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8 On this matter, in addition to works cited above, see Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, Character and Social Structure (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953); Theodore M. Newcomb, Social Psychology (New York: Dryden Press, 1950); The Social Sciences in Historical Study, a report of the Committee on Historiography of the Social Science Research Council (Bulletin 64), 1954; and Muzafer Sherif and Hadley Cantril, The Psychology of Ego-Involvements (New York: Wiley, 1947).
9 It is conceivable, of course, that some leadership might be so purely ceremonial or symbolic that the impact on the environment would be almost negligible, but this would be the exceptional case.
10 One of the best treatments on a comparative basis of several of the more important studies of interrelationships within primary groups is George C. Homans, The Human Group (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950).
11 Lester G. Seligman, “The Study of Political Leadership,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. XLIV, No. 4, December 1950, pp. 908-909. This is a first-rate summary of recent progress in the study of leadership, of certain implications of the new emphasis on the situationist approach, with some suggestions for further research.
12 On this point see Bogardus, op. cit., p. 11. “A new kind of autobiography is needed—one that will present the social situation, the social process, and the attitudes of all concerned.” An early and pioneering study of the more general problem involved is John Dollard, Criteria for the Life History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), in which the author emphasizes that the social situation must be carefully and continuously specified as a factor.
13 Roosevelt might seem to be an exception to this generalization because hundreds of his early letters have been preserved, and there are extensive memoirs of his mother and of others who knew him during the early years. On the other hand, a study of these documents suggests their limitations as much as their possibilities for the explanation of personality development.
14 Cf. The Social Sciences in Historical Study, cited above, p. 154.
15 Op. cit., p. 523.
16 See Newcomb, op. cit., pp. 654 ff.
17 See T. N. Whitehead, Leadership in a Free Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), in which the author argues that the executive (the leader of a bureaucracy) not only leads his human material—he organizes it. Whereas the primitive leader tried only to promote the integration of his group, the modern executive may be willing to risk endangering the integration of his followers in trying to improve their position. The essence of my estimate of Roosevelt as a political leader is that he failed to exercise creative leadership in this sense.
18 Op. cit., p. 419.
19 The general problem is well developed in Sidney Hook, The Hero in History (New York: John Day, 1943), subtitled “a study in limitation and possibility.” See especially his interesting distinction between the “eventful” man and the “event-making” man; I would classify Roosevelt as the former. An excellent development of the problem can be found in Elmer E. Cornwell, Jr., “Lloyd George: A Study in Political Leadership” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1954), in which the author examines the possibilities of creative leadership in the British context as compared with the American.
20 For a recent warning on this score, see Allan Nevins, “Is History Made by Heroes?” The Saturday Review, November 5, 1955, pp. 9 ff.
IMAGE GALLERY
‘The mold of a Hyde Park gentleman’
Franklin D. Roosevelt and his father, 1883
Mother and son, 1893
Young Franklin (center, dark sailor suit) with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, Newburgh, N. Y., July 13, 1890 (photo by R. E. Atkinson)
‘A secure world’
Three-year-old Franklin and his dog preparing for a ride at Hyde Park
Fourth-string football player at Groton (lower left, white sweater), 1899
A young lawyer and his cousins
Cousin Eleanor (fifth cousin once removed) in 1906, one year after their marriage
Cousin Jean Delano, sailing at Campobello, around 1910
Family affairs
Franklin Roosevelt with his wife, his mother, and his daughter, Anna, on Daisy, the pony, 1911
The family in Washington, 1916—Elliott, at left; James, center, behind Franklin Jr.; John on his mother’s lap, Anna Eleanor, at right (photo by Harold L. Ritch)
A Roosevelt on the job
His first political post, in the New York Senate, 1911
Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the
Navy Yard, New York, 1913 (International News Photo)
Armistice with Tammany
Roosevelt with Charles F. Murphy, his old Tammany adversary, and John A. Voorhis at Tammany Hall, July 4, 1917 (New York Daily News photo)
The rising politician campaigning for Vice-President on the 1920 Democratic ticket—at Dayton, Ohio (photo by F. W. Emmert)
‘Something of a lion, something of a fox’
On crutches in 1924, with John W. Davis, who won the presidential nomination, and Al Smith (at right), who lost it, after Roosevelt’s “happy warrior” speech (photo by F.P.G.)
