Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (13 page)

Yet discipline was precisely what was expected of Democrats in Albany. In the matter of selecting a senator, the party traditionally operated as a bloc. The candidate of the party caucus was, ipso facto, the candidate of all the Democrats in the legislature. Because Tammany controlled a majority of the Democrats in the legislature, Charles Murphy’s choice for senator would carry the caucus, and because the Democrats constituted a majority in the legislature, Murphy’s candidate would win the election.

There was one loophole. Innocently or otherwise, Roosevelt asked Alfred E. Smith, a Tammany man more approachable than some of Murphy’s followers, just how tightly party rules bound the members. Smith replied that if Roosevelt attended the party caucus, his vote for the caucus candidate would be required. But if he didn’t attend, he could vote his conscience. Roosevelt noted Smith’s forthrightness and thanked him for it—and proceeded to boycott the caucus.

If that had been the extent of his rebellion, Murphy would have shrugged. Yet Roosevelt, on account of being a Roosevelt, was in the spotlight, and his independence prompted concern among the Tammany leadership. “Big Tim” Sullivan, a Murphy crony, inquired whether this new Roosevelt was really kin to the Rough Rider; informed that he was, Sullivan remarked, “Well, if we’ve caught a Roosevelt, we’d better take him down and drop him off the dock. The Roosevelts run true to form, and this kid is likely to do for us what the Colonel is going to do for the Republican party: split it wide open.”

Tammany’s worries intensified when Roosevelt’s boycott of the caucus spread. Roosevelt wasn’t the only progressive in Albany, and twenty other Democrats joined him in pledging to resist Murphy’s dictation. They proposed, as an alternative to Sheehan, Edward M. Shepard, a reformer from Brooklyn. Partly on account of his famous name, but equally by virtue of his wealth, Roosevelt emerged as the leader of the rebels. Few of the legislators could afford to rent houses in Albany; most took rooms in hotels. Roosevelt was one of the rare renters, and the large house he and Eleanor leased on State Street near the Capitol became a third home for the insurgents. “The men arrived sometime during the morning,” Eleanor recalled. “They went up to the Senate, cast their votes, ate their lunch, and during the afternoon were back at our house for smoking and talk in the library. They went out again for supper, and returned and spent the entire evening.” Their presence ultimately created problems for Eleanor and the children. “One morning the nurse came to me and announced that the children were slowly choking to death in their room because the fumes of the cigars which had been smoked downstairs for months had permeated the bedroom above.” Yet rather than evict the smokers, Eleanor moved the children.

Roosevelt initially ducked the label of leader of the insurgency. “Leader?” he responded to a question. “I should not claim that title. There really is no leader.” He similarly denied any attempt to split or otherwise weaken the Democratic party. “This is not a split in the party, or even a fight in the party. We are merely a group of men who are taking a rational view of a situation that is not very difficult to size up, and acting in accordance with that view…. I am a Democrat first, last, and all the time.”

But he didn’t deny opposing bossism and fighting for honest democracy. “The control by Tammany Hall of the state Democracy will stand under present conditions as an insurmountable obstacle in the way of party success,” he said. “This fight involves a much bigger question than whether Shepard or Sheehan shall go to the United States Senate.” Taking a deep breath, till he became quite full of himself, Roosevelt asserted, “The election of Mr. Sheehan would mean disaster to the Democratic party not only in the state but in the nation.”

Whether or not it affected the nation, the Roosevelt insurgency did draw the attention of the national press. Since the Tweed scandals of the 1870s, everyone in America knew of Tammany Hall; to those many outsiders who looked on Gotham as Gomorrah, Tammany equaled bossism at its most corrupt. The efforts of a new Roosevelt—and one rather more photogenic than Theodore—to tame the Tammany tiger made the best copy since the colonel had assaulted San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War. Paper after paper across the country carried pictures of Roosevelt and reports of his rebellion against Boss Murphy; editor after editor endorsed his struggle. The
Cleveland Plain Dealer
reminded readers of Theodore Roosevelt’s valiant campaigns against corruption and declared, “Franklin D. Roosevelt is beginning his public career fully as auspiciously…. If none of the colonel’s sons turn out to befit objects for popular admiration, may it not be possible that this rising star may continue the Roosevelt dynasty?”

