by FDR
The 1924 convention would be held in New York City—a powerful advantage for Smith—and Charles Murphy was calling the shots for the campaign, another advantage given Tammany’s preeminence among the big-city organizations in the Democratic party. But on April 25, 1924, Murphy suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving the Smith campaign leaderless. “New York has lost its most powerful and wisest leader,” said FDR in a prepared statement released to the press by Louis Howe.81
Two days later, two of Al Smith’s closest advisers, Belle Moskowitz and New York Supreme Court justice Joseph Proskauer, called on Roosevelt at East Sixty-fifth Street. The Smith campaign needed a chairman, they said: someone with national standing, preferably Protestant, preferably dry (or at least not publicly identified as wet) who could appeal to the rural, dry, Protestant element in the party. FDR, they said, would be ideal. Would he take the job?
Roosevelt initially demurred. His disability would prevent him from dashing about from meeting to meeting as might be expected of a campaign chairman. Moskowitz and Proskauer assured him that would not be necessary. They would do the work for him. What they wanted was Franklin’s name and support.
Roosevelt accepted the position on those terms. Press coverage was generous. “What the campaign lost in practical political ability through the death of Murphy, it has now compensated for in prestige and principles,” wrote the New York Herald Tribune.82
Back in the political spotlight, FDR worked diligently on Smith’s behalf. In so doing he helped eradicate the taint of anti-Catholicism that had clung to him since his fight against Blue-Eyed Billy Sheehan. As one historian put it, Roosevelt’s new list of political correspondents “read like a sampling of the Dublin telephone directory.”83 FDR attempted to lessen the bitterness between Smith and McAdoo supporters but with little success. Smith was demonized by McAdoo’s backers because of his religion and opposition to Prohibition; McAdoo was castigated for his dependence on the Ku Klux Klan. As Franklin saw it, the personal vilification obscured the basic differences between Democrats and Republicans and virtually assured that Coolidge would be reelected in November.
Roosevelt sought support for Smith among Florida fishermen, middle western farmers, and Pennsylvania coal miners. Even Babe Ruth was mobilized in the cause. “Sure, I’m for Al Smith,” the Bambino wrote FDR.
There is one thing about your letter, Mr. Roosevelt, that went across with me good and strong—that was the take about the humble beginning of Governor Smith.
Maybe you know I wasn’t fed with a gold spoon when I was a kid. No poor boy can go any too high in this world to suit me.84
The death of Charles Murphy had allowed FDR to reenter public life as chairman of the Smith campaign. And it was the death of a second Tammany stalwart that catapulted Franklin to the center of the political stage. Smith had originally counted upon Bourke Cockran, the legendary Irish orator who had nominated him at San Francisco four years earlier, to do the job again. But Cockran had died the year before, and Smith had yet to name a replacement. On the eve of the convention, the governor asked Judge Proskauer for advice. “Who ought to put me in nomination?”
Proskauer reflected a moment and said, “Frank Roosevelt.”
“For God’s sake why?” Smith asked.
“Because you’re a Bowery mick and he’s a Protestant patrician and he’d take some of the curse off you.”85
Smith nodded his head, and the two men walked over to see FDR at campaign headquarters. “Joe and I have been talking this over, and I’ve come here to ask you to make the nominating speech,” Smith said.
“Oh, Al, I’d love to do it, but I’m so busy here working with delegates I have no time to write a speech.” Could Joe write it? Roosevelt asked. The fact was, Proskauer had already prepared a draft, concluding with a paraphrase of William Wordsworth’s encomium to the “Happy Warrior.” FDR thought the reference too poetic for the ordinary delegate on the floor but under the pressure of time agreed to deliver it. “It will probably be a flop,” he told Proskauer.86
The Democratic convention convened in Stanford White’s Madison Square Garden on June 24, 1924, for what would prove the longest convention on record. With 1,098 delegates, and 732 votes required to nominate under the party’s two-thirds rule, the Democrats met for an unprecedented seventeen days and required 103 ballots before settling on West Virginia’s John W. Davis, a prominent Wall Street lawyer, as the most viable compromise between Smith and McAdoo. The 1924 convention was also the first covered by national radio and broadcast live across the country.87
FDR was in his seat as chairman of the New York delegation when the opening gavel fell on June 24, and he attended every session thereafter. His arrival each day was carefully planned. He was driven to a side entrance of the Garden and wheeled inside by his sixteen-year-old son, James. When they reached the door to the hall closest to the New York delegation, James would lock his father’s braces and pull him to a standing position so he could enter the convention floor on his feet. FDR would then grasp his son’s upper arm with his left hand, place most of his weight on the crutch under his right arm, and ratchet himself forward one halting step at a time.
