FDR - Jean Edward Smith [421]
50. Camp to FDR, July 25, 1917, FDRL.
51. In 1912 Longworth became the victim of his father-in-law’s presidential candidacy and lost a three-way race for his congressional seat in Cincinnati by 101 votes. Longworth, running as a Republican, received 22,229 votes; Stanley Bowdle, his Democratic opponent, received 22,330; and Millard Andrew, the Progressive candidate, 5,771. In 1914 Longworth defeated Bowdle 29,822 to 24,054, essentially the margin Andrew had siphoned off in 1912. Longworth was elected House majority leader in 1923, and became Speaker on December 7, 1925, a post he held until just before his death in 1931.
52. FDR to ER, July 14, 1914, 2 Roosevelt Letters 192–193.
53. Don Van Natta, Jr., First Off the Tee 101–111. FDR loved golf and regularly shot in the low eighties. He had been taught the game by his father at Campobello and in 1904 won the island championship. After he was paralyzed FDR no longer played, but he did design a special nine-hole course for polio victims at Warm Springs, Georgia—the only president to design a golf course. Not surprisingly, Roosevelt did more than any president to democratize the game. During his administration, the WPA built more than 250 municipal golf courses, making golf accessible to hundreds of thousands of new players. As Eleanor said, golf was “the game that he enjoyed above all others.”
54. James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 71–72 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959). James reports that he often caddied for his father at Chevy Chase for twenty-five cents a week but that the bigger benefit was that “I, too, got to skip church occasionally in favor of the golf course.”
55. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 210.
56. The house at 1733 N Street was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the Canterbury Apartments, which were subsequently converted to the Topaz Hotel. The R Street house, still in good repair but painted white, is now the residence of the ambassador from Mali.
57. FDR’s federal tax returns are filed among his personal papers at Hyde Park. His 1915 return, typical for the period, shows a gross income of $22,845, of which $9,256 came from dividends (untaxed) and $4,177 from interest. The New York town house was valued conservatively at $84,150 ($1.5 million in today’s dollars), which he depreciated at 1% annually. State and local taxes totaled $257.92.
58. FDR to Howe, March 19, 1913, FDRL.
59. Howe to FDR, March 23, 1913, FDRL.
60. Elliott Roosevelt, Untold Story 22.
61. Lela Stiles, The Man Behind Roosevelt: The Story of Louis McHenry Howe 42 (Cleveland: World, 1954).
62. Kenneth C. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882–1928 311 (New York: Putnam, 1971).
63. ER, interview with Louis Eisner, FDRL. Also see ER’s “Foreward” in Stiles, Man Behind Roosevelt vii.
64. John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect 84 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).
65. Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 128.
66. FDR to Howe, n.d., Howe Personal Papers.
67. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 12.
68. Quoted in Davis, FDR: Beckoning of Destiny 313.
69. Stiles, Man Behind Roosevelt 49, 40.
70. The Washington Post, April 30, 1913.
71. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 234.
72. Speaking in Butte, Montana, August 18, 1920, FDR, running for vice president, claimed credit for the Navy’s exemplary labor relations. The only exception was at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where there was ongoing friction, attributable mainly to dangerous and unsanitary working conditions. See Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship 203 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1952).
73. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 234.
74. Lodge to FDR, August 1, 1913; FDR to Lodge, August 2, September 15, 1913. Afterward, Lodge’s son-in-law, Representative Augustus P. Gardner, wrote that Lodge thought FDR “the promptest and most efficient Assistant Secretary in any Department with whom we have dealt.” Gardner to FDR, June 25, 1913, FDRL.
75. Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew 20.
76. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt