The Patriarch (35 page)

It was a brave speech and a foolish one. Given the opportunity to demonstrate to his classmates that he was not an outsider, but one of them, he could not quite do it. Instead, he felt called upon to tell them—to their aristocratic, “proper Bostonian” Republican faces—that they had got it all wrong about Roosevelt and the New Deal, that he was their savior, not their executioner. Whether intended or not, and whether he knew it or not, he had insulted them all by bringing politics—and decidedly the wrong kind of politics—into the sanctified space of a Harvard class reunion.

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H
is new position was not nearly as high-profile as his former one. He would have to make his own headlines, which, with the help of Arthur Krock, he did. He delivered his first official speech to the Propeller Club at the Hotel Astor on May 21, 1937. As the
New York Times
reported on its front page the next morning, he pledged a
MERCHANT MARINE TO EQUAL ANY RIVAL. MARITIME BOARD HEAD PLANS TO BUILD NEW AND FASTER SHIPS IN IMMEDIATE FUTURE. AID OF CAPITAL ASKED. GOVERNMENT IS READY TO TAKE INITIATIVE . . . “SQUARE DEAL” FOR LABOR. MEN AFLOAT TO BE TREATED AS THOSE ASHORE, BUT LOYALTY WILL BE DEMANDED OF THEM.
There was nothing especially controversial or even interesting in what Kennedy proposed, except, as the
Times
reported, for his “enunciation of the commission’s labor policy.”

The industry had been convulsed by two major strikes in three years, the first of which had escalated into the general strike that had virtually shut down San Francisco in the summer of 1934 and lasted a full eighty-three days; the second, less than two and a half years later, had paralyzed West Coast shipping for ninety-nine days and cost the industry some $700 million. Had the labor problems that roiled the industry been confined to labor/management disputes, they might have been settled more easily and quickly. But through the 1930s, maritime labor had been engaged in an internal civil war between newly established and usually more militant locals with allegiance to the CIO and older ones affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

There were, as Kennedy acknowledged in his inaugural speech, reasons for labor strife in the maritime industry, primary among them the low and irregular wages crewmen were paid and the impossibly poor working conditions they were forced to endure. The Maritime Commission had been empowered to rectify these conditions—and would—by setting minimum hours and wage rates for seamen who worked for companies that received government subsidies. Kennedy promised to give the seamen “a square deal” and asked them, in turn, to “give the Commission and the tax-paying public a square deal. . . . Labor, the commission believes, must demonstrate that it is worthy of the special treatment which the American public is willing to give it. . . . There can be no excuse for costly and bitter factionalism which is harmful to everyone in the long run. . . . In particular, labor ought to be willing to forego resort to extreme measures when there exists peaceful machinery for adjusting its grievances.”
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It was not difficult to read between the lines here. In asking the seamen to “forego resort to extreme measures,” Kennedy was requesting that they give up their right to strike and accept arbitration in its place. In involving himself directly in the industry’s labor problems, Kennedy believed he was doing what Roosevelt expected of him. In June, the president had forwarded to Kennedy a four-page letter he had received, detailing the deplorable conditions the letter writer, a distinguished author, had found on an American ship bound for China. The crew had been surly, incompetent, and undisciplined. Roosevelt noted that such conditions were “all too common on American ships.” The implication was that Kennedy should do something about it.
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I
n May, Kennedy, who until now had received only praise for his work in Washington, was given a draft of a cover story that Earle Looker, a well-respected journalist, had written for
Fortune
magazine’s forthcoming survey of the shipping industry. He immediately wrote Russell Davenport, the managing editor of
Fortune,
that the article was “permeated with distrust of my character, dislike of my occupations and social prejudice against my origin. . . . I have marked fifty-four inaccuracies in as many places.” Davenport invited him to elaborate, which he did in a long letter, written with Arthur Krock’s help, listing the false “statements” with his “observations” and corrections. He was particularly incensed at the characterization of his father as a saloon keeper who had entered government service to increase his “opportunities for the acquisition of wealth.” “The inference here [that P.J. had been a corrupt politician] is mean and contemptible. My father’s reputation could never be touched by any such aspersion.” He was also disturbed by Looker’s charge that he had been an operator of the Libbey-Owens-Ford pool and a “cold blooded Bear of exceptional shrewdness.” The fact that Looker had gotten this part of the portrait right was beside the point.

