FDR - Jean Edward Smith [452]
65. Moley, After Seven Years 121.
66. In addition to successfully running American Car and Foundry, the world’s largest producer of railroad rolling stock, Woodin was a skilled musician and composer whose published works included The Covered Wagon Suite, The Oriental Suite, and “The Franklin Delano Roosevelt March,” written for the inauguration.
67. Morgan, FDR 372, citing Alfred B. Rollins, Roosevelt and Howe 374 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962).
68. Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember 76. Also see Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin 357–358 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971). “My zest for life is rather gone for the time being,” ER wrote to Lorena Hickok. “I get like this sometimes. It makes me feel like a dead weight and my mind goes round and round like a squirrel in a cage. I want to run and I can’t, and I despise myself.” ER to Lorena Hickok, in Joseph P. Lash, Love, Eleanor 159 (New York: Doubleday, 1982).
69. Nourmahal, the flagship of the New York Yacht Club, was built in Germany for Astor in 1928. It was described by The New York Times as “an ocean liner in miniature … the biggest and fastest ocean-going motor yacht ever built.” It had a cruising range of 19,000 miles and a top speed of sixteen knots. In 1934, FDR would return to Nourmahal to watch the America’s Cup race from her decks. James Roosevelt and Sidney Shalett, Affectionately, F.D.R. 275–278 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959).
70. Vincent Astor, a nominal Republican, contributed $25,000 to FDR’s campaign in 1932, making him one of the ten largest contributors. The verse is quoted in James Roosevelt, Affectionately, F.D.R. 278.
71. FDR to SDR, February 6, 1933, 3 The Roosevelt Letters 100–101, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1952).
72. FDR was quick to express his gratitude to Mrs. Cross. From his train returning to New York he wired, “How much greater and sadder a tragedy was averted by your unselfish courage and quick thinking of course no one can estimate. It now appears that by Divine Providence the lives of all the victims of the assassin’s disturbed aim will be spared.” The New York Times, February 20, 1933. Roosevelt spoke too soon. Both Mayor Cermak and Mrs. Joseph H. Gill, the wife of the president of Florida Light and Power Company, the woman shot in the abdomen, perished from infection.
73. Roosevelt gave the statement to the press immediately afterward. The New York Times, February 17, 1933. Jackson Memorial Hospital is 2.6 miles from Bay Front Park.
74. Some have speculated that Zangara had intended to kill Cermak all along. That is not supported by the evidence. Zangara had never been in Chicago and had no ties with the Mob. Asked at his trial if he knew Mayor Cermak, Zangara replied, “No, not at all. I just went there to kill the president. The capitalists killed my life. I suffer, always suffer. I make it 50-50—someone else must suffer.”
Q: Do you want to live?
A: No. Put me in the electric chair.
Q: Are you sorry only because you tried to kill Mr. Roosevelt?
A: No. I am sorry because I failed.
The courtroom examination was reported in The New York Times, March 10, 11, 21, 1933. Zangara’s life is treated in some detail by Kenneth S. Davis in FDR: The New York Years 432–434.
75. Moley, After Seven Years 139.
76. Thomas W. Lamont to FDR, February 27, 1933, FDRL. Lamont had rented Roosevelt’s East Sixty-fifth Street town house for the seven years FDR was assistant secretary of the Navy and remained on intimate terms with the president-elect.
77. Raymond Moley, The First New Deal 96–124 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1966).
78. James A. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 36 (New York: Whittlesey House, 1948).
79. The original Trading with the Enemy Act was enacted October 6, 1917, chap. 106, 40 Stat. 411, and has been recodified more than a dozen times, most recently on March