THIRTEEN

NOMINATION

I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people.

—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, JULY 2, 1932

THE DAY AFTER FDR’s reelection, James Farley, at Louis Howe’s instigation, threw the governor’s hat into the presidential ring. “I do not see how Mr. Roosevelt can escape becoming the next presidential nominee of his party,” Farley told a hastily assembled press conference, “even if no one should raise a finger to bring it about.”¹ Neither Howe nor Farley had cleared the announcement with FDR. Both were convinced it was time to strike, taking the tide of victory at the flood. If Roosevelt disagreed, he could repudiate them.

“I was in doubt as to how he would take it,” Farley recalled. But the worry proved groundless. When he reached FDR by phone in Albany, the governor laughed. “Whatever you said, Jim, is all right with me.”² Roosevelt immediately called reporters into his office and issued his own statement: “I am giving no consideration or thought or time to anything except the duties of Governorship. You can add that this applies to any candidacy, national or otherwise in 1932.”³ It was vintage Roosevelt. Publicly, Farley was disavowed; privately, he and Howe had been flashed a green light to proceed. Roosevelt was committed. “Eddie,” he confided to Bronx chieftain Edward J. Flynn, “I believe I can be nominated for the Presidency in 1932 on the Democratic ticket.”⁴

Roosevelt left day-to-day management of the campaign to Howe and Farley. Howe was FDR’s alter ego. He had little need to consult “the Boss” because after working with Franklin for twenty years he knew precisely what moves to make and when to make them. He was a backroom man without equal in Democratic politics, and his loyalty to Roosevelt was legendary. As Farley noted, “Louis Howe thought of nothing else during his waking hours other than how to secure the party’s nomination for the Governor.”⁵ For his part, Farley was the perfect complement, the outside man to Howe’s inside. A tall, jovial Irishman whose smooth skin and bald head made him resemble a peeled egg, Farley was a joiner, a mixer, and a glad-hander who never met a ward heeler he could not charm—and whose name he never forgot.⁶ Like Howe, he was unencumbered by ideology, other than partisan attachment to the Democratic party. Unlike Howe, he could work with anyone and was a master at grassroots political organization. They not only made a remarkable team, they liked each other. Farley, seventeen years younger, did not encroach on Howe’s role as FDR’s deputy, and Howe recognized the skill Farley brought to the effort.

While Howe and Farley busied themselves launching a letter-writing campaign on FDR’s behalf, Roosevelt focused on the economic crisis. By the winter of 1930–31, the nation and the State of New York had fallen into the trough of the Depression. Unemployment, which stood at 4 million in March 1930, zoomed to 8 million in March 1931. Desperate men selling apples appeared on urban street corners, breadlines stretched block after block, community soup kitchens ladled out thin porridge, and “Hoovervilles”—little settlements of tin shacks, abandoned autos, and discarded packing crates—were springing up in the dumps and railroad yards of big cities to house the dispossessed. Every week, every day, more workers joined the ranks of despair. Hoover responded in February 1931 by urging Americans to embrace the principles of local responsibility and mutual self-help. If we depart from those principles, said the president, we “have struck at the roots of self-government.”⁷

Confronted with the reluctance of federal authorities to take action, FDR summoned the New York legislature into special session. Breaking with the tradition of what economic historians call the “night watchman state,” Roosevelt asked the legislature to immediately appropriate $20 million to provide useful work where possible and, where such work could not be found, to provide the needy “with food against starvation and with clothing and shelter against suffering.”

In broad terms I assert that modern society, acting through its government, owes the definite obligation to prevent the starvation or dire want of any of its fellow men and women who try to maintain themselves but cannot.… To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government—not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty.⁸

Roosevelt’s speech to the legislature on August 28, 1931, marked the genesis of the New Deal. The term was not used: that would come in FDR’s acceptance speech the following year. But the idea that government had the definite responsibility—a “social duty”—to use the resources of the state to prevent distress and to promote the general welfare was first suggested at that time. The speech was written at Hyde Park by FDR and Sam Rosenman, and reflected how Roosevelt’s thinking had evolved.⁹ In addition to the $20 million relief package, the governor sought the establishment of a new state agency, the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), to distribute the funds. He also asked the legislature to raise personal income taxes by 50 percent to pay for the relief effort.^* New York was the first state to establish a relief agency, and TERA immediately became a model for other states—New Jersey, Rhode Island, Illinois—as well as a prototype for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, created by FDR in 1933.

To head TERA, Roosevelt obtained the services of Jesse Straus, president of R. H. Macy department stores, a lifelong Democrat and one of the most respected businessmen in the state. (Straus would later serve as FDR’s ambassador to France.) Straus was given a free hand to organize the agency. He chose as his executive director a forty-two-year-old social worker originally from Iowa, Harry L. Hopkins, who at the time was unknown to Roosevelt or to any of Roosevelt’s advisers. Hopkins was an inspired choice. A gifted administrator who proved he could deliver aid swiftly with a minimum of overhead, Hopkins gave the relief effort an intensity that propelled him to Roosevelt’s attention. When Straus resigned in the spring of 1932, FDR named Hopkins to succeed him. In the next six years TERA assisted some 5 million people—40 percent of the population of New York State—at a cost of $1.155 billion. At the end of that period, 70 percent of those helped had returned to the workforce.¹⁰

Roosevelt’s first skirmish for the presidential nomination erupted unexpectedly with the ultraconservative, Al Smith–appointed leadership of the Democratic National Committee. Acting on Smith’s behalf, party chairman John Jakob Raskob and his deputy, former Treasury assistant secretary Jouett Shouse, sought to preempt the 1932 Democratic platform by having the National Committee commit the party to the repeal of Prohibition and support for the hyperprotectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.^* Aside from staking out the ground to facilitate Smith’s renomination (Smith had already endorsed the tariff¹¹), Raskob and Shouse hoped to embarrass Roosevelt and drive a wedge between him and the rural wing of the party. Neither the chairman nor his deputy believed that FDR, as governor of New York, would dare break with Smith.¹² And to support the proposed platform, even to acquiesce and remain silent, would surely alienate those southern and western Democrats who were flirting with Franklin—men like Cordell Hull, Burton K. Wheeler, and Harry F. Byrd of Virginia—all of whom were militantly dry and even more vehemently antitariff.¹³

Raskob proved too clever by half. Instead of splitting Roosevelt from his potential southern and western supporters, the party chairman gave FDR the opportunity to consolidate his coalition. When news of Raskob’s preemptive plan leaked from Washington, Roosevelt placed himself at the head of the opposition. Hull feared that Raskob wanted to align the Democratic party with the economic policies of Herbert Hoover. Byrd was incensed at Smith’s power grab. Traditionally, party platforms are drafted at the national convention, and both Hull and Byrd asked Roosevelt to intervene. “I am appealing to you to prevent an action which I understand is contemplated by the National Democratic Committee,” wrote Byrd. “The Democratic Committee has no right to make a platform for the party,” he said. Byrd told Roosevelt the move would divide Democrats and pave the way for Hoover’s reelection. “I know you have the interests of the party at heart just as much as I have, and I feel you understand our Southern condition better than many other leaders. Prompt action on your part will be necessary.”¹⁴

Once again Roosevelt had been handed a golden opportunity. “You are absolutely right,” he wrote Byrd. “The Democratic National Committee has no authority, in any shape, manner or form, to pass on or recommend national issues or policies.”¹⁵

Before breaking with Smith, Roosevelt asked the party’s former nominee to rein Raskob in. “I do not know what the plans for next Thursday’s meeting of the National Committee are,” FDR wrote, “but the more I hear from different parts of the country, the more certain I am that it would be very contrary to the established powers and precedents of the National Committee, were they to pass resolutions of any kind affecting party policies at this time.”¹⁶ Smith did not reply but two days later held a press conference at which he declared he could see no objection to the National Committee expressing whatever opinion it wished.¹⁷

The battle lines were drawn. Having observed the amenities, Roosevelt opened fire. He instructed Farley to convene a special meeting of the New York State Democratic Committee in Albany on March 2. That morning, at a breakfast meeting in FDR’s bedroom, Louis Howe, Ed Flynn, and Farley drafted a resolution endorsing Roosevelt’s position that the National Committee had no authority to commit the party on any issue arising between conventions. The resolution was introduced by Flynn that afternoon and carried unanimously.¹⁸

With three days remaining before the National Committee would meet, Roosevelt, Farley, and Howe worked the phones, lining up proxies from committeemen who would not be present. When Farley took the train to Washington on March 4, he held enough proxies to defeat Raskob’s motions 2 to 1. Raskob recognized the inevitable, withdrew his proposals before a vote, and hunkered down before an onslaught of southern righteousness. Farley, seated next to Hull at the meeting to make a point, lay back and said nothing. “I think on the whole the meeting did no harm,” Roosevelt wrote Buffalo’s Norman Mack afterward. “The thing we must work for now is the avoidance of harsh words and no sulking in tents.”¹⁹

For Roosevelt, Raskob’s ill-fated maneuver proved a godsend. From that time on, Hull wrote in his Memoirs, the southern leaders took Roosevelt seriously and rallied round him as the one candidate who could deliver them from the Smith-Raskob alliance.²⁰ FDR shared the antitariff sentiments of the South and West, and on Prohibition he was damp: neither wet nor dry but in favor of leaving the question to the states. That was satisfactory to most southerners.²¹

While Farley dealt with the National Committee in Washington, Louis Howe worked to raise money for the fledgling campaign. FDR had not yet announced, but already contributions were flowing in. Old friends were first off the mark. In March 1931, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., William H. Woodin, and Frank C. Walker, a New York attorney, got the ball rolling with gifts of $5,000 [$60,000 currently] each. Herbert Lehman, Basil O’Connor, Jesse Straus, Ed Flynn, and Joseph P. Kennedy quickly followed suit. Sara chipped in her share, as did publisher Robert W. Bingham of the Louisville Courier-Journal (later FDR’s ambassador to Great Britain).^* The entertainment industry, represented by the moviemaker Harry M. Warner and Broadway impresario Eddie Dowling, did its share as well. James W. Gerard, who had defeated FDR for the Democratic senatorial nomination in 1914, was a particularly generous contributor, always ready to open his checkbook when a campaign payroll came due. Colonel Edward M. House, whose New York apartment was across the street from the Roosevelt home on East Sixty-fifth, was also an early contributor.²²

At the end of March, Jesse Straus commissioned a presidential poll of delegates and alternates who had attended the 1928 Democratic convention. Purportedly, Straus conducted the poll without FDR’s knowledge.²³ Opinion polling was in its infancy in 1931, and the results garnered front-page coverage throughout the country. Roosevelt was the undisputed front-runner. Of the forty-four states that responded, FDR led in thirty-nine.²⁴ Smith led in three (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware); Governor Albert C. Ritchie was Maryland’s favorite son, as was Senator Joseph T. Robinson in Arkansas. Among the 844 delegates who responded, Roosevelt was favored by 478; Smith by 125; the industrialist Owen D. Young of General Electric by 75; Ritchie by 39; Robinson by 38; and Newton D. Baker of Ohio, Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war, by 35.²⁵

Straus commissioned four more polls that spring among Democratic businessmen, bank presidents, and corporate directors. All showed Roosevelt well ahead—surprising, given FDR’s identification with the rural, progressive wing of the party and the conservative, probusiness stance of both Smith and Young. A nationwide survey by twenty-five Scripps-Howard newspapers that summer indicated that Roosevelt was not only the Democratic front-runner, but would defeat President Hoover in the general election.²⁶

Buoyed by Straus’s polls, Roosevelt decided it was time to troll for delegates. He asked Ed Flynn to be his emissary and undertake a cross-country tour to confer with party leaders. Flynn demurred. “I realized my own limitations. I was not an easy mixer. I was no greeter or hand-shaker. I felt I could do nothing effective by merely going into a state in which I knew no one.”²⁷ At Flynn’s suggestion, FDR turned to Farley. A born salesman and political drummer, Farley was the best possible delegate hunter Roosevelt could have chosen.^*

At the end of June 1931 Farley embarked on a whirlwind tour of eighteen states west of the Mississippi. The trip coincided with the annual convention of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, which was meeting that year in Seattle. Farley was an enthusiastic Elk, and the convention provided plausible cover for the journey. His itinerary was plotted by Roosevelt on a Rand-McNally map of the United States, and Howe provided the necessary introductions to national committeemen and state chairmen. The trip, Farley wrote later, “did more than anything else to give me a grip on national politics. I always look back upon it as a sort of graduation from the political minor league.”²⁸

In nineteen days, Farley met more than eleven hundred local Democratic leaders. The message he heard everywhere was the same: Democrats wanted a winner. Farley found a smattering of support for Young and Ritchie and a few ardent Catholics for Smith, but Roosevelt was the overwhelming favorite. “Farley,” said William Howes, the Democratic committeeman in South Dakota, “I’m damned tired of backing losers. In my opinion Roosevelt can sweep the country, and I’m going to support him.”²⁹

Farley passed the good news to Roosevelt. “I am satisfied, Governor, that the leaders want to be on the bandwagon. I have also discovered that there are a lot of Democratic candidates for Governor and state offices who believe there is a real chance of winning with you as the nominee, and they feel absolutely no hope if anyone else is named; so these potential candidates are your strongest boosters.”³⁰

While Farley cultivated Democrats in the West, FDR courted the South. That summer he hosted visiting delegations from Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee at Warm Springs and met repeatedly with Georgia’s governor, the young Richard Russell. “As far as the South goes,” said Senator William J. Harris of the Peach State, “it is all Roosevelt.”³¹ By the fall of 1931, Roosevelt had secured the support of Senators Pat Harrison of Mississippi, James Byrnes of South Carolina, and Cordell Hull of Tennessee. Georgia, which considered FDR an adopted son, was solid for Roosevelt, and the Democratic organization in Alabama leaned that way as well. “The situation is very odd and my friends in the South and West strongly advise me to let things drift,” FDR wrote his friend James Hoey in September, “as the great majority of States through their regular organizations are showing every friendliness towards me.”³²

If there was an Achilles heel in the Roosevelt campaign, it was the health issue. Already FDR’s opponents were circulating unfounded gossip concerning his condition. In April 1931 Time magazine joined the chorus, repeating the rumor that while Roosevelt might be mentally qualified for the presidency, he was “utterly unfit physically.”³³ FDR was jolted. He had undergone a rigorous physical examination by a bevy of insurance doctors six months before, and his health was excellent. Yet the whispering campaign continued. “I find that there is a deliberate attempt to create the impression that my health is such as would make it impossible for me to fulfill the duties of President,” he complained to his old friend Hamilton Miles. “I shall appreciate whatever my friends may have to say in their personal correspondence to dispel this perfectly silly piece of propaganda.”³⁴

Again, events played into Roosevelt’s hands. Earle Looker, a respected national journalist who just happened to be a Republican, challenged FDR to undergo a medical examination to prove “you are sufficiently recovered to assure your supporters that you could stand the strain of the Presidency.”³⁵

Roosevelt accepted the challenge immediately.³⁶ Dr. Lindsay R. Williams, director of the New York Academy of Medicine, was asked to select a panel of eminent physicians, including a brain specialist, to conduct the examination.^* In addition, Looker was invited to visit Albany unannounced and observe the governor whenever he wished and as often as he wished.

