by Jon Meacham
IN BIRMINGHAM’S CAPITOL PARK “Harding Says Negro Must Have Equality in Political Life.”
(“I WOULD SAY”) Ibid.
(“PARTNERSHIP OF THE RACES”) Ibid.
HARDING, HOWEVER, APPROVINGLY CITED Ibid.
“THERE ARE MANY” Ibid.
“IF THE PRESIDENT’S THEORY” Bailey, “This Presidential Race Speech.”
“A BRAVER, CLEARER” Du Bois, “President Harding and Social Equality.”
THE “PSEUDO-SCIENCE” Ibid.
“THE ABSOLUTE EQUALITY” Ibid.
“TO DENY THIS FACT” Ibid.
“THE NATION WHICH” “Harding Says Negro Must Have Equality in Political Life.”
THE PRESIDENT WAS Wallace, “The Ku Klux Klan in Calvin Coolidge’s America.”
“WE HAVE OUR FACTIONS” Ibid.
THE NEW YORK TIMES’S HEADLINE Ibid.
HE MADE THE SAME Ibid.
IN ATTEMPTS TO Murray, Harding Era, 63–65; Peter Baker, “DNA Shows Warren Harding Wasn’t America’s First Black President,” NYT, August 18, 2015.
IN THE 1920 Ibid., 63.
“BY MEANS OF” Ibid.
HARDING CHOSE TO Ibid., 64.
“I WANT YOU” Ibid.
“HOW DO I” Ibid.
(IN 2015, DNA TESTING) Baker, “DNA Shows Warren Harding Wasn’t America’s First Black President.”
AFTER HARDING’S DEATH Wallace, “Ku Klux Klan in Calvin Coolidge’s America.”
“WE HAVE 227” “Klan Boast Derided: Officials Call Claim of Initiation in White House ‘Ridiculous,’ ” NYT, September 23, 1923.
SAID THE REPORTS WERE “TOO” Wallace, “Ku Klux Klan in Calvin Coolidge’s America.”
COOLIDGE, THE NEW PRESIDENT See, in particular, Amity Shlaes, Coolidge (New York, 2013), and Donald R. McCoy, Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President. (New York, 1967).
TOOK THE OATH Shlaes, Coolidge, 251–53. When Coolidge left Vermont as the thirtieth president, he remarked: “I believe I can swing it.” Ibid., 253.
REFRAINED FROM TAKING Wallace, “Ku Klux Klan in Calvin Coolidge’s America.” Coolidge was better on matters of race than is generally thought, if it is thought of at all. See, for instance, ibid.; Shlaes, Coolidge, 313–14; 336; Alvin S. Felzenberg, “Calvin Coolidge and Race: His Record in Dealing with the Racial Tensions of the 1920s,” The New England Journal of History 55, no. 1 (Fall 1988): 83–96; Kurt Schmoke, “The Little Known History of Coolidge and Civil Rights,” Coolidge Quarterly, 1, no. 3 (November 2016): 1–5. Jerry L. Wallace has written:
At a cabinet meeting, a discussion came up regarding the refusal of white government employees to work with their black counterparts. This, of course, was at a time when there was no legal framework that could be called upon to support an integrated workforce and no prospects for such whatsoever. This led President Coolidge to remark to his associates: “Well, I don’t know what you can do, or how you will solve the question, but to me it seems a terrible thing for persons of intelligence, of education, of real character—as we know many colored people are—to be deprived of a chance to work because they happen to be born with a different colored skin. I think you ought to find a way to give them an even chance.” Ibid. Wallace cited John S. Sargent, “Championing the Negro,” in “The Real Calvin Coolidge,” edited and with commentary by Grace Coolidge, Good Housekeeping, June 1935.
“GOVERNMENT CANNOT LAST” Charles C. Johnson, Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America’s Most Underrated President (New York, 2013), 181.
DAWES TRIED TO SOFTEN Wallace, “Ku Klux Klan in Calvin Coolidge’s America.”
HAD “CONFOUND[ED THE] PARTY” Ibid. See also “General ‘Opposed to’ Klan,” NYT, August 24, 1924.
AFTER CONFERRING WITH Wallace, “Ku Klux Klan in Calvin Coolidge’s America.”
“HE WAS PROBABLY” Ibid.
“MOREOVER,” WALLACE WROTE Ibid.
“ONE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCE” Ibid.
