by FDR
39. Interview with Edward E. Perkins, quoted in Morgan, FDR 112. Geoffrey Ward suggests that the quote is most likely apocryphal, but compare Allen Churchill, The Roosevelts: American Aristocrats 209 (New York: Harper & Row, 1965); Henry Noble MacCracken, Blithe Dutchess: The Flowering of an American County from 1812 79 (New York: Hastings House, 1958).
40. FDR to L. J. Magenis, August 15, 1928; also see Campaign Expenditures Account in FDR manuscripts, FDRL.
41. Rita Halle Kleeman, Gracious Lady 252 (New York: D. Appleton–Century, 1935).
42. Sara Delano Roosevelt Journal, FDRL.
43. Quoted in Kleeman, Gracious Lady 252–253.
44. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 185.
45. ER, Autobiography 63.
46. TR to Bamie (Mrs. Anna Roosevelt Cowles), August 10, 1910, in Theodore Roosevelt, Letters from Theodore Roosevelt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles 289 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1924). As they grew older, Franklin and TR had what amounted to a two-man mutual admiration society. “I’m so fond of that boy, I’d be shot for him,” Theodore told Sara shortly before his death. Quoted in Kleeman, Gracious Lady 204.
47. In 1884, when Grover Cleveland headed the Democratic ticket, Thomas Jefferson Newbold, a Roosevelt neighbor in Hyde Park, slipped through in a freakish three-man race.
48. Poughkeepsie Eagle, October 7, 1910.
49. 1 Public Papers and Addresses 339.
50. Reminiscences of Harry Hawkey, in Clara L. Dawson to Eleanor Roosevelt, December 13, 1937, FDRL. Also see Morgan H. Hoyt, “Roosevelt Enters Politics,” 1 F.D.R. Collector 3–9 (May 1949).
51. Interview with Thomas Leonard, conducted by George Palmer and Fred Rath, National Park Service, FDRL. Leonard was the third member (with Perkins and Judge Mack) of the Dutchess County Democratic Executive Committee and remained a friend of FDR throughout the president’s life. Tom Leonard always accompanied FDR to the poll in Hyde Park on election day and in 1944 accompanied him there for the last time. Roosevelt had trouble closing the curtain and said, “Tom, the Goddamned thing won’t work.” Time magazine reported the comment, triggering an avalanche of protests from the nation’s clergymen. When asked about the remark, FDR said he had been misquoted. Presidential press conference, November 21, 1944.
52. Interview with Judge John Mack, National Park Service, FDRL.
53. The New York Times, September 5, 1932.
54. Judge John Mack interview, FDRL.
55. Speech at Hudson, N.Y., October 27, 1910, speech file, FDRL.
56. FDR to John Anthony, June 11, 1911, FDRL.
57. Poughkeepsie News-Press, October 22, 1910.
58. Ibid., October 27, 1910.
59. Quoted in Freidel, Apprenticeship 93.
60. Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., Roosevelt and Howe 22 (New York: Knopf, 1962).
61. Poughkeepsie Eagle, October 28, 1910.
62. FDR to L. J. Magenis, August 15, 1928; Ward, First-Class Temperament 120.
63. FDR, address at Hyde Park, November 5, 1910, speech file, FDRL.
64. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 186.
65. Ward, First-Class Temperament 4.
66. Quoted in Ernest K. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy 78 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931).
67. ER, Autobiography 64.
68. ER to Isabella Ferguson, November 26, 1910, quoted in Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 525.
69. FDR’s comment is in a diary he began keeping January 1, 1911. Referring to their New York City town house, Franklin said “it is a comfort to have only three stories instead of six.” Sara’s comment is quoted in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 170.
70. FDR diary, January 1, 1911, FDRL.
71. Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Happy Warrior, Alfred E. Smith: A Study of a Public Servant 4 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928).