To make the passage up the aisle as easy as possible, the Roosevelts arrived early and left late. “So as not to scare everyone to death,” as FDR put it, he and James joked and bantered as they made their way along. “The process of getting into his seat was an ordeal for Father,” James recalled. “We practiced the awkward business standing together by a chair, with me supporting him and taking his crutch as he lowered himself into his chair. Once he was seated, it was my task to stand by, run errands, deliver messages, and help Father off the floor when he wanted to leave.”88
The galleries, stuffed with Tammany supporters, recognized FDR and regularly broke into applause as he made his perilous way down the aisle each day. Over the radio, a national audience could hear the applause as the announcer intoned, “I don’t know what it is, but I rather imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt is coming in. He always gets a hand for the gallant fight he is making.… Yes, it is. There he comes slowly down the aisle on his crutches.”89
Roosevelt was scheduled to speak at twelve noon on Thursday, June 26. Waiting expectantly in the gallery were Sara, Eleanor, and the four other children, plus Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, who joined the family for the occasion. Dickerman recalled how carefully Franklin had prepared himself: “Nobody knows how that man worked. They measured off in the library of the Sixty-fifth Street house the distance to the podium, and he practiced getting across that distance. Oh, he struggled.”90
Shortly before noon Franklin and James left their seats on the floor and made their slow, awkward way up the aisle. “Outwardly, [Father] was beaming, seemingly confident and unconcerned, but I could sense his inner tenseness,” James recalled. “His fingers dug into my arms like pincers. His face was covered with perspiration.”91
Finally, they reached the platform. As FDR was introduced, he called out in a stage whisper to Pennsylvania’s Joseph Guffey, who stood nearby: “Joe, shake the rostrum.” Guffey evidently did not understand, and Roosevelt repeated his request: he wanted to be certain the speaker’s stand would support him when he leaned against it. Guffey tested and reported it was firm.
Then came the moment when FDR would have to walk alone: the moment he had been practicing for. James handed him his second crutch, and he began moving slowly toward the podium unassisted. Marion Dickerman held her breath and prayed. “It seemed like an hour,” she remembered. Frances Perkins, sitting near the platform, recalled that no one in the Garden seemed to breathe. Eight thousand delegates, alternates, and spectators watched spellbound as FDR fought his way across the stage, the personification of courage, defying pain with every forward thrust of his heavily braced legs.
When he finally reached the podium, unable to wave for fear of falling but flashing that famous smile, head thrown back, shoulders high, the Garden erupted with a thunderous ovation. Delegates rose to their fee
t and cheered for three minutes, admiration tinged with awe at the dramatic performance they had witnessed.
Roosevelt spoke for thirty-four minutes. His resonant tenor rang through the Garden with a new and telling passion, interrupted frequently by sustained cheering and applause. When he reached his peroration, his lilting cadence very nearly sang the phrases:
He has a power to strike at error and wrongdoing that makes his adversaries quail before him.
He has a personality that carries to every hearer not only the sincerity but the righteousness of what he says.
He is the “Happy Warrior” of the political battlefield.—Alfred E. Smith92
Pandemonium. “The crowd just went crazy,” said Marion Dickerman. “It was stupendous, really stupendous.”93 The New York Times called FDR the outstanding personality of the convention. The Herald Tribune hailed him as “the foremost figure on floor or platform.” Tom Pendergast, the no-nonsense head of the Missouri delegation, thought that if Franklin “had been physically able to withstand the campaign, he would have been nominated by acclamation.”94
Roosevelt’s speech set off a demonstration that lasted more than an hour, delegates parading, galleries cheering, the Garden reverberating with chorus after chorus of Smith’s anthem, “The Sidewalks of New York.”