A CORRESPONDENT HAD WRITTEN Bean, Race and Liberty in America, 147–49; Shlaes, Coolidge, 313–14.
“IT IS OF SOME CONCERN” Bean, Race and Liberty in America, 148.
CITING THE SERVICE Ibid.
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CHICAGO Defender Ibid.
THE CAUSES OF THE KLAN’S FALL MacLean, Behind the Mask, 184–85; Gordon, Second Coming of the KKK, 191–209; Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 291–99.
131–32 RESTRICTIVE IMMIGRATION LAW The chief piece of legislation was the National Origins Act of 1924. Gjerde, Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History, 307–43. See also Bean, Race and Liberty in America, 137, and McVeigh, Rise of the Ku Klux Klan, 127–29.
(THE 805,228 IMMIGRANTS) Gjerde, Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History, 343.
COMMERCE WAS CULTURE MacLean, Behind the Mask, 186–87. “Under conditions of economic uncertainty, sharply contested social relations, and political impasse,” MacLean wrote, “assumptions about class, race, gender, and state power so ordinary as to appear ‘common sense’ to most WASP Americans could be refashioned and harnessed to the building of a virulent reactionary politics able to mobilize millions.” Ibid., 186.
THE KLAN SABOTAGED ITSELF Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 171–74; Gordon, Second Coming of the KKK, 191–98; Rawlings, Second Coming of the Invisible Empire, 235–54. “The failure of the Ku Klux Klan to anchor itself as a successful feature in American life,” Chalmers wrote, “was due more to its own ineptness than any other cause or combination of factors,” Chalmers wrote. “The decline of the Klan as a mass movement in America was its own fault, nobody else’s.” Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 299.
“I’M A NOBODY FROM” Gordon, Second Coming of the KKK, 17.
THE REVELATION OF DEPRAVITY Ibid., 191–94; MacLean, Behind the Mask, 177–78; Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 298–99.
“WHETHER ONE TRACES” Calvin Coolidge, “Address Before the American Legion Convention at Omaha, Nebraska,” October 6, 1925, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=438.
“I RECOGNIZE THE FULL” Ibid.
IF WE ARE TO HAVE Ibid.
HENRY HUGH PROCTOR “Henry Hugh Proctor (1868–1933),” New Georgia Encyclopedia, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/henry-hugh-proctor-1868-1933.
“PARTICULARLY DO WE” Shlaes, Coolidge, 336.
FIVE · The Crisis of the Old Order
WE MUST DRIVE Nathanael West, Novels and Other Writings, ed. Sacvan Bercovitch (New York, 1997), 174. I quoted this passage in “The Literature of Our Discontent,” NYT, January 17, 2017.
THE ONLY LIMIT Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Undelivered Address Prepared for Jefferson Day,” April 13, 1945, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16602.
ON CHRISTMAS EVE 1929 “Fire Wrecks the White House Offices,” NYT, December 25, 1929. I drew on my essay “Literature of Our Discontent,” originally published in NYT, January 17, 2017, for the description of the West Wing fire and its symbolic implications.
ACCORDING TO PUBLISHED REPORTS “Fire Wrecks the White House Offices.” See also “Fire Fails to Halt White House Party,” and “$60,000 Flames Eat West Wing of White House,” The Washington Post, December 25, 1929.
“AT TIMES IT SEEMED” “Fire Wrecks the White House Offices.”
“THE CRISIS OF THE OLD ORDER” Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933, The Age of Roosevelt, vol. 1 (Boston, 1957).
BERNARD M. BARUCH SAID “The Presidency: Prospect,” Time, February 27, 1933.
NEARLY 20 PERCENT David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York, 1999), 86–88.
“THE COUNTRY HAD” Ibid., 87.
MOBS OF HUNGRY YOUTHS William Manchester, Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932–1972 (Boston, 1974), 55.
ARMED STANDOFFS ROILED Ibid., 58–59.
“THERE ARE MANY SIGNS” Schlesinger, Crisis of the Old Order, 3.
HAD TOLD AN ADVISER Rexford G. Tugwell, The Democratic Roosevelt: A Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Garden City, N.Y., 1957), 349.
(“MACARTHUR HAS DECIDED”) Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 13.
THE LOUDEST CHEERS Ibid., 77.
IN THE MIDDLE OF FEBRUARY 1933 Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (Boston, 1990), 87–88; Sally Denton, The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right (New York, 2012), 71–77.
FROM ABOUT TEN YARDS AWAY Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 87. Denton puts the distance at twenty-five feet. Denton, Plots Against the President, 71.
