FDR - Jean Edward Smith [80]
FDR was caught unprepared. He had not expected a rival and was not ready to campaign. He crisscrossed the state several times but made little impression on the voters. Roosevelt had no particular message other than his opposition to “bossism” and he had surprisingly little grasp of the issues facing the state. “When compared to such a man as Elihu Root he cuts a sorry figure as a great statesman,” commented one upstate paper.34
When the votes were counted on September 28, FDR was swamped by his absentee opponent. Gerard received 210,765 votes to Roosevelt’s 76,888. The ambassador led FDR 4 to 1 in New York City and 2 to 1 upstate. Franklin’s only consolation was to carry twenty-two of the state’s sixty-one counties, including Dutchess, which he won 461–93. “I wonder if you are disappointed,” his mother wrote. “I hope you are not. You made a brave fight and can now return to the good and necessary work of the Navy Department, which you have missed all these weeks.”35
Franklin assured Sara that he was not disappointed and cheerily told the press it had been a good fight.36 Within weeks he put a Roosevelt twist on the disaster, claiming to have carried a majority of the state’s counties and losing only because of “the solid lineup of New York City,” ignoring the fact that Gerard had trounced him 2 to 1 upstate.37 Daniels, who had watched the campaign from a distance, believed the loss hurt FDR more than he cared to admit. “I refrained from telling him ‘I told you so.’ ”38
As Daniels had predicted, November was a bad month for Democrats. In the general election, the GOP gained 69 seats in the House of Representatives and picked up seven governorships. In New York, Gerard, who remained at his post in Berlin, lost the Senate race to James Wadsworth of Geneseo by 70,000 votes; Glynn lost his bid for reelection as governor to Charles S. Whitman; and the Republicans recaptured both houses of the legislature.
Both Franklin and Charles Murphy learned from the debacle. Murphy recognized that while Tammany could dictate the party’s nominee, it could not guarantee victory in the general election. FDR learned that running statewide was far more complicated than contesting a three-county Senate seat. He also learned he could not defy the New York City organization if he wanted the nomination, nor could he win in November without Tammany’s support. Howe suggested to Franklin that it was time to make peace, and FDR needed little coaxing. Never again did he publicly criticize Tammany Hall.39
By 1915 Roosevelt had become a virtual regular in the New York organization. He endorsed Al Smith, Tammany’s candidate for sheriff of New York County, supported Senate leader Robert Wagner for postmaster of New York City,* and posed happily with Charles Murphy at Tammany’s annual Fourth of July celebration. There was even talk that FDR might head the ticket in 1916 as Murphy’s candidate for governor.40
FDR made peace with Tammany because his political career required it. But he never forgave Gerard for having defeated him. In October 1914, Colonel House, Wilson’s political majordomo, wrote McAdoo to urge Franklin to come out strongly for Gerard before the November election. Roosevelt returned the note with “NUTS F.D.R.” scrawled across the top.41 Years later, as president, Roosevelt still held a grudge. James Farley, whose job it was to keep tabs on Democratic donors, urged that Gerard (one of the largest contributors and in Farley’s words “a faithful servant of the Democratic Party”) be