by FDR
38. The New York Times, May 16, 1913; The New York World, May 16, 1913.
39. Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 163–167. Also see Daniels, Cabinet Diaries 48–68; Link, Wilson: New Freedom 289–304. FDR supported Daniels vigorously. There was “no Japanese scare,” he told the press, since “Japan doesn’t want war and neither does this country. It is a California question purely.” But Roosevelt was always his own best revisionist. Writing to Admiral Mahan a year later (June 16, 1914), he said, “I did all in my power to have the ships return nearer their base.… Orders were sent against my protest to Admiral Nicholson, telling him not to move out of the Yangtze River.” Watertown (Mass.) Standard, May 29, 1913; FDR to Mahan, FDRL.
40. Daniels was not content with simply driving the price down. The Navy, he thought, should have its own plant for making armor plate, and in 1914 he cajoled Congress into passing authorizing legislation. The general board of the Navy recommended that for security reasons the plant be located at least 100 miles inland, and Daniels selected Charleston, West Virginia, for the site. The plant was begun in 1917 but not completed in time to produce armor plate for the war. After the war it produced shells for the Navy, but the Harding administration chose not to complete the armor plate facilities. “Monopoly won when it put Harding in the White House,” said Daniels. Wilson Era: Years of Peace 355–363.
41. Roosevelt paid approximately $2,000 annually in club dues, roughly 40 percent of his $5,000 salary as assistant secretary. His checkbook stubs are among his personal papers at the FDRL.
42. Henry B. Wilson to FDR, July 7, 1913.
43. William F. Halsey and J. Bryan III, Admiral Halsey’s Story 18 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947).
44. Quoted in Geoffrey C. Ward, A First-Class Temperament 205 (New York: Harper & Row, 1989).
45. ER to FDR, July 1913, FDRL.
46. FDR to Charles A. Munn, March 26, 1913, FDRL.
47. Elliott Roosevelt and James Brough, An Untold Story: The Roosevelts of Hyde Park 24 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973).
48. Quoted in Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order 352 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).
49. Quoted in Jonathan Daniels, Washington Quadrille 88–89 (New York: Doubleday, 1968).
50. Camp to FDR, July 25, 1917, FDRL.
51. In 1912 Longworth became the victim of his father-in-law’s presidential candidacy and lost a three-way race for his congressional seat in Cincinnati by 101 votes. Longworth, running as a Republican, received 22,229 votes; Stanley Bowdle, his Democratic opponent, received 22,330; and Millard Andrew, the Progressive candidate, 5,771. In 1914 Longworth defeated Bowdle 29,822 to 24,054, essentially the margin Andrew had siphoned off in 1912. Longworth was elected House majority leader in 1923, and became Speaker on December 7, 1925, a post he held until just before his death in 1931.
52. FDR to ER, July 14, 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 192–193.
53. Don Van Natta, Jr., First Off the Tee 101–111. FDR loved golf and regularly shot in the low eighties. He had been taught the game by his father at Campobello and in 1904 won the island championship. After he was paralyzed FDR no longer played, but he did design a special nine-hole course for polio victims at Warm Springs, Georgia—the only president to design a golf course. Not surprisingly, Roosevelt did more than any president to democratize the game. During his administration, the WPA built more than 250 municipal golf courses, making golf accessible to hundreds of thousands of new players. As Eleanor said, golf was “the game that he enjoyed above all others.”
54. James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 71–72 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959). James reports that he often caddied for his father at Chevy Chase for twenty-five cents a week but that the bigger benefit was that “I, too, got to skip church occasionally in favor of the golf course.”
55. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 210.
56. The house at 1733 N Street was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the Canterbury Apartments, which were subsequently converted to the Topaz Hotel. The R Street house, still in good repair but painted white, is now the residence of the ambassador from Mali.
57. FDR’s federal tax returns are filed among his personal papers at Hyde Park. His 1915 return, typical for the period, shows a gross income of $22,845, of which $9,256 came from dividends (untaxed) and $4,177 from interest. The New York town house was valued conservatively at $84,150 ($1.5 million in today’s dollars), which he depreciated at 1% annually. State and local taxes totaled $257.92.
