by FDR
The German submarine U-20, which intercepted the ship, had completed its patrol in the Irish Sea and was returning to port with only three torpedoes remaining. Captain William T. Turner of Lusitania had been warned of the presence of a submarine in the area and instructed to sail a zigzag course. Instead, he steered straight ahead and inexplicably reduced speed to eighteen knots, making the ship an easy target. U-20 fired only one torpedo and hit Lusitania on the starboard bow, just behind the bridge. The hit was followed by an enormous explosion and a massive smoke cloud. Diana Preston, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy 91–241 (New York: Walker & Co., 2002); Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan, The Lusitania Disaster 128–225 (New York: The Free Press, 1975); A. A. and Mary Hoehling, The Last Voyage of the Lusitania 102 ff (New York: Holt, 1955).
* Twenty years later, seasoned by the responsibilities of the presidency, the revelations of the Nye Committee about the prewar machinations of America’s munitions makers, and his own second thoughts, FDR recanted his harsh judgment of Bryan. To Daniels he wrote, “Would that W.J.B. had stayed on as Secretary of State—the Country would have been better off.” FDR to JD, October 3, 1934, Daniels Papers, Library of Congress.
† Roosevelt suffered a sudden appendicitis attack in Washington the morning of July 1 and was operated on that afternoon. Daniels ordered the secretary’s yacht, Dolphin, to take him to Campobello to recover and checked regularly on his progress. TR wired his concern, as did the Japanese naval attaché, Commander Kichisaburo Nomura. At the time of Pearl Harbor, Nomura was Japanese ambassador to the United States.
* Daniels saw preparedness as a means of preventing war; FDR looked on it as a prerequisite. Many years later Daniels recalled that Franklin on any number of occasions came into his office and said, “We’ve got to get into this war.” Each time Daniels replied, “I hope not.” Daniels, interview with Frank Freidel, May 29, 1947, quoted in Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship 267 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1952).
* Eleanor’s brother Hall and three of TR’s sons were among those who attended the Plattsburgh camp in 1915. Richard Harding Davis, the noted journalist who had immortalized TR’s charge up San Juan Hill for the New York Herald, was just back from covering the war in Europe and also enrolled. Davis recalled that his squad included “two fox-hunting squires from Maryland, a master of fox hounds, a gentleman jockey from Boston, and two steeple chase riders who divided between them all of the cups the country offers.” Quoted in Geoffrey C. Ward, A First-Class Temperament 309 (New York: Harper & Row, 1989).
* British Naval Intelligence intercepted Zimmermann’s message and quickly decoded it but did not pass it on to the American embassy in London until February 23. Ambassador Walter Hines Page immediately flashed it to the State Department, which was able to verify its authenticity by checking it against American cable intercepts. The United States had the coded German message on file but had not bothered to decipher it. Once its authenticity was established, Secretary of State Lansing, Bryan’s successor, passed the telegram to Wilson.
EIGHT
LUCY
You were a goosy girl to think or even pretend to think that I don’t want you here all the summer, because you know I do! But honestly you ought to have six weeks straight at Campobello.
—FRANKLIN TO ELEANOR, JULY 16, 1917
WHEN CONGRESS DECLARED war on April 6, 1917, the United States was a second-class military power.1 The Army, relegated to showing the flag in Latin America and pursuing Mexican banditti, consisted of 108,399 men, a third of whom were on garrison duty in Panama, Hawaii, and the Philippines. The various state militias, recently formed into a National Guard, added but another 200,000, and there was no organized reserve.2 The Navy numbered slightly more than 60,000 in all ranks, with a mere 197 ships on active service.
