Roosevelt (99 page)

Roosevelt’s letters both to Delano and to Norris are in PLFDR, pp. 1045-1047. Flynn,
You’re the Boss
(B), p. 159, describes the gloom that pervaded the Democratic delegates upon convention adjournment.

The Hoarse and Strident Voice.
This description of Willkie is based largely on the admirable biography, Joseph Barnes,
Willkie
(Simon and Schuster, 1952), from which I have adapted my section title. For a more critical treatment see “This Man Willkie,”
The New Republic
, Vol. CIII, No. 10, Sept. 2, 1940, Pt. 2. The quotation on page 433 is from Barnes, pp. 160-1. Both Sherwood (B), p. 174, and Farley
²
(B), p. 252, indicate Roosevelt’s respect for Willkie’s strength as a candidate. White House planning of Roosevelt’s defense trips for political advantage is reflected in data in OF 200, Box 79, FDRL. In general, material on the 1940 campaign in FDRL is rather limited and fragmentary. Roosevelt’s comment as to who was “boss” is from PC 647-A, May 28, 1940, a long conference with members of his Advisory Commission, which happily was transcribed and included in the press conferences. Langer and Gleason (B) have a full treatment of diplomatic and military problems in the period after the Nazi blitz.

Lion Versus Sea Lion.
All quotations from Churchill’s speeches or letters in this section are from his
Their Finest Hour
[chap. 18], the second volume of his great work on World War II. Hitler’s plans are taken from Bullock’s
Hitler
[chap. 17]. Langer and Gleason, chap. 22, provides a full treatment of the negotiations and events leading up to the destroyer deal; see works cited therein and also Ickes
³
(B),
passim
, and Barnes, pp. 201-203, the latter on Willkie’s role. Walter Johnson,
The Battle Against Isolation
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), quotes extensively from William Allen White’s correspondence on the destroyer deal. Churchill describes the Battle of Britain vividly and intimately; for a brief, dramatic account see Hanson Baldwin, “This Was Their Finest Hour,”
The New York Times Magazine
, Sept. 4, 1955. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy,
On Active Service in Peace and War
(2 vols., Harper, 1948), p. 346, describe the President’s reluctance to move boldly on selective service legislation; see also PC No. 266, Aug. 2, 1940. Roosevelt’s pleading letter to Walsh is in PLFDR, pp. 1056-1057 (Aug. 22, 1940). It is not certain just when Roosevelt made up his mind to go ahead on the destroyer deal without Congress, but probably he had decided before he wrote Walsh and was trying here to moderate opposition that might appear in Congress. The influence with Roosevelt of the Burlingham
et al.
letter in the
Times
is evident from the President’s letter to Gilbert Montague, Sept. 19, 1940, PPF 3792. Hull (B), p. 837, relates the origin of the idea of dividing the bases into two lots. Churchill,
Their Finest Hour
, p. 330, describes the tide of battle toward the end of August 1940. Langer and Gleason as well as Tansill (B) agree that the destroyer deal marked a decisive change in American neutrality. The Nazis’ hopes of strengthening isolationist opinion in the United States through the Tri-partite Pact are noted in Bullock, p. 563. That Roosevelt felt the destroyer deal would adversely affect his election chances is suggested in the Donovan Papers, cited in Langer and Gleason, p. 765 (footnote 61), and in Roosevelt to Walsh, Aug. 22, 1940, cited above.

