Jean Edward Smith

by FDR

58. The New York Times, June 28, 1932.

  59. Sam Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 56–57 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).

  60. Ibid. 58.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order 400 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).

  63. In the summer of 1932, Berle, together with economist Gardiner C. Means, published the groundbreaking study The Modern Corporation and Private Property. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968; reprint).

  64. The New York Times, April 27, 1932.

  65. Ernest K. Lindley, The Roosevelt Revolution—First Phase 7 (New York: Viking Press, 1933).

  66. Moley, After Seven Years 5, 10–11.

  67. For the text of the “forgotten man” speech, see 1932 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 572–573 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1937). The term “forgotten man” was supplied by Moley and is taken from an 1883 essay by Yale economist William Graham Sumner. Sumner was referring to the middle class. The Forgotten Man and Other Essays 465–498 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1918).

  Probusiness Democrats were aghast at FDR’s rhetoric. “I will take off my coat and fight to the end against any candidate who persists in any demagogic appeal to the masses of the working people of this country to destroy themselves by setting class against class and rich against poor,” rasped Al Smith, who had become the party’s principal spokesman for an alliance with big business. The New York Times, April 14, 1932.

  68. The New York Times, April 19, 1932; 1932 Public Papers 577–583.

  69. Ibid. 588–591.

  70. Quoted in Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph 290. Garner was a reluctant candidate at best. On the eve of the convention he confided to his manager, Sam Rayburn, that he did not want a deadlocked convention. “I want to live long enough to see a Democrat in the White House. So we must make certain we don’t have a deadlock in Chicago. Sam, you and I both know that I am not going to be nominated for President. But a lot of these people who are pushing me are loyal friends, and … I couldn’t very well say no.” D. B. Hardeman and Donald C. Bacon, Rayburn: A Biography 137–138 (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1987).

  71. H. L. Mencken, Making a President: A Footnote to the Saga of Democracy 117 (New York: Knopf, 1932).

  72. Don Hayner and Tom McNamee, The Stadium 19 (Chicago: Performance Media, 1993).

  73. Farley, Behind the Ballots 114.

  74. Flynn, You’re the Boss 89.

  75. The two-thirds rule was adopted at the Democratic party’s first convention, which was held in Baltimore in 1832. “A nomination made by two-thirds of the whole body would show a more general concurrence of sentiment in favor of a particular individual, would carry with it a greater moral weight and be more favorably received than one made by a smaller number,” wrote Senator William R. King of Alabama, a member of the committee that drafted the rule. Frank R. Kent, The Democratic Party: A History 116–119 (New York: Century, 1928).

  76. Farley, Behind the Ballots 117.

  77. Williams’s telegram was to his former Senate colleague James Reed of Missouri. Reed released it to The New York Times, June 26, 1932.

  78. FDR to Farley, June 27, 1932. Farley, Behind the Ballots 119.

  79. Alben W. Barkley, That Reminds Me 141 (New York: Doubleday, 1954).

  80. Farley said afterward that the contesting Louisiana delegation, headed by former governor Jared Y. Sanders, had agreed to support Roosevelt if they were seated, but the Roosevelt camp believed Long’s claim to the seats to be superior. Farley, Behind the Ballots 124.

  81. T. Harry Williams, Huey Long: A Biography 580 (New York: Knopf, 1969). Ed Flynn said, “Never in all my experience have I listened to a finer or more logical argument than [Long] presented for the seating of his delegation. You’re the Boss 96. For the text of Long’s presentation see Official Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic Convention 61–64 (Washington, D.C.: Democratic National Committee, 1932).

  82. Farley Convention Diary, Farley Papers, Library of Congress.

  83. Iowa and North Carolina, which had jumped the traces to vote against Long, returned to the Roosevelt stable. Considering that Boston mayor James Michael Curley headed the Roosevelt Puerto Rico delegation, its status was surely questionable.

  84. The Wheeler quotation is from Neal, Happy Days Are Here Again 179; Farley, Behind the Ballots 105.

  85. Flynn, You’re the Boss 99. On the first ballot Walsh rendered three important rulings that assisted Roosevelt: he dismissed a request from Smith’s supporters that the Iowa delegation be polled; rejected Ritchie’s challenge to the unit rule in the District of Columbia; and denied a request that the Minnesota delegation be polled, holding that they had been instructed by the state convention. Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 289–292, 297–300.

  86. Barkley had a remarkable capacity to ridicule: “Dr. [Nicholas Murray] Butler condemns [the Republican plank] because it is dry; Senator Borah because it is wet, and the American people condemn it because it is neither.” (Ironically, Barkley had been one of the chief sponsors of the Eighteenth Amendment.) For the text of Barkley’s keynote see the Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 17–39.

  87. “The Great Prohibition Poll’s Final Report,” Literary Digest, April 30, 1932.

  88. New York Herald Tribune, June 7, 1932.

  89. The New York Times, June 10, 1932. Of the 934 votes for repeal, 499½ came from Roosevelt delegates. For the roll-call vote, see Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 188–189. Also see Peel and Donnelly, The 1932 Campaign 100.

  90. Flynn, You’re the Boss 90, 93.

  91. Arthur Mullen, Western Democrat 268 (New York: Wilfred Funk, 1940).

  92. Flynn, You’re the Boss 100.

  93. The New York Times, July 1, 1932.

  94. William Allen White, column, The New York Times, July 1, 1932.

  95. Farley, Behind the Ballots 138.

  96. Ibid. 140.

  97. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 70–71.

  98. Ibid. 142.

  99. Mullen, Western Democrat 275–276.

  100. Farley, Behind the Ballots 143.

  101. Flynn, You’re the Boss 101.

  102. Flynn reports that Long shook his fist at Pat Harrison, but Farley credits Harrison with a yeoman effort to hold Mississippi for FDR. No one doubts that Long shook his fist, but it is more likely that the face into which it was shaken belonged to Conner. Flynn, You’re the Boss 101; compare Farley, Behind the Ballots 143.

  103. Flynn, You’re the Boss 101.

  104. George E. Allen, Presidents Who Have Known Me 55–56 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950).

  105. Farley, Behind the Ballots 144–145.

  106. Hull, 1 Memoirs 153–154.

  107. Brice Clagett, Memorandum, Personal and Confidential, February 22, 1933. Mr. Clagett, McAdoo’s law partner and son-in-law, was staying with McAdoo in his penthouse suite at Sherman House and was privy to the McAdoo-Roper discussion.

  108. Daniel Roper, Fifty Years in Public Life 259–260 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1941).

  109. Bascom N. Timmons, Garner of Texas 165–166 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948).

  110. Thomas M. Storke, California Editor 321–325 (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1958).

  111. Farley, Behind the Ballots 151.

  112. Moley, After Seven Years 30.

  113. Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 325–327.

  114. Ibid. 329.

  115. Ibid. 332.

  116. Baltimore Evening Sun, July 5, 1932. The journalist Elmer Davis, writing in Harper’s, believed the Democrats had nominated “the man who would probably make the weakest President of the dozen aspirants.” Veteran Washington correspondent Charles Willis Thompson quipped, “The Democrats have nominated nobody quite like him since Franklin Pierce.” Davis, “The Collapse of Politics,” 165 Harper’s 388; Thompson, “Wanted: Political Courage,” ibid. 726–7
27 (1932).

  117. FDR was the first American candidate to utilize the airplane, but not the first on the world stage. In April 1932, in his runoff presidential campaign against Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler barnstormed Germany in a Junkers trimotor plane, very similar to the one in which FDR flew to Chicago. Hitler’s campaign (“Hitler über Deutschland”) was reported extensively in the American press, and it is inconceivable that FDR was unaware of it. (See The New York Times, April 3, 7, 1932.) Hitler lost to Hindenburg, 13.4 million–19.4 million, but following parliamentary elections in November was asked by Hindenburg to form a government (January 30, 1933). Joachim C. Fest, Hitler 320 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).

  118. Thomas Petzinger, Jr., Hard Landing 8 (New York: Random House, 1995).

  119. Interview with Goodrich Murphy, cited in Neal, Happy Days 296.

  120. Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 372–383.

