FDR - Jean Edward Smith [212]
FDR’s schedule in the White House differed little from his routine in Albany. He awoke around eight and breakfasted in bed, usually scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice, and coffee. While eating he scanned the morning press: The New York Times and Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and one of the McCormick-Patterson papers, either the Chicago Tribune or the Washington Herald. He also leafed through the clipping file prepared by Louis Howe—jokingly referred to as the Daily Bugle. With breakfast FDR lit his first cigarette of the two packs of Camels he smoked daily, always through a long-stemmed ivory cigarette holder. While eating, shaving, and dressing, he held a leisurely, freewheeling staff conference. Louis Howe and Missy LeHand were always there, Moley when he was not teaching in New York, and in the beginning Lewis Douglas, the former congressman from Arizona whom Roosevelt had named director of the budget. About ten they would be joined by Marvin McIntyre and Steve Early to review the day’s calendar.2
Roosevelt’s bedroom was on the second floor of the White House, next to the Oval Study, facing south, and like his bedrooms at Hyde Park and Warm Springs it was primitively furnished, cluttered with memorabilia, and austerely comfortable in the simple way that seemed to suit old money. Frances Perkins called it too large to be cozy but not large enough to be impressive.
I have a photographic impression of that room. A Victorian mantelpiece held a collection of miniature pigs. Snapshots of children were propped up in back of the pigs. There was an old bureau between the windows, with a plain white towel on top and things men need for their dressing arrangements. There was an old-fashioned rocking chair, often with a piece of clothing thrown over it. Then there was the bed—not the kind you expect a President of the United States to have. Roosevelt used a small, narrow white iron bedstead, the kind one sees in the boy’s room of many an American house. It had a thin, hard-looking mattress, a couple of pillows, and an ordinary white seersucker spread. An old grey sweater, much the worse for wear, lay close at hand. He wore it over night clothes to keep his shoulders warm. A white painted table, the kind one often sees in bathrooms, stood beside the bed, with a towel over it and with aspirin, nose drops, a glass of water, stubs of pencils, bits of paper, a couple of books, a worn old prayer book, a watch, a package of cigarettes, an ash tray, a couple of telephones, all cluttered together. And over the door at the opposite end of the room hung a horse’s tail. When asked what that was, he would say, “Why, that’s Gloster’s tail.”3
As in Albany, Roosevelt worked with an extended family—staff, servants, and even cabinet officers treated as old friends. Louis Howe lived in the White House, as did Missy and Eleanor’s reporter friend Lorena Hickok. So too did the Roosevelts’ daughter, Anna, and her two children, Sisty and Buzzy. Anna was separated from her husband, Curtis Dall, and would soon marry John Boettiger, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune whom she had met during the 1932 campaign. The elfin Howe was assigned the Lincoln Bedroom but before moving in insisted that President Lincoln’s nine-foot bed be replaced with something less imposing.4
At 10:30 Roosevelt was wheeled downstairs to the Oval Office in the west wing of the White House, where he remained until about six. His appointments were set at fifteen-minute intervals, but he often ran behind. He used the telephone frequently and often placed calls himself. Members of the cabinet, agency heads, congressional leaders, and several dozen others could phone him directly. He ate a light lunch at his desk, often joined