Nearly exhaustive research has been done on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR’s) four national campaigns, his controversial Presidency, and his leadership in WWII. Surprisingly little, however, has focused on his New York State gubernatorial campaign in 1928. This was the campaign and position in which FDR would prove his fitness for the presidency of the Unites States, a position he held from 1933 to 1945.
In part 1, K.R.T. Quirion explains the background to the campaign, the struggles that FDR had after he contracted Polio, and an amazing comeback appearance in 1924.
Franklin D. Roosevelt on crutches in August 1924, several years after his illness. Here with Lieutenant Governor George Lunn, FDR, John W. Davis, and Al Smith at Roosevelt's family home in Hyde Park, New York. Source: FDR Presidential Library & Museum, available here.
INTRODUCTION
While there has been little focus on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s campaign for governor of New York State in 1928, it is known that prior to the campaign he had taken “steps in the presidential direction.”[1] Amos Kiewe outlines FDR’s climb up the political ladder starting his election to the New York State Senate, his appointment to Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and finally, his nomination as Vice-President on the 1920 Democratic ticket. Ultimately, however, New York was the crucible in which FDR demonstrated his fitness for a shot at the nation’s highest office.
Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s vision of political grandeur was cut abruptly short when he contracted poliomyelitis—commonly known as polio—during a vacation to Campobello Island in the summer of 1921.[2] Despite his affliction, FDR would return to the public arena within three years and re-enter political office in seven. In hindsight, this short withdrawal from public life was a relatively small detour in FDR’s long political career. During the “nearly fatal initial phase of the [polio] attack” he might well have abandoned his political aspirations and retired to Hyde Park for good.[3] Instead, thanks to the support of his wife Eleanor and his life-long friend Louis Howe, Roosevelt overcame his affliction and began the long road of recovery.
Over the next seven years, FDR strengthened his body, his mind, and his belief that there was a providential plan for his life. Davis explains how, in retrospect, FDR “knew absolutely that what had happened to him…was integral to God’s design.”[4] His wife Eleanor believed that her husband’s trial by fire was preparing him for the “great historic tasks he must ultimately undertake.”[5] Despite the great personal difficulty of this period, Eleanor and Howe were successful in keeping Roosevelt plugged into the political arena.
The 1928 chance
His moment came in 1928. New York governor and presidential hopeful, Al Smith, indicated his desire to have FDR continue his legacy in the Empire State. More importantly, Smith knew that the “margin between victory and defeat…in the national race might well be provided by a victorious Democratic gubernatorial candidate in New York, and it was a margin that Roosevelt and Roosevelt alone could assure.”[6] At first, FDR was staunchly opposed to entering the race. He refused Smith’s initial invocation to run, citing concerns about his health.[7] Privately, Roosevelt believed that 1928 would be a bad year for Democrats and preferred to wait until the 1932 election. He finally yielded to Smith on October 2, on the condition that the delegates chose to nominate him with “full knowledge of his personal situation and wishes.”[8] The very next day, the Democratic convention in Rochester, NY nominated Roosevelt by acclamation.
Over the next month, Roosevelt crisscrossed New York State, stumping in every city where he could make time for a speech. This important race attracted individuals, like Judge Samuel Rosenman, that would become intertwined in FDR’s political career for the next 17 years. The race was so invigorating that he once exclaimed if “I could keep on campaigning twelve months longer, I’d throw away my canes.”[9] As the New York polls closed on November 7, 1928, the votes appeared to favor the Republican candidate, Albert Ottinger. But, by the 19th, Roosevelt had won by a razor-thin margin of less than half of 1% of the total vote.[10]
What allowed a candidate who had spent the last eight years living on the periphery of New York politics, to win a heavily contested race with a mere three weeks of active campaigning? This article examines the challenges that FDR faced in convincing the New York electorate that he was fit for the Governor’s Mansion. The article explores how he overcame concerns about his physical health by presenting himself as an active campaigner. It also looks at Roosevelt’s experimental coalition of labor, agriculture, minority, and urban voters and the platform he used to convince these widely differing constituencies to give him their vote. Finally, this article argues that the 1928 campaign boosted FDR to the forefront of national politics and laid the groundwork for convincing the national electorate that he was ready for the White House in 1932.
