FDR - Jean Edward Smith [441]
33. ER to FDR, June 15, 1928, FDRL.
34. FDR to Lippmann, August 6, 1928, FDRL.
35. Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Happy Warrior: Alfred E. Smith (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928). Louis Howe, for one, was not taken in by the public display of affection for Smith. “Al’s enemies will nominate him, then knife him at the polls,” he told FDR. Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe 227.
36. Quoted in Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography 289 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).
37. FDR to SDR, July 14, 1928, 2 Roosevelt Letters 504. Eleanor accepted the co-chairmanship, along with former Wyoming governor Nellie Tayloe Ross, of the Women’s Division of the national Democratic party and worked arduously on Smith’s behalf.
38. “Strictly between ourselves,” FDR wrote Josephus Daniels, “I am very doubtful whether any Democrat can win in 1928.” FDR to Daniels, June 23, 1927, FDRL. Also see Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe 226–234.
39. FDR to Smith, September 30, 1928, FDRL.
40. Ernest K. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy 12 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931). Also see James A. Farley, Behind the Ballots 79 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1938).
41. Quoted in Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Ordeal 254–255 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1954).
42. Quoted in Ward, First-Class Temperament 794. Later, FDR wrote to his uncle Frederic Delano that he “would not allow the use of my name before the convention, but … if, in the final analysis the convention insisted on nominating me, I should feel under definite obligation to accept the nomination.” FDR to Frederic A. Delano, October 8, 1928, FDRL.
43. ER to FDR, October 2, 1928, FDRL. Interviewed later at Democratic National Headquarters, Eleanor said she was “very proud” FDR had accepted the nomination, though she “did not want him to do it. In the end you have to do what your friends want you to do. There comes to every man, if he is wanted, the feeling that there is almost an obligation to return the confidence shown in him.” Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The New York Years. 1928–1933 29 (New York: Random House, 1985).
44. Howe to FDR, October 2, 1928, FDRL.
45. New York Post, October 2, 1928; New York Herald Tribune, October 3, 1928.
46. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt 21.
47. New York Herald Tribune, October 9, 1928.
48. “So long as we have a two-party system of government,” Flynn wrote, “we will have machines. Whether they are good or bad depends upon the interest of citizens in their party government.” Edward J. Flynn, You’re the Boss 231 (New York: Viking Press, 1947).
49. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 21 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).
50. Frances Perkins interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.
51. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 22.
52. 1 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt 53–54, Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. (New York: Random House, 1938).
53. New York Herald Tribune, October 25, 1928.
54. Francis Perkins interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.
55. Flynn, You’re the Boss 71–72.
56. Frances Perkins interview, Columbia Oral History Project, Columbia University.
57. Ibid.
TWELVE | Albany Redux
FDR was one of three speakers (and the only Democrat) to address the Washington newsmen’s Gridiron Dinner in 1929. The epigraph is from the song sung by the newsmen to greet FDR. The New York Times, April 14, 1929.
1. The New York Times, November 13, 1928.
2. Quoted ibid., December 5, 1928.
3. Ibid., November 12, 1928. Samuel Rosenman, who accompanied FDR to Warm Springs after the election, reports that “strangely” no one speculated about the presidency, so busy were they planning for the governorship. Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt 28 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952).
4. FDR to Adolphus Ragan (unsent), 3 F.D.R.: His Personal Letters 772–773, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (New York: Duell, Sloane & Pearce, 1950). “No man,” said FDR, “ever willingly gives up public life—no man who has ever tasted it.”
5. The New York Times, January 1, 1929.
6. FDR to Adolphus Ragan, 3 Personal Letters 772