Henry Stimson had prophetically opposed the Montgomery Ward seizure on the grounds of the company’s remote significance to the war effort, predicting in his diary that Roosevelt’s enemies would use it as evidence that the president was “seeking autocratic power.” The symbolism of armed takeover was potent. The usually supportive Washington Post denounced the action as unnecessary. Among Republicans and conservatives, Avery, who might easily have passed for Ebenezer Scrooge in the annual Christmas play, became an instant folk hero. After two weeks, the government relinquished control of the company.9
The Montgomery Ward incident was comic but consistent with an ethic of total mobilization. With industry largely brought into line, labor could not be ignored. In January 1944, Roosevelt asked Congress to enact “a national service law—which for the duration of the war, will prevent strikes, and, with certain appropriate exceptions, will make available for war production or for any other essential services every able-bodied adult in this whole Nation.” The request had a certain logical consistency but little urgency and no political viability. It died quietly on Capitol Hill.10
The decision to herd Japanese Americans into concentration-camp-style “relocation centers” in early 1942, on the other hand, although widely accepted, was a disturbing example of how New Deal liberalism could so easily adopt authoritarian means. Faced with hysteria on the West Coast, Roosevelt agreed to the internment of 110,000 individuals, two-thirds of whom were American citizens born in the United States. The best that could be said for the camps they inhabited over the next two or three years was that they were designed to maintain life and limb under Spartan conditions. By the standards of total war, the Japanese American internment was relatively humane. According to traditional liberal American values, it was a disgrace.11
So was the decision to prosecute thirty protofascist publicists and agitators for sedition. After a series of indictments from July 1942 through January 1944, the trial got under way in April 1944. The defendants were a scummy lot; many would have cheerfully heiled Hitler. Roosevelt urged the action on a reluctant Francis Biddle. New Deal liberals, normally scrupulous defenders of civil liberties, by and large approved heartily. The apparent hope for a show trial that would make an example of enemy sympathizers disintegrated quickly. Functioning in an open courtroom and taking advantage of all the opportunities open to them in a liberal society, defense attorneys, forty in all, made a shambles of the proceedings with a barrage of motions, long speeches disguised as legal arguments, and general disorderly behavior. In November 1944, the judge, worn down by the ordeal, died. He was never replaced; the case was eventually dropped after the war.12
Behind the headline-grabbing events on the home front, Roosevelt was caught up in more fundamental issues in American politics. These included the future of American liberalism, the character of the Democratic Party, and ultimately the identity of just who would succeed him. The common denominator among all these controversies was the new vice president, Henry Wallace.
The former secretary of agriculture, widely considered a rustic eccentric, broke through the constraints that had limited his public appeal with a widely circulated speech in May 1942 titled “The Price of Free World Victory.” Employing messianic rhetoric and calling for a secular millennium, he defined the war as a struggle to the death against satanic forces bent on leading the world into slavery and darkness. The democratic nations had to strive for a “people’s revolution” based on Christian ideals that would be the ultimate fulfillment of revolutions from the American in 1776 to the Russian in 1917. The people’s revolution would establish a just and enduring peace, end imperialism, achieve global liberty, and above all realize the Rooseveltian goal of freedom from want. “The century on which we are entering—the century which will come of this war—can be and must be the century of the common man,” he declared. “The people’s revolution is on the march and the devil and all his angels cannot prevail against it. They cannot prevail, for on the side of the people is the Lord.”13
Roosevelt surely would have avoided evangelical rhetoric, but he essentially agreed with his vice president’s manifesto. He may well have considered Wallace a likely successor. He had not reckoned, however, on Wallace’s blunderbuss appetite for political combat.
The president had put Wallace in charge of the Board of Economic Warfare (BEW), a special agency primarily concerned with the acquisition of vital raw materials for defense industries. Wallace saw the assignment as a way of pressing an overseas social agenda that would include generous compensation for underpaid workers. But the BEW had to obtain funding from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and other federal lending agencies long managed by Texas conservative Jesse Jones, who was now also secretary of commerce. Revered by the southern conservative wing of the Democratic Party, Jones dragged his feet on one proposed contract after another. In mid-1943, Wallace issued a public blast charging the secretary with obstructing the war effort. Jones responded sharply.
The episode was, in the estimate of Robert E. Sherwood, “the worst of all the public brawls that marred the record of the Roosevelt Administration and it gave . . . an alarming sense of disunity and blundering incompetence in very high places.” The president dissolved the BEW and transferred its functions to the Office of War Mobilization, headed by James Byrnes, a southerner with wide support on Capitol Hill. Wallace remained a hero to most New Deal liberals and a problem for the president who had wanted to advance him.14
Wallace was only the most visible spokesman for a liberal bloc determined to bring back a turbocharged version of the New Deal after the war. Publicists and politicians fearful of a reversion to economic depression advocated massive public works programs along lines long advocated by John Maynard Keynes. In Britain, a committee headed by the radical social scientist William Beveridge had drawn up widely hailed plans for a postwar social welfare state. American liberals took it as a model. In 1943, the National Resources Planning Board, an obscure New Deal carryover administered by FDR’s uncle, Frederic Delano, issued an annual report advocating a postwar agenda that would include a strong antitrust program, a large-scale economic stimulus, and a comprehensive welfare state.15
The liberal Democratic bloc in Congress introduced, but could not pass, legislation to implement the report. The bipartisan conservative coalition swiftly put an end to the board’s mischief by zeroing out its annual appropriation. At his last press conference of 1943, Roosevelt responded to a planted question about whether he still “liked” the term “New Deal.” Old Dr. New Deal, he said, listing the programs of the 1930s at length, had done a good job of bringing a gravely sick country back from the Depression. Then there had been the “bad accident” of December 7, 1941, which had required a new specialist, Dr. Win-the-War, who was making great progress. When victory came, it would be necessary to carry on with the programs of the past and to pursue goals of an expanded economy, more economic security, more employment, more recreation, more education, more health, and better housing, all with the goal of assuring that the malaise of the Depression would not return.
“Does that all add up to a fourth term declaration?” asked New York Herald-Tribune reporter Bert Andrews.
“Oh now—we are not talking about things like that now,” the president replied. “You are getting picayune.”16
Two weeks later in his State of the Union message to Congress, broadcast as a fireside chat, Roosevelt proclaimed an expansive “second Bill of Rights” that effectively restated the planning board’s agenda. It asserted rights to “a useful and remunerative job . . . to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation . . . to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies . . . to a decent home . . . to adequate medical care . . . to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, and sickness, and accident and unemployment . . . to a good education.”17
The message increased the growing tension between
Roosevelt and Congress. FDR escalated hostilities a month later by vetoing a tax bill that failed to contain increases he had requested. The veto message, written in the Treasury Department at the instigation of Secretary Henry Morgenthau while Roosevelt was resting at Hyde Park, reflected the president’s isolation from the prevailing climate of opinion in Washington. It characterized the bill as “providing relief not for the needy but for the greedy.”18
Legislators, jealous of the congressional power of the purse, took the veto as an insult. The president’s opponents played it for all it was worth. So did his friends. Alben Barkley, up for reelection in the fall, announced his resignation as Senate majority leader and declared that the self-respect of Congress demanded an override of the veto. Roosevelt quickly realized he had overreached. Responding with a “Dear Alben” telegram, he asked the senator to reconsider and expressed the hope that if he did resign, the Democratic delegation would promptly reelect him as their leader. Resignation, override, and reelection followed quickly. The incident demonstrated the shakiness of Roosevelt’s authority as he contemplated a fourth term.
The rollicking White House over which Roosevelt had presided became emptier as the war progressed. Princess Martha, joined intermittently by her husband, lived in royal style on an estate outside Washington. Roosevelt still saw her frequently. Eleanor, as always, seemed in constant motion. She was often away, speaking across the country, visiting Britain in 1942, and traveling to the South Pacific in 1943. Toward the end of 1943, the recently remarried Harry Hopkins and his wife moved out of the White House, to the considerable annoyance of the president, who had greatly valued Hopkins’s twenty-four-hour availability.
The boys were all in military service: Jimmy in California, Elliott in Europe, Franklin Jr. with the navy in the Mediterranean and later the Pacific, and John as a supply officer on an aircraft carrier. Jimmy and Elliott had lived messy civilian lives that verged on personal and financial scandal before the war. They, along with their two younger brothers, compiled distinguished military records that did not prevent sporadic partisan attacks against them.
The children of Roosevelt’s associates also put themselves at risk. Henry Morgenthau’s son Robert was pulled from the icy waters of the North Atlantic after his ship was sunk on convoy duty. One of Harry Hopkins’s sons, Stephen, a marine private, was killed on Kwajalein in the Pacific. Another, Robert, was a combat photographer in the European theater. Hopkins penned a note to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, asking him to disregard Stephen’s “bad luck in the Pacific” and allow Robert to participate in the invasion of France. “The war is ‘for keeps’ and I want so much to have all of my boys where the going is rough.” Robert survived the war.19
Three cousins with whom the president had varying relationships, the surviving children of Theodore Roosevelt, all managed active military duty. Ted Jr., although not physically fit for combat, cut a swath through North Africa and Normandy as a general who led from the front; he would die of a heart attack in France just after receiving command of a division. The army would award him the Medal of Honor. Archibald managed a combat command in the Pacific. His wife, convinced that he would expend himself as had Ted, lobbied FDR to bring him stateside. He finally was shunted to a staff position with Douglas MacArthur. Kermit, the cousin to whom FDR was closest, wound up posted to Alaska; isolated and prone to depression, he shot and killed himself.
Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna, and her husband, John Boettiger, had accepted management of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in what amounted to a peace offering from William Randolph Hearst after the 1936 election. When war came, Boettiger enlisted in the army, serving for a time in Italy. Anna left the newspaper and moved with her children to the White House in early 1944. She quickly established herself as her father’s unpaid administrative assistant. In many respects, she was Missy LeHand’s successor, single-mindedly devoted to FDR’s well-being and managing access to him with a sensitivity far more developed than her mother’s. Her husband, called back to the United States, joined her and became an unofficial, sometimes influential, adviser to the president.
Roosevelt got little solace from Eleanor, who remained emotionally estranged from him while continuing to promote the liberal causes she championed. Years later, Anna recalled a telling incident that occurred late one afternoon when she was mixing cocktails for FDR, staff, and a few friends:
Mother always came in at the end so she would only have to have one cocktail—that was her concession. She would wolf it—she never took it slowly. She came in and sat down across the desk from Father. And she had a sheaf of papers this high and she said, “Now, Franklin, I want to talk to you about this.” . . . I thought, Oh, God, he’s going to blow. And sure enough, he blew his top. He took every single speck of that whole pile of papers, threw them across the desk at me and said, “Sis, you handle these tomorrow morning.” I almost went through the floor. She got up. She was the most controlled person in the world. And she just stood there half a second and said, “I’m sorry.” Then she took her glass and walked toward somebody else and started talking. And he picked up his glass and started a story. And that was the end of it.
. . . [H]ere was a man plagued with God knows how many problems and right now he had twenty minutes to have two cocktails—in very small glasses. . . . He wanted to tell stories and relax and enjoy himself—period. I don’t think Mother had the slightest realization.20
Daisy Suckley was an increasing presence also. She was often in the company of another Roosevelt cousin, Laura Delano, a fading beauty who dressed with attention-getting garishness and had never married. Both women gloried in Roosevelt’s presence.
Miss Suckley bred Scottish terriers as a hobby. She gave Roosevelt a male puppy for Christmas in 1940. The president passed along to him the name he had given to at least one earlier Scottie, Fala. He grew strongly attached to the lively little animal and sensed its value in public relations. By 1943, Fala had become both a devoted companion and a political asset, frequently photographed and featured in newsreels with his master.
One other person was increasingly in Roosevelt’s most private life: Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, whose husband, Winthrop, was in frail health. Using the pseudonym “Mrs. Paul Johnson,” she telephoned the president on numerous occasions. White House operators were under orders to put the call through without regard to whatever business occupied Roosevelt. The two often conversed in French for fear of eavesdroppers. From time to time when she visited Washington, they took long drives in the countryside. From June 1941 through March 1945, she visited the White House on at least twenty occasions, always when Eleanor was out of town. Through November 1942, she was “Mrs. Paul Johnson”; after that, she was logged in simply as “Mrs. Rutherfurd.” The lack of any recorded visits in 1943 suggests she may have used another name, but it is possible that she was simply overwhelmed in dealing with the fatal illness of her husband, who died in March 1944.21
Anna, sensitive to the emotional distance between her parents and solicitous of her father’s emotional needs, became a collaborator in the deception. And why not? Grasping the enormous pressures of wartime leadership, she understood his loneliness and need for diversion. And soon she came to realize, far better than Eleanor, that her father was a very sick man.
Accompanying British ambassador Lord Halifax to the White House on July 7, 1941, John Maynard Keynes had found himself concerned by the president’s shaky health. “He is not a sick man, but he is not exactly a fit one. I thought he was fundamentally weak and tired and using his courage and willpower to keep going.” Keynes listed maladies he had been told about: three recent attacks of high fever and chronic sinus trouble. Roosevelt, he noted, refused to use the air conditioning system in his office. (The breeze it generated aggravated his sinuses.) The economist left convinced that Roosevelt was probably suffering, as Keynes himself had, from an undiagnosed streptococcal infection.22
A year and a half later, sometim
e after Roosevelt returned from Casablanca, a young National Broadcasting Company journalist, David Brinkley, attended his first White House press conference. He had anticipated a strong and energetic personality. The reality was “a shock, unnerving . . . a man who looked terribly old and tired. . . . [His] face more gray than pink, his hands shook, his eyes were hazy and wandering, his neck drooped in stringy, sagging folds accentuated by a shirt collar that must have fit at one time but now was two or three sizes too large.” When asked what was wrong with the president, Press Secretary Steve Early simply replied, “He’s just tired. Running a world war is a hell of a job.”23
During his first two terms, Roosevelt had seemed healthy and vigorous. His one acknowledged medical problem had been a tendency to sinus infections. On the advice of Woodrow Wilson’s personal doctor, Admiral Cary Grayson, he had appointed as White House physician Ross T. McIntire, a navy ear, eye, nose, and throat specialist, whose major duty was daily sinus treatments. Roosevelt had confidence in both McIntire’s competence and his commitment to absolute confidentiality regarding the president’s health. (He seems to have destroyed Roosevelt’s medical records after his death.) By 1938, McIntire was surgeon general of the navy and a rear admiral.24
McIntire seems to have succeeded in dealing with Roosevelt’s sinuses. The president’s other significant health problem during his first two terms appears to have been a badly infected tooth that had to come out. The procedure left him sore and weak for the better part of a month, a long recovery period that may have reflected his underlying fragility.
Man of Destiny: FDR and the Making of the American Century Page 50