Davenport sent an associate to placate Kennedy, then wrote him personally to assure him that the article would be redrafted to incorporate his corrections. That wasn’t enough. Kennedy demanded that the article be taken away from Earle Looker, “whose presentation of me is so cheap and tawdry that a rereading of the script sickened me. There are so many deliberate misrepresentations that I believe that either Looker has an ingrained hatred of the Irish, or a resentment against me personally. The only basis for personal antagonism I could think of might be Looker’s anger at my failure to arrange for him a sale of his book to a moving picture company. The request was made to me in writing while he was engaged in working on the present draft. If such is the explanation for the article, the word ‘blackmail’ despite all its ugly imputations is not too extreme a characterization. After consulting with some friends in Washington, I am convinced that it would be useless to attempt to revise a draft so permeated with bias and incompetence.”
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The implications were clear. Kennedy did not identify his “friends in Washington,” but he didn’t have to. They included the most powerful men in the Roosevelt administration and columnists like Arthur Krock and Drew Pearson. Davenport backed down, withdrew Looker’s draft, and assigned the article to another author. In early August, he sent Kennedy the new draft and a copy of the photograph that was to run with it. Kennedy’s threats had gotten him precisely what he wanted, a puff piece in a major financial magazine. He segued now from bullying Davenport to flattering him. “My dear Mr. Davenport,” he wrote on August 6. “I want to tell you how very much I appreciate the picture. It will remind me of a great many things, not least of which is your masterful handling of a very difficult situation with a very irritable young man named Kennedy. . . . My warmest personal regards and assuring you it has been a great pleasure working with you.”
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O
ccupied with both the Maritime Commission and, to a lesser extent, Hearst business, Kennedy commuted back and forth to Hyannis Port that summer of 1937. Jack, healthy now for almost a year, had left for Europe with Lem Billings in early July. Rose departed at the end of the month with Joe Jr. and Kick. Bobby and Pat went off to one camp, Rosemary to another. Eunice was left behind in Hyannis Port with her baby brother and youngest sister, but that was fine with her; she had learned to sail by crewing with Joe Jr. and had her best year yet, winning several races. Jean won some races herself that summer.

While Jack’s trip to Europe was done on the cheap to accommodate Billings’s relatively modest budget, there were, as befitted the son of a Washington insider, appointments at the American embassies in Paris and Rome, a private meeting with Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pacelli, and an audience with Pope Pius XI. In late August, Kennedy wrote to thank Count Enrico Galeazzi for entertaining his son, joking that “the only trouble with all of this is that I have such a large family that those who have enjoyed your hospitality insist upon their return that the others must go to Rome to meet Mr. Galeazzi. So, if your patience will hold out, I will send the little Kennedys along as they gradually get old enough to travel.”
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In summers past, Rosemary had joined the family at Hyannis Port, but this year, with her older brothers and sisters and mother going abroad and Bobby and Pat at camp, it was thought best to send her to camp, with an adult companion to look after her. In the fall, she would return for a second year to the Residence School at 37 East Eighty-third Street in Manhattan, which was run by Miss Mollie Hourigan. Her parents had sent her to New York so that she might, after being tutored one-on-one in Brookline for two years, be able to live with other girls, take a group class in choral singing, and go on group trips to the opera, concerts, lectures, and horse shows on Friday evenings. Her schoolwork was overseen by Miss Amanda Rohde at her studio on West Eightieth Street; Miss Rohde also took her to her dancing lessons once a week and to the doctor’s offices on East Ninetieth Street for her “gland” injections.
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On paper, the arrangement appeared to be the best possible for Rosemary, who got the personal attention she required from a private tutor and, at Miss Hourigan’s Residence School, the group activities that she had missed at Miss Newton’s. Much like Miss Newton in Brookline, Miss Rohde found Rosemary difficult to teach and her “attitude towards her work, and consequently towards me” particularly troubling. “Rosemary,” Rohde wrote Rose in mid-October, “has been allowed to escape too much for her own welfare. She has found it more pleasant to day-dream. Now she makes herself unpleasant when she finds herself in a situation in which she has to think. If she is allowed to continue in this, she will become more and more difficult to live with. Little by little she must be brought to face reality. It will be a long siege, but it can be done.”
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That past spring, the Kennedys, still in search of the expert who could diagnose Rosemary’s problems and prescribe a cure, had taken her to Dr. Walter Dearborn, a Harvard research scientist and clinician with degrees in experimental psychology and medicine and expertise in intelligence testing, growth studies, and the development of reading comprehension. Rosemary met with Dr. Dearborn at the Psycho-Educational Clinic at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Like the other experts who had examined Rosemary, Dearborn assured her parents that he could help and designed a personalized curriculum that leaned heavily on the work of John Dewey and the first generation of progressive educators. To teach her “practical arithmetic,” he proposed giving her an account in the “department store” with regular bills she would have to pay. “She should be trained to shop within a given budget and to go through step by step all of the processes of shopping accounts, records, and so forth.”
¹⁷

