Roosevelt (75 page)

The President looked at him. “Young man, I think you are very sincere. Have you read Carl Sandburg’s
Lincoln
?”

No, the young man had not.

“I think the impression was that Lincoln was a pretty sad man,” Roosevelt went on, “because he could not do all he wanted to do at one time, and I think you will find examples where Lincoln had to compromise to gain a little something. He had to compromise to make a few gains. Lincoln was one of those unfortunate people called a ‘politician’ but he was a politician who was practical enough to get a great many things for this country. He was a sad man because he couldn’t get it all at once. And nobody can.

“Maybe you would make a much better President than I have. Maybe you will, some day. If you ever sit here, you will learn that you cannot, just by shouting from the housetops, get what you want all the time.”

If sections of organized youth felt deserted and bitter, there was another group that had no mixed feelings about the President. By June 1940 hundreds of Democratic party politicos were clamoring
for the President to run. He already had enough delegate votes to win the nomination easily. Then, late in June, he strengthened his position immensely by one of his quick strokes.

On the eve of the Republican convention in Philadelphia, the President appointed two eminent Republicans to his cabinet—Henry L. Stimson, seventy-three years old, a militant internationalist and a cabinet member under Taft and Hoover, as Secretary of War, and Frank Knox, Chicago newspaper publisher, Landon’s running mate in 1936, and one of Uncle Ted’s Rough Riders, as Secretary of the Navy. The Republicans might have ignored the matter, or they might have congratulated Roosevelt on undertaking to start his administration toward the change that the Republicans would complete in November. As Roosevelt probably anticipated, they did neither. Hysterical outcries rent the Philadelphia air, and there was even talk about reading the two renegades out of their party.

“Dirty politics!” the Republicans shouted at Roosevelt. Actually the President had been planning since the outbreak of war to make his cabinet bipartisan. He had hoped to appoint Landon as well as Knox, but this plan repeatedly fell afoul of Landon’s refusal to come in unless Roosevelt publicly opposed a third term. Several other factors delayed the cabinet shuffle: Roosevelt’s reluctance to oust Harry Woodring as Secretary of War; his concern that Knox’s appointment might lead to difficulties with the publisher’s old enemy, Boss Kelly; the arrangements that had to be made with Boss Hague of New Jersey to nominate Secretary of the Navy Edison for governor of New Jersey. When Landon in mid-May still demanded the third-term disclaimer, Roosevelt seized on a suggestion of Frankfurter’s to choose Stimson. He then waited two weeks and announced the appointments just as the Republican convention was getting under way. As usual, Roosevelt’s timing was perfect; the date fitted both the needs of the crisis abroad and politics at home.

The President followed with interest the turbulent Republican convention. For several ballots Dewey and Taft led the pack; then, with the help of the roaring, chanting galleries, Wendell Willkie surged ahead to an electrifying sixth-ballot victory. A utilities magnate as Republican candidate! “Nothing so extraordinary has ever happened in American politics,” Ickes exclaimed. The convention seemed to arouse Roosevelt’s militancy. He told his cabinet that he would break down the aura surrounding Willkie by tieing him in with the idea of the corporate state.

Now at last, with foreign and domestic events coming into focus, the President could act. On July 3 he had Hull in for lunch. The secretary of state immediately noticed a whole change of manner. To be sure, Roosevelt still deprecated the idea of running for a
third term. But he talked in a “sort of impatient, incredulous tone” of the pressure on him not to let the party down. He explored Hull’s weak points as a candidate. His guarded tone convinced the old Tennessean that the President would run again.

Although surprised and mystified, Hull let the matter drop. It was too late for him to act on his own even if he wished to run. Garner, too, after his drubbings by Roosevelt in presidential primaries, was now all but out of the race. There was still Farley, though, to be reckoned with. The big, bald politico could not win. But how much damage could he do to the President? By July, Farley was in a mood to do damage. He was bitter over Roosevelt’s refusal to tell him of his plans, angry over Roosevelt’s devious behavior on the issue of a Catholic candidate, and indignant above all over Roosevelt’s failure to declare himself and let another Democrat have his chance at the presidency. In this mood Farley saw his chief at Hyde Park on a broiling day in early July. The photographers found two laughing, joking old comrades, but when they left the atmosphere quickly cooled. After desultory conversation the President shrugged his shoulders and waved toward his library and hilltop retreat.