58. FDR to Howe, March 19, 1913, FDRL.
59. Howe to FDR, March 23, 1913, FDRL.
60. Elliott Roosevelt, Untold Story 22.
61. Lela Stiles, The Man Behind Roosevelt: The Story of Louis McHenry Howe 42 (Cleveland: World, 1954).
62. Kenneth C. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882–1928 311 (New York: Putnam, 1971).
63. ER, interview with Louis Eisner, FDRL. Also see ER’s “Foreward” in Stiles, Man Behind Roosevelt vii.
64. John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect 84 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).
65. Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 128.
66. FDR to Howe, n.d., Howe Personal Papers.
67. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 12.
68. Quoted in Davis, FDR: Beckoning of Destiny 313.
69. Stiles, Man Behind Roosevelt 49, 40.
70. The Washington Post, April 30, 1913.
71. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 234.
72. Speaking in Butte, Montana, August 18, 1920, FDR, running for vice president, claimed credit for the Navy’s exemplary labor relations. The only exception was at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where there was ongoing friction, attributable mainly to dangerous and unsanitary working conditions. See Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship 203 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1952).
73. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 234.
74. Lodge to FDR, August 1, 1913; FDR to Lodge, August 2, September 15, 1913. Afterward, Lodge’s son-in-law, Representative Augustus P. Gardner, wrote that Lodge thought FDR “the promptest and most efficient Assistant Secretary in any Department with whom we have dealt.” Gardner to FDR, June 25, 1913, FDRL.
75. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 20.
76. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 115–116; Freidel, Apprenticeship 237–238n.
77. Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 179.
78. For the text of the Convention on the Rights and Duties of States promulgated at Montevideo, see Charles I. Bevans, ed., 3 Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States, 1776–1949 145 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969). [TIAS.]
79. The Platt Amendment, named for Connecticut senator Orville H. Platt, gave ultimate control of Cuba’s finances and foreign relations to the United States, permitted the U.S. to intervene to maintain law and order, and provided for a long-term lease for a naval station on Guantánamo Bay. It was added as an appendix to the Cuban constitution and became part of the May 22, 1903, treaty between the United States and Cuba. [6 TIAS 1116.]
SEVEN | War
The epigraph appears in a letter written by FDR to Eleanor on Sunday, August 2, 1914. 2 The Roosevelt Letters 199, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1950).
1. New York Sun, December 10, 1913. Inspired by Howe, the Sun suggested that if Governor Glynn did not establish his independence from Tammany, the Wilson administration would throw its support behind Roosevelt. As with many of Howe’s planted stories, the article was moonshine. Also see New York Post, January 15, 1914; New York Herald, February 10, 1914; New York Times, February 10, 1914.
2. FDR to WW (handwritten), circa March 31, 1914, Wilson Papers, Library of Congress. The message was handed to Wilson by Secretary Daniels after Cabinet on the thirty-first.
3. Wilson to FDR, April 1, 1914. Wilson Papers.
4. George Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement 300–301 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1946). FD
R had ingratiated himself with TR earlier by announcing he would not seek the Democratic nomination if Theodore ran for governor on the Progressive ticket. “Blood is thicker than water,” FDR told the press. TR was apparently unmoved and did not reciprocate. Quoted in Ernest K. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy 301 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931).
5. The New York Times, July 23, 1914.
6. Ibid., July 24, 1914.
7. FDR to ER, July 19, 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 192.
8. The New York Times, July 24, 1914.
9. Philip C. Jessup, 2 Elihu Root 238–242 (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1938). Also see The New York Times, May 20, 1914.
