FDR - Jean Edward Smith [463]
57. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story 66. Farley spoke with FDR a dozen times on election night. There was never any doubt about the outcome, but it was not until 3:36 A.M. that Roosevelt pulled ahead in New Hampshire.
58. Quoted in Schlesinger, Politics of Upheaval 642. The week before the election, FDR wrote Senator Hiram Johnson of California, “I am frankly a little worried about George Norris’s chances in Nebraska. It would be a tragedy if he did not come back.” 3 The Roosevelt Letters 189, Elliott Roosevelt, ed. (London: George G. Harrap, 1952). The 1936 vote count in Nebraska gave Norris 258,700; Robert G. Simmons, his Republican opponent, 223,276; and Democrat Terry Carpenter, 108,391.
59. William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal 187–190 (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).
60. In 1932 African-American precincts in Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh went down the line for Hoover. FDR carried Chicago handily but won only 23 percent of the black vote. In Cincinnati’s heavily black Ward 16, Roosevelt got less than 29 percent. In 1936, every black ward in each of the cities went Democratic; in Cincinnati’s Ward 16, FDR took 65 percent, and Pittsburgh’s black Third Ward went for Roosevelt 10 to 1. According to a July 1938 Fortune poll, 84.7 percent of African Americans considered themselves pro-Roosevelt. Ernest Collins, “Cincinnati Negroes and Presidential Politics,” 41 Journal of Negro History 132–133 (1956). Also see Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt 185–187.
61. 6 Public Papers and Addresses 1–6 (emphasis added).
62. At the direction of the Secret Service, the tribune from which the president was to review the parade had been enclosed with bullet-proof glass. When FDR learned that, he ordered the glass removed. Life, February 1, 1937.
63. Republicans held the governorships in only six states in 1937: California, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Dakota, and Vermont. Three states were held by independents: Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. The remaining governors were Democrats. FDR’s speechwriters had prepared a draft of the inaugural address critical of the Court, but Roosevelt chose not to use it. “I’m not quite ready yet,” he told Sam Rosenman. Working with Roosevelt 141–144.
64. In Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935) a unanimous Court, speaking through Justice George Sutherland, held that the president’s blanket removal authority (see Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 [1926]) did not extend to members of independent regulatory commissions, in this case the Federal Trade Commission.
65. The New York minimum-wage law was overturned in Morehead v. New York ex rel Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587 (1936). Justice Butler, for the Court, held that the freedom of an individual to contract for wages in return for work “is part of the liberty protected by the due process clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment]” (at page 610).
66. The decisions in Schechter, Radford, and Humphrey’s Executor were unanimous. That in Panama Refining was 8–1.
67. In Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934), the Court (5–4) upheld the 1933 Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Act, authorizing state courts to delay foreclosure proceedings. Said Chief Justice Hughes for the Court, “while emergency does not create power, emergency may furnish the occasion for the exercise of power” (at page 426).
In Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 (1934), the Court (5–4) upheld that state’s Milk Control Act. Justice Roberts (for the Court) said, “a state is free to adopt whatever economic policy may reasonably be deemed to promote public welfare, and to enforce that policy by legislation adapted to its purpose” (at page 537).
68. Gold Clause Cases, 294 U.S. 240 (1935). Chief Justice Hughes for the Court (5–4).
69. Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288 (1936). Hughes for the Court (8–1). Ashwander is noteworthy for the concurring opinion of Justice Brandeis