FDR - Jean Edward Smith [46]
Under party rules the decision of the caucus was binding. A majority of the caucus was fifty-eight votes, and if party discipline prevailed—and it invariably did—those fifty-eight determined how all 114 Democrats would vote on the floor. That gave Tammany the whip hand. The New York City organization controlled far more than the fifty-eight votes required, and Charles F. Murphy, the astute Tammany chieftain, confidently expected to put Sheehan in the Senate come March.* Yet there was a loophole. When asked by FDR, Al Smith confirmed that only those Democrats who attended the caucus were bound. If a member was absent, he was not bound by the caucus’s decision.71
Both parties scheduled their caucuses for nine o’clock on the evening of January 16. The Republicans met briefly and unanimously named Depew. But when the Democrats called their meeting to order, twenty-three members were absent. Those present voted sixty-two for Sheehan, twenty-two for Shepard, and seven for D. Cady Herrick, a former candidate for governor. The caucus formally nominated Sheehan, but only ninety-one Democrats had attended—ten fewer than the 101 votes required to elect.
While the Democrats caucused, twenty-one of the absentees convened nearby in the Ten Eyck Hotel. Some favored Shepard, some favored other candidates, but all were agreed that they would not support Sheehan. A brief press release explained they did not wish their individual votes smothered by the caucus. “The people should know just how their representatives voted … and any majority should be credited to the representatives in the Legislature and not someone outside that body”—a blast at Tammany in general and Charles F. Murphy in particular.72
The legislature met in joint session the next morning. When the ballots for U.S. senator were tabulated, Sheehan had ninety-one votes from the Democratic caucus, all eighty-six Republicans voted for Depew, and the remaining Democratic votes were split among a number of sentimental favorites.* No candidate had received the 101 votes required for election. For the next ten weeks battle lines hardened and the legislature ground to a halt. “Never in the history of Albany have 21 men threatened such total ruin of machine plans,” the veteran newsman Louis Howe reported in The New York Herald.73 The rebels “are the talk of the capital,” said The New York Times. “They are not radicals. They speak with moderation, and have made clear that while they will resist to the last any attempt at coercion, they are keenly alive to the necessary processes of government by party.”74
FDR was not the instigator of the insurgency or even its prime organizer. Yet he quickly emerged as its spokesman and informal chairman. He was always available to the press, he had no political baggage from past campaigns, and he was articulate and self-confident. “There is nothing I love as much as a good fight,” he told The New York Times on January 22. “I never had as much fun in my life as I am having right now.”
The name Roosevelt fascinated reporters bored with statehouse routine. Comparisons with TR were inevitable. The New York Post told its readers that Franklin had “the strong insurgent tendencies of the family.”75 The American reported, “His face is boyish, but those who remember Theodore Roosevelt when he was an Assemblyman say the Senator bears a striking likeness to the Colonel.”76 According to