FDR - Jean Edward Smith [148]
The mansion was altered to assist Roosevelt’s movements. In place of the greenhouse, a swimming pool was built for his use. An elevator was installed, and ramps were placed over unavoidable steps. FDR retained the services of Sergeant Gus Gennerich, a New York City policeman who had been detailed to protect him during the campaign. Gennerich had little formal education and was proud to be a New York cop. His affable manner made him a friend and companion for Roosevelt. So too Sergeant Earl Miller of the New York State Police, a strikingly handsome officer who was assigned to protect the governor. Gennerich and Miller were big, muscular men and provided solid support for FDR when he walked. They knew how to lift him out of cars and devised a technique for carrying him up long flights of stairs. The two men would each grasp an elbow and lift Roosevelt up the steps in a standing position. Those watching from a distance could well believe Franklin was climbing the stairs himself.20
Roosevelt relished informality. He treated employees as friends, enjoyed shirtsleeve poker sessions with journalists, and insisted on calling people by their first names as soon as he met them.* As president he made a point of addressing royalty by their given names: the king and queen of England were “George” and “Elizabeth”; the crown princess of the Netherlands was “Juliana.” Yet they always called him “Mr. President,” and it was clear that Roosevelt was never one of the boys.21 There was an unspoken dignity, an impenetrable reserve that protected him against undue familiarity. Aside from relatives, old friends from college, and senior statesmen whom he had known—men like Josephus Daniels and Al Smith—Louis Howe was the only person to call him Franklin.
For Eleanor, FDR’s election was a mixed blessing. When asked by reporters shortly afterward how she felt about her husband’s victory, she said she was not excited. “I don’t care. What difference can it make to me? If the rest of the ticket doesn’t get in, what does it matter?”22 ER’s petulant response reflected her unhappiness at Al Smith’s defeat. She had worked night and day for the past nine months on Smith’s campaign, and she hated to lose. It was not merely a personal loss but the defeat at the national level of the social programs she supported.
Then too, she had not participated in FDR’s campaign. In retrospect, she wondered if she had really wanted Franklin to run. “I imagine I accepted his nomination and later his election as I had accepted most of the things that had happened in life thus far: one did whatever seemed necessary and adjusted one’s personal life to the developments in other people’s lives.”23
Even more important was ER’s reluctance to forsake the public life she had staked out for herself. Eleanor had no desire to become a ceremonial first lady, relegated to serving in her husband’s shadow. She had grown accustomed to a different role: teacher, writer, and political activist in her own right. She was associated with an ongoing effort to build reproduction furniture at Val-Kill and was teaching full-time at Todhunter.*
Eleanor and Franklin reached an implicit understanding: she would be the governor’s wife, preside over the executive mansion, and pursue her own agenda at the same time.24 “Mrs. Roosevelt Takes on Another Task,” bannered The New York Times Magazine in its lead article on December 2, 1928.
A woman who teaches school, runs a factory, edits a journal, and is a member of a half dozen civic organizations would appear to have her hands full. Yet to these activities Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt will add one more when she takes up the task of the First Lady of Albany on Jan. 1.25
Eleanor organized her teaching schedule at Todhunter for Monday, Tuesday, and