The panel examined Roosevelt at his East Sixty-fifth Street town house on April 29, 1931. “We have today carefully examined Governor Roosevelt,” they wired Looker. “We believe that his health and powers of endurance are such as to allow him to meet any demand of private and public life. We find that his organs and functions are sound in all respects. There is no anemia. The chest is exceptionally well developed, and the spinal column is absolutely normal; all its segments are in perfect alignment and free from disease. He has neither pain nor ache at any time.… Governor Roosevelt can walk all necessary distances and can maintain a standing position without fatigue.”³⁷

Looker’s personal observations coincided with the specialists’ findings. Three times he called on FDR unannounced and spent the day and part of the evening with him. “I observed him working and resting,” Looker wrote. “I noted the alertness of his movements, the sparkle of his eyes, the vigor of his gestures. I saw his strength under the strain of long working periods. Insofar as I had observed him, I came to the conclusion that he seemed able to take more punishment than many men ten years younger. Merely his knees were not much good to him.”^38†

During one of his unannounced visits Looker asked Eleanor if she thought FDR could stand the strain of the presidency.

“If the infantile paralysis didn’t kill him, the Presidency won’t,” ER replied.³⁹

Looker published the medical findings in Liberty magazine. At five cents a copy, Liberty was the nation’s leading mass-circulation journal, with Theodore Dreiser, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner occasionally gracing its weekly pages. “From the specialist examination, as well as from my own observation,” wrote Looker, “I am able to say unhesitatingly that every rumor of Franklin Roosevelt’s physical incapacity can be unqualifiedly defined as false.”⁴⁰ For the Roosevelt campaign, Looker’s article could not have been more opportune. Howe ordered 200,000 reprints, sending a copy to every name on the numerous mailing lists Farley had assembled.

Throughout the autumn of 1931 Farley and Howe continued their canvassing for delegates; FDR rested briefly at Warm Springs; and Raskob and Shouse took another run at the platform. At the end of November the party chairman announced he was polling the 90,000 contributors to the 1928 campaign on the question of Prohibition preparatory to the next meeting of the Democratic National Committee on January 9, 1932.⁴¹ It was a rerun of the March 5 battle, with Farley scurrying for proxies and forcing Raskob to back down once again. With Roosevelt’s southern and western allies in firm control of the National Committee, Chicago was selected as the site of the 1932 convention.^* In an even more impressive display of muscle, Robert Jackson of New Hampshire, a staunch Roosevelt supporter, was elected to the vacant position of national secretary—Farley’s first but very obvious move to wrest control of the party machinery from Raskob.⁴²

On Saturday, January 23, 1932, FDR announced his candidacy—carefully timed to gain maximum coverage in the nation’s Sunday-morning newspapers.⁴³ The announcement coincided with the Democratic Territorial Convention in Alaska, which had just instructed its six delegates to the National Convention to vote for Roosevelt under the unit rule.⁴⁴ Alaska was the first jurisdiction to select delegates in 1932, and Farley had taken pains to ensure the Roosevelt campaign launched on a high note.⁴⁵ The following week, county caucuses met in Washington State and instructed delegates to the state convention to back Roosevelt, who won all sixteen votes.

Roosevelt’s quick success energized the opposition. Al Smith announced his availability on February 6. He would not campaign for the nomination, said Smith, but “If the Democratic National Convention, after careful consideration, should decide it wants me to lead I will make the fight.”⁴⁶ Raskob and Shouse, heading their own Stop Roosevelt movement, encouraged states to send uninstructed delegations to Chicago or to back favorite sons. There was no way to defeat Roosevelt before the convention, but it might be possible to deny him the two-thirds vote necessary for nomination. When Farley announced Roosevelt’s candidacy on January 23, he claimed that FDR had the solid support of 678 delegates—a thumping majority but still 92 short of the 770 that would be required.⁴⁷ If the anti-Roosevelt forces could prevent a first-ballot victory, they might deadlock the Convention and force a compromise choice. The logic of the Stop Roosevelt movement carried a built-in incentive for favorite sons to join the race. If the Convention deadlocked, any one of them might emerge as the nominee.

For Roosevelt it was a question of momentum: Could he roll up delegates fast enough to prevent favorite sons from sprouting in the hinterland? In 1932 seventeen states chose delegates through presidential primaries; the others used various forms of conventions. After Washington, the next state to choose was Oklahoma, which in convention instructed its twenty-two delegates to vote for its governor, “Alfalfa Bill” Murray, a rustic Plains populist—Will Rogers without the humor—who had no chance of winning the nomination but who might eat into FDR’s strength in the West.

The first primary state was New Hampshire, on March 6, where Roosevelt and Smith went head to head. The Northeast was considered Al Smith country, and the Happy Warrior anticipated an easy victory.⁴⁸ Instead, it was a landslide for Roosevelt—with all the attendant publicity. Howe and Farley, aiming for a knockout, spent more money in New Hampshire than any other state. Roosevelt was supported by the state Democratic organization and cruised to victory with 61.7 percent of the vote, taking all eight delegates. FDR’s margin of victory might have been even larger had not a late-winter blizzard in the northern part of the state reduced voter turnout. Four days after the sweep in New Hampshire, FDR carried the Minnesota convention, winning all twenty-four delegates and prompting Smith’s supporters to storm out, hold a rump session, and pick a rival delegation. This was little concern to Farley and Howe since Roosevelt would have a clear majority in Chicago, and when push came to shove the Roosevelt Minnesota delegation would be seated.⁴⁹

North Dakota voted next. Smith was not on the ballot (his campaign manager failed to file the necessary petitions), but Governor Murray had qualified and Alfalfa Bill was expected to do well, his plainspoken appeal falling on receptive farm belt ears. “Roosevelt may have the politicians,” Murray told his brother George, a North Dakota farmer, “but I will have the people.”⁵⁰

This was the first face-off between Roosevelt and Murray, and FDR went all out. He dragooned Senator Burton K. Wheeler from nearby Montana to spearhead his campaign,⁵¹ relied on the state organization to turn out the vote, and vowed to provide emergency relief for western farmers if elected. Like New Hampshire, North Dakota was another landslide. Roosevelt polled 62.1 percent of the vote and won nine of the state’s ten delegates. Equally significant, voter turnout was three times greater than expected, suggesting that large numbers of Republicans had crossed over to vote in the Democratic primary.⁵² The size of FDR’s victories in New Hampshire and North Dakota reflected not only his attractiveness as a candidate but the finely crafted campaign organization Howe and Farley had put together. They did not miss filing deadlines, they worked closely with Democratic leaders in states that were friendly, and they did not forget the precinct workers in the trenches.^* Roosevelt faced Murray again in Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, and Florida and won by increasingly lopsided margins.

FDR’s momentum continued. The week after North Dakota went to the polls, Georgia gave Roosevelt a resounding 8-to-1 victory against a stand-in favorite son.⁵³ FDR captured all twenty-eight delegates and carried Warm Springs 218–1. The following week Iowa and Maine met in convention. The Stop Roosevelt forces had been active in both states, and there was substantial support for sending uncommitted delegations to Chicago. Farley made a special trip to Davenport to keep the Iowans in line, and Robert Jackson intervened in Maine.⁵⁴ Both states voted to send delegations to Chicago pledged to Roosevelt.

“We always looked back upon March 29 as a red-letter day for the Roosevelt candidacy, if not the turning point of the entire campaign,” wrote Farley. “Iowa gave us twenty-six votes and Maine twelve. Those two states are far apart on the map—their people have little in common politically. When they took similar action on the same day, it demonstrated to us and to the country that Roosevelt had nationwide appeal.”⁵⁵

Missouri and Maryland also met in convention at the end of March. As expected, Missouri voted to send its thirty-six delegates to Chicago pledged to its favorite son, former senator James M. Reed. In 1928, Missouri had supported Reed down the line, but this time he was a stalking horse for the real boss of Missouri politics, Tom Pendergast. “Pendergast assured me,” a Roosevelt scout wrote Howe, “that he informed Senator Reed that he might have the Missouri delegation as a complimentary vote until it was needed by Roosevelt.” At that time Pendergast said he would cast Missouri’s vote as a unit for FDR.⁵⁶

Maryland, also as expected, chose to support its favorite son, Governor Albert C. Ritchie. Unlike Reed, or Murray for that matter, Ritchie was a serious candidate who was hoping for a convention deadlock. A probusiness Democrat, Ritchie had been governor of Maryland since 1920. He opposed government intervention in the economy (“Let natural forces take their course, as free and untrammeled as possible”) and was the beau ideal of the party’s conservatives.⁵⁷ As The New York Times reported, “Governor Ritchie is looked upon as the candidate to whom the anti-Roosevelt forces may rally if they can delay Governor Roosevelt’s nomination.”⁵⁸

Maryland was the first state to defect from the Roosevelt column. But the loss was offset the following day, when Arkansas senator Joseph T. Robinson withdrew from the race. Robinson told supporters he did not wish to contribute to another deadlocked convention. Left without its favorite son, Arkansas chose an uninstructed delegation, which gave Roosevelt all eighteen votes under the unit rule.