FDR HAD STOPPED OFF Denton, Plots Against the President, 62; 68–69.
“IT WOULD BE EASY” Ibid., 69–70.
WITHIN HALF AN HOUR Ibid., 70.
AN EIGHT-DOLLAR PEARL-HANDLED .32 REVOLVER Ibid., 71.
THE MAYOR OF CHICAGO, ANTON CERMAK Ibid., 72.
“PEOPLE SEEMED TO FEEL” Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 88. See also “The Presidency: Prospect.”
“I’M ALL RIGHT” Denton, Plots Against the President, 73.
“ROOSEVELT WAS SIMPLY HIMSELF” Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 88.
BACK ON THE Nourmahal Denton, Plots Against the President, 75–76.
DRANK A GLASS OF WHISKEY Ibid.; Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 88.
ASKED WHETHER HISTORY HAD EVER Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 31.
“I THINK BY 1933” Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval, The Age of Roosevelt, vol. 3 (Boston, 1960), 17.
DESCRIBING THE PLIGHT OF Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 31.
A SMALL GROUP OF Denton, Plots Against the President, 176–217, is a full account, as is Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow F.D.R. (New York, 2015). See also Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval, 82–83; 85.
139–40 THE “WALL STREET PUTSCH” Denton, Plots Against the President, 201.
(ALSO KNOWN AS THE “BUSINESS PLOT”) Ibid.
“IF YOU GET” Ibid., 200. See also Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval, 83.
TOLD FBI DIRECTOR J. EDGAR HOOVER Denton, Plots Against the President, 200–201.
REPORTS ABOUT THE WALL STREET Ibid., 201.
IN LATE 1934, SECRET CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS Archer, Plot to Seize the White House, 139–40.
TWICE AWARDED THE Ibid., 139. For Butler in general, see also Hans Schmidt, Maverick Marine: General Smedley D. Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History (Lexington, Ky., 1998).
“MAY I PREFACE” Ibid., 139–40.
“NOBODY WHO HAS” Ibid., 140.
“GEN. BUTLER BARES” Ibid., 169. See also NYT, November 21, 1934.
“IF GENERAL BUTLER” Archer, Plot to Seize the White House, 214. The McCormack interview with Archer took place in 1971. See also Denton, Plots Against the President, 212–13.
MCCORMACK HAD LITTLE PATIENCE Archer, Plot to Seize the White House, 216. In a February 15, 1935, report to the full House on the committee’s findings, McCormack wrote, “There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution if the financial backers had deemed it expedient. This committee received evidence from Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler (retired), twice decorated by the Congress of the United States. He testified before the committee as to conversations with one Gerald C. MacGuire in which the latter is alleged to have suggested the formation of a fascist army under the leadership of General Butler. MacGuire denied these allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made by General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principal, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various forms of veterans organizations of Fascist character….This committee asserts that any efforts based on lines as suggested in the foregoing and leading off to the extreme right, are just as bad as efforts which would lead to the extreme left. Armed forces for the purpose of establishing a dictatorship through the means of Fascism or a dictatorship through the instrumentality of the proletariat, or a dictatorship predicated on racial and religious hatreds, have no place in this country.” Ibid., 192.
“THE PEOPLE WERE” Ibid., 215.
“REGARDED THE PLOT” Ibid., 216.
“WHY, THERE’S NO COUNTRY” Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval, 89.
“WHERE IN ALL HISTORY” Ibid., 90.
“I WAS READING THE OTHER DAY” Winston Churchill, “What Good’s a Constitution?” Collier’s, August 22, 1936. Churchill added: “This is an age in which the citizen requires more, and not less, legal protection in the exercise of his rights and liberties.” Ibid.
A SMALL NOVEL BY NATHANAEL WEST I drew on my piece “Literature of Our Discontent” for this section about West’s book.
“I’M A SIMPLE MAN” West, Novels and Other Writings, 173–74.
AT LUNCH ONE DAY AT HYDE PARK T. Harry Williams, Huey Long (New York, 1969), 602. Long embellished the story of the lunch, telling his own family that the Roosevelt matriarch had said, “Frankie, you’re not going to let Huey Long tell you what to do, are you?” Ibid.
FIVE DEMOCRATIC STATE CHAIRMEN Ibid., 603.
LOST THE VOTE IN PENNSYLVANIA Ibid.
