FDR - Jean Edward Smith [41]
Many years later, sitting at Springwood on election night awaiting the presidential returns, Sara reflected on that first campaign. “I shall never forget it,” she said. “I was one of the few sympathizers Franklin had among his own people. Many of our friends said it was a shame for so fine a young man to associate with ‘dirty’ politicians. Some of them hoped he would be defeated for his own sake and learn a lesson. I knew only that I would always be proud of him [and] I was indeed happy when he won.”43*
Franklin discussed the matter with Eleanor, and she too was delighted.44 But he did not ask her approval. “I listened to all his plans with interest,” she said later. “It never occurred to me that I had any part to play. I felt I must acquiesce in whatever he might decide and be willing to go to Albany if he should be elected.”45
A greater question mark for FDR was cousin Theodore. TR had just returned from a twelve-month safari in East Africa (“I hope every lion will do his duty,” J. P. Morgan quipped on the eve of TR’s departure) and was beginning to thrash around in the politics of the Empire State. If he should campaign in Dutchess County and say anything remotely disparaging about his Democratic kinsman, it would end Franklin’s political career before it began. FDR hesitated to approach the former president directly but with Sara’s encouragement laid the problem before Bamie, who visited Campobello that summer. As FDR hoped, Bamie wrote to her brother immediately. “Franklin ought to go into politics without the least regard as to where I speak or don’t speak,” TR replied on August 10. “Franklin is a fine fellow,” he told Bamie, although he wished he were a Republican.46 FDR correctly interpreted the former president’s reply as a green light. When TR spoke before a throng of 40,000 well-wishers at the Dutchess County Fair later that autumn, he refrained from mentioning either Franklin or his Republican opponent.
FDR’s fledgling campaign ended before it began. In mid-September, three weeks before the Democrats held their nominating caucus, Lewis Chanler announced for reelection. He was not stepping down. The Assembly might be dull, but it was far livelier than no office at all. Franklin felt snakebitten. He went to Mack and Perkins and threatened to run as an independent. Mack knew Roosevelt was serious. “Why not run for the Senate?” he asked. For a second time, FDR could scarcely believe his good fortune. The State Senate seemed far more attractive than the Assembly, although the odds of winning were slight: Mack put them at one chance in five. The Senate seat comprised Dutchess, Putnam, and Columbia counties, the three counties stacked one above the other along the east bank of the Hudson. The district was thirty miles wide and ninety miles long, and, with one exception, no Democrat had won the seat since 1856.47 The Republican incumbent, Senator John F. Schlosser of Fishkill Landing, was a well-known lawyer, seasoned campaigner, and president of the State Volunteer Firemen’s Association. His 2-to-1 margin of victory in 1908 made him appear invincible. Roosevelt was undeterred. Youth and inexperience melded with the patrician confidence instilled at Springwood, Groton, and Harvard. Franklin exuded confidence in victory from the first day of the campaign.
“I accept this nomination with absolute independence,” FDR told the Democratic caucus in Poughkeepsie on October 6. “I am pledged to no man; I am influenced by no special interests.… In the coming campaign, I need not tell you that I do not intend to stand still. We are going to have a very strenuous month [and] we have little to fear from the result on November eighth.”48
Roosevelt opened the campaign with a rally on Bank Square in the center of Fishkill Landing, the home of Senator Schlosser, the idea being to cause as much consternation as possible. The Democratic organization could be counted upon to deliver the votes in Poughkeepsie and the other towns