FDR - Jean Edward Smith [71]
It was a snug fit. In addition to the three children (Anna, James, and Elliott), Eleanor brought a car and chauffeur from Hyde Park, four servants, a nurse, and a governess. Four years later, after the addition of two more children (FDR, Jr., and John), the Roosevelts moved to much larger quarters at 2131 R Street, a double town house some sixty feet wide that Bamie also owned.56 Franklin and Eleanor paid the expenses in both houses but lived rent-free. Bamie and her husband were comfortably ensconced at “Oldgate,” the Cowles estate in Farmington, Connecticut, and were content simply to have their Washington homes remain in the family. Meanwhile, FDR leased his New York town house on East Sixty-fifth Street to Thomas W. Lamont, a senior partner (and later chairman) of J. P. Morgan & Co.
Nineteen-thirteen was the first year for federal income tax under the Sixteenth Amendment. The rate was 1 percent, graduated to 6 percent for those with incomes above $500,000 a year. Dividends were not taxed. FDR’s returns for the eight years he was in Washington show a gross income that averaged slightly more than $20,000 annually. (To convert to current dollars, multiply by 18.) Five thousand dollars came from his salary as assistant secretary, another $5,000 from rent on the New York town house, and the remainder from interest and dividends. FDR invested primarily in high-dividend-paying banks, railroads, and General Electric. After deductions and exemptions, his federal tax bills averaged somewhat less than $200.57*
It was as assistant secretary of the Navy that FDR established his enduring relationship with Louis Howe. Two days after he was sworn in, Franklin asked Howe to join him at the Navy Department (evidently he had made the offer before leaving Albany). “Dear Ludwig,” he wrote. “Here’s the dope. Secretary—$2000—Expect you April 1 with new uniform.”58 Howe telegraphed his acceptance instantly: “I am game but it’s going to break me.”59 In truth, Howe had never made so much money, nor with more security. He hurried to Washington, bringing his family with him, and rented an apartment in the 1800 block of P Street, two blocks from the Roosevelts. Every morning at 8:15 sharp he would call for Franklin, and the two would walk to the Navy Department. FDR’s son Elliott fondly remembers his father “striding down Connecticut Avenue with Louis hurrying along at his side. The two of them looked uncannily like Don Quixote and Sancho setting out to battle with giants.”60
Howe was more than a secretary. Later he joked that when he arrived in Washington he knew so little that for the first several days he was reduced “to blotting Franklin’s signature.”61 Within weeks he was on top of the job. Howe became the junior member of a two-man firm dedicated to furthering FDR’s career. As one biographer has written, Howe and Roosevelt played politics like doubles partners played tennis and their goal from the beginning was the White House.62 For Howe the decision was simple: he loved power. Eleanor, who later developed a great affection for Howe, said, “Louis had enormous interest in having power, and if he could not have it for himself, he wanted it through someone he was influencing.”63 Roosevelt, for his part, found in Howe an extension of his own persona who automatically operated in his interest without requiring hands-on control. Howe had no agenda of his own. The veteran journalist John Gunther