“A MOB IS COMING” Ibid., 626. On the eve of FDR’s inauguration, Long stormed into a Roosevelt ally’s hotel room, grabbed an apple, took a bite, then poked the FDR intimate with the fruit, saying, “I don’t like you and your goddamned banker friends.” Ibid., 625.
“I’M GOING TO ASK” Ibid., 625.
“CERTAINLY WE ARE FACING COMMUNISM” Ibid., 557.
IN AN APRIL 1932 SPEECH TO THE SENATE Huey P. Long, Kingfish to America, Share Our Wealth: Selected Senatorial Papers of Huey P. Long, ed. Henry M. Christman (New York, 1985), 9, 11.
“WHERE IS THE MIDDLE CLASS TODAY?” Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval, 62.
“HE DELIGHTED IN” Williams, Huey Long, 680.
“THINGS ARE AWFULLY QUIET” Ibid.
“FRANKLY, WE ARE AFRAID” Ibid., 681.
ONE DAY IN THE SENATE Ibid., 680–81.
“HE WILL BE DIRECT” Raymond Gram Swing, “The Menace of Huey Long: II. His Bid for National Power,” The Nation, January 23, 1935, 98. Long defended his absolutist tendencies with candor.
“They say they don’t like my methods,” Long once remarked. “Well, I don’t like them either. I really don’t like to have to do things the way I do. I’d much rather get up before the legislature and say, ‘Now this is a good law; it’s for the benefit of the people, and I’d like for you to vote for it in the interest of the public welfare.’ Only I know that laws ain’t made that way. You’ve got to fight fire with fire.” Williams, Huey Long, 748.
And he might have fought Roosevelt’s fire with some of his own as early as 1936. “I might have a good parade to offer before we get through,” Long told the Senate. “I am always open to propositions as they occur in these changing cycles of time.” Ibid., 818.
AS HIS “SHARE OUR WEALTH” MESSAGE Ibid., 692–702.
A BANKER FROM MONTANA Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval, 65.
LAWRENCE DENNIS, A NATIVE OF GEORGIA Ibid., 76.
“I AM IN FAVOR” Ibid., 75–76. “No country has been better prepared for political and social standardization,” Dennis added. Ibid.
“UNDOUBTEDLY THE EASIEST” Ibid., 76–77.
WHEN ALEXANDER HAMILTON Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval, 27. A typical Coughlin message: “Christian parents, do you want your daughter to be the breeder of some lustful person’s desires, and, when the rose of her youth has withered, to be thrown upon the highways of Socialism?” he would ask. “Choose to-day! It is either Christ or the Red Fog of Communism.” Ibid., 17.
“I HAIL THESE MOVEMENTS” Ibid., 77.
HUGH S. JOHNSON, A RETIRED GENERAL Williams, Huey Long, 807–8.
“OUR SOLE HOPE” Ibid., 808.
THE NEW YORK GOVERNOR WAS “NOT A MAN” Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 47.
“FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT IS NO CRUSADER” Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 68.
“HE HAS SPOKEN OF” Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 51.
“WILD RADICALISM HAS MADE” Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago,” July 2, 1932, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=75174.
“TO MEET BY REACTION” Ibid.
“I PLEDGE YOU” Ibid.
“HIS IMPULSE” Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries: Churchill Reflects on FDR, Hitler, Kipling, Chaplin, Balfour, and Other Giants of His Age, ed. James W. Muller with Paul H. Courtenay and Erica L. Chenoweth (Wilmington, Del., 2012), 368.
(“MAMA LEFT THIS MORNING”) Ward, First-Class Temperament, 628.
HIS MARRIAGE SURVIVED Ibid., 411–17.
THE FORCE OF “A PHYSICAL BLOW” Jon Meacham, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (New York, 2003), 344.
“PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S PHYSICAL AFFLICTION” Ibid., 353.
LYNDON JOHNSON WEPT Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 355.
“HE WAS JUST LIKE A DADDY” Ibid.
“MEN WILL THANK GOD” Ibid., 354. See also “Franklin D. Roosevelt,” NYT, April 13, 1945. “It is a hard and stunning blow,” the Times wrote, “to lose the genius and the inspiration of his leadership in this decisive moment of the war….Gone is the exuberance and the enthusiasm and the indomitable courage that conquered the hardest of personal afflictions and the worst handicaps of physical misfortune. Gone is the fresh and spontaneous interest which this man took, as naturally as he breathed air, in the troubles and the hardships and the disappointments and the hopes of little men and humble people.” Ibid.