that Hull would accept, partly because his own draft movement was stronger the longer he held the vice-presidential prize open as bait. The night of his nomination Roosevelt began
notifying Hopkins and other party leaders that his choice was Wallace. The Secretary of Agriculture was a dependable liberal, the President felt, and would appeal to the farm states, where isolationist feeling was strong. But the leaders were appalled by Roosevelt’s choice. Wallace was a mystic, they complained, an inarticulate philosopher, an ex-Republican, a political innocent.
Roosevelt was adamant. “I won’t deliver that acceptance speech,” he said to Rosenman at breakfast Thursday morning, “until we see whom they nominate.”
The real difficulty was not Wallace but the fact that a host of vice-presidential booms were under way at Chicago. Jesse Jones, Ickes, McNutt, Byrnes, and a dozen others were busily lining up delegates. Several candidates thought they had Roosevelt’s support. Louis Johnson, after flying to Washington during the convention to see the President, returned to Chicago and scurried around the convention floor to report jubilantly that Roosevelt had given him the “green light.” His friends were unimpressed. One of them finally said, “Oh! hell, Louis, this convention hall is full of candidates with green lights.” When news spread that the President had chosen Wallace, all the other hopefuls dropped out, cursing and grumbling, except McNutt and Speaker Bankhead of Alabama. The latter, a self-styled unreconstructed Southerner, thought the White House had agreed to leave the vice-presidential nomination open if he undertook not to enter the presidential lists.
By now the convention was in a churlish temper. The delegates had gone down the line for Roosevelt; now they wanted to go ahead on their own. On a happy inspiration Eleanor Roosevelt was induced to fly from Hyde Park to talk to the delegates, but her pleasant, high-minded remarks brought only a brief calm. By Thursday evening the delegates’ sore and mutinous feelings rose to a pitch. Bankhead was nominated and seconded in bitter speeches. McNutt’s withdrawal announcement was almost drowned out. The galleries, packed with claques for other candidates, greeted the speeches for Wallace with jeers, hisses, and catcalls. On the platform sat Mrs. Wallace. Sadly she asked Eleanor Roosevelt: “Why are they so opposed to Henry?”
His face grim and set, Roosevelt sat by the radio in the Oval Room, playing solitaire. He listened to the convention uproar, heard the commentators describe the feeling as a revolt against presidential bossism. As the balloting neared, he put aside the cards and started writing on a pad. He asked Rosenman to “smooth it out” quickly—he might have to deliver it soon. Rosenman glanced at the paper. In a sharp and biting statement, Roosevelt had written that he could not go along with a party divided between liberalism and reaction; he would enable the party to make the choice by declining the nomination. It ended: “I so do.”
The President returned to his solitaire. Outside the room Pa Watson wanted to tear the message up. “I don’t give a damn who’s Vice-President and neither does the country,” he angrily told Rosenman. “The only thing that’s important to this country is that fellow in there.” When Rosenman came back into the room with the completed statement, Watson was almost in tears. Miss Le Hand, long opposed to a third term, was all smiles. As for the President, Rosenman had never seen the President look so determined.
In Chicago the balloting was under way. Back and forth the lead wavered between Wallace and Bankhead. Byrnes darted from delegation to delegation crying, “For God’s sake, do you want a President or a Vice President?”
In the Oval Room Roosevelt tallied the vote. Tension mounted. The race stayed close; Bankhead led at the end, but several urban states that had passed on the roll call now threw their votes to Wallace. The President had won his fight. By now Roosevelt was tired and bedraggled, his shirt clung to him, heavy and damp in the July heat. While word went to Chicago that he would shortly address the convention, the President was wheeled into his bedroom. Now Watson was smiling and Missy was in tears. In a few moments Roosevelt reappeared in a fresh shirt, his hair combed, as jaunty as ever.
In Chicago his voice came through strong, smooth, even, measured.
“It is very late tonight; but I have felt that you would rather that I speak to you now than wait until tomorrow.
