FDR - Jean Edward Smith [59]
Sulzer’s nomination appeared open and above board. House’s role was not revealed. Wilson claimed victory and hailed the “freedom of action which the convention exercised.”38 The party split was healed, the Empire State Democracy dissolved, and FDR said he was proud to be a Democratic regular. “I believe in unity,” he told the Times.39 The only discordant note was sounded by Thomas Mott Osborne, the financial angel of the Empire State Democracy. Wilson, he said afterward, was “perfectly willing to put the ten commandments to a vote and reject them if the vote were adverse.”40 Senator Robert Wagner called Osborne a poor loser.41
FDR’s practical education continued. He began to appreciate that life in the political arena involved more than bossism and good government. He saw House negotiate with Murphy and recognized how expendable he himself had been. He also recognized that he had to get through the eye of the Democratic needle and be renominated for his Senate seat. After that he faced a general election against not just a single Republican opponent but a Bull Moose acolyte of Cousin Theodore as well. Franklin saw the handwriting on the wall and made peace with Tammany. As one scholar expressed it, FDR became a Democratic regular and a Tammany irregular.42 There were even rumors that if a Democratic victory in the gubernatorial race had been in doubt, Murphy would have held his nose and backed Roosevelt—just as the Republicans had nominated Theodore in 1898 to avoid defeat.*
After FDR pulled in his horns he was nominated unanimously by the Democratic caucus in Poughkeepsie. Past differences were brushed aside, and Franklin once again hired Harry Hawkey’s red Maxwell convertible to barnstorm the district. But before the campaign commenced, Roosevelt was struck down with a particularly virulent attack of typhoid. Eleanor, who was also hit, but not as seriously, blamed the drinking water aboard the steamer returning from Campobello.43 Franklin’s political career appeared to have come to an abrupt end. He could not possibly win a three-way race without mounting a strenuous backcountry campaign similar to the one he had waged two years before. But he was feverish and bedridden. To make matters worse, he had been stricken in New York City, not Hyde Park, and the old carpetbagger accusation was certain to resurface. In desperation, Franklin asked Eleanor to send for Louis Howe.44
Eleven years older than FDR, Louis Howe was the Albany reporter for the New York Herald. A veteran newsman with a hopeless addiction to politics, Howe gloried in an atmosphere of racetracks, gambling casinos, and the ornate watering holes of East Coast society. He was barely five feet tall, emaciated, his face scarred by a childhood bicycle accident. A malodorous Sweet Caporal cigarette dangled perpetually from his lips, the ashes falling randomly on his rumpled three-piece suits. Even when freshly scrubbed, which was not often, he looked dirty and unkempt. Howe took perverse pride in his appearance, claiming to be one of the four ugliest men in New York. “Children take one look at me on the street and run.”45 A fellow reporter once called him a “medieval gnome,” and Howe accepted the designation with delight. For most people, Louis Howe was an acquired taste. But he was blessed with superabundant energy, uncanny political insight, and a penchant for intrigue. His cynical view of human nature rarely left him disappointed. And he was always broke. His job with the Herald was seasonal and provided a precarious living at best. As a result, he hired himself out as a ghostwriter whenever possible, but the pickings in Albany were