FDR - Jean Edward Smith [444]
63. Miller later became chief inspector of prison guards in New York State. Lash reports that ER “wrote him faithfully, letters full of warmth and affection,” which suggests that Lash may have seen them. Eleanor and Franklin 481. In Love, Eleanor, published twenty years after ER’s death, Lash referred to “Eleanor’s many letters to Earl, which have disappeared” (page 116).
64. Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 436, 438.
THIRTEEN | Nomination
The epigraph is from FDR’s acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention, July 2, 1932. Official Report of the Proceedings of the 1932 Democratic National Convention 374 (Washington, D.C.: Democratic National Committee, 1932).
1. James A. Farley, Behind the Ballots 62 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1938).
2. Ibid.
3. The New York World, November 6, 1930; The New York Times, November 8, 1930. The Times, apparently taken in, reported that Farley’s announcement came as an unwelcome surprise to Roosevelt.
4. Edward J. Flynn, You’re the Boss 82 (New York: Viking, 1947).
5. Farley, Behind the Ballots 67.
6. Professor Raymond Moley of Columbia University, one of FDR’s original brain trusters, said that “Farley possessed and cultivated, more than any man of his generation, the primary talent of a politician mentally to catalogue names and faces, to learn and retain the facts of association among people, to know who is related to whom by blood, business or politics, to labor with meticulous diligence by mail or otherwise to make and retain contacts.” 27 Masters of Politics 107 (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1949).
7. Herbert Hoover, 3 Memoirs 55–56 (New York: Macmillan, 1952).
8. State of New York, 1931 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 173 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1937).
9. Roosevelt first broached the necessity for “social consciousness” on the part of government in his June 17, 1929, commencement address to Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard. “A century and a half ago our forefathers spoke in theoretical terms of equality, meaning thereby the equality of right. Much later came the ideal of the equality of opportunity.” FDRL.
10. Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph 223 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1956).
11. Immediately after the November 1930 election, Raskob composed a conciliatory open letter to President Hoover promising bipartisan support for the administration’s economic policies, including the historically high levels of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. The letter was signed by the last three Democratic presidential nominees, James Cox, John W. Davis, and Al Smith, as well as Senator Joseph T. Robinson, the Democratic leader of the Senate, and the incoming Speaker of the House, John Nance Garner of Texas. The New York Times, November 8, 1930.
12. For background on the Raskob-Shouse strategy, see Charles Michelson, The Ghost Talks 135–137 (New York: Putnam, 1944). Michelson was publicity director for the DNC at the time and a co-conspirator with Raskob and Shouse.
13. Hull and Roosevelt had met at the 1912 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore and remained in contact. Wheeler had been the first prominent Democrat to endorse Roosevelt for president. Byrd was acquainted with FDR through his brother, Admiral Richard Byrd, who had been an intimate friend and hunting companion of Franklin’s since FDR’s stint as assistant secretary of the Navy. In June 1930, Admiral Byrd stayed with the Roosevelts at Hyde Park following his flight to the South Pole and later was decorated by FDR with the Distinguished Service Medal of the State of New York. For Admiral Byrd’s medal ceremony, see 1930 Public Papers of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt 745 (Albany, N.Y.: J. B. Lyon, 1931).
14. Harry F. Byrd to FDR, February 27, 1931, Virginia preconvention file (1932), DNC. Hull also warned FDR: “I am thoroughly confirmed in the belief that the paramount purpose of the meeting thus far has been to make a wet recommendation