Y
ET
T
AMMANY WAS
wily and determined. New York legislators, like nearly all state legislators then and after, required incomes beyond what they received for their lawmaking service. A handful, like Roosevelt, were financially independent; the others operated farms or businesses or pursued professions. Several of the insurgents had contracts with the state or with businesses dependent to a greater or lesser degree on the goodwill of Tammany Hall. As the boycott of Sheehan proceeded, these vulnerable ones found themselves pinched where it hurt. Contracts were canceled, loans called, mortgages foreclosed. Roosevelt bravely promised to make the victims whole. “Some of us have means, and we intend to stand by the men who are voting for principle,” he declared. “We shall see to it that they are protected in the discharge of their public duty. They shall not suffer because they are faithful to the people.” Just
how
he proposed to do this, he didn’t say. His own means—and Sara’s—rendered him impervious to Tammany’s economic counterattack, but they didn’t stretch far enough to cover all his allies.

Tammany unveiled other weapons. Sheehan was Irish, as were Murphy and many of Tammany’s most loyal supporters. Old-stock Americans of such pedigrees as Roosevelt’s often looked down on the Irish, especially the destitute refugees of the Great Famine of the 1840s and their heirs. Though in his case inaccurate, imputations of anti-Irish feeling in Roosevelt’s opposition to Sheehan and Tammany weren’t implausible. From allegations of anti-Irishism to charges of anti-Catholicism was a short step, which Tammany’s rumor-mongers readily made.

Roosevelt denied the rumors vigorously. “This is absolutely untrue!” he shouted. “We do not ask and do not care from what stock a man may have sprung or what his religious beliefs may be. All we ask is that he be a fit man for United States Senator.” He pointed out that the insurgents included a number of Irishmen and Catholics. Yet his denials simply gave the accusations a larger audience, as Tammany reckoned they would.

Roosevelt fumblingly counterattacked. He alleged that Sheehan was in bed with Thomas Fortune Ryan, an infamous speculator who, with Tammany’s help, had managed to monopolize rail transport in much of New York City. Or if Sheehan wasn’t in bed with Ryan, at least he was in church with Ryan: Roosevelt asserted that the two attended the same ten o’clock mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was a silly charge—hundreds of worshipers attended the same service—and Roosevelt soon let it drop.

But he held his ground otherwise. The insurgency wasn’t going away, he declared. “The Sheehan men can keep up the struggle as long as they choose. They will find that we can stand it as long as they can. They must be aware, however, that the longer they keep up the battle the worse it is for the Democratic Party.”

Murphy eventually agreed. He invited Roosevelt to his hotel suite. The day happened to be Roosevelt’s twenty-ninth birthday, and the Tammany boss exuded good cheer. He met Roosevelt with what Roosevelt afterward characterized to reporters as a “delightful smile,” and he conducted the interview with respect and friendliness. “I know I can’t make you change your mind unless you want to change it,” he told Roosevelt (again by Roosevelt’s account). “Is there any chance of you and the other twenty men coming around to vote for Sheehan?” Roosevelt responded, “No, Mr. Murphy…. In the first place, we believe a great many of our Democratic constituents don’t want him to be the United States senator, and in the second place, he is altogether too closely connected with the traction trust in New York City.” In Roosevelt’s version, Murphy said he accepted this reasoning. He intimated that he had chosen Sheehan more from a sense of personal obligation than from conviction that he was the best man for the job. He told Roosevelt that if the insurgents were dead set against Sheehan and could never vote for him, then he—Roosevelt—should tell Sheehan this to his face, and explain why. Presumably, once Sheehan realized he couldn’t be elected, he would withdraw and save the party further embarrassment.