“It is with a very full heart that I speak tonight. I must confess that I do so with mixed feelings—because I find myself, as almost everyone does sooner or later in his lifetime, in a conflict between deep personal desire for retirement on the one hand, and that quiet, invisible thing called ‘conscience’ on the other.…
“Lying awake, as I have, on many nights, I have asked myself whether I have the right, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to call on men and women to serve their country or to train themselves to serve and, at the same time, decline to serve my country in my personal capacity, if I am called upon to do so by the people of my country.
“In times like these—in times of great tension, of great crisis—the compass of the world narrows to a single fact. The fact which dominates our world is the fact of armed aggression, the fact of successful armed aggression, aimed at the form of Government, the kind of society that we in the United States have chosen and established for ourselves. It is a fact which no one any longer doubts—which no one is any longer able to ignore.…
“Like most men of my age, I had made plans for myself, plans for a private life of my own choice and for my own satisfaction, a life of that kind to begin in January, 1941. These plans, like so many other plans, had been made in a world which now seems as distant as another planet. Today all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger.…
“Only the people themselves can draft a President. If such a draft should be made upon me, I say to you, in the utmost simplicity, I will, with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and with the fullness of my strength.…”
TWENTY-ONE
An Old Campaigner, a New Campaign
“AS YOU MAY IMAGINE,” the President wrote his Uncle Fred Delano on July 18, “the events of the past few days have filled me more with a sense of resignation to my fate than any feeling of exaltation.” Expressing to Norris his amazement at the conservatives’ “terrific drive” to produce a situation in the convention that would force him to decline the nomination, the President ended, “even though you and I are tired and ‘want to go home,’ we are going to see this thing through together.”
Roosevelt could feel well satisfied with the final results of the convention. He had soundly drubbed the conservatives, including many of the anti-Roosevelt men who had been thwarting him ever since the Supreme Court fight. The platform was a stout defense of the New Deal. He had secured a running mate who was, as he said to Norris, a “true liberal.” He had gained for himself the draft he needed. Broadly speaking, his tactics of delay and indirection had worked. As the first ballot tally showed, no strong candidate had been left to threaten him. The opposing forces had never got together. He had beaten “The Hater’s Club,” made up, he told Norris, of “strange bedfellows like Wheeler and McCarran and Tydings and Glass and John J. O’Connor and some of the wild Irishmen from Boston.” His trump card—keeping open the possibility of declining the nomination until the very end—had paid off handsomely.
On the other hand, Roosevelt had lost the thing he wanted most—an unquestioned draft by acclamation. Farley and the others had spoiled the stage effects for a clamorous and categorical summons by the party. The situation had its irony. Roosevelt’s nomination was truly a draft in the sense that the impetus toward his nomination had come not from himself but from the administration and party leaders, and his own efforts had been indirect. But his very attempt to forego leadership brought about a chaotic convention situation in which leadership fell into Hopkins’ hands simply because he was believed to hold the credentials from the President. In the eyes of many delegates Hopkins was Roosevelt’s cat’s-paw. The forced nomination of Wallace completed the picture of a White House dictatorship over the party.
The price of victory was steep. Hundreds of delegates left Chicago for home in a bitter and rebellious frame of mind. Feelin
g against Wallace was so strong that he had to be dissuaded from delivering an acceptance speech at the convention. Party leadership was shaken. Farley was determined to quit the chairmanship. Other party regulars—notably Flynn—would not assume leadership unless Hopkins was sidetracked. Ickes, McNutt, and other administration leaders were hurt and angered by the President’s selection of Wallace. Bankhead was telling people how Roosevelt men had sold him out at Chicago. Garner prepared to pack up and go home to Texas for good.
Republican newspapers gleefully headlined a flurry of anti-third-term Democrats who bolted the Roosevelt-Wallace ticket in the wake of the convention. Some of these had deserted their party in 1936, but they made fresh copy again four years later. The newspapers also played up the convention as a packed New Deal caucus manipulated by White House stooges, radicals, city bosses, and the “voice from the sewer.” The press, of course, was heavily anti-Roosevelt. Yet the President was vulnerable. The show in Chicago had not quite come off: he had won his draft in such a way as to intensify popular suspicion of his deviousness. It was not surprising that polls showed a Republican resurgence. The parties, according to some polls, were entering the presidential battle on even terms.
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