‘A New Deal for the American people’
The Democratic nominee for President arriving by plane in Chicago with his family, July 2, 1932, to address the convention (United Press photo)
‘Nothing to fear but fear itself’
At the Democratic convention, July 4, 1932, with Louis McHenry Howe (left) and his campaign manager, James A. Farley (Wide World photo)
The President and his First Lady after arrival in Washington, D. C, March, 1933, before his first inauguration (Wide World Photo)
‘A man of many roles’
F.D.R. joking with Vice-President Garner at a dinner for James A. Farley (right), Feb. 15, 1937; behind Garner, Henry A. Wallace; behind Roosevelt, Cordell Hull; behind Farley, Henry A. Morgenthau
A dismal fishing cruise off Miami during the recession, with Robert H. Jackson (standing, center), Harry Hopkins (right of Jackson), and Harold Ickes (seated, right), Nov. 29, 1937 (United Press photo)
After hot dogs and a picnic at Hyde Park, President and Mrs. Roosevelt wave farewell to the King and Queen of England at the railroad station, June 11, 1939
‘The inner circle’
The President and his secretaries: (left to right) Marguerite Le Hand, Marvin H. McIntyre, and Grace Tully, Hyde Park, Nov. 4, 1938
The President and his cabinet: (clockwise) Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury; Homer S. Cummings, Attorney General; Claude Swanson, Secretary of the Navy; Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture; Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor; Harry H. Woodring, Secretary of War; Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, Sept. 27, 1938 (United Press photo)
‘The Champ’
The campaign (1932—International News photo)
The press (aboard campaign train, Sept. 13, 1932—Wide World photo)
The crowds (at Newburgh, N. Y., Nov. 4, 1940—United Press photo)
The polling booth (with his wife and mother at Hyde Park’s Town Hall, Nov. 8, 1938—United Press photo)
The inauguration (Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes administering the oath of office, Jan. 20, 1937—International News photo)
The Roosevelt smile
A drought year—but when Roosevelt spoke, it rained—Charlotte, N. C, Sept. 10, 1936
Roosevelt laughing at his crippled legs to put others at ease, Hollywood Bowl, Sept. 24, 1932 (Wide World photo)
‘Never … a man who was loved as he is’
At Warm Springs, Ga., Dec. 1, 1933 (United Press photo)
Commander in chief
The President reviewing the fleet from the U.S.S. Houston at San Francisco, July 14, 1938 (Wide World photo)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY DEBTS ARE SO HEAVY and so numerous that this book amounts virtually to an exercise in collective scholarship. I wish to express my deep appreciation to the following friends and colleagues for their generous help in making perceptive and p
ainstaking critiques of the manuscript: Stephen K. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University; Russell H. Bastert, C. Frederick Rudolph, and Robert C. L. Scott, all of the Department of History at Williams; John H. Blum, Department of Humanities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Philip K. Hastings, Department of Psychology, Williams College; William Leuchtenburg, Department of History, Columbia University; Jack Walter Peltason, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois; Lester Seligman, Department of Political Science, University of Oregon; Clinton Rossiter, Department of Government, Cornell University. I am indebted to all the foregoing both for their over-all review of the manuscript and for the special expertise they brought to bear in areas that they have made their particular fields of study.
La Rue Brown of Boston, a classmate of Roosevelt’s at Harvard and long active in Boston law and politics, gave me valuable advice and information out of his close observation of the American political scene and of Roosevelt himself, especially in the earlier chapters and in my evaluation of the presidential personality. William B. Gates, Jr., Department of Economics, Williams College, went over the material dealing with economic problems and made some extremely useful suggestions, as did Fred Greene of the Political Science Department, Williams College, with the foreign policy chapters. John P. Roche, Department of Government, Haverford College, helped me on some of the theoretical formulations both through comments on the manuscript and through his writings on related subjects. Herbert Rosenberg went over the whole manuscript with care, paying particular attention to matters of style.
Harcourt, Brace and Company kindly secured the highly prized services of Henry Steele Commager, Eric Goldman, and C. Vann Woodward, who made many important suggestions for improving the manuscript. James Milholland of Harcourt, Brace and Company also went over the chapters and contributed comments from his close study of the historical period.
I am grateful to the entire staff of the Williams College Library for their invariably cheerful assistance on a great variety of aspects of this work, and to the staff of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library for guiding me expertly through the great variety of material there, and especially to George Roach and William J. Nichols for coping with a great number of special demands. Herman Kahn, Director of the Library and an authority on Roosevelt, has provided me with indispensable advice as to both sources and substance. I thank also the National Archives, Widener Library at Harvard, the Columbia University Library, the University of Chicago Library, and the Roper Public Opinion Collection, Williams College, for their co-operation.
To the Social Science Research Council I express appreciation for a grant to enable me to study certain theoretical aspects of political leadership, and to Williams College for financial help on travel and other expenses.
