FDR - Jean Edward Smith [133]
Finally, they reached the platform. As FDR was introduced, he called out in a stage whisper to Pennsylvania’s Joseph Guffey, who stood nearby: “Joe, shake the rostrum.” Guffey evidently did not understand, and Roosevelt repeated his request: he wanted to be certain the speaker’s stand would support him when he leaned against it. Guffey tested and reported it was firm.
Then came the moment when FDR would have to walk alone: the moment he had been practicing for. James handed him his second crutch, and he began moving slowly toward the podium unassisted. Marion Dickerman held her breath and prayed. “It seemed like an hour,” she remembered. Frances Perkins, sitting near the platform, recalled that no one in the Garden seemed to breathe. Eight thousand delegates, alternates, and spectators watched spellbound as FDR fought his way across the stage, the personification of courage, defying pain with every forward thrust of his heavily braced legs.
When he finally reached the podium, unable to wave for fear of falling but flashing that famous smile, head thrown back, shoulders high, the Garden erupted with a thunderous ovation. Delegates rose to their feet and cheered for three minutes, admiration tinged with awe at the dramatic performance they had witnessed.
Roosevelt spoke for thirty-four minutes. His resonant tenor rang through the Garden with a new and telling passion, interrupted frequently by sustained cheering and applause. When he reached his peroration, his lilting cadence very nearly sang the phrases:
He has a power to strike at error and wrongdoing that makes his adversaries quail before him.
He has a personality that carries to every hearer not only the sincerity but the righteousness of what he says.
He is the “Happy Warrior” of the political battlefield.—Alfred E. Smith92
Pandemonium. “The crowd just went crazy,” said Marion Dickerman. “It was stupendous, really stupendous.”93 The New York Times called FDR the outstanding personality of the convention. The Herald Tribune hailed him as “the foremost figure on floor or platform.” Tom Pendergast, the no-nonsense head of the Missouri delegation, thought that if Franklin “had been physically able to withstand the campaign, he would have been nominated by acclamation.”94
Roosevelt’s speech set off a demonstration that lasted more than an hour, delegates parading, galleries cheering, the Garden reverberating with chorus after chorus of Smith’s anthem, “The Sidewalks of New York.”
Franklin remained on his feet, glued to the rostrum. No one had considered how he was to exit. “I saw all around him all those fat slob politicians,” said Frances Perkins, “and I knew they wouldn’t think of it.” She enlisted the woman beside her, and they rushed onstage to stand in front of FDR and shield him from view as he turned to leave. As the cheering continued, Roosevelt finally permitted James to bring his wheelchair to the rear of the platform so that he could ease himself into it and be wheeled offstage.95
That evening the Roosevelts gave a reception for the New York delegation at their Sixty-fifth Street home. Marion Dickerman went early to see if she could help Eleanor with the preparations. When she arrived, the butler told her Mr. Roosevelt was upstairs and wished to see her. “He was sitting upright in his bed and obviously was very tired. But his face lit up and he held out his arms.”
“Marion,” he said, “I did it.”96
* Moving the Roosevelt household from New York to Campobello each year was a logistical operation of considerable proportions, often involving as many as a dozen express crates, thirty or so barrels and trunks, plus a vast assortment of hand luggage. As described by FDR’s son James, “First, we would proceed from New York to Boston by train—six hours if we were lucky. We would arrive in Boston in mid-afternoon and go to a certain old-fashioned hotel to rest until train time.… [U]sually we took the 11 p.m. sleeper, arriving next morning at Ayers Junction,