Roosevelt inferred from the session that Murphy was weakening. He proceeded to his house on State Street to enlist Eleanor’s further support. “My husband came home and announced that the gentleman he was fighting against would be with us for luncheon the next day,” she recalled. “After luncheon I was to entertain ‘Blue Eyed Billy’ Sheehan’s wife while my husband talked to him in his study. Lunch was not so bad, for I had my husband to carry the burden of the conversation, but after lunch we two women sat and talked about the weather and anything else inconsequential that we could think of, while both of us knew quite well that behind the door of my husband’s study a really important fight was going on.”

The issue wasn’t settled that day. Sheehan left as determined as ever; Roosevelt stood equally firm. “Mr. Sheehan is delightful personally,” he told reporters. “But that is one thing; the senatorship fight is another.”

Yet as the impasse continued, it obstructed the work of the legislature, and Tammany and the Democratic regulars feared that after years of Republican control of the state, they were frittering away an opportunity that might not recur soon. Murphy quietly decided to cut his losses. His support of Sheehan grew less and less conspicuous, until the candidate got the message and decided at the end of February to withdraw. Albany watchers anticipated a quick compromise, that the real work of the legislature might begin.

But Roosevelt wasn’t through. He and his fellow insurgents rejected the substitutes Murphy suggested, one after another until more than a dozen had been vetoed. Roosevelt, publicly reconsidering his earlier promise of loyalty to the Democrats, hinted that if he couldn’t work with Tammany and Murphy he might strike a bargain with Republican boss William Barnes. Murphy responded with his own overtures to Barnes.

Meanwhile Tammany’s sapping operations against the insurgency began to tell. One by one Roosevelt’s allies weakened and sought an end to the battle. A stroke of misfortune improved the chances for compromise when the Capitol caught fire in late March and burned badly. Already weary and now displaced, the legislators as a body grew anxious for a solution. Murphy proposed a new candidate, Judge James Aloysius O’Gorman. Before ascending the bench O’Gorman had been a Tammany leader, or sachem, but since then he had earned a reputation for independence of mind and integrity of decision. The choice saved face for both sides in the long struggle: Murphy could point to O’Gorman’s early political career, Roosevelt to his recent judicial service.

All that remained was to negotiate the details of the settlement. Roosevelt insisted on amnesty for himself and the insurgents: no reprisals from the Democratic leadership for their display of conscience. Al Smith and another Tammanyite, Robert Wagner, conveyed Murphy’s assurances on this issue. While Roosevelt and a hard core of the insurgents made a final point by refusing to attend the caucus that nominated O’Gorman, they sent word that they would vote for the judge in the legislature.

Roosevelt proclaimed a victory for principle. “We have followed the dictates of our consciences and have done our duty as we saw it,” he declared. But he was also happy to claim a personal triumph, one suggesting that the pressmen’s parallels to combative Uncle Ted weren’t without basis. “I have just come from Albany and the close of a long fight which lasted sixty-four rounds,” he told an audience at the annual dinner of the Young Men’s Christian Association in New York City the next day. “At the end of it was a free-for-all. Some got battered, but you can see by me that there were few scratches on the insurgents.”

5.

R
OOSEVELT’S RIVALS OFTEN LAMENTED THE LUCK THAT BLESSED HIS
career at crucial moments. He wouldn’t have denied that fortune smiled on him, and he knew from no less an authority than Uncle Ted that luck could make all the difference between success and failure at the apex of public life. “As regards the extraordinary prizes, the element of luck is
the
determining factor,” Theodore wrote his eldest son, Ted, who was Franklin’s near contemporary. Franklin didn’t read this letter, but he certainly heard the sentiment from Theodore, who often acknowledged that his brilliant success owed to two remarkable strokes of luck: his own good luck in surviving his heroics at San Juan Hill and McKinley’s bad luck in being assassinated. Had the dice been weighted ever so slightly differently, the world would scarcely have heard of Theodore Roosevelt.