10. FDR to ER, July 19, 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 192.
11. The archduke was in Sarajevo in conjunction with the annual summer maneuvers of the Austro-Hungarian Army, which in 1914 were conducted nearby. His party of six open-top vehicles (Franz Ferdinand and his wife rode in the third car) was returning from a reception at City Hall when the column slowed to make a difficult right-angle turn. The car in which the archduke was riding came to an almost complete stop in front of Princip, who stepped from the crowd, approached the vehicle, and fired two shots at point-blank range from a large-caliber military pistol. The first bullet struck the duchess in the abdomen; the second hit the archduke near the heart. Both died instantly. Princip and his collaborators were tried in open court and convicted. Because of his youth, Princip avoided the death penalty and was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. He died of tuberculosis in prison at Theresienstadt on April 28, 1918. Vladimir Dedijer, The Road to Sarajevo 285–323 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966). For Serbian complicity, see Sidney B. Fay’s magisterial The Origins of the World War, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillian, 1930), particularly volume 2, pages 53–166.
12. Bismarck’s quote, often cited, was repeated by Albert Ballin to Winston Churchill in July 1914, when Ballin was sent by William II to London in an effort to persuade Britain to remain neutral. Winston Churchill, 1 The World Crisis 112 (New York: Scribner, 1928).
13. David Fromkin, Europe’s Last War: Who Started the Great War in 1914? 307–316 (New York: Knopf, 2004). For the text of Austria’s ultimatum and Serbia’s reply, see the World War I documentary Web site maintained by Brigham Young University at www.lib.byu.edu.
14. Russia commenced hostilities with 114 divisions, roughly 2.4 million men, and soon built up to a peak strength of 6 million. Germany called 2 million men to the colors, and by the end of the first week in August fielded 87 divisions of 18,000 men each. Three quarters of these were in the West, one quarter in the East. Between August 2 and 18, France placed 3.8 million men under military orders, two thirds of whom were reservists. Austria initially mobilized 500,000 men and would eventually muster 2.7 million. S.L.A. Marshall, The American Heritage History of World War I 35–36 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964).
15. Princess Evelyn Blücher, An English Wife in Berlin 137 (London: Constable, 1920).
16. Viscount Edward Grey of Falloden, 2 Twenty-Five Years 20 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925).
17. Frederich E. Smith, Earl of Birkenhead, 1 Points of View 22 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1922).
18. FDR to ER, August 1, 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 195.
19. Ellen Wilson died on August 6, 1914. “It is too horrible about Mrs. Wilson,” FDR wrote Eleanor the next day. “We knew on Wednesday [August 5] that there was little hope and the end came last night. The President has been truly wonderful and I dread a breakdown. The funeral is Monday at the White House. I don’t yet know whether Assistant Secretaries will be expected to go or not. The interment will be private.” Ibid. 204.
20. FDR to ER, August 2, 1914, ibid. 198–199 (FDR’s emphasis).
21. Ibid.
22. ER to FDR, August 7, 1914, FDRL.
23. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1914, Supplement 547–551 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928). Americans must be “neutral in fact as well as in name,” said Wilson, “impartial in thought as well as action.”
24. Wilson to Daniels, August 6, 1914. Wilson Papers.
25. 2 Roosevelt Letters 204 (FDR’s emphasis).
26. FDR to ER, August 5, 1914, ibid. 202 (FDR’s emphasis).
27. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 132.
28. FDR to Howe, August 13, 1914. Howe Papers, FDRL.
29. Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace 131 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
30. FDR to Montgomery Hare, August 31, 1914, FDRL.
31. FDR to Howe, August 22, 1914. Howe Papers. For Hearst’s refusal, see New York American, August 27, 1914.
32. Howe to FDR, August 24, 1914, FDRL.
33. Gerard cabled the State Department on September 10 that he would accept the nomination only if the president and Secretary Bryan approved. Bryan passed the query on to Wilson:
Asst. Sec. Roosevelt is as you know a candidate and has, as I understand, the endorsement of Secs. McAdoo and [William C.] Redfield [Secretary of Commerce]. I have also felt Roosevelt would be the best man—having the advantage of being actively progressive and an upstate man. Gerard could not of course leave Berlin in the near future. What do you wish said to Gerard? He will do as you wish.
Wilson declined to intervene, and Gerard took the president’s silence as approval. Bryan to Wilson, n.d., Wilson Papers.