With the campaign unfolding as planned—actually, better than planned—Roosevelt considered the future. Howe and Farley were unexcelled as political managers but had little interest in policy. That deficiency would become a problem unless it was fixed. Sam Rosenman suggested that FDR tap the universities. “You have been having good experiences with college professors. If we can get a small group together willing to give us some time, they can prepare memoranda for you. You’ll want to talk with them yourself, and maybe out of all the talk some concrete ideas will come.”⁵⁹

Roosevelt was intrigued. Did Rosenman have anyone in mind? he asked. Rosenman suggested Raymond Moley at Columbia. “He believes in your social philosophy and objectives, and he has a clear and forceful style of writing.” Roosevelt agreed. “We’ll have to keep this whole thing pretty quiet,” he told Rosenman. “Do you think these professors can be trusted not to talk about it on the outside? If it gets into the papers too soon it might be bad.”⁶⁰

Roosevelt thought it over while Rosenman wheeled him into his bedroom for the night. FDR shifted himself from his wheelchair to his bed. “Well,” he said, “we’ll just have to take our chances on that.”⁶¹

Raymond Moley was a Columbia political science professor who specialized in criminal justice. FDR had appointed him to the Governor’s Commission on the Administration of Justice, and from time to time Moley had drafted policy statements for Roosevelt on judicial reform. In that capacity he had worked with Rosenman, and it was natural that Rosenman should have suggested him. Among academics, Moley was an organizer and manager, not a scholar, and he became, in Arthur Schlesinger’s words, a “ringmaster of the experts,” a middleman for their ideas.⁶² When approached by Rosenman, Moley not only accepted but recommended a number of his colleagues who might be willing to contribute. Two who made the cut were Rexford G. Tugwell and Adolf A. Berle.^* Tugwell’s specialty was agriculture, and he was highly regarded as an articulate, original thinker who liked to shock his audience and often succeeded. Berle had been a child prodigy, graduating from Harvard Law School at twenty-one. He was now thirty-seven and a star at Columbia’s law school, where he was the resident expert on corporate finance.⁶³ Joining the group were FDR’s law partner Basil “Doc” O’Connor and Rosenman. Roosevelt called the group his privy council. James Kieran, writing in The New York Times, referred to it as “FDR’s brains trust.”⁶⁴ That name, shortened to “brain trust,” stuck. Roosevelt did not use the brain trust, or privy council, to provide him with new ideas. He engaged its members to flesh out, articulate, and refine the position he had come to embrace: a readiness to use the power of government to redress the economic ills from which the nation suffered.⁶⁵

The first product of the brain trust was Roosevelt’s “forgotten man” speech of April 7, 1932. Roosevelt was scheduled to speak for ten minutes coast to coast on NBC’s Lucky Strike Hour, sponsored by the American Tobacco Company. He told Moley he wanted something that would address the economic problems confronting the nation. Written jointly by FDR, Moley, and Rosenman at the executive mansion, the speech was a shot across the bow of the nation’s economic conservatives.⁶⁶ Roosevelt excoriated the Hoover administration for attacking the symptoms of the Depression, not the cause. “It has sought temporary relief from the top down rather than permanent relief from the bottom up. These unhappy times call for the building of plans that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”⁶⁷

The following week Roosevelt carried the message to the Democratic party’s Jefferson Day dinner in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The economic problem was national in scope, said FDR, and required “imaginative and purposeful planning.”⁶⁸ Roosevelt’s final speech before the convention was delivered at Oglethorpe University in Georgia on May 22, 1932.^* “Must the country remain hungry and jobless while raw materials stand unused and factories idle?” he asked. “The country needs, the country demands, bold, persistent experimentation. Take a method and try it. If it fails admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”⁶⁹

When the convention met on June 27, Roosevelt was still about 100 votes short of the 770 needed for the nomination. Except for the Yankee Kingdom (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont), he had lost the Northeast to Smith; the delegations from New York and Pennsylvania were split; and in Virginia, Harry F. Byrd, anticipating that lightning might strike, had emerged as a favorite son. In the heartland, Ohio’s 52 votes were locked in behind its governor, George White—presumably a stand-in for Newton D. Baker; Illinois, with 58 votes, was backing its favorite son, Senator J. Hamilton Lewis; and Indiana’s delegation (30 votes) was uncommitted. The biggest obstacle—also the biggest surprise—lay in the West, where Texas and California (a total of 90 votes) were bound to House Speaker John Nance Garner.^* Add Ritchie in Maryland and Murray in Oklahoma, and the recipe for a deadlocked convention seemed at hand. The key, as Roosevelt confided to Josephus Daniels, lay in the votes committed to Garner. If he could secure them, said FDR, that “would cinch the matter.”⁷⁰

“The brethren sniff the scent of battle,” H. L. Mencken wrote as the delegates descended on Chicago. “The air will be full of hair and ears within twenty-four hours. God save the Republic.”⁷¹ The new Chicago Stadium, where the convention would meet, dwarfed Madison Square Garden and was the first indoor arena to provide an unobstructed view from every seat. Twenty-five thousand people could be accommodated in the galleries and another six thousand on the floor. And the stadium was air-conditioned—not necessarily a good omen to those who traditionally counted on the summer heat to break a convention deadlock.⁷²

Farley and Ed Flynn went to Chicago a week early to set up Roosevelt headquarters, stroke delegates as they arrived, and keep watch over the three principal committees of the convention: Rules, Credentials, and the Platform. Given their overall majority, the Roosevelt forces controlled all three, but there were any number of problems that might arise. “I was aware that the national political field was a new one for me and that one bad slip might prove my undoing,” said Farley.⁷³

Flynn said, “We were green at national politics. When Farley and I set off for Chicago we confessed to each other that we felt pretty new at this game.”⁷⁴

Their inexperience showed quickly. On Thursday, June 23, Farley convened a strategy session attended by sixty or so leaders in the Roosevelt camp. “Almost before we realized what was taking place,” Farley later recalled, “the meeting was stampeded into taking hasty and ill-advised action.” Prodded by Senators Huey Long, Burton K. Wheeler, and Cordell Hull, with Josephus Daniels putting in his oar, the conclave voted unanimously to seek abolition of the two-thirds rule—that sacrosanct principle of Democratic conventions since Andrew Jackson first called the party together in 1832.⁷⁵ “The incident hit me like a blow on the nose,” Farley confessed.⁷⁶

Pro-Roosevelt delegates from the cotton belt were apoplectic. Senator Josiah W. Bailey of North Carolina told Farley that FDR had put his entire southern support at risk. Pat Harrison, who was holding Mississippi for Roosevelt by a single vote, called the proposal “foolhardy and asinine.” John Sharp Williams, the grand old man of Southern Democracy, waded in from Yazoo City: “The two-thirds rule has been for a century the South’s defense,” he telegraphed friends at the convention. “It would be idiotic on her part to surrender it.”⁷⁷

With his coalition in danger of falling apart, Roosevelt threw in the towel. In a statement that Farley released to the convention, FDR said he thought the two-thirds rule was undemocratic and should be abolished. “Nevertheless, the issue was not raised until after the delegates to the Convention had been selected, and I decline to permit either myself or my friends to be open to the accusation of poor sportsmanship.… I am accordingly asking my friends in Chicago to cease their activities to secure the adoption of the majority nominating rule.”⁷⁸