Though initially reluctant to his candidacy, once nominated, FDR boldly met the challenges of the race. His 1928 platform and his tenure as Governor of New York laid the foundation for his national policies in the White House. Eight years after his gubernatorial race, President Roosevelt would tell supporters at the 1936 Democratic National Convention (DNC) that their generation of Americans had a “rendezvous with destiny.”[11] For Roosevelt, when destiny came knocking, he confidently answered.
POLITICS, POLIO, POLITICS AGAIN
Despite his nearly miraculous victory in the gubernatorial campaign, the 1928 race was not run in a vacuum. Roosevelt had been on a political trajectory long before contracting polio. After his outstanding record as assistant secretary of the Navy, FDR sought to establish himself as the “heir to Wilsonian Progressivism.”[12] A platform to project that image presented itself in 1920 when the DNC named Roosevelt the running mate of their Presidential nominee, James M. Cox. Though the election did not favor the Democratic ticket, it did allow FDR to build a national network within the Party.[13] Another important side-effect of the election was that FDR was able to build up his permanent secretariat.[14] He would rely heavily on his so-called “Cuff-Links Club” in future campaigns and in office.
Following the landslide loss of 1920, Roosevelt and his family retired to Campobello Island for some much-needed respite. However, the fatigue that he was hoping to recuperate from “did not go away.”[15] Instead, disaster struck a few days into the vacation. The young political maverick had his aspirations of future office dashed when he contracted polio which left him permanently disabled. As Amos explains, “the disease was a devastating shock to the energetic Roosevelt.” Not only did he have to re-learn basic skills and face the “mental anguish of a life-long disability”, but he also had to cope with the stigma of polio.[16] In the early 1900s, polio was viewed as the “disease of the unclean and unhygienic” and the “poor and low class.”[17] This aura clung even to Roosevelt. Despite his upper-class upbringing, even he struggled to shake this humiliating stigma.
The physical and psychological struggle that FDR endured during the initial stages of his recovery was then multiplied by the fear that his political aspirations had been dashed in one cruel blow. The disease engulfed his body and swallowed all hope of political grandeur in its wake. Instead of sinking into the depths of history as the tragic shadow of his cousin Theodore, FDR was carried through the storm by his wife Eleanor and the political acumen of his close friend and advisor Louis Howe. Roosevelt managed to stay politically active from the sidelines. He never dropped out of public life. With the help of Eleanor and Howe, he continued his extensive political correspondence “virtually without interruption.”[18]
Politics after Polio
Roosevelt’s first major political action following his disability was his endorsement of Al Smith for Governor of New York in 1922. This wise investment would pay dividends for FDR within the decade. Following a successful term as Governor, Smith was impeccably positioned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924. Early that year, Roosevelt formally endorsed Smith’s candidacy. Though harboring doubts about the election, Roosevelt “calculated that the Smith campaign would keep his name before the public.”[19]
His strategy paid off amidst the chaos of the 1924 Democratic Convention. When he took the lectern to deliver Smith’s nominating speech at Madison Square Gardens in New York City, onlookers waited with bated breath as he moved slowly and carefully to the podium. He proceeded across the stage alone “swinging his weight from his hips.”[20] Even this physical stunt was a calculated political decision. In June of 1922, Roosevelt had begun training himself to exercise some amount of independent movement.[21] He believed that the appearance of health and independent movement was a necessity if he ever wished to hold political office again. This had been the reason for his physical training. Roosevelt knew that no modern leader had reached the highest rungs of political office without the public perception of good health and physical command. His performance at the Convention went a long way in proving that he was ready to return to politics.