“Jim, I don’t want to run and I’m going to tell the convention so.” If the President hoped that Farley would urge him to run, he was disappointed.

Having steeled himself against the President’s persuasiveness, Farley said bluntly: “If you make it specific, the convention will not nominate you.” Farley then launched into a brief against the third term.

“What would you do if you were in my place?” the President finally asked.

“Exactly what General Sherman did many years ago—issue a statement saying I would refuse to run if nominated and would not serve if elected.”

“Jim, if nominated and elected, I could not in these times refuse to take the inaugural oath, even if I knew I would be dead within thirty days.”

Farley would never forget the President’s appearance at that moment—“his right hand clasping the arm of his chair as he leaned back, his left bent at the elbow to hold his cigarette, his face and eyes deadly earnest.” There was a pause, and then more talk. When the political charade was over, each man had got the information he wanted. Roosevelt knew that Farley’s name would go before the convention. Farley knew that Roosevelt would run—but wanted an emphatic and uncontrollable draft.

Next day Farley left for Chicago grimly determined that
Roosevelt would not get that kind of draft. A week later began one of the most extraordinary conventions in history.

The Chicago Stadium, Monday morning, July 15, 1940. The corridor ringing the arena was a long congested bazaar, where bellowing hawkers peddled souvenirs, pennants, pop, hot dogs, popcorn, pictures of Roosevelt. Inside, a huge sickly gray portrait of the President looked down through the smoky haze on the gathering. The bunting around the hall was bright, the tiers of seats were gleaming red, but on the convention floor all was dull and cold. Delegates, alternates, and spectators milled about dejectedly. What’s going to happen? they asked one another. What’s the score? No one knew. Even the Very Important were uncertain. Ickes, watching sourly from the platform, had got no directions from the President, nor had others of the inner circle. Big Jim Farley, presiding over the convention, wanted none. Mayor Kelly mentioned the President in his welcome, but even the magic name of Roosevelt fell flat on the listless delegates and the half-filled galleries.

Soon word was spreading quickly around the floor that Hopkins was the man to see. He was in the know. Sprawling on his bed in the Blackstone Hotel, his bony frame showing through his shirt and baggy trousers, hair falling down over his pallid skull, Hopkins did indeed have a special line to the White House—a telephone in the bathroom, the only place where he was sure of privacy.

Yet even Hopkins did not really know.

Roosevelt was acting out his curious role down to the last scene. He had given no final plan or instructions to anyone—not even to Hopkins—because he was determined that the party must summon him on its own. He still wanted a genuine and emphatic draft. He would not stop Hopkins, Ickes, and the rest from working for such a draft, but neither would he help them. When they had begged him just before the convention to give them sailing orders, he had only smiled and repeated that the convention must decide. God would provide a candidate, he said. The telephone in Hopkins’ bathroom was less an instrument of presidential command than a means of keeping the President informed. But that private wire, along with the sick man’s residence in the White House, were the stuff and symbol of Hopkins’ authority.

Only once did Roosevelt act directly to help the draft. When it was still certain, as the convention opened, that Farley was the main obstacle to a unanimous summons, the President telephoned him and gingerly—ever so gingerly—intimated that there might be no need for a ballot. “That’s perfectly silly,” Farley said shortly, and Roosevelt let the matter drop. In any event, the President’s indirect tactics of the past year were paying off. No other strong candidate
was available now. Even those party leaders who had little love for Roosevelt wanted this supreme vote-getter at the head of the ticket. And the bandwagon jumpers, waiting to see the drift of things, could sense the temper of the convention. It would be Roosevelt.

Still, the delegates were worried—worried about Willkie’s popularity, worried about the third term, worried about the President’s plans. Tuesday was another dull day, full of turgid oratory and restless, milling delegates. The Roosevelt men were worried too. What was Farley up to? Would Garner, Farley, and the others still work out a coalition? Byrnes, Jackson, and Ickes cooked up a scheme to take control of the convention and push the President’s nomination through. Hopkins, still lacking instructions, notified the White House about the plan. Roosevelt vetoed it. He did not mind if the convention was drab, Hopkins reported back. The regular procedure must go on.