The first day of the convention was sawdust and sideshow. Senator Alben Barkley of Kentucky, the temporary chairman, treated delegates to a two-hour stemwinder—one of the longest keynote addresses on record. “It had to be a long speech,” Will Rogers quipped. “When you start enumerating the things the Republicans have got away with in the last twelve years you have cut yourself out a job.”⁷⁹ The initial test of strength came on day two, when the convention considered the report of the Credentials Committee and chose a permanent chairman. The credentials of the Louisiana, Minnesota, and Puerto Rico delegations were being challenged by the Stop Roosevelt forces. To lose would not only deprive FDR of the fifty votes involved; it would shift the momentum of the Convention against him.⁸⁰

In all three instances the Credentials Committee had voted to seat the pro-Roosevelt delegations. But a floor fight loomed. Louisiana was first. Long, often predisposed to buffoonery, played it straight and delivered a masterly presentation. Clarence Darrow, Chicago’s renowned trial lawyer, said it was “one of the greatest summaries of fact and evidence” he had ever heard.⁸¹ A hush settled over Chicago Stadium as the clerk called the roll of the states. Alabama, Arizona, and Arkansas cast forty-eight votes for Long. California answered with forty-four against. The count seesawed until Michigan, Minnesota, and Mississippi put Long ahead. Roosevelt’s lines were holding. The final tally was 638¾–514¼ to seat the Long delegation. Farley later called it “the most vital moment of the Convention.”⁸² The Minnesota and Puerto Rico delegations were seated in due course by even larger margins.⁸³

When it came time to choose a permanent chairman, the Roosevelt forces were in firm control. The organization candidate for the post was Raskob’s deputy, Jouett Shouse—whose opposition to Roosevelt was a matter of record. Senator Wheeler had warned FDR several months before the convention that if Shouse became the permanent chairman, “You will never be nominated.” Farley said, “Mr. Shouse had permitted his zeal in opposing the Governor to bias his actions.”⁸⁴ As an alternative the Roosevelt camp chose to support Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana. Walsh had chaired the marathon 1924 convention with remarkable evenhandedness and had become a Democratic idol for his role spearheading the Senate’s Teapot Dome investigation. The vote was tight, but Roosevelt’s ranks held. When Michigan was called, Walsh took the lead and ultimately defeated Shouse 626–528. “It was a fight to the death,” Ed Flynn recalled. “Moreover, we had the moral advantage because every delegate in the hall knew that Walsh would be eminently fair. His decisions certainly could not, (and, in fact, were not) called into question.”⁸⁵

On day three the convention turned to the platform. The issue was Prohibition. Since the Civil War, no question had been more divisive for Democrats. The struggle between wets and drys had sent the convention of 1924 into 103 ballots, had helped defeat Al Smith in 1928, and now loomed ominously before Roosevelt. The Republicans (who also met in Chicago) had straddled the issue by endorsing state option. “It is not a plank,” jeered Barkley in his keynote. “It is a promiscuous agglomeration of scrap lumber.”⁸⁶

The mood of the country had changed, influenced perhaps by the Depression. A popular poll by Literary Digest found majorities for the repeal of Prohibition in every state except Kansas and North Carolina.⁸⁷ In Democratic primaries, dry candidates were falling in droves before wet challengers. Even John D. Rockefeller, a lifelong teetotaler who had funded the Anti-Saloon League, called for repeal. “It is my profound conviction that the benefits of the Eighteenth Amendment are more than outweighed by the evils that have developed and flourished since its adoption,” said Rockefeller.⁸⁸

For the Stop Roosevelt forces, the repeal of Prohibition seemed tailor-made to embarrass FDR. Much of Roosevelt’s support came from traditionally dry areas in the South and West. With the country shouting for repeal, would he buck the tide and side with his dry supporters? Alternatively, would he back repeal and offend them? The issue before the convention was the plank recommended by the Platform Committee that called for outright repeal, versus the minority plank passing the question to the states.

FDR refused to be drawn in. “Vote as you wish,” Farley instructed the Roosevelt delegations. FDR said he would be happy to run on whatever platform the convention adopted. In the free vote that followed, Democrats voted for repeal 934–213. “Early this morning,” Arthur Krock reported in The New York Times, “the Democratic party went as wet as the seven seas.”^89*

For Al Smith and Governor Ritchie, the vote on repeal rekindled their campaigns. Both had departed from convention tradition to appear at the rostrum and urge adoption of the majority plank. The tumultuous demonstration for Smith—heartfelt and genuine—surprised even the most hardened old pols. Whether the Happy Warrior could convert that sentiment into delegates’ votes was on everyone’s mind as they left the stadium, eager for the afternoon session when the nominations would begin.

As the convention unfolded, Roosevelt stayed close by the telephone in Albany. Howe and Flynn kept in constant contact with FDR over a direct line in Howe’s hotel suite, while Farley marshaled the forces on the floor. From time to time Farley would bring delegates in to talk to Roosevelt. “These conversations were carried on at all hours of the day and night,” Flynn recalled. Occasionally a rudimentary speakerphone was rigged up and FDR would talk to an entire state delegation (“My friends from Nebraska …”). There was no question who was calling the shots for the campaign. All major decisions were made in Albany. “In most matters,” said Flynn, “we found it wise to get Roosevelt’s judgment. We did nothing without first consulting him.”⁹⁰

The nominating session convened at 3 P.M. Thursday, June 30. More than three thousand delegates and alternates crammed the convention floor, waiting for the oratory to begin. Since Farley’s team dominated the Arrangements Committee, the Roosevelt delegations enjoyed prime seating. “We put California behind New York and both of them a half mile away from Texas,” said Roosevelt floor leader Arthur Mullen. The galleries, on the other hand, were controlled by Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who packed them with anyone-but-Roosevelt partisans. FDR’s supporters received only one hundred of the twenty-five thousand passes available.⁹¹

When the clerk called the roll, Alabama yielded to New York, and Judge John E. Mack of Poughkeepsie, FDR’s old political mentor, made his way to the podium to nominate Roosevelt. When he concluded, thirty-four state delegations and six of seven territories flooded the aisles, standards aloft, chanting for Roosevelt. Giant FDR banners unfurled from the rafters, and the organist broke into “Anchors Aweigh,” Roosevelt’s theme song. “Sounds like a funeral march to me,” said Ed Flynn, who was in Howe’s suite listening to the demonstration. “Why don’t we get something peppy for them to play, like ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’?” Howe agreed and sent word to the stadium.⁹²

From that moment on, “Happy Days” would forever be identified with Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Written by Jack Yellen and Milton Ager for the 1929 Hollywood musical Chasing Rainbows, it captured the robust optimism that Roosevelt exuded. As delegates sang and danced, James Roosevelt, FDR’s oldest son, grabbed the New York standard and joined the parade, “charging down the aisles like a sophomore storming the goal posts of a rival college after his team had won,” said Raymond Daniell in The New York Times.⁹³

Garner was nominated by Senator Tom Connally, and the organist belted out “The Eyes of Texas” and “California, Here I Come” as the Texas and California delegations trooped the hall. Then Al Smith, “The Sidewalks of New York,” and another emotional demonstration as the convention paid homage to its former standard-bearer. “The Smith demonstration was the realest thing in the convention,” wrote Kansas City editor William Allen White.⁹⁴

After Smith was nominated, the convention took a three-hour dinner break. On his way back to the convention after the recess, Farley paid a goodwill visit to Garner headquarters and spoke with Sam Rayburn, the Speaker’s manager in Chicago. It was not the first time they had talked. Farley had dangled the vice presidency before, and now made the offer. “This is the time,” he told Rayburn. “I know positively that we can bring about his [Garner’s] nomination.”

Rayburn asked Farley what would be necessary.

“Have the Texas delegation record its vote for Garner on the first ballot, and then before the result is announced switch to Roosevelt.”

Rayburn declined. “We’ve got a lot of people up here from Texas who’ve never been to a convention before, and they’ve got to vote for Garner a few times. How many ballots can you hold your lines without breaking?”