The Two-Week Blitz.
That the 1940 presidential election was one of the most rancorous in American history was the view of many participants and observers at the time; Barnes, pp. 206-207, 227,
Time
magazine, Oct. 14, 1940, and Harry Hopkins Papers, Confidential Political File, 1940 Campaign, FDRL, give examples of the low state of the campaign; see also OF 300, Democratic National Committee, 1940. Cantril (B), pp. 939-943, suggests the extent to which Roosevelt was following rather than leading public opinion on rearmament, although it must be kept in mind that the President’s chief problem was not popular attitudes but congressional opposition. For Roosevelt’s quotation of the
Times
article stating that the Axis wished Willkie to win, see PC No. 686, October 4, 1940; PPF 257, FDRL, reflects the special attention paid by the White House to all direct or indirect support for Willkie from German sources. Marquis W. Childs,
I Write from Washington
(Harper, 1342), chap. 11, provides an observer’s evocative picture of Willkie campaigning. Stimson and Bundy, p. 348, suggests the political implications of Roosevelt’s decision to go ahead with the draft. Watching the campaign closely, Sherwood was struck by the hysterical tone of the war issue; see his
Roosevelt and Hopkins
(B), pp. 187-188. The concern of the White House with the national-origin vote—especially the German, Italian, and Irish—is reflected in many FDRL files; see especially OF 1113; PLFDR, p. 1072; Hopkins Papers, 1940 Campaign; OF 300 (New York); and Gosnell
²
, p. 187. The President’s fling at the editorial writers of the
Times
is in PLFDR, pp. 1067-1068. Ickes
³
, pp. 331, 344-345, tells of Flynn’s and Roosevelt’s worry about public opinion poll manipulation. Cantril, pp. 601-602, provides polling figures on the major party vote, and a trend can be noted in both the Roper and Gallup polls toward Willkie at the end of the campaign. Three aspects should be kept in mind in interpreting these figures: polling results are usually more dependable in depicting trends than reflecting an absolute situation; a 50-50 percentage breakdown between the two major party candidates was an especially worrisome matter for the Democrats because some of their popular strength is wasted in the South as a result of the workings of the electoral college system; and polling data interpretation calls for close attention to the dates of polls. On the near-panic in the Democratic camp in October see Democratic National Convention file, 1940, FDRL; Hopkins Papers, 1940 campaign, FDRL; PPF 2361, FDRL; PPF 2425, FDRL, among other files. The Roosevelt-Ickes exchange is in Ickes
³
, p. 352. Two participants and observers, Sherwood and Rosenman (B), provide the best description of Roosevelt’s two-week campaign. The special attention and planning that the White House gave to radio is clear from OF 300, Democratic National Committee, Radio Publicity Box 109, 1940, FDRL. Rosenman, p. 240, describes the origin of the “Martin-Barton-Fish” phrase; both Rosenman, p. 244, and Sherwood, p. 191, describe the drafting of the Boston speech. Hull (B), p. 862, relates with some bitterness the President’s willingness to compromise on the foreign policy plank in the Democratic party platform. Krock, Krock interview, OHP, stresses that he printed the Philadelphia “pauper” remark knowing full well that the Democrats would make the most of it. Rosenman rates the Cleveland speech as Roosevelt’s best up to that time, and Sherwood, pp. 195-196, and Rosenman, pp. 247-248, vividly describe its
preparation. I have checked the PPAFDR version of this speech against a recording at FDRL.

The Future in the Balance.
Sherwood describes the preliminaries to the drafting of Roosevelt’s election eve speech and prayer, p. 197. Sources for description of Hyde Park election night activities are a detailed report in
Time
magazine, “Election Extra,” November 1940; Rosenman, p. 254; Sherwood, pp. 199-200; Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” November 1940, FDRL; and Roosevelt to Henry Luce, Nov. 20, 1940, PPF 3338, FDRL. The last is an angry letter from the President criticizing
Time
for errors in its election night story. Roosevelt, however, did not correct the story in important respects, and his resentment probably was directed more against the invasion of his privacy than errors in the report. The
Time
description is corroborated in substance by newspaper reports and by Sherwood. Reilly describes Roosevelt’s brief loss of nerve in Reilly and Slocum [chap. 14], p. 66. The early anxiety on Roosevelt’s part is indicated also in Sherwood, pp. 199-200. For analysis of 1940 election results see Cantril, pp. 616-620, especially items 62, 68, 70, 72, 76, 78, 79, 80, and 82. Samuel Lubell,
The Future of American Politics
(Harper, 1951) evaluates the significance of class and ethnic voting in the 1940 election on the basis of election returns and voter interviews. Gosnell
²
, pp. 185-188, has a succinct round-up of the major studies and conclusions therefrom. He cites Douglas Waples and Bernard Berelson,
Public Communications and Public Opinions
(Chicago: University of Chicago Library School, 1941, mimeographed), which measured the extent to which certain topics and persons received coverage in press and radio. A brilliant, pioneering election study, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet,
The People’s Choice
(Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1944), illustrates the advantage to Roosevelt of his radio skills and illuminates many other aspects of the campaign, on the basis of elaborate studies in Erie County, Ohio. Irving Bernstein, “John L. Lewis and the Voting Behavior of the C.I.O.,”
Public Opinion Quarterly,
Vol. V, No. 2, Summer 1941, pp. 233-249, is a thorough examination of this subject.