Franklin remained on his feet, glued to the rostrum. No one had considered how he was to exit. “I saw all around him all those fat slob politicians,” said Frances Perkins, “and I knew they wouldn’t think of it.” She enlisted the woman beside her, and they rushed onstage to stand in front of FDR and shield him from view as he turned to leave. As the cheering continued, Roosevelt finally permitted James to bring his wheelchair to the rear of the platform so that he could ease himself into it and be wheeled offstage.95
That evening the Roosevelts gave a reception for the New York delegation at their Sixty-fifth Street home. Marion Dickerman went early to see if she could help Eleanor with the preparations. When she arrived, the butler told her Mr. Roosevelt was upstairs and wished to see her. “He was sitting upright in his bed and obviously was very tired. But his face lit up and he held out his arms.”
“Marion,” he said, “I did it.”96
* Moving the Roosevelt household from New York to Campobello each year was a logistical operation of considerable proportions, often involving as many as a dozen express crates, thirty or so barrels and trunks, plus a vast assortment of hand luggage. As described by FDR’s son James, “First, we would proceed from New York to Boston by train—six hours if we were lucky. We would arrive in Boston in mid-afternoon and go to a certain old-fashioned hotel to rest until train time.… [U]sually we took the 11 p.m. sleeper, arriving next morning at Ayers Junction, Maine. There we would change to an antique train—a real museum piece—and ride to Eastport [Maine]. We would reach Eastport at noon, then transfer to a carriage, which would take us to the dock. If the tide was right, we could get off fairly quickly; if not, we had to wait to board the ‘chug-chug’ that took us to Campobello. We switched there to a rowboat, which took us to our own pier. Those mountains of baggage, boxes, and trunks, which had been shipped by express, came across separately on a larger ferry and were brought by horse-drawn dray to the house on Campobello.” James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 138 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1959).
* For his services, Dr. Keen sent ER a bill for $600, which, converted to today’s dollars, would be the equivalent of $6,000. ER to James Roosevelt Roosevelt, August 18, 1921. 2 The Roosevelt Letters 414, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1950).
* Writing in the Journal of Medical Biography in October 2003, Dr. Armond Goldman of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston suggested that FDR might have suffered from Guillian-Barré syndrome (also known as acute ascending polyneuritis), not polio. “No one can be absolutely sure of the cause of Roosevelt’s paralysis because relevant laboratory diagnostic studies were not performed or were not available at the time of his illness,” Goldman said. Whatever the diagnosis, it would have made no difference since there were no effective treatments for either disease in 1921. Armond S. Goldman, Elisabeth J. Schmalstieg, Daniel H. Freeman, Jr., Daniel A. Goldman, and Frank C. Schmalstieg, Jr., “What Was the Cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Paralytic Illness?” 11 Journal of Medical Biography 232–240 (2003).
* Years later, Dr. Draper told his sister, Alice Carter, that if it had not been for Eleanor and Louis Howe, FDR “would have really become an invalid.” Joseph P. Lash, interview with Alice Carter, cited in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 276 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971).
* FDR soon designed his own wheelchair: an armless kitchen chair that was easy to slide onto, mounted on wheels, with a holder attached for his ashtray. He used this simple expedient for the remainder of his life.
* The Democrats swept New York in 1922. Smith polled 55.2 percent of the vote—the largest plurality a gubernatorial candidate had ever received in the state—and carried the entire ticket to victory. In contrast to past years, the Democrats ran surprisingly well upstate. FDR called it “the reawakening of the Rip Van Winkle of upstate Democracy.” FDR to Smith, December 3, 1922, FDRL.