Within six months the Navy’s strength expanded fourfold. By war’s end nearly half a million men had joined the fleet and the number of ships exceeded two thousand. During the same time, the Army grew to 2.4 million men.3 General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, landed at Boulogne, France, on June 13, 1917. On July 4, elements of the 1st Division paraded down the Champs-Élysées. Ultimately, more than 2 million men would serve in the AEF, escorted safely across the Atlantic by the Navy’s Cruiser and Transport Force.4 Except for sporadic firings at German submarines, the U.S. Navy did not engage the enemy in World War I. But thanks to its escort duty, when the armistice was signed the Navy could boast that not one American troopship had been lost in action.5
FDR, who was responsible for the Navy’s procurement, threw himself into his mobilization duties. He contracted for vast amounts of materiel and equipment (sometimes before Congress appropriated the money),6 pressed for the immediate enlistment of large numbers of men, ordered training camps expanded and ship construction accelerated. “See young Roosevelt about it” became a catchphrase in wartime Washington.7
Roosevelt’s procurement efforts were so effective that two weeks after America entered the war he received an urgent summons to the White House. In the Oval Office he found General Hugh Scott, the Army chief of staff. “Mr. Secretary,” said Wilson, barely able to suppress a grin, “I’m very sorry, but you have cornered the market for supplies. You’ll have to divide up with the Army.”8
Busy as FDR was, he had no intention of fighting the war behind a desk. And though he had a wife and five young children, he was determined to see action.9 That was the path Cousin Theodore had followed, and the old Rough Rider, who had come to Washington to volunteer his services to President Wilson, encouraged Franklin to join up.* “You must resign,” said TR. “You must get into uniform at once.”10
Neither Daniels nor Wilson would hear of it. The war placed a premium on the qualities FDR brought to his job as assistant secretary—energy, flexibility, decisiveness, and the willingness to act on a moment’s notice—qualities they did not wish to lose. Daniels told Franklin he was “rendering a far more important war service than if he put on the uniform.”11 Wilson said that Roosevelt’s place had already been assigned by the country. “Tell the young man to stay where he is,” he instructed Daniels.12 General Leonard Wood, who evidently heard of Franklin’s desire from TR, added his voice to those urging him to remain in Washington. “Franklin Roosevelt should under no circumstances think of leaving the Navy Department,” he wrote. “It would be a public calamity to have him leave at this time.”13
Contrary to most Americans’ assumptions in April 1917, the war was not going well. In Russia, the army had mutinied, the czar had abdicated, and the provisional government was fast proving powerless. On April 16—ten days after the United States declared war—Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership detrained at the Finland Station in Saint Petersburg, smuggled from Switzerland by the German high command. In France, war weariness gripped the nation. The army might be counted on to defend French soil, but offensive operations were out of the question. In the Atlantic, unrestricted submarine warfare was taking a dreadful toll. Since February 1, German U-boats had sunk 844 Allied vessels. Nine hundred thousand tons of shipping had gone to the bottom in March, and April’s total was expected to be even greater. The Germans were sinking merchantmen faster than they could be replaced. Herbert Hoover, director of American food relief in Europe, reported that British warehouses held only a three-week supply of grain: once that was depleted, the islands could be starved into submission.14 “Unless we can stop these losses, and stop them soon, we must leave the war,” said Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Britain’s First Sea Lord.15
It should have been obvious that the solution to the U-boat menace was to require merchant ships to sail in convoys. Yet the Admiralty stubbornly refused. Convoy duty was inglorious. The warrior ethic of the Royal Navy demanded that submarines be hunted down: a virtual impossibility given the size of the sea and the absence of radar, sonar, and long-range spotting aircraft.16 But the mounting losses were too great to sustain. Under pressure from Prime Minister Lloyd George—who p
aid a dramatic visit to the Admiralty—the sea lords relented and on May 10 dispatched a trial convoy of forty ships from Gibraltar to Britain, escorted by six destroyers. All arrived safely. A second merchant convoy set out from Hampton Roads on May 29 and reached Liverpool without incident. The Admiralty recognized its error and immediately decreed that all merchant shipping to or from Britain must travel in convoy.