72. Quoted in Lindley, Roosevelt 82–83.
73. New York Herald, January 18, 1911.
74. The New York Times, January 18, 1911.
75. New York Post, January 17, 1911.
76. New York American, January 18, 1911.
77. The New York World, January 17, 1911.
78. New York Globe, February 6, 1911.
79. Edmund R. Terry, “The Insurgents at Albany,” 71 The Independent 538 (September 7, 1911).
80. The New York Times, January 22, 1911.
81. ER, Autobiography 66.
82. Quoted in Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 173.
83. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 189.
84. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 85.
85. Ibid. 97.
86. Saratoga Sun, April 1, 1911.
87. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 150–151.
88. FDR to H. W. Lunger, January 30, 1928.
89. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 30, 1911.
90. Raleigh News & Observer, April 1, 1911.
91. TR to FDR, January 29, 1911. “I am delighted with your action and told Woodrow Wilson today how he and you are serving the nation,” William Grosvenor, a prominent clergyman, wrote FDR. Quoted in Nathan Miller, FDR: An Intimate History 75.
92. The New York World, January 26, 1911.
93. Quoted in Jon Margolis, “The Boss Who Out-Daleys Daley,” Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1976.
94. James A. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story: The Roosevelt Years 68 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948). Said Farley, “Never was I invited to spend a night in the [White House]. Only twice did I ever make a cruise on the presidential yacht. Both were political. Never was I invited to join informal White House gatherings.”
95. Quoted in Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 101.
96. The New York Times, December 25, 1911. The remarks are those of Senate clerk Patrick E. McCabe, who fired both barrels at FDR: “Disloyalty and party treachery is the political cult of a few snobs in our party … who are political accidents [and] who come as near being political leaders as a green pea does to a circus tent.”
FIVE | Awakening
The epigraph is a remark FDR made to Frances Perkins while he was president. Quoted in Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 12 (New York: Viking, 1946).
1. For Smith on FDR, see Matthew and Hannah Josephson, Al Smith: Hero of the Cities 95 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969). Wagner’s remarks were made while presiding over the senate as president pro tem, June 1, 1911. New York Globe, June 2, 1911. Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship 118–119 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1952); Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 11–12.
2. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 11–12. Miss Perkins writes with great affection for the self-made men of Tammany. “The warm, human sympathies of these people, less than perfect as I examine their record, gave me insight into a whole stratum of American society I had not known. In contrast with these roughnecks, I don’t hesitate to say now, Franklin Roosevelt seemed just an ordinary, respectable, intelligent young man.… I was not much impressed by him.”
3. New York Tribune, March 26, 27; April 6, 1911. For a vivid depiction of the inferno, see David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America 116–170 (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003). On March 25, 2003, the building that housed the Triangle Shirtwaist factory (the Asch Building) was designated an official city landmark by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The New York Times, March 26, 2003.
4. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 31. Von Drehle, Triangle 207–208. The quote also appears in Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny 263 (New York: Putnam, 1972).
5. Quoted in Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography 127 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985); also Geoffrey Ward, A First-Class Temperament 165 (New York: Harper & Row, 1989).
6. Von Drehle, Triangle 216–217; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 14. “I seen my sister go out to work when she was fifteen,” said Sullivan, “and I know we ought to help these gals by giving ’em a law which will prevent ’em from being broken down while they are still young.”
7. Elizabeth Dutcher, “Frances Perkins, Doctor of Politics,” Women Voter 12–13 (September 1912). The fifty-four-h
our bill was reluctantly signed into law by Governor Dix on April 19, 1912. “I don’t think it is a good idea,” said Dix. “I think it will put women out of work. I think they’ll hire men instead. I think women will lose their jobs. Anyhow, it’s not good for them not to be fully occupied.” Quoted in Morgan, FDR 131.
8. Frances Perkins Interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University; Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 14.
9. Quoted in Morgan, FDR 129.
10. Presidential press conference, August 26, 1938.
11. Louis Howe, “The Winner,” The Saturday Evening Post, February 25, 1933. The fact is, it was The MacManus who held the floor until the Sullivans arrived. Von Drehle, Triangle 217.