* FDR’s former firm, Marvin, Hooker, & Roosevelt, had been established in 1911 with offices at 52 Wall Street. Other partners included Grenville Emmett and Albert de Roode, a classmate of FDR at Harvard. Franklin’s responsibility, as at Fidelity & Deposit, was to bring clients to the firm, but, as he told Black, “I get not one red cent out of my connection with them.” Remarkably, FDR’s withdrawal from the firm did not damage his friendship with any of the partners. “He was a very devoted and real friend,” said Langdon Marvin many years later. Langdon Marvin interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.
* Bermuda rum swizzles were a popular hot-weather drink in FDR’s time, Prohibition notwithstanding: two ounces dark rum, one ounce lime juice, one ounce pineapple juice, one ounce orange juice, and a generous dash of falernum. Shake with ice. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with a slice of orange and a cherry.
* During the four-year period from 1925 to 1928, FDR spent 116 of 208 weeks away from home trying to regain his health. According to one biographer, “Eleanor was with him for four of those weeks, Sara for two, and Missy LeHand for 110. Thus Missy is the sole adult ‘member of the family’ to share an aggregate of more than two years of the most trying and self-searching four years of Roosevelt’s life.” Bernard Asbell, The F.D.R. Memoirs 244 (New York: Doubleday, 1973).
† In an early showdown between McAdoo and Smith supporters, the 1924 Democratic convention narrowly rejected (5427⁄20–5433⁄20) a plank in the platform that would have condemned the Klan. It also rejected (353½–742½) a plank that called for immediate membership in the League of Nations and participation in the World Court.
ELEVEN
GOVERNOR
Now what follows is really private. In case of your election I know your salary is smaller than the one you get now. I am prepared to make up the difference to you.
—SARA TO FRANKLIN, OCTOBER 2, 1928
FROM 1925 TO 1928 Franklin and Eleanor were together infrequently.1 The children were away, at either boarding school or university; Eleanor had begun her career teaching at the Todhunter School with Marion Dickerman; and FDR was in the South, either on the Larooco or at Warm Springs, Georgia, hoping to regain the use of his legs. Both remained in close contact with Democratic politics. Eleanor edited the newsletter of the Women’s Division (Women’s Democratic News), while Franklin continued his voluminous correspondence with party officials all over the country. In many respects ER operated as Roosevelt’s surrogate, but it was not always a frictionless relationship. “One of the great quarrels Eleanor had with her lot,” said Frances Perkins, “is that Franklin didn’t listen to her.… He liked her as a reporter, but when most men would have asked their wives what they thought, he didn’t.”2
FDR was genuinely fond of Eleanor’s fri
ends Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman—whom he called “our gang”—and often assumed the role of a gracious and generous paterfamilias.3 They, in turn, were devoted to promoting his career and enjoyed the bonds of friendship established through Eleanor. It was Franklin, in fact, who originated the idea of a home for the three women on Val-Kill at Hyde Park, donated the land, and supervised the construction.
Dickerman remembered a wonderful Saturday afternoon in the late summer of 1924 when she, Eleanor, Nan Cook, and FDR were picnicking on the wooded banks of Val-Kill, two miles east of the Roosevelt house. ER noted that it was likely their last picnic of the year because Sara would soon close the estate for the winter.
“But aren’t you girls silly?” said Franklin. “This isn’t mother’s land. I bought this acreage myself. And why shouldn’t you three have a cottage here of your own, so you could come and go as you please? If you’ll mark out the land you want, I’ll give you a life interest in it, with the understanding that it reverts to my estate upon the death of the last survivor.”4
A deed was drawn up and witnessed by Louis Howe, and on August 5 FDR wrote a contractor friend of his, “My missus and some of her female political friends want to build a shack on a stream in the back woods and want, instead of a beautiful marble bath, to have the stream dug out so as to form an old-fashioned swimming hole.”5 The resulting retreat was far from a shack in the backwoods. It was agreed that the cottage should be built of fieldstone in the traditional Hudson River Dutch style. Franklin handled the design, paid for a proper swimming pool, and added a big gray stucco building at the rear in which Eleanor and her friends hoped to establish a furniture workshop.