FDR - Jean Edward Smith [146]
There was little love lost between Robert Moses and FDR. They had clashed frequently over funding for the Taconic State Parkway, of which Roosevelt was the unsalaried chairman from 1925 to 1928, and those disputes had turned ugly. According to Robert A. Caro, Moses’s Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer, Moses had hoped Smith would tap him for governor in 1928 and was bitterly disappointed when FDR was nominated.7 He spewed out his venom to one and all, telling Frances Perkins among others that Franklin was a “pretty poor excuse for a man” and “not quite bright.” His characterizations of ER were equally vicious.8 Franklin inevitably learned of the gossip and wanted no part of Moses. “No,” he told Smith. “He rubs me the wrong way.”9 To soften the rejection, Roosevelt agreed to retain Moses as chairman of the State Council for Parks and the Long Island Parks Commission—posts where his demonstrated ability could flourish without direct contact.
With Belle Moskowitz, Roosevelt was circumspect. No one in Albany was closer to Al Smith than Mrs. Moskowitz, and no one had been more influential in shaping the policies of the Smith administration. Smith told FDR that Belle was drafting his inaugural address as well as his initial message to the legislature laying out his program. Roosevelt graciously noted that he was writing the speeches himself but would be happy to show them to Mrs. Moskowitz when he finished. He acknowledged her skill and competence and said her understanding of the issues facing the state was unparalleled. FDR left Smith with the impression that Mrs. Moskowitz would be kept on. Yet he never showed her the speeches and never met with her. “My recollection is that I did not find an opportunity to do so, though I really meant to at the time.”10 In the end, Roosevelt retained sixteen of the eighteen department heads who had served under Smith, but he did not retain Mrs. Moskowitz. He never confronted her, but his decision soon became apparent. As he told Sam Rosenman, “I do not expect to call on these people whom Al has been using.”11*
FDR did not feel beholden to Smith, except to recognize that he had been an extraordinarily effective governor and would be a tough act to follow. During his eight-year tenure Smith had reduced state government from a hodgepodge of 187 semi-independent agencies to 18 departments, all but 2 responsible to the governor. He had pushed through a constitutional amendment giving the governor authority over the state budget, laid the basis for significant social reform, and cut taxes while funding public works through the sale of state bonds. Roosevelt had run for governor reluctantly, pressured into doing so to aid the national ticket. He had run well ahead of Smith in New York and withstood the Republican tide. As a result, he did not feel he owed his election to anyone but himself. Smith did not see it that way, and relations between the two men, never close, cooled precipitously.
Roosevelt moved quickly to establish his own cadre in Albany. Ed Flynn, the astute leader of the Bronx, was called back from a European vacation to succeed Robert Moses as secretary of state. Flynn became the principal dispenser of state patronage and FDR’s link to Tammany Hall and other city organizations. Sam Rosenman was named counsel to the governor and moved into a spare room in the executive mansion. Missy LeHand lived there too, joined by Grace Tully, who became FDR’s second secretary, always on call, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Roosevelt passed Belle Moskowitz’s duties as social welfare adviser to Frances Perkins, whom he also named industrial commissioner and a member of the governor’s cabinet, the first woman to serve in that capacity. “It is my firm belief that had women had an equal share in making laws in years past,” said FDR, “the unspeakable conditions in crowded tenements, the neglect of the poor, the unwillingness to spend money for hospitals and sanitariums … would never have come about.”12*
Henry Morgenthau,