34. Walton Chronicle, September 23, 1914.
35. SDR to FDR, September 30, 1914, FDRL.
36. 2 Roosevelt Letters 212.
37. FDR to Langdon P. Marvin, October 19, 1914, FDRL. Ernest K. Lindley, writing one of the earliest Roosevelt biographies, accepted FDR’s version of the election, which then became gospel until after the president’s death when biographers checked the facts. See Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 133.
38. Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 132.
39. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order 347 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957). For Sara and Franklin’s half brother, Rosy, FDR’s embrace of Tammany required considerable adjustment. “Rosy was in town yesterday,” Sara wrote her son a few days later, “and says ‘they all feel quite upset at [your] T. Club appearance as T. is working against [John P.] Mitchel [the reform candidate for mayor] and Franklin’s speaking strengthens Tammany.’ Uncle Warren [Delano] says one of the papers has pictures of you and Murphy side by side—All of this rather upsets me I confess.” Quoted in Geoffrey C. Ward, A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt 376–368 (New York: Harper & Row, 1989).
40. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 133–134.
41. The House letter is in the collection of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, FDRL. On October 11, 1914, Thomas D. McCarthy, Gerard’s campaign manager, wrote FDR asking for an endorsement. “I do not know any one thing that would have a greater influence on the vote that Ambassador Gerard will receive on Election Day than your support of his candidacy during this campaign,” wrote McCarthy. FDR did not reply. FDRL.
42. James A. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 56 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948). Gerard told Farley that FDR “would never forget the defeat he suffered … in the Democratic senatorial primary of 1914.”
43. Evidently at Eleanor’s suggestion, Gerard prepared a six-page summary of his services to the Democratic party and the promises he believed had been made to him and then broken. ER sent the memo to Franklin with a penciled comment: “F.D.R. read the end. He is very bitter. E.R.” FDRL.
In his autobiography, Gerard does not mention the 1914 primary but notes that in 1932 he “contributed money whenever [FDR] needed it for his [campaign] payroll, giving it to Louis Howe, Roosevelt’s grand vizier,” and suggests he had been promised the embassy in either London or Rome. James W. Gerard, My First Eighty-Three Years in America 324 (New York: Doubleday, 1951).
44. The New York Times, October 22, 1914.
45. FDR to ER, October [22?] 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 212.
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46. FDR, Memorandum for the Press, November 14, 1914, FDRL.
47. The text of Wilson’s 1914 State of the Union message is most easily accessible online at http://janda.org/politxts/State%20of%20Union%20Addresses/1913=1920%20Wilson/wilson.1914.html.
48. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Naval Affairs, Hearings, 1915 571–572, 586 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1915).
49. Ibid. 921.
50. Ibid. 921–995.
51. New York Herald, December 16, 1914; New York Sun, December 17, 1914. The extensive New York Times coverage of FDR’s testimony is reprinted in 2 Roosevelt Letters 216–218.
52. FDR to SDR, December 17, 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 215.
53. ER to Isabella Ferguson, December 19, 1914, FDRL.
54. William Graham Greene, permanent undersecretary, to Commander Powers Symington, U.S. naval attaché, December 19, 1914. Symington forwarded Greene’s note to FDR with the following message: “I regret to tell you that the Admiralty would find it very inconvenient for you to come over here for the purpose of studying the war organization of the British Navy.… I am afraid that at this time it is hardly worthwhile to send any more officers over as observers. The lid is down tight and we get almost nothing.” Symington to FDR, December 23, 1914, FDRL.
55. For a report of the London dinner, held at Gray’s Inn, see Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship 3–5 (New York: Random House, 2003). “I always disliked [Churchill],” FDR told Joseph P. Kennedy in 1939. “At a dinner I attended he acted like a stinker.” Quoted in Amanda Smith, ed., Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy 411 (New York: Viking, 2001).
56. Francis L. Loewenheim, Harold D. Langley, and Manfred Jones (eds.), Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence 5–6 (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1975).