FDR - Jean Edward Smith [161]
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