“Three ballots,” said Farley. “Four, maybe five.”

“Well,” Rayburn replied, “we must let the convention go on for a while, even if we are interested in the Vice-Presidency, and I’m not saying that we are.”⁹⁵

When the convention resumed, six favorite sons were placed in nomination, concluding at 3 A.M. with Alfalfa Bill Murray and a fourteen-minute demonstration led by the Girls Kiltie Band of Ardmore, Oklahoma. Seconding speeches followed, the anti-Roosevelt forces stretching the festivities out as long as possible. For Farley, whose majority gave him the whip hand, the question was whether to adjourn or go directly to the balloting. He placed a call to Albany. “Go to it, Jim,” FDR replied.

“The sound of his strong, reassuring voice was like a tonic for jangled nerves,” Farley recalled.⁹⁶ At 4:28 A.M. the convention clerk stepped to the microphone and began to call the roll. At this point, both sides welcomed the showdown. Smith believed that Roosevelt’s support was skin deep and that after the first ballot his delegates would bolt. Farley thought FDR would win on the first ballot as state delegations, recognizing how close Roosevelt was, would jump on the bandwagon.

Roosevelt listened to the balloting from his sitting room in Albany. “We presented a strange picture,” Sam Rosenman remembered. Eleanor and Sara were there.^* Young Elliott, his ear next to the radio, was sound asleep. Missy and Grace Tully were also asleep. Mrs. Rosenman was sitting on the floor dozing. But FDR was wide awake. From time to time he would look at the acceptance speech he and Rosenman were working on but could not concentrate. Rosenman left the room at one point to try drafting the peroration. “When I handed him the scrap of paper on which the few paragraphs had been written he said he thought they were all right.” Neither considered the words especially memorable.⁹⁷

The first ballot went quickly enough. Roosevelt’s support held firm, and the opposition remained scattered. The final tally showed FDR with 666 votes—more than three times as many as his nearest rival but 104 short of victory. Smith ran second with 201, Garner third with 90, followed by the six favorite sons, who split the remainder. The count was almost exactly what Farley had anticipated. What he did not anticipate was that no delegation switched before the result was announced. “I sat there fully expecting that some state would switch and announce its support for the majority candidate. But nothing happened. I was bitterly disappointed.”⁹⁸

The second ballot began at 5:17 A.M. and was not completed until 8:05—the longest ballot on record at any Democratic convention as various state delegations asked to be polled individually. Roosevelt’s total crept up to 677, Smith’s fell back to 194, but still there was no break. Arthur Mullen, Farley’s deputy on the floor, moved adjournment. But the opposition sensed that FDR had peaked and pressed for a third ballot. A voice vote on the motion to adjourn was inconclusive. Walsh told Mullen that if he put the motion to a roll call, it would likely lose and the momentum would shift against Roosevelt.⁹⁹ Mullen withdrew the motion, and the convention settled in for the third ballot.

“Watch this one closely,” Farley told New Hampshire’s Robert Jackson. “It will show whether I can ever go back to New York or not.”¹⁰⁰

For FDR, the third ballot was crucial. Farley had told Rayburn that the Roosevelt lines would hold for three ballots, but there was no way of knowing. Any decline would be fatal. Already the delegations from Iowa and Minnesota were restive, and the shift of a few votes under the unit rule could cost Roosevelt those states. The greatest worry was the South, especially Mississippi, where the conservative establishment, led by Governor Sennet Conner, much preferred Newton D. Baker to FDR. Senator Pat Harrison, an old blue blood himself, was holding the Magnolia State for Roosevelt by the slender margin of 10½ to 9½. If Mississippi defected, there was no question that Arkansas would follow.

“We got in touch with Huey Long,” said Ed Flynn. “We put the entire responsibility on Long to see to it that there was no break in these two tottering states.”¹⁰¹ Long stormed into the midst of the Mississippi delegation. He threatened. He cajoled. He bullied. He shook his fist in Governor Conner’s face: “If you break the unit rule, you sonofabitch, I’ll go into Mississippi and break you.”¹⁰² There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Kingfish not only could but would do so.^* Mississippi and Arkansas held fast on the third ballot, Roosevelt picked up five more votes, Garner gained eleven, and Smith dropped four. At 9:15 on Friday morning the convention adjourned until evening. “There is no question in my mind,” Flynn wrote afterward, “but that without Long’s work Roosevelt might not have been nominated.”¹⁰³

The convention was on the verge of deadlock. Roosevelt’s ranks were holding, Smith was in until the bitter end, and the favorite sons believed they were sitting pretty. The key to breaking the stalemate lay in the ninety votes pledged to Garner. The principal players were now Sam Rayburn and the powerful chairman of the California delegation, William Gibbs McAdoo.

At Farley’s request, Pat Harrison tracked Rayburn down and arranged a meeting in Harrison’s suite. Harrison and Rayburn were friends of long standing in Washington.

“What shall we offer them?” asked Farley.

“Anything they want,” Harrison replied.¹⁰⁴

Rayburn brought Silliman Evans, the manager of Garner’s headquarters, with him to the meeting. “Without wasting much time shadow boxing, we got down to business,” Farley recalled. “Once again I stated my opinion we could swing the vice-presidential nomination for Speaker Garner if Texas threw in their lot in with us.” Pat Harrison urged Rayburn to accept. “Neither Sam nor Silliman needed much convincing,” said Farley. The conference lasted only a few moments.

“We’ll see what can be done,” said Rayburn as he stood to leave. No explicit commitment was made, but Farley and Harrison both recognized that a deal had been struck. “I was elated,” Farley wrote. “There wasn’t a doubt in the world that they intended to release their delegates and swing the convention for Governor Roosevelt.”¹⁰⁵

At the same time Farley was meeting with Rayburn, Cordell Hull and Daniel Roper of South Carolina were calling on McAdoo, another old friend. “We felt that if we could win California’s support for Roosevelt the victory would be gained,” said Hull.¹⁰⁶ Roper, who had been commissioner of internal revenue when McAdoo was secretary of the Treasury, asked the Californian whether he would be interested in returning to Washington as secretary of state? Roper was freelancing and had no authority from Farley or anyone else to make such an offer. Fortunately, McAdoo was not interested. No, he told his guests, he did not wish anything for himself. But he was not averse to switching horses. The last thing McAdoo wanted was another deadlocked convention. If Roosevelt would name Garner as his running mate and give McAdoo veto power over who was to be secretary of state and secretary of the Treasury, he would shift California’s vote behind FDR on the fourth ballot. He did not wish to suggest anyone for those places, said McAdoo, but he did want to ensure that they were filled with progressives.¹⁰⁷

McAdoo insisted that Roper put the terms directly to FDR in Albany. “I’ll do this only upon certain assurances that he [Roosevelt] must give through you and no one else.” Roper reported back to Howe, who placed the call to FDR. “I took the telephone and explained the conditions,” said Roper. “Governor Roosevelt gave me the required assurances over the telephone.”¹⁰⁸

At 3 P.M. Chicago time Garner called Rayburn from Washington and made it official. “Sam,” he said, “I think it is time to break this thing up. Roosevelt is the choice of the Convention. He has had a majority on three ballots. We don’t want to be responsible for wrecking the party’s chances. The nomination ought to be made on the next roll call.”¹⁰⁹

Both Rayburn and McAdoo ran into considerable roughhouse when they caucused their delegations. Diehards in the Texas delegation wanted to continue the fight. Rayburn eventually forced a vote and carried the motion to support Roosevelt 54–51, leaving some important Texas noses out of joint. McAdoo found even tougher going when he called the California delegation together. He too eventually prevailed, but never put the question to a vote.¹¹⁰ McAdoo graciously suggested to Rayburn that when the roll was called, California yield to Texas and allow the Lone Star State to lead the switch. Rayburn said that would cause even more hard feelings in his delegation and told McAdoo to announce the decision.¹¹¹