  FOURTEEN | Nothing to Fear

  The epigraph is from Roosevelt’s inaugural address, March 4, 1933. 2 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 11–16, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Random House, 1938).

  1. Edward J. Flynn, You’re the Boss 122 (New York: Viking Press, 1947).

  2. Quoted in Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly, The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis 107 (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935).

  3. Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 596–597 (Washington, D.C.: Democratic National Committee, 1932).

  4. James A. Farley, Behind the Ballots 176–177 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1938). Also see Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph 337 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956).

  5. The New York Times, July 6, 1932. For details of the trip, see Robert F. Cross, Sailor in the White House: The Seafaring Life of FDR 57–63 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003).

  6. The New York Times, July 12, 1932.

  7. Robert F. Cross interview with Curtis Roosevelt, October 15, 1994, in Cross, Sailor in the White House 64.

  8. The New York Times, July 13, 16, 17, 18, 1932.

  9. Farley took it upon himself to repair relations with Tammany. Immediately following the convention, the new party chairman ventured into the wigwam on Seventeenth Street to “smoke the pipe of peace with the Tammany leaders,” as he put it. The occasion was the annual Fourth of July celebration, and Farley, uninvited, made the most of the meeting. “They were friendly enough, and I got the impression that it helped considerably to have me extend the olive branch first. A news writer in describing the incident said the good will of the Tammany Sachems was won over when I remarked, ‘Aren’t we all Democrats?’ It was a great line and I certainly would have used it if it had occurred to me.” Farley, Behind the Ballots 157.

  10. Ibid. 158.

  11. As Louis Howe put it, “It was determined that the state organizations themselves, not only theoretically but in reality, were to be entirely responsible for the campaign in their respective territories.” Louis McHenry Howe, North American Newspaper Alliance article, December 1932, quoted in Peel and Donnelly, 1932 Campaign 113–116.

  12. Hull to Farley, July 14, 1932; Farley to Hull, July 15, 1932. Democratic National Committee manuscripts, 1932. FDRL.

  13. Howe, North American Newspaper Alliance article.

  14. Farley, Behind the Ballots 159–160, 194.

  15. For the text of Hoover’s campaign speeches, see 2 State Papers and Other Public Writings of Herbert Hoover 289–487, William Starr Myers, ed. (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1934).

  16. Flynn, You’re the Boss 120.

  17. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 80 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).

  18. The 1932 election expenses are based on figures filed by the two parties with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, as required by the Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 (43 Stat. 1070). For a detailed analysis, see Louise Overacker, “Campaign Funds in a Depression Year,” American Political Science Review 769–783 (October 1933). Also see Louise Overacker, Money in Elections (New York: Macmillan, 1932).

  19. Peel and Donnelly, 1932 Campaign 116.

  20. Aggregate expenses for both parties in 1932 totaled $5,146,027. With 39,816,522 votes cast, the cost per vote was 12.9 cents.

  21. In 1924, Congress passed the Adjusted Compensation Act (43 Stat. 121) to pay former servicemen for the time spent away from home in World War I. Each veteran would receive a life insurance policy in 1925, which could be cashed after twenty years for $500 plus interest. These were the bonuses at issue. The story of the Bonus Army is told most effectively by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen in their carefully researched and eminently readable The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York: Walker and Company, 2004).

  22. Fleta Campbell Springer, “Glassford and the Siege of Washington,” 145 Harper’s 641–655 (1932). Also see John Dos Passos, “The Veterans Come Home to Roost,” 71 The New Republic 177 (1932); Donald J. Lisio, The President and Protest: Hoover, Conspiracy, and the Bonus Riot (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974). When food ran out, Glassford brought nearly a thousand dollars’ worth with his own money. “Why some of those boys soldiered for me; they’re my boys.” Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order 260 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956).

  23. Schlesinger, Crisis of the Old Order 262.

  24. The text of Hurley’s order to MacArthur, reprinted in The New York Times, July 29, 1932, reads as follows:

  TO: General Douglas MacArthur, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army.

  The President has just informed me that the civil government of the District of Columbia has reported to him that it is unable to maintain law and order in the District.

