FDR - Jean Edward Smith [297]
Irita was tall and slender, with dark eyes and a mass of pretty curls. “She was not pretty, but she was beautiful,” said Shirer. “The kind of woman I like to look at,” wrote Harold Ickes. “Physically well set up, but intelligent.”86 Hiram Hayden of the American Scholar thought “her graciousness was innate. It came from a sweetness deep within her.”87 FDR, who thrived on such gossip, said he understood she was “an awful nice gal.”88 During the campaign Irita remained in the background and Edith Willkie, the candidate’s wife, traveled with her husband. “Politics makes strange bedfellows,” Edith joked to reporters.89 Like FDR’s relationship with Eleanor, the Willkie marriage was one of residual affection and political expediency. “At the time I felt like [my mother] might be getting the short end of the stick,” recalled Irita’s daughter Barbara, “but that wasn’t the case. She was wise enough to know that she had everything except the title. They were endlessly and happily in love.”90 The Democrats made no issue of the arrangement and did nothing to spread stories even by word of mouth.* It was their ace-in-the-hole should the Republicans go after Wallace.
Willkie campaigned tenaciously. The candidate, his staff, and seventy-five reporters spent seven weeks on a campaign train crisscrossing America. Willkie traveled 18,785 miles, visited 31 states, and delivered 560 speeches.91 Roosevelt stayed close to the White House, making the occasional visit to a war plant or defense installation, all the while retaining the pose of commander in chief, the statesman above the fray. And with marked success. The more Willkie campaigned, the farther he fell behind. A Gallup Poll taken in late September indicated that Roosevelt’s lead had increased to twelve points. When voters were asked who they thought would win in November, 68 percent said FDR.92
Willkie found himself without a cause. The third-term issue fizzled. “I would rather have FDR with all his known faults than Willkie with his unknown qualities,” said New York’s independent mayor Fiorello La Guardia.93 On domestic matters Willkie supported the accomplishments of the New Deal. Unemployment provided a talking point, but the war boom had begun, workers were streaming back to factories, steel mills were humming with new orders, and the construction industry was working at full capacity. On foreign policy Willkie supported aid to Britain, selective service, and rearmament. It was a “me too” campaign which except for Willkie’s winning personality provided the voter few reasons to change. Roosevelt was “not a perfect man,” Carl Sandburg told a national radio audience, yet he was “more precious than fine gold.”94
With his campaign in danger of imploding, Willkie shifted gears. Pressed by his Republican handlers to become more aggressive, Willkie reversed course on foreign policy. At first he moved cautiously. In Boston on October 11 he promised an enormous crowd, including many traditional Democrats of Irish and Italian extraction, “We shall not undertake to fight anybody else’s war. Our boys shall stay out of European wars.”95 As Willkie’s poll numbers crept up, he intensified his attack. He became the peace candidate and FDR the warmonger. “If [Roosevelt’s] promise to keep our boys out of foreign wars is no better than his promise to balance the budget, they’re already almost on the transports.”96 Excess begat excess. Willkie hinted that secret agreements were in place to take the United States to war. “On the basis of [Roosevelt’s] past performance, you may