To provide destroyer escorts for the convoys placed an enormous strain on the Royal Navy. Several destroyer divisions—the eyes of the fleet—were withdrawn from the Grand Fleet for convoy duty, but the shortage of escort vessels remained acute. Rear Admiral William S. Sims, whom Daniels had dispatched to London, reported that unless the American fleet was “thrown into the balance,” Britain and France would “be forced to dire straits.”17 FDR shared Sims’s concern. A token force of six destroyers was sent immediately to the Celtic port of Queenstown (now Cobh), but it required a high-level British mission headed by former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and then a French mission that included Marshal Joseph Joffre, hero of the Battle of the Marne, to convince Washington of the seriousness of the situation.18
Perhaps because he was one of the few members of the Wilson administration who spoke French fluently, FDR drew the assignment of meeting the French mission at Hampton Roads and escorting it to Washington. As a result, he had “twenty-five hours of quite intimate conversation” with the members before they saw anyone else.19 He also met frequently with the British. In repeated discussions Roosevelt urged both delegations to press for all they needed from the United States. He also pledged to provide Britain with thirty American destroyers, although neither Daniels nor Wilson had authorized him to do so. In this instance FDR’s eagerness served him well. Despite some foot-dragging by the Navy high command, in July 1917 thirty-five American destroyers were on station at Queenstown. Before the war ended, a total of 370 combat vessels had been assigned to the European command.20
The Balfour and Joffre missions went from Washington to New York to raise money and reinforce investor confidence. FDR’s mother, Sara, went to hear Balfour speak at Carnegie Hall (“a perfect little speech”) and the next morning attended a special service for the British delegation at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on Morningside Heights. Franklin’s half-brother, Rosy, was a trustee of the cathedral and introduced Sara to Balfour. “He is both musical and religious, and wins all hearts, mine included,” she reported. Joffre proved an even greater hit. When Sara discovered that the French hero was staying nearby at the Fifth Avenue mansion of Henry Clay Frick, she asked the marshal’s aide if she might present three of Franklin’s children—Anna, James, and Elliott—to him. The marshal graciously fit them into his schedule, and Sara escorted the children up the grand marble staircase at the Frick residence “to a little bedroom, and Joffre kissed all three children. Then the perfectly charming, brave Joffre spoke to me of my son in a most lovely way. I felt quite queer and rather like shedding a tear but managed to behave decently.”21 Sara asked Joffre for a photograph, which the marshal signed and which she immediately had framed and placed conspicuously on the mantel in the library at Hyde Park.
Like Winston Churchill at the Admiralty, FDR was bubbling with new ideas to confound the enemy. His most notable wartime achievement was the laying of a North Sea antisubmarine mine barrage—a chain of underwater high-explosive charges stretching 240 miles from the Orkney Islands to the coast of Norway. Roosevelt did not conceive the plan, but he promoted it so vigorously that Admiral Frederic R. Harris, the Navy’s expert in construction matters, said that if not for Franklin “there would have been no North Sea mine barrage.”22*
Long before the United States entered the war, Wilson had asked Daniels, “Why don’t the British shut up the hornets in their nests? They are hunting hornets all over the farm and letting the nest alone.”23 The British had investigated but rejected the idea of constructing an antisubmarine barrier across the North Sea: the distance was too great, the water too deep, the undersea mine too unreliable a weapon, and the cost prohibitive. But Roosevelt persisted, and by October 1917 the Navy had developed a mine that did not require physical contact but could be detonated when a long, electrified antenna was brushed by a metal object. This meant that far fewer mines would be required than originally estimated and could be linked more easily. On October 3, on his own initiative, FDR authorized the manufacture of 100,000 of the modified mines. Daniels signed on, and Wilson, who despaired of London’s unwillingness to try anything new, added his formal approval two weeks later.24 Daniels ordered Admiral Henry T. Mayo, commander in chief of the Atlantic Fleet, to London for the sole purpose of obtaining British approval, and under Mayo’s unrelenting advocacy the Admiralty acquiesced. As FDR put it, the sea lords said, “We think your plan is a bit wild-eyed but go ahead if you want.”25
In February 1918 a special convoy of two dozen vessels sailed for Scotland with 11,000 tons of TNT, 50,000 feet of wire cable, and casings for nearly 100,000 mines. The actual mining commenced in June, and by October some 70,000 mines had been sown at a cost of $80 million.26 The war ended before the barrage could be fully tested, but at least four and possibly eight U-boats are thought to have been destroyed by it. Other estimates run as high as twenty-three.27 Admiral Sims called the barrier “one of the wonders of the war” and partially credits it with the collapse of the German Navy’s morale, but the evidence is sketchy.28
Joseph P. Kennedy, perhaps an unlikely source, testifies to FDR’s decisiveness during the war. Kennedy was then assistant manager of Bethlehem Steel’s Fore River shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. At the request of the Navy Department, the Fore River yard had constructed two battleships for Argentina. The ships were ready, but the Argentine government was unable to pay, and Charles Schwab, the legendary chairman of Bethlehem, refused to release them. FDR requested a meeting, and Schwab sent Kennedy to Washington in his place.
