FDR - Jean Edward Smith [169]
“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