As noted in the Introduction, the first two and last sections of the Epilogue are designed chiefly to help present a rounded picture of Roosevelt’s life and are not based on extensive original research at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library or elsewhere. I have relied almost wholly on secondary sources, most of which have been listed above.

Roosevelt as War Lord.
Useful works on events of 1941 aside from those previously noted are: Herbert Feis,
The Road to Pearl Harbor
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1950), a searching analysis by a former State Department adviser; Ray S. Cline,
Washington Command Post
(Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1951), an authoritative study; Beard (B). I do wish to mention again Langer and Gleason,
The Undeclared War
(B), on which I have relied heavily and which offers the most extensive and balanced account I know of the complex events before Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt’s comments to Fulton Oursler
about Russia are from PPF 212, FDRL. On Roosevelt’s handling of the union status problem after Pearl Harbor see J. M. Burns, “Maintenance of Membership: A Study in Administrative Statesmanship,”
The Journal of Politics
, Vol. X, No. 1, February 1948, pp. 101-116. The famous quotation from Lincoln is from J. G. Nicolay and John Hay,
Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln
(Lincoln Memorial University, 1894), Vol. X, p. 66.

Roosevelt as Peace Leader.
The quotation on p. 464 is from Gunther
²
(B), p. 334. Miss Perkins (B) quotes Roosevelt’s account of warming up Stalin, pp. 84-85. Roosevelt’s “symbol war” with Hitler is treated in J. M. Burns, “The Roosevelt-Hitler Battle of Symbols,”
The Antioch Review
, Vol. II, No. 3, September 1942, pp. 407-421. Former President Truman describes his reaction to his selection for vice-presidential candidate in 1944 in
Memoirs by Harry S. Truman
(Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1955), Vol. I, p. 193. The Roosevelt-Willkie negotiations in regard to party realignment are described fully by Rosenman (B), chap. 24, and by Barnes [chap. 21], pp. 371-379. Churchill describes Roosevelt’s appearance at Yalta in
The Second World War
(6 vols., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948-53), Vol. VI, p. 477. Works on the Yalta conference are too numerous to mention here, but one especially valuable volume because it excerpts from a dozen treatments of the subject is Richard F. Fenno, Jr.,
The Yalta Conference
(Boston: Heath, 1955).

Democracy’s Aristocrat.
My analysis of Roosevelt’s personality leans so heavily on the foregoing analytical narrative, and the works used and cited, that I shall not attempt a separate listing here. I will mention only the following: Eleanor Roosevelt gave me important guidelines to understanding Roosevelt in my interview with her, although I take sole responsibility for the analysis in these pages. John M. Blum’s brilliant analysis of Theodore Roosevelt in
The Republican Roosevelt
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954) was extremely suggestive for my own treatment of Franklin Roosevelt, who had so much in common with his cousin. Clinton Rossiter called my attention to the Walt Whitman passage. My comments on Roosevelt’s dealing with evil (in its various manifestations) lean heavily on the writings of Reinhold Neibuhr.

Warrior’s Home Coming.
Among the most useful accounts of Roosevelt’s death are Turnley Walker,
Roosevelt and the Warm Spring Story
(A. A. Wyn, 1953), chaps. 16-17; Gunther
²
; A. M. Smith,
Thank You, Mr. President
(Harper, 1946), especially chaps. 10, 13; Reilly [chap. 14], chap. 21.

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AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act),
168-69
,
179
,
181
,
193-98
,
205
,
224
,
242-43
,
267
,
303
; modified,
224
; invalidated by Supreme Court,
231
,
234
,
322
; new Act (1938),
342

Academy of Political Science,
323

Acheson, Dean,
172
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206
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265
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440
,
496

Acton, Lord, quoted,
313

Adams, Alva,
362
,
364

Adams, Henry, quoted,
19