Dearborn had several recommendations for next year’s course of study. Amanda Rohde could continue as Rosemary’s tutor. What remained for Rose to decide was whether it would be best for her daughter to stay on for another year at the Residence School or move to the Sacred Heart Convent in Manhattanville, where she would be watched over by the nuns and live with girls her own age instead of the much younger Residence School students.

In July 1937, after much procrastination, Rose notified Miss Hourigan that she wanted Rosemary to return to the Residence School. She was caught entirely off guard when Miss Hourigan replied that it would be best if Rosemary boarded elsewhere. Although she was “drawn to Rosemary and I feel that I shall always be interested in her,” she could not allow her to return for a second year. “Quite frankly, the responsibility was much greater for me, last year, than I had anticipated. Having accepted the child, and agreed upon the arrangements with you, it was only a short time before I realized that Rosemary needed continual protection or supervision. This entailed a constant checking, which was a responsibility that could never be let down. I do not think we have ever had a more lovable girl, dear Mrs. Kennedy but frankly, I have never before carried as great a responsibility, both for your child, and for my school.” Miss Hourigan recommended that Rose try to arrange some sort of living arrangement for Rosemary at the Manhattanville Sacred Heart convent, which would be much more suitable for her, “because, in that large group there would be contacts of every kind, without ever leaving the convent grounds.” With more to do at the convent, Rosemary, a rather pretty, though slightly overweight, nineteen-year-old, might have less incentive to wander away, unnoticed and unchaperoned, which either had already happened or, Miss Hourigan feared, would happen if she remained at the Residence School building on East Eighty-third Street.
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As Rosemary got older, the distance between what she was permitted to do and what she wanted to do had grown enormously. She had always been the only Kennedy child who was not allowed to go sailing or play in the yard or go for a walk or swim without her brothers, sisters, companions, or mother tagging along. “As she grew older and was a teenager,” Rose remembered some three decades later, “I was always worried that she would run away from home someday and get lost, or that she would meet with an accident, or that [in the wake of the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping] she would go off with someone who would flatter her or kidnap her as the kidnapping craze was on then.”
¹⁹

Her parents—and siblings—wanted more than anything else for Rosemary to feel comfortable in the world, to fit in, to belong, to be accepted, but that was becoming more difficult for her anywhere outside the Kennedy home. She was uneasy in public and often froze when confronted by a simple task, such as paying for something. Dr. Dearborn suggested that she was beset at such moments by a kind of “intellectual blocking as a result of failure in . . . tense social settings—‘the concerned looks of all concerned.’”
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