FDR - Jean Edward Smith [187]
FDR had talked to me once or twice during the campaign about the possibility that someone would try to assassinate him. But it is one thing to talk philosophically about assassination and another thing to face it. I confess that I have never in my life seen anything more magnificent than Roosevelt’s calm that night on the Nourmahal.75
Roosevelt’s matter-of-fact reaction to his brush with death, his cheerful contempt for danger, brought forth a national surge of confidence. It was abundantly clear that FDR lacked physical fear, and his courage rallied the country behind him. It provided a tonic on the eve of the inauguration; a vital pickup for a nation grappling with unprecedented unemployment, widespread hunger and need, and a banking system that teetered on the brink of collapse.
As Roosevelt’s train tracked northward, the nation was deluged with news of bank failures. Already 389 banks had shut their doors since the beginning of the year. The real panic had begun in Detroit when two of Michigan’s largest banks, Union Guardian Trust and First National, could not meet their obligations. On February 14, Governor William Comstock declared an eight-day bank holiday, freezing the funds of 900,000 customers and tying up $1.5 billion in deposits. From Michigan the panic spread like wildfire, triggering a rapid fall in stock prices and the flight of gold to Europe. On February 24, following a run on Baltimore banks, Governor Ritchie declared a three-day bank holiday. By the end of the month, banks in every section of the country were in trouble. People stood in long lines clutching satchels and paper bags, determined to take their money and stash it safely at home. Thomas W. Lamont, now chairman of J. P. Morgan, wrote Roosevelt that the situation “could not be worse.”76 Piece by piece the nation’s credit structure was falling apart.
At Hyde Park FDR worked over his inaugural address. Moley arrived on February 27 with a draft he had prepared from notes taken on the train. Roosevelt rewrote the draft in longhand on yellow legal pads, reading the sentences aloud, cutting here, adding there, committing the words to memory. At 1:30 on the morning of February 28 the draft was complete, save for the reference to fear, which FDR added the next day.* The final paragraph, invoking God’s guidance, was written by Roosevelt after his arrival in Washington.77
On March 1, the president-elect left Hyde Park for New York City, where he spent the night. That day the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee declared bank holidays, followed in the evening by California, Louisiana, Alabama, and Oklahoma. By March 4, thirty-eight states, including New York and Illinois, had closed their banks. The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading on March 4, as did the Chicago Board of Trade.
Roosevelt’s response to the crisis was similar to his reaction in Miami: serene and confident, unruffled and unafraid. His outward demeanor betrayed no sign of worry. Franklin is not a worrier, Sara told Jim Farley. “His disposition is such that he can accept responsibilities and not let them wear him down.”78 Roosevelt declined to make any public comment or take any action until he had the constitutional authority to do so. In his view, Hoover, as president, should do as he thought best. FDR would act when the time came. In the meantime he refused to make any joint statement and declined to give blanket approval to whatever action the Hoover administration might take. That was less of a problem than it might appear because Hoover still clung to his restricted view of executive power. On March 2 and again on March 3 he rejected the advice of his secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board that he invoke the emergency powers given the president under World War I’s Trading with the Enemy Act (which was still on the books79) and issue a proclamation closing the nation’s banks, embargo the shipment of gold abroad, and limit the exchange