Finally, I have pitilessly enlisted my own family in the cause. My mother, Mildred Curry Baxter, and my mother-in-law, Margaret Dismorr Thompson, have made many helpful suggestions from the vantage point of having lived through more of Roosevelt's own years than have I. And my children have performed a variety of chores to the extent that their tender years allowed.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
NEVER HAS A POLITICAL leader left a more complex personal character and governmental program than did Roosevelt; but never has a leader left such ample means for the attempt to unravel the complexity. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park is a monument to his sense of responsibility to future generations, to his recognition of the needs of historians for the full record, and, no doubt, to his certainty of the high place he would hold in history once that record was carefully appraised. Above all, the Library represented his faith in the idea, as he expressed it at the dedication of the Library on June 30, 1941, that to collect and preserve its records a nation must believe in the past and in the future, and in the “capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.”
The Library is, of course, a collection of collections—of over 28,000 books and 40,000 other printed items; of Roosevelt’s collections of autographs, colonial manuscripts and naval history manuscripts; of his collections of naval prints, paintings and books; of sound recordings of his speeches and of films of major events during his Presidency; of over 62,000 still photographs and, most important, of 3,500 cubic feet of Roosevelt’s White House papers and approximately that quantity of other papers and records. It is also a place where scholars can work in this vast and diffused material with the assistance of the Library’s competent and devoted staff.1
The White House Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt are divided into four main series, and many smaller series; seven of the more important series that I have worked in are described below:
1. President’s Personal File. This file contains about 9,000 folders, of which approximately two fifths are devoted to correspondence with private individuals and three fifths to special subjects or correspondence with private organizations. The material for any one correspondent may vary from a few letters to several boxes; the first few file subjects are devoted to the President himself and members of his family and are fairly extensive. Other subjects range from close associates to private citizens whose letters Roosevelt wanted for some reason to keep in his personal file. Roosevelt’s answers to some of these letters are often of great value. The Library has a large subject index to these folders.
2. “Alphabetical File.” A vast collection of letters written to Roosevelt from members of the general public, some with copies of brief acknowledgments written by presidential secretaries. There is no subject arrangement of these letters. They are arranged alphabetically by name of the writer of the letter. I have not gone through this collection systematically but have sampled it for certain periods.
3. Official File. Another huge series of material, this group was originally planned to relate mainly to official governmental functions and there is a file subject for each major department and agency. As an example, formal departmental reports as well as informal reports to the President from his subordinates will be found in this collection. While this file is more “official” than the file listed under No. 1 above, there is no sharp or systematic distinction in the character of the material to be found in the two series.
4. President’s Secretary’s File. Roosevelt had his personal secretary put in her own separate file some of the letters and documents to which he wanted quick access. Hence this is a smaller and much more selective collection, although still one that defies descriptive generalization. It is especially valuable for the study of foreign policy. Because Miss Tully filed so much of this material, it is sometimes called the “Tully file.”
5. Press Conferences. Transcripts of all Roosevelt’s press conferences, amounting to over 1,000 separate meetings, afford a major source of week-to-week information on Roosevelt’s ever-changing ideas and policies—at least to the extent to which he was willing to talk with reporters off the record. Intermixed in this collection are transcripts of occasional conferences that were held not with the press but with various groups such as businessmen, church leaders, youth leaders, and even members of Congress, and some of these are of exceptional value. In general, however, Roosevelt was so careful in the information that he gave out to the press that the transcripts rarely contain strikingly important ideas or statements.
6. The Records of the Democratic National Committee. The records of the Democratic National Committee in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library are a large and important group of material. Comprising some 200 cubic feet, most of this material falls within the period 1928-1940. It consists of correspondence, campaign literature, clippings and other material created or accumulated by the Democratic National Committee in the course of conducting the campaigns of 1932, 1936 and 1940. There is a very large group of correspondence for the period 1928-1933, which is especially valuable for the study of Roosevelt’s campaign for the nomination.
7. The Papers of Harry L. Hopkins. The great bulk of the available Hopkins p
apers at the Library fall in the period 1933-1940. These voluminous papers are particularly valuable for a study of Hopkins as administrator of the work relief program and the development of his ideas and his relationships with politicians and other prominent persons through the country in this period. These are the “personal” papers of Hopkins for this period. I have used them in conjunction with the official files of FERA and WPA, which are in the National Archives in Washington, D. C.
Many other groups at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in which I have worked are noted in the chapter bibliographies.
Aside from material at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, I have made particular use of the following:
1. Papers deposited in the Library o£ Congress, as follows: Newton D. Baker Papers, George Creel Papers, Josephus Daniels Papers, William E. Dodd, Jr., Papers, Charles Evans Hughes Papers, Harold L. Ickes Papers, Charles L. McNary Papers, George W. Norris Papers, Amos Pinchot Papers, Thomas J. Walsh Papers, William Allen White Papers. I wish to express appreciation for permission to use these papers, where such was needed, and also to thank the personnel of the Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, for assistance in their use.