In addition to demonstrating his physical recovery, the remarks at the DNC earned him even greater political points. His “Happy Warrior” speech resounded with millions of people from all across the nation who listened over the radio.[22] Davis writes that Roosevelt “was the central figure of the only scene that would brightly shine…out of the Garden’s prolonged and gloomy turmoil.”[23] The publicity that Roosevelt reaped from this speech was as significant for his political future as it was proliferous.[24] Following the Convention, a columnist for the Herald Tribune wrote that, “[f]rom the time Roosevelt made his speech…he has been easily the foremost figure on the floor or platform…” and “...has done for himself what he could not do for his candidate.”[25]
The momentum Roosevelt created at the Convention translated into an invitation to run for Governor of New York that very year. He declined, however, explaining that he would “not run for public office until he could walk without crutches.”[26]Despite this commitment, which he would cite again in 1928, FDR would soon concede to the pressure of politics.
Now, read part 2 on how Roosevelt accepted the nomination here.
What do you think of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response to getting Polio? Let us know below.
[1] Amos Kiewe, “A Dress Rehearsal for a Presidential Campaign: FDR's Embodied "Run" for the 1928 Governorship,” The Southern Communication Journal, (Winter, 1999), 154.
[2] A 2003 study published in the Journal of Medical Biography has placed the actual nature of FDR’s disease in question. The accepted diagnoses has been polio. However, a team of medical research led by Dr. Armond S. Goldman, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas has shed new light on this once solidly held fact. Their research suggests that FDR actually suffered from Guillain–Barre´ syndrome, a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. Despite the probability of this assertion, for the purposes of my research, I will maintain the widely accepted diagnosis as it neither adds nor detracts from the content of this article, whereas “rocking the boat” so to speak, by replacing the commonly accepted diagnosis with a rare and difficult to pronounce disorder is distracting at best and confusing at worst. Armond S. Goldman, Elisabeth J. Schmalstieg, Daniel H. Freeman, Jr, Daniel A. Goldman and Frank C. Schmalstieg, Jr, “What was the cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s paralytic illness?,” Journal of Medical Biography, (11, 2003): 1.
[3] Kenneth S. Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny 1882-1928, (New York, NY: Random House, 1972), 10-11.
[4] Ibid., 11.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny 1882-1928, (New York, NY: Random House, 1972), 851.
[7] Special to The New York Times. (Oct 03, 1928). “Roosevelt Held Out to the Last Minute.” New York Times (1923-Current File), 1.
[8] Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny 1882-1928, 852.
[9] “Roosevelt Attacks Theories of Hoover,” (Nov 02, 1928), New York Times (1923-Current File), 1.
[10] “Ottinger Concedes Roosevelt Victory,” (Nov 19, 1928), New York Times (1923-Current File), 6.
[11] Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Acceptance Speech for the Renomination for the Presidency, Philadelphia, Pa.,” June 27, 1936, The American Presidency Project, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley.
[12] Gil Troy, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Fred L. Israel, History of American Presidential Elections: 1789-2008, Vol. II, 1872-1940, (New York, NY: Facts on File, 2012), 1037.
[13] Ibid.
[14] John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect, A Profile in History, (New York, NY: Harper, 1950), 217.
[15] Richard T. Goldberg, The Making of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Triumph Over Disability, (Cambridge, MA: Abt Books, 1971), 28.
[16] Kiewe, 155.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny 1882-1928, 673.
[19] Goldberg, The Making of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Triumph Over Disability, 70.
[20] Ibid., 71.
[21] Roosevelt in fact could not walk. Instead, he used the muscles in his upper body and torso and swung his legs—which were re-enforced with heavy steel braces—so that he could give the appearance of walking.
[22] Davis, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny 1882-1928, 756.
[23] Ibid., 755.
[24] “[T]he New York World proclaimed that ‘Franklin D. Roosevelt stands out as the real hero of the Democratic Convention of 1924.’ Said the World: ‘Adversity has lifted him above the bickering, the religious bigotry, conflicting personal ambitions and petty sectional prejudices…It has made him the one leader commanding the respect and admiration of delegates from all sections of the land.’” Ibid., 757.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect, 247.
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Kiewe, Amos. “A Dress Rehearsal for a Presidential Campaign: FDR's Embodied "Run" for the 1928 Governorship.” The Southern Communication Journal. (Winter, 1999): pp. 154-167.