  You will have United States troops proceed immediately to the scene of disorder. Cooperate fully with the District of Columbia police force which is now in charge. Surround the affected area and clear it without delay.

  Turn over all prisoners to the civil authorities.

  In your orders insist that any women and children who may be in the affected area be accorded every consideration and kindness. Use all humanity consistent with the due execution of this order.

  Patrick J. Hurley

  Secretary of War

  25. Martin Blumenson, Patton: The Man Behind the Legend 133–135 (New York: William Morrow, 1985).

  26. The New York Times, July 29, 1932.

  27. Washington Daily News, July 29, 1932.

  28. Rexford G. Tugwell, The Brains Trust 357–359 (New York: Viking Press, 1968).

  29. Ibid. 427–434. “I’ve known Doug for years,” FDR told Tugwell. “You’ve never heard him talk, but I have. He has the most pretentious style of anyone I know. He talks in a voice that might come from the oracle’s cave. He never doubts and never argues or suggests; he makes pronouncements. What he thinks is final. Besides, he’s intelligent, a brilliant soldier like his father before him. He got to be a brigadier general in France. I thought he was the youngest until I read that Glassford was. There could be times that Doug would exactly fit. We’ve just had a preview.”

  30. Farley, Behind the Ballots 160–161.

  31. Ibid. 65, 155.

  32. Henry L. Stimson, MS diary, June 18, 1931, Yale University. When the campaign began, Stimson worried that Hoover and his advisers had underestimated Roosevelt. That, plus the economy, “gives us an uphill fight. Also, there is no split in the Democratic party as there was in 1896, and there is no Mark Hanna in the Republican party.” Ibid., July 5, 1932.

  33. Grace Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss 60 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949).

  34. Stimson, MS diary, September 6, 1932. The White House continued to pressure Stimson, but he refused to comply. “I think that to attack a presidential candidate who is a cripple and who has a pleasant appearance, particularly when the attack comes from a close advisor of the President, is about the most dangerous thing that the President and his foolish advisors can settle on, and I hate to be the goat.” Ibid., September 2
2, 1932.

  35. In 1917, Stimson, at the age of forty-nine, volunteered for active duty and was assigned as first a major, then a lieutenant colonel, to the 305th Field Artillery Battalion of the 77th Division. Promoted to colonel, he commanded the 31st Artillery Regiment at war’s end. Stimson’s battalion was the first American unit to fire at the enemy in France, and he was the first secretary of war to serve on active duty afterward. (At FDR’s request, Patrick J. Hurley returned to the Army as a major general in World War II.) Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War 91–100 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947).

  36. Herbert Hoover, 3 Memoirs 233 (New York: Macmillan, 1952).

  37. Quoted in Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The New York Years 362 (New York: Random House, 1979), and many others. See FDR’s remarkable speech to the Republicans for Roosevelt League at the Metropolitan Opera House, November 3, 1932, in which FDR managed to find many good words for Calvin Coolidge, “a great figure in our national life and a great Republican.” For text, see 1932 Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Forty-eighth Governor of the State of New York 662–665 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1939).

  38. The Horseman of Destruction, said Roosevelt, was “the embodiment of governmental policies so unsound, so inimical to true progress that it left behind in its trail economic paralysis, industrial chaos, poverty and suffering.” The Horseman of Delay reflected the Republicans’ do-nothing attitude. “When they say ‘don’t change horses while crossing the stream,’ what they mean is ‘don’t run the risk of crossing the stream at all.’ ” The Horseman of Deceit intended “to cover the trail of the Horsemen of Destruction and Delay.” “Bringing up the rear is the Horseman of Despair. He tells you economic conditions must work themselves out. He tries to close the door of hope in your face.” For full text, see 1 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 831–842.

  39. For a firsthand description of Hoover’s hostile reception in Detroit, see Thomas L. Stokes, Chip off My Shoulder 304–305 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1940).

  40. Clapper’s forty-minute interview with Hoover was on February 27, 1931. Olive E. Clapper, Washington Tapestry 3–4 (New York: Whittlesey House, 1946).