FDR - Jean Edward Smith [64]
* The remaining 59 votes were split among a variety of favorite-son candidates, including Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana (31). William Jennings Bryan, who was not a candidate but who hovered over the convention like Banquo’s ghost, received one vote. Congressional Quarterly, Guide to U.S. Elections 148 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, 1975).
* Wilson attributed his nomination to divine intervention. “I am a Presbyterian and believe in predestination. It was Providence that did the work in Baltimore,” he told his campaign manager, William F. McCombs. McCombs, who had worked round the clock to secure Wilson’s victory, was understandably taken aback. “I must confess I felt a chill … because I thought that if he attempted to apply that Predestination doctrine to the extreme, the Democratic campaign might find itself very much in the ruck.” William F. McCombs, Making Woodrow Wilson President 180–181 (New York: Fairview Publishing Co., 1921).
* An unsigned Tammany memorandum from a member of the State Senate, perhaps Tim Sullivan, to Charles Murphy, makes the case for an alliance with FDR: “I would rather an organization man were elected, but we can’t win with an organization man.… My reasons for favoring Mr. Roosevelt are as follows: First—He is a young man, who would go up and down the state capturing a great army of young men.… Second—The name Roosevelt would mean at least 10,000 votes to the Democratic ticket. Third—He is worth several million dollars, and could finance his own campaign, if necessary. Fourth—He is independent and is known throughout the state as a man who will fight for what he believes to be right.” Manuscript, Senate files, FDRL.
* In what surely ranks as one of the greatest examples of chutzpah of modern politics, Howe, over FDR’s signature, wrote the voters of Columbia County on November 1 to attack Franklin’s Republican opponent for not having visited the county during the campaign. FDR, meanwhile, was still flat on his back on East Sixty-fifth Street. FDR to [Voter’s name], November 1, 1912, FDRL.
* The final returns showed Wilson with 6,293,152 to Theodore Roosevelt’s 4,119,207 and Taft’s 3,486,333. Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate, received 900,369, mostly in the West, where agrarian unrest was rampant (he received 16.5 percent of the vote in Nevada and 16.4 percent in Oklahoma). Congressional Quarterly, Guide to U.S. Elections 284 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1975).
* Michael Francis Doyle, a young Philadelphia lawyer active in both the Wilson and Bryan presidential campaigns, was informed by Bryan shortly after the election that Wilson planned to appoint him assistant secretary of the Navy. After FDR’s visit to Trenton, Bryan advised Doyle that Roosevelt had his eye on the position and urged Doyle to withdraw, which Doyle did. Frank Freidel, interview with Michael Francis Doyle, October 17, 1947, cited in Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship 155 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1952).
† Daniels was initially concerned about his lack of nautical knowledge but rationalized his acceptance by recalling that he had been a successful newspaper editor without understanding linotype machines or rotary presses. Horatio Nelson, after all, had been a poor sailor, and, as Daniels would have it, Napoleon had had “no practical experience handling troops.”
Daniels remained at the Navy Department for the entire eight years of the Wilson administration. Afterward he relished retelling the query put by a newsman to longtime Republican congressman Martin B. Madden of Illinois: “Can a civilian direct the Navy if he had no experience in Naval affairs?” Madden answered, “Daniels did.” Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of Peace—1910–1917 122–123 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
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ANCHORS AWEIGH
As a member of the Wilson administration, Roosevelt noted Wilson’s personal difficulties with the politicians, his remoteness and isolation from them.