Franklin received Kennedy cordially. “Don’t worry about the matter,” he said reassuringly. “The State Department will collect the money.”
Kennedy said that wasn’t good enough. Mr. Schwab would not release the ships until they were paid for. “That’s absurd,” FDR replied. He and Kennedy sparred a few rounds, and then Roosevelt escorted his guest to the door. He had been happy to meet Kennedy, he said, but the Navy wanted the ships released immediately. Again Kennedy declined.
When Kennedy reported the conversation to Schwab, they agreed to ignore Roosevelt’s demand, and the battleships remained securely berthed in Quincy. Less than a week later, four Navy tugboats nosed into the Fore River yard, loaded to the gunwales with combat-ready marines. As startled shipyard workers looked on, the marines took possession of the vessels at bayonet point and towed them into the harbor, where Argentine crews waited to receive them. A chastened Kennedy stood by helpless. “Roosevelt was the hardest trader I’d ever run up against,” he said later. “I was so disappointed I broke down and cried.”29
In 1917 the courtship between Tammany and FDR intensified. As assistant secretary, FDR was well placed to reward the Democratic faithful, especially those members of Congress with Navy yards in their district, and particularly someone as powerful as the Brooklyn-based chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, John J. Fitzgerald—who also happened to be Tammany’s spokesman in the House. Franklin was learning the subtleties of congressional politics, and Fitzgerald was a gifted tutor. Since their set- to in 1914, FDR and Fitzgerald had become staunch allies, Fitzgerald supporting the Navy budget down the line and Roosevelt obliging the chairman with myriad personal favors. In 1915, as a sign of affection, Franklin arranged for Fitzgerald’s two young sons to take part in laying the keel of the battleship California at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and then, with remarkable warmth, offered to join the congressman in his reelection campaign.30 When Congress was in session, Fitzgerald stopped by FDR’s office every week or so to ask a favor or two concerning the Brooklyn yard. “Usually Roosevelt would grant the requests,” he reca
lled, “but sometimes he would say, ‘The old man [Daniels] is against this and I can’t do anything.’ ” But almost always, FDR sent the chairman away happy. “He was a very, very cooperative man,” said Fitzgerald.31
Tammany noted Franklin’s change of heart. In mid-June 1917, Congressman Daniel J. Riordan, who had succeeded to the Lower Manhattan seat vacated by “Big Tim” Sullivan, called on Roosevelt to present an invitation from Charles Murphy asking him to give the keynote address at Tammany’s upcoming Fourth of July celebration, one of the grand rituals of the organization. “I guess if we can stand having you, you can stand coming,” joked Riordan.32
FDR accepted the invitation on the spot. And so it was on July 4, 1917, that Roosevelt found himself ensconced at Tammany headquarters on Fourteenth Street, celebrating the 128th year of the organization’s existence. The band of the “Fighting 69th,” New York’s renowned Irish regiment, provided the music; the Tammany glee club belted out the melodies, and Franklin joined the overflow audience in a lusty rendition of “Tammany Forever.” It was the type of rally FDR did best, frolicking with former enemies and ingratiating himself with the Wigwam’s senior leadership. The New York Tribune reported that Charles Murphy had invited Franklin “to give him ‘the once over’ ” and was not disappointed in what he saw.33 Immediately speculation arose that Roosevelt would lead the New York Democratic ticket in 1918, contesting the governorship against the two-term incumbent, Charles S. Whitman.
Back in Washington, FDR labeled the speculation “utterly wild” but kept his ear to the ground. In the autumn and winter the Tammany tom-toms beat a steady call for Roosevelt. “Your name is frequently used around New York, looking a little to the future, and it is always a pleasure to hear it,” wrote the up-and-coming Jimmy Walker in November 1917.34 Shortly afterward, John M. Riehle, a prominent Tammany chieftain who headed the National Democratic Club, publicly endorsed FDR, as did William Kelley, leader of the Brooklyn organization. When the Tammany stalwart Thomas J. MacManus (The MacManus), who had served with FDR in the legislature, offered his support, it was clear the Organization was getting its ducks in a row. Roosevelt was “a corking good man,” said MacManus. “I am for him.”35