Unaware of these developments, the Stop Roosevelt forces looked to the balloting with increasing confidence. Mississippi seemed to have crumbled despite Huey Long’s efforts, and there were rumors of defection in North Carolina and Iowa. There was increasing talk of Baker, the compromise candidate waiting in the wings. Some of Roosevelt’s closest associates had not been told of Garner’s switch. Rexford Tugwell and Harry Hopkins, who shared a cab to the stadium, looked as if they were going to a funeral.¹¹²

Shortly after eight o’clock Friday evening, July 1, 1932, the clerk began to call the roll for the fourth ballot. “Alabama, 24 votes for Roosevelt.” Arizona, Arkansas, the ranks were holding. Then California. McAdoo asked Chairman Tom Walsh for permission to explain the California vote. An eerie silence settled over Chicago Stadium as McAdoo made his way to the platform. “California came here to nominate a President of the United States,” he said. “She did not come here to deadlock this Convention.” Roosevelt delegates went wild. The organ struck up “Happy Days Are Here Again” followed by “California, Here I Come.” The Texas standard joined the parade. When order was eventually restored, McAdoo resumed: “The great state of Texas and the great state of California [sustained cheering] are acting in accordance with what we believe is best for America and best for the Democratic party. California casts its forty-four votes for Franklin D. Roosevelt.”¹¹³

Listening to the radio in Albany, FDR leaned back and grinned: “Good old McAdoo!” By announcing that Texas would also be making the switch, McAdoo had broken the deadlock. The bandwagon rush began. When Illinois was called, Mayor Cermak announced the combined strength of Illinois and Indiana—eighty-eight votes—“for the next President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt.” Governor Ritchie personally announced Maryland’s switch to FDR. Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma came on board. As the alphabet neared the end, Governor Byrd came to the podium to announce Virginia’s switch.

At 10:32 P.M., Walsh announced the final tally: 945 votes for Roosevelt, 190 for Smith, who refused to concede. “Franklin D. Roosevelt having received more than two-thirds of all the delegates voting, I proclaim him the nominee of this Convention.”¹¹⁴

Walsh’s next announcement stunned the stadium. It was a telegram from Roosevelt saying he wished to fly to Chicago the next day to accept the nomination.¹¹⁵ When the cheering subsided, the organist sent the delegates back to their hotels to the tune of “Onward Christian Soldiers”—a tune not heard at Democratic conventions since the heyday of William Jennings Bryan.

“Mr. Roosevelt enters the campaign with a burden on each shoulder,” H. L. Mencken wrote in the Baltimore Evening Sun. “The first is the burden of his own limitations. He is one of the most charming of men, but like many another very charming man he leaves on the beholder the impression that he is also somewhat shallow and futile. The burden on his other shoulder is even heavier. It is the burden of party disharmony.” Mencken said Chicago bookies were offering 5-to-1 odds that Governor Ritchie, if nominated, would beat Hoover. When FDR got the nomination, they offered 5 to 1 that Hoover would win.¹¹⁶

Roosevelt’s decision to fly to Chicago electrified the nation.¹¹⁷ Tradition held that the Democratic and Republican nominees be formally notified in their hometowns by a delegation of party notables a month or so after the convention. By smashing precedent and going to Chicago, Roosevelt was demonstrating a spirit of urgency that a dispirited country could embrace. He was also demonstrating remarkable physical courage and stamina. In 1932, air travel was still considered hazardous. Knute Rockne, the nation’s most celebrated football coach, had recently died in a plane crash. Navigation aids were rudimentary, planes were primitively underpowered, and pilots had little to fall back on if they encountered heavy weather. In statistical terms, people flying in 1932 were two hundred times more likely to be killed than passengers forty years later.¹¹⁸

American Airlines had but one flight a day out of Albany, and it went to Cleveland. To accommodate Roosevelt, the airline pulled a Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor plane from the Dallas to Los Angeles run.^* As an American spokesman said, “People were afraid to fly. To get a governor on a plane might help spread a little confidence. That’s why we were willing to go to so much trouble.”¹¹⁹

Roosevelt’s party, an unlucky thirteen, included Eleanor, sons Elliott and John, Missy LeHand, Grace Tully, Earl Miller, Gus Gennerich, and Sam Rosenman, plus pilots and crew. “There were storms all around us,” said one of the pilots. “Flying up against the prevailing winds at that low altitude was rough, and that Ford was like a balloon.” The pilots prepared for an emergency landing in Rochester, but the weather broke slightly and they pressed on, refueling in Buffalo and Cleveland. At 4:30 the little plane landed at Chicago’s Municipal Airport, eight hours on the button after its departure from Albany. In the interim, John Garner had been nominated by acclamation for vice president, Farley bringing the Roosevelt delegations into line without a murmur.

Shortly after 6 P.M. Chairman Walsh introduced Roosevelt amidst a thunderous ovation. FDR was wearing a blue suit with a rose in his lapel, his eyes shining, his head thrown back, as the organist broke into another spirited rendering of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The crowd of 30,000 was on its feet as Roosevelt began. “I regret that I am late, but I have no control over the winds of heaven and could only be thankful for my Navy training. The appearance before a national convention of its nominee for President before being formally notified of his selection is unprecedented, but these are unprecedented times.” The audience roared its approval.

With the nation listening—many in the audience were hearing Roosevelt for the first time—he rolled out the sentences in that confident, cultured voice so familiar to radio audiences in New York: “I have started out on the tasks that lie ahead by breaking the absurd tradition that the candidate should remain in professed ignorance of what has happened until he is formally notified many weeks later. Let it be from now on the task of our party to break foolish traditions and leave it to the Republican leadership, far more skilled in that art, to break promises.”

Roosevelt served notice on the economic conservatives in the party who wanted to stand pat: “I warn those nominal Democrats who squint at the future with their faces turned to the past, and who feel no responsibility to the demands of the new time, that they are out of step with their Party.” (Raucous cheers and applause.) “Ours must be a party of liberal thought, of planned action, of enlightened international outlook, and the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens.”

He reached out to progressives across the political spectrum: “Here and now I invite those nominal Republicans who find that their conscience cannot be squared with the groping and failure of their party leaders to join hands with us.” FDR promised aggressive government action to tackle the root causes of the Depression and provide effective distress relief. He recited a litany of programs long overdue: securities regulation, public works, tariff reduction, wages and hours legislation, home mortgage guarantees, farm relief, and the repeal of Prohibition.

To those listening, both at home and in Chicago Stadium, Roosevelt’s voice appeared to gain resonance as he approached his conclusion: “On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and thought have not gone forever. Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain.”

And then that remarkable close: “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people.”¹²⁰

^* When Roosevelt spoke, only 300,000 New Yorkers paid state income tax and the graduated rate reached a maximum of 2.33 percent for incomes above $100,000 (in current dollars, that would be an income of $1.2 million). For a single person earning $5,000 in 1931, the increase FDR requested would amount to $12.50. For a head of family with two dependents, the increase would be $1. New York State Tax Commission figures, cited in 1931 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 178–179 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1937).

^* The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (46 Stat. 590 (1930)) almost doubled the already high American duties on imports and is widely credited with accelerating the decline in world trade and exacerbating the Depression as other nations quickly raised tariffs in response. President Hoover ceremoniously signed the act with six golden pens and, despite the almost unanimous opinion of the nation’s economists to the contrary, proclaimed it a significant advance in protecting American jobs. 1 State Papers of Herbert Hoover 314–318, W. W. Myers, ed. (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1934). Also see Douglas A. Irwin, “From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Trade Agreements,” in Michael D. Bondo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, eds., The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century 325–344 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).

^* “I have given Mr. Howe a check for $5,000 out of principal [not income],” Sara wrote Franklin on May 9, 1932. “If you are not nominated, I should not weep, but it would be money thrown away.” FDRL. (Sara’s emphasis).