12. FDR to Anna G. W. Dayley, February 1, 1911, FDRL.
13. FDR to Frances G. Barlow, May 24, 1911, FDRL.
14. Linda J. Lumsden, Inez: The Life and Times of Inez Milholland 75 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). “No suffrage parade was complete without Inez Milholland,” wrote the New York Sun, “for with her tall figure and free step, her rich brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin and well cut features, she was an ideal figure of the American woman.” November 6, 1916. Also see Blanche Wiesen Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 195 (New York: Viking Penguin, 1992); Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 173 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971).
15. Eleanor Roosevelt, Autobiography 68 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961).
16. “An Advocate of Christian Patriotism,” American Issue (March 1913).
17. [Ray Thomas Tucker], The Mirrors of 1932 85 (New York: Brewer, Warren, Putnam, 1931).
18. FDR to Dexter Blagden, February 21, 1912, FDRL.
19. Poughkeepsie News-Press, March 5, 1912 (emphasis added).
20. Freidel, Apprenticeship 134–135.
21. Wilson’s Ph.D. dissertation on the American system of government is considered a classic and is now in its fifteenth edition as Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002).
22. FDR to Ray Stannard Baker, 3 The Roosevelt Letters 467, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1950).
23. Freidel, Apprenticeship 134–139. Wilson had attracted Wall Street’s attention while president of Princeton with a series of conservative pronouncements attacking Bryan, who he once suggested should be “knocked into a cocked hat.” Led by Colonel George Harvey, an associate of J. P. Morgan, Wall Street had bankrolled Wilson’s gubernatorial campaign as a preliminary to running him for president.
24. Champ Clark, like Wilson, was a former college president, having headed Marshall College, now Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, before entering politics in Missouri.
25. The Orange County delegation nominated FDR as an alternate but was pressured by the Murphy forces and “concluded to get out from under and withdraw your name.” J. J. Bippus to FDR, April 12, 1912, FDRL.
26. FDR to O’Gorman, June 10, 1912; O’Gorman to FDR, June 15, 1912. FDRL. See especially Ernest K. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy 102–104 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931).
27. Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace, 1910–1917 125 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
28. Thomas R. Marshall, a dry-as-dust midwestern politico, is best remembered for his observation “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar!” Quoted in Samuel Eliot Morison, The Oxford History of the American People 882 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).
29. 2 Roosevelt Letters 192.
30. FDR’s speech is in the papers of the Empire State Democracy, July–August 1912, FDRL.
31. Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt 556 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931); William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, rev. ed. 404–409, 419–420 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). Also see TR to Herbert Spencer Hadley, February 29, 1912, in 7 The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt 513, Elting E. Morison, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954).
32. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 187.
33. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s, observation is in The Vital Center 23–24 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949). For the Armageddon and Bull Moose quotes, see Harbaugh, Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt 405–406, 419–420.
34. On November 6, 1912, the day after his election victory, Wilson told his campaign manager that he owed him nothing. “Whether you did little or much, remember that God ordained that I should be the next president of the United States. Neither you nor any other mortal or mortals could have prevented that!” William E. McCombs, Making Woodrow Wilson President 208 (New York: Fairview Publishing Company, 1921).
35. The New York Times, September 30, 1912.
36. 1 Diary of Edward M. House 1 (September 25, 1912), Yale University Library. One of the best analyses of the New York convention and its impact on the Wilson campaign is in Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Road to the White House 494–497 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947).
37. Shortly after he took office, Sulzer refused Murphy’s request to appoint Big Jim Gaffney of the New York Contracting and Trucking Company as state highway commissioner. “It will be Gaffney or war,” said Murphy. Sulzer again refused, and Murphy pulled the plug. None of Sulzer’s legislative program made it out of committee. On May 20, 1913, Murphy upped the ante and told Smith and Wagner that Sulzer would have to be impeached. Smith found the votes in the Assembly, and the articles of impeachment passed, August 13, 1913. Wagner followed through on October 17, and Sulzer was removed from office by a Senate vote of 43–12, the only time a New York governor has been impeached. Characteristically, Murphy made no public comment. Alfred Connable and Edward Silberfarb, Tigers of Tammany: Nine Men Who Ran New York 252–255 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967). Also see M. R. Werner, Tammany Hall 529–555 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968).