THIS CONVENTION IS BLEEDING TO DEATH,
Ickes wired the President.
YOUR REPUTATION AND PRESTIGE MAY BLEED WITH IT
. He begged his chief to come to Chicago and supply leadership. There was no answer. Roosevelt awaited his draft. To make it seem genuine, he had devised one final twist.

Tuesday night Barkley delivered an old-fashioned, stem-winding speech. Part way through, an incidental mention of Roosevelt’s name unleashed a spontaneous demonstration, but Barkley, pounding his gavel, managed to quiet the hall. Finally he came to his climax—a message Roosevelt had sent him to deliver. The President had tried “in no way whatsoever,” the message began, to influence the selection or opinions of delegates. His voice rising to a roar, Barkley went on:

“Tonight, at the specific request and authorization of the President, I am making this simple fact clear to the Convention.

“The President has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the Convention for that office.”

A hush spread over the hall.

“He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all the delegates to this Convention are free to vote for any candidate.

“That is the message I bear to you from the President of the United States.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Delegates looked at one another uncertainly. Then, from loud-speakers around the hall, came the cry of a single, thunderous voice.

“WE WANT ROOSEVELT!”

A few delegates seized their state standards and started parading down the aisles. “EVERYBODY WANTS ROOSEVELT!” roared
the loud-speakers. More delegates filed out; hundreds of spectators started pouring from the galleries onto the floor. “THE WORLD WANTS ROOSEVELT!” A long serpentine parade began weaving toward the rostrum. Down in a basement room Kelly’s superintendent of sewers, a leather-lunged, potbellied little man, pressed his lips against the microphone. “ROOSEVELT!” The parade was now a wild, screaming mob. “ROOSEVELT!” Cheerleaders, bands, noise-makers added to the din, but the voice could still be heard, now a driving, drumming, ear-splitting chorus, carrying everything before it. “ROOSEVELT!” The mob surged down the aisles, waving banners, knocking down chairs, pushing people aside. “ROOSEVELT! … ROOSEVELT! … ROOSEVELT! …”

In an hour order was restored, but everything now was anti-climactic. Next day Roosevelt’s name was put in nomination; then ailing old Senator Glass nominated Farley in a few rasping words that could hardly be heard over the scrape and shuffle and occasional boos and catcalls from the floor. Impatiently the convention waited while Garner, Tydings, and Hull were nominated, seconded, and given sad little demonstrations. The only ballot was the first: Roosevelt 946, Farley 72, Garner 61, Tydings 9, Hull 5. Then Farley, a party man to the end, moved Roosevelt’s nomination by acclamation, to a roar of “ayes.”

In the White House the President, surrounded by friends and aides, had listened intently to the proceedings. His draft secured, he turned immediately to the vice-presidential nomination. Until now he had not announced his choice, partly because he had hoped that Hull would accept, partly because his own draft movement was stronger the longer he held the vice-presidential prize open as bait. The night of his nomination Roosevelt began notifying Hopkins and other party leaders that his choice was Wallace. The Secretary of Agriculture was a dependable liberal, the President felt, and would appeal to the farm states, where isolationist feeling was strong. But the leaders were appalled by Roosevelt’s choice. Wallace was a mystic, they complained, an inarticulate philosopher, an ex-Republican, a political innocent.

Roosevelt was adamant. “I won’t deliver that acceptance speech,” he said to Rosenman at breakfast Thursday morning, “until we see whom they nominate.”

The real difficulty was not Wallace but the fact that a host of vice-presidential booms were under way at Chicago. Jesse Jones, Ickes, McNutt, Byrnes, and a dozen others were busily lining up delegates. Several candidates thought they had Roosevelt’s support. Louis Johnson, after flying to Washington during the convention to see the President, returned to Chicago and scurried around the convention floor to report jubilantly that Roosevelt had given him the
“green light.” His friends were unimpressed. One of them finally said, “Oh! hell, Louis, this convention hall is full of candidates with green lights.” When news spread that the President had chosen Wallace, all the other hopefuls dropped out, cursing and grumbling, except McNutt and Speaker Bankhead of Alabama. The latter, a self-styled unreconstructed Southerner, thought the White House had agreed to leave the vice-presidential nomination open if he undertook not to enter the presidential lists.