^* Charles Michelson, the publicity director of the DNC and no friend of the Roosevelt campaign, later described Farley’s journey with awe: “The hard-boiled, Tammany-tainted politician they expected to find in the West turned out to be a genial, personable fellow who neither drank nor smoked, who carried along pictures of his wife and children, who attended church with regularity, and who never obtruded his abstentions on those convivially inclined.” Michelson, The Ghost Talks 135 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1944).

^* The blue-ribbon panel appointed by Williams was composed of Dr. Samuel W. Lambert, former dean of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University; Dr. Russell A. Hibbs, surgeon in chief of the New York Orthopedic Hospital; and Dr. Foster Kennedy, professor of neurology at Cornell University Medical College and president of the New York Neurological Society.

^† Looker offers an insight into an era of different standards:

When Roosevelt first came to Albany as governor the newspaper correspondents were confronted with the necessity of deciding whether or not to comment on his walking. They decided that no comment was required. It was a gentleman’s agreement among themselves which soon included the news photographers in Albany. As happens with all public men, the cameras have sometimes caught the governor in an awkward pose. Without suggestion from anyone interested, the plates have been destroyed by the photographers themselves. They have done this because they feel that the awkward pictures do not give a true impression of the governor.

Earle Looker, This Man Roosevelt 146–147 (New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1932).

^* Four cities had been in contention for the convention: Atlantic City, Chicago, Kansas City, and San Francisco. FDR preferred Kansas City, where Tom Pendergast’s organization could pack the galleries, but settled for Chicago to avoid Atlantic City and San Francisco. An Atlantic City convention would have fallen under the control of New Jersey boss Frank Hague, a Smith stalwart, and in San Francisco newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst would have held sway. Roosevelt and Hearst shared a long-standing antipathy. “I take it we shall be able to prevent the Convention from going to Atlantic City or San Francisco,” FDR wrote a friend on the eve of the National Committee vote. Steve Neal, Happy Days Are Here Again 12–14 (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

^* Long before FDR announced his candidacy, Farley had collected the names and addresses of all Democratic precinct captains in the United States—roughly 140,000. When Roosevelt announced on January 23, he sent each one a letter and Farley followed up with several more, always signed in his trademark green ink. Rarely has a primary campaign been more meticulously organized. Roy V. Peel and Thomas C. Donnelly, The 1932 Campaign: An Analysis 68–69 (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935).

^* Two Columbia faculty members who did not work out were the distinguished political scientist Lindsay Rogers and the equally distinguished economist James W. Angell. Rogers committed the unpardonable error of submitting the same tariff memorandum to Roosevelt and Al Smith, while Angell proved unable to provide the crisp answers FDR wanted, unencumbered by academic hedging. Raymond Moley, After Seven Years 15–17 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1939); Adolf A. Berle interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.

^* Roosevelt’s Oglethorpe University speech was drafted by Ernest K. Lindley of the New York Herald Tribune. Lindley was one of the pool of reporters covering FDR and had teased Roosevelt about the quality of his previous speeches. FDR jokingly dared Lindley to do better, and Lindley, with the assistance of other members of the pool, drafted the speech. Roosevelt made only minor changes. Ernest K. Lindley, interview with Earland Irving Carlson, in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fight for the Presidential Nomination, 1928–1932 417n (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1955).

^* On May 3 Garner had won an unexpected victory against FDR and Smith in the California primary. Supported by the Hearst newspaper chain, California drys, and the hundred thousand members of the Texas Society of California, Garner polled 216,000 votes to FDR’s 170,000 and Smith’s 138,000, despite the fact that Roosevelt had the backing of the state party organization. Howe and Farley can perhaps be forgiven for not anticipating that the hard-drinking John Garner should win on the votes of California drys.

^* Aside from Prohibition, the 1932 Democratic platform was a remarkably harmonious document, drafted by A. Mitchell Palmer and Cordell Hull in Washington and brought to Chicago with FDR’s endorsement. Totaling fewer than 1,500 words, it was the shortest platform of any major party in American history. The Depression was blamed on the disastrous economic policies pursued by the Republicans: “They have ruined our foreign trade; destroyed the values of our commodities and products, crippled our banking system, robbed millions of our people of their life savings and thrown millions out of work, produced widespread poverty and brought the government to a state of financial distress unprecedented in time of peace.”

Proclaiming the platform “a covenant with the people,” the Democrats pledged to reduce federal expenditures, balance the budget, and maintain a sound currency. Yet the core of the document shouted for aggressive government action: an income tax based on the ability to pay, reciprocal tariff agreements, unemployment relief, extensive public works, flood control, aid to agriculture, mortgage assistance, regulation of the securities industry, protection for bank deposits, campaign finance reform, independence for the Philippines, and statehood for Puerto Rico. For the text, see Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 146–148. (Washington, D.C.: Democratic National Committee, 1932).

^* Eleanor was unenthusiastic about FDR’s nomination. “From a personal standpoint, I did not want my husband to be president. I realized, however, that it was impossible to keep a man out of public service if that was what he wanted and was undoubtedly well equipped for. It was pure selfishness on my part, and I never mentioned my feelings on the subject to him.”

What ER did was confide her doubts to Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman. On the eve of FDR’s nomination she wrote to Cook, who was in Chicago with the campaign. Cook shared the letter with Dickerman and then with Louis Howe. According to Dickerman’s account, ER’s tone was almost “hysterical.” She could not “bear to become First Lady!” She did not wish to be “a prisoner in the White House, forced onto a narrow treadmill of formal receptions, ‘openings,’ dedications, teas, official dinners.” Howe’s face darkened as he read the letter. When he finished, he tore it into shreds and dropped the pieces into his wastebasket. “You are not to breathe a word of this to anyone, understand? Not to anyone.”

In her 1970s interviews with the historian Kenneth S. Davis, Marion Dickerman went on to say that ER wrote that she intended to file suit for divorce and run away with Earl Miller. Because the information was privileged and confidential, Davis chose not to report it until after Dickerman’s death. Blanche Wiesen Cook appears to accept Dickerman’s version, and Earl Miller’s denial, reported by Joseph Lash, is less than categorical. What we know for certain is that after the election FDR took Sergeant Gus Gennerich to the White House but Miller remained in Albany, where he was appointed personnel director of the New York State Department of Corrections.

Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember 69 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949); Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The New York Years, 1928–1933 330–331 (New York: Random House, 1979); Blanche Wiesen Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 445–447 (New York: Viking Penguin, 1992); Joseph Lash, Love, Eleanor 119–120 (New York: Doubleday, 1982). Writing later, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Conrad Black report ER’s unhappiness at the prospect of becoming first lady but exclude the reference to Earl Miller. Goodwin, No Ordinary Time 90 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994); Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt 239–240 (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003). David B. Roosevelt, ER’s grandson, reports Eleanor’s romance with Miller but makes no mention of divorce. Grandmère: A Personal History of Eleanor Roosevelt 139–141 (New York: Warner Books, 2002).

^* Shortly after the convention adjourned, Long went into neighboring Arkansas to support the Senate candidacy of Hattie Caraway against the conservative Democratic establishment. Mrs. Caraway was the widow of Senator Thaddeus Caraway and was serving out his unexpired term when she decided to run for the full six-year term. No one gave her a chance. Long barnstormed the state for ten days, and when the votes were counted Mrs. Caraway carried sixty-one of Arkansas’s seventy-five counties and her popular vote equaled the total of her six opponents’. Mrs. Caraway was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. T. Harry Williams, Huey Long 583–593 (New York: Knopf, 1969).

^* The Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor, often referred to as the “Tin Goose,” had a top speed of 110 miles an hour. Built with a corrugated aluminum exterior, the plane had a seventy-seven-foot wingspan, was almost fifty feet long, and weighed 13,000 pounds. It had three propellers, low-pressure tires for landing on rough surfaces, and a swiveling rear wheel with a shock absorber. “With its fixed landing gear, exposed air-cooled engines, and boxy shape, it exemplified the problems of drag that designers were trying to identify and fix in the late 1920s,” wrote the aviation historian R. G. Grant. Flight: 100 Years of Aviation 140–141 (New York: D. K. Publishing, 2002).