38. New York Evening Post, October 3, 1912.
39. The New York Times, August 25, 1912.
40. Thomas Mott Osborne to Thomas Ewing, Jr., October 17, 1912, Osborne Papers, Auburn, New York.
41. Rudolph W. Chamberlain, There Is No Truce: A Life of Thomas Mott Osborne 182–184 (New York: Macmillan, 1935).
42. Freidel, Apprenticeship 146–147.
43. ER, Autobiography 69–70.
44. Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., Roosevelt and Howe 56 (New York: Knopf, 1962).
45. Quoted in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order 340 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).
46. Howe to FDR, undated (circa August 1, 1912), FDRL.
47. Quoted in Schlesinger, Crisis of the Old Order 314.
48. Freidel, Apprenticeship 151.
49. Howe to FDR, October 1912, FDRL.
50. ER, Autobiography 70–71.
51. Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe 60.
52. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 197n.
53. Quoted in Davis, FDR: Beckoning of Destiny 296.
54. ER, Autobiography 71.
55. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 198.
56. When the votes were tabulated, FDR had 15,590 (virtually identical to the 15,708 he had received in 1910). His Republican opponent, Jacob Southard, a Poughkeepsie banker and utility owner, had 13,889, and George A. Vossler, the Progressive candidate, 2,628. The New York Red Book 677 (Albany: New York State, 1913).
57. In addition to 291 Democrats and 127 Republicans, the House of Representatives contained 17 Independents, Progressives, and Socialists. Guide to U.S. Elections 928.
58. Walker to FDR, November 7, 1912.
59. FDR to ER, January 1913, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, FDRL. In addition to Agriculture and Forest, Fish, and Game, Roosevelt was placed on the standing committees on Codes; Railroads; and Military Affairs.
60. FDR to Joseph Tumulty, January 13, 1913, FDRL.
61. Eleanor Roosevelt, interview with Frank Freidel, May 1, 1948, cited in Freidel, Apprenticeship 154–155.
62. Garriso
n summarized his view of his duties in a revealing letter to a friend in 1915: “I have made it a rule ever since I have been in the Department, not to interfere in any way with the ordinary disposition, location of duty, etc., of the officers of the Army. Whenever the commanding officer needs service to be done in a certain place, he, as a matter of routine, selects the proper command to perform the duty, and I of course would know nothing whatever about such matters.” Garrison to Ollie M. James, November 17, 1915, Lindley M. Garrison Papers, Princeton University Library.
63. Baker led the unsuccessful fight by Wilson delegates against the unit rule, and his mention of Wilson set off a thirty-minute demonstration when the convention began. See Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours 206–207 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933).
64. Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The New Freedom 117 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956).
65. The banquet for Wilson was hosted by eight hundred Princeton alumni. “There are some emotions that are much deeper than a man’s vocabulary can reach, and I have a feeling tonight that moves me very much indeed,” said Wilson, more choked up than was his wont. Ibid. 57.
66. Daniels, Wilson Era 124. “It is singular that I never thought of any other man in that connection,” Daniels noted in his diary on March 15, 1913.
67. Josephus Daniels, The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus Daniels, 1913–1921 10, E. David Cronon, ed. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963).
68. TR to FDR, March 18, 1913, FDRL. “When I see Eleanor,” the former president continued, “I shall say to her that I do hope she will be particularly nice to the naval officers wives. They have a pretty hard time, with very little money to get along on, and yet a position to keep up, and everything that can properly be done to make things pleasant for them should be done.”
69. New York Herald, March 10, 1913.
70. Daniels, Cabinet Diaries 4; Wilson Era 124–129.
71. Wagner’s satisfaction at FDR’s departure from Albany was attested by his son, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., in an ABC documentary, “FDR and His Times.” Additional evidence suggests that Charles Murphy did his utmost to ensure that FDR joined the Wilson administration in Washington. Some in the Navy Department thought that it was Murphy who actually engineered Roosevelt’s appointment. Admiral Frederic Harris, interview with Frank Freidel, Freidel Papers, FDRL.