FDR - Jean Edward Smith [173]
To those listening, both at home and in Chicago Stadium, Roosevelt’s voice appeared to gain resonance as he approached his conclusion: “On the farms, in the large metropolitan areas, in the smaller cities and in the villages, millions of our citizens cherish the hope that their old standards of living and thought have not gone forever. Those millions cannot and shall not hope in vain.”
And then that remarkable close: “I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American people.”120
* When Roosevelt spoke, only 300,000 New Yorkers paid state income tax and the graduated rate reached a maximum of 2.33 percent for incomes above $100,000 (in current dollars, that would be an income of $1.2 million). For a single person earning $5,000 in 1931, the increase FDR requested would amount to $12.50. For a head of family with two dependents, the increase would be $1. New York State Tax Commission figures, cited in 1931 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 178–179 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1937).
* The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (46 Stat. 590 (1930)) almost doubled the already high American duties on imports and is widely credited with accelerating the decline in world trade and exacerbating the Depression as other nations quickly raised tariffs in response. President Hoover ceremoniously signed the act with six golden pens and, despite the almost unanimous opinion of the nation’s economists to the contrary, proclaimed it a significant advance in protecting American jobs. 1 State Papers of Herbert Hoover 314–318, W. W. Myers, ed. (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1934). Also see Douglas A. Irwin, “From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Trade Agreements,” in Michael D. Bondo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, eds., The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century 325–344 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
* “I have given Mr. Howe a check for $5,000 out of principal [not income],” Sara wrote Franklin on May 9, 1932. “If you are not nominated, I should not weep, but it would be money thrown away.” FDRL. (Sara’s emphasis).
* Charles Michelson, the publicity director of the DNC and no friend of the Roosevelt campaign, later described Farley’s journey with awe: “The hard-boiled, Tammany-tainted politician they expected to find in the West turned out to be a genial, personable fellow who neither drank nor smoked, who carried along pictures of his wife and children, who attended church with regularity, and who never obtruded his abstentions on those convivially inclined.” Michelson, The Ghost Talks 135 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1944).
* The blue-ribbon panel appointed by Williams was composed of Dr. Samuel W. Lambert, former dean of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University; Dr. Russell A. Hibbs, surgeon in chief of the New York Orthopedic Hospital; and Dr. Foster Kennedy, professor of neurology at Cornell University Medical College and president of the New York Neurological Society.
† Looker offers an insight into an era of different standards:
When Roosevelt first came to Albany as governor the newspaper correspondents were confronted with the necessity of deciding whether or not to comment on his walking. They decided that no comment was required. It was a gentleman’s agreement among themselves which soon included the news photographers in Albany. As happens with all public men, the cameras have sometimes caught the governor in an awkward pose. Without suggestion from anyone interested, the plates have been destroyed by the photographers themselves. They have done this because they feel that the awkward pictures do not give a true impression of the governor.
Earle Looker, This Man Roosevelt 146–147 (New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1932).
* Four cities had been in contention for the convention: Atlantic City, Chicago, Kansas City, and San Francisco. FDR preferred Kansas City, where Tom Pendergast’s organization could pack the galleries, but settled for Chicago to avoid Atlantic City and San Francisco. An Atlantic City convention would have