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By Root 2006 0

with the mannish social workers Eleanor escorted in the 1920s, but she was always gracious to them. “I have always believed that a mother should be friends with her children’s friends,” she gamely put it. The one exception was Louisiana senator Huey Long, whom she could not abide. In the autumn of 1932, Senator Long visited Hyde Park to discuss campaign strategy with FDR. (The Kingfish had personally intimidated the wavering Arkansas and Mississippi delegations to keep them in line on the crucial third ballot at the Democratic convention, and Roosevelt owed him.) Always a flamboyant dresser, Long was attired in a loud checkered suit, orchid shirt, and a watermelon pink necktie, which was garish even for him. FDR received Long affably and invited him to lunch, where they continued their conversation, leaving the other guests to talk among themselves. During a momentary lull in the conversation, Sara could be heard sotto voce from her end of the table: “Who is that awful man sitting on my son’s right?” When asked later by newsmen about his opinion of FDR, Long said, “I like him. But by God, I feel sorry for him. He’s got even more sonsofbitches in his family than I got in mine.” T. Harry Williams, Huey Long 601–602 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969).

* Twenty-two years later, FDR would capture the nation’s attention by flying from Albany to Chicago to accept the Democratic nomination for president—the first presidential candidate to use an airplane during a campaign.

* Hamilton Fish [II] was the son of the Hamilton Fish, who served successively as governor of New York, U.S. senator, and Grant’s secretary of state for eight years. Fish II served in Congress for only one term (1909–1911) and is the father of Hamilton Fish, Jr., who subsequently held the seat from 1920 to 1945 and delighted in tweaking FDR.

* Charles Murphy, who headed Tammany Hall from 1902 until his death in 1924, was the antithesis of his ham-handed predecessors. Known variously as “The Quiet Chief,” “Silent Charlie,” or simply “Mr. Murphy,” he had a cleansing effect on both the organization and New York politics.

The son of an Irish tenant farmer, Murphy saved enough money driving a Blue Line horse trolley to open a saloon (the first of four) known as Charlie’s Place on Second Avenue, where he learned politics doling out favors to the neighborhood. He rose quickly through the Tammany ranks, attributable in part to his gentlemanly discretion and in part to his innate political instinct, to become the most powerful Democratic leader in the state.

Reform was in the air when Murphy took control of Tammany, and he put the organization at the head of the parade. As he saw it, reform had too many ramifications to be left to the reformers. Under Murphy, Tammany became the most potent force for effecting economic and social change in New York. It supported Republican governor Charles Evans Hughes in the creation of a Public Utilities Commission, as well as laws regulating banking, insurance, and tenement housing. It pioneered legislation for old-age pensions, workman’s compensation, and five-cent transit fares. Robert Wagner would later refer to Murphy’s Tammany as “the cradle of modern liberalism.” Nancy J. Weiss, Charles Francis Murphy, 1858–1924: Respectability and Responsibility in Tammany Politics 27–38 (Northampton, Mass: Smith College, 1968); Alfred Connable and Edward Silberfarb, Tiger of Tammany: Nine Men Who Ran New York (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967); Charles LaCerra, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Tammany Hall of New York 43–46 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1997).

* Edward M. Shepard 14, Judge Alton B. Parker 6, former governor Herrick 2, State Supreme Court justice James W. Gerard 2, and Martin W. Littleton 2.

* Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, one of Al Smith’s closest advisers, said party professionals in New York always laughed a little at FDR for the Sheehan affair. “According to the gospel, FDR won a great victory. But the victory was that instead of getting Sheehan, who was a pretty good upstate lawyer, [Tammany] withdrew