Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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FranklinDelanoRoosevelt

OBITUARY

On Jan. 30 , 1882, Franklin Delano Roosevelt , the 32nd president of the United States , was born. Following his death on April 12 , 1945, his obituary appeared in The Times.

The New York Times

April 13, 1945

“OBITUARY: FRANKLINDELANOROOSEVELT

Family Of Wealth Gave Advantages

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The early life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was typical of a member of a family of wealth and assured social position--an aristocratic family, as aristocracy is measured on this side of the Atlantic.

His birthplace was a stately mansion on the Roosevelt estate, overlooking the Hudson River and set in the midst of broad acres near Hyde Park. The property had been in the possession of his family for a hundred years.

He was born on Jan. 30, 1882, the only child of James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. His father's family was of a Dutch descent and made its first appearance in America in 1654. The Delanos, from whom his mother sprung, were of Flemish origin and had followed a migratory group into Massachusetts even earlier than the Roosevelts came to New York.

The god-father of Mr. Roosevelt when he was christened in the St. James Episcopal Church at Hyde Park was Elliott Roosevelt, only brother of the elder Theodore Roosevelt. His father was a fourth cousin of the elder T.R.

The family, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born, was moderately wealthy. James Roosevelt, his father, had been president of the Louisville & amp; New Albany Railroad and was vice president of the Delaware & amp; Hudson. He had inherited some wealth. His health was not of the best, he had little taste for business and retired rather early to lead the life of a country gentleman on the family estate. Like Franklin D., his father and grandfather before him had been Democrats.

Early Education at Home

He received his early education at home from tutors and was said to have mastered French, German and Spanish. At 14 he entered Groton to prepare for Harvard. He was 18 when he entered that ancient university and became one of the envied dwellers on the "Gold Coast."

At Harvard Franklin D. Roosevelt became a member of the select clubs, including the Hasty Pudding. In Greek fraternities he qualified for Alpha Delta Phi and by the time he was graduated he had won the coveted key of Phi Beta Kappa. In his last year at Harvard he was president and editor of The Harvard Crimson. He was graduated in 1904.

Turning his back on Annapolis and a prospective naval career, he entered the ColumbiaLawSchool, completed his studies and passed his bar examination in 1907. He went to work as a clerk in the law firm of Carter, Ledyard & amp; Milburn, later establishing a law partnership of his own. He did not stay long at the practice of law, however.

Married While Law Student

While still a student of law at Columbia, Franklin D. Roosevelt married his sixth cousin. Miss Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the daughter of Elliott Roosevelt, who was the godfather of Franklin D. She was the favorite niece of the elder Theodore Roosevelt, who, President of the United States at the time, gave the bride in marriage. The wedding was in this city on March 17, 1905. They had five children: James, Anna, who became Mrs. Curtis B. Dall of New York and later Mrs. John Boettiger; Elliot, Franklin D. Jr. and John A. Roosevelt.

The year 1910 was a turning point in politics in this State, when after a generation of Republican rule at the Capitol the Democrats took over control of both the executive branch of the State Government and the legislative. The period found the youthful Roosevelt, then only 28, running for State Senator from his home district, made up of the counties of Dutchess, where the Roosevelts lived, Columbia and Putnam. Normally a strong Republican district, Mr. Roosevelt carried it. Two years later he was re-elected by an even more substantial majority.

When the time had come to stand for re-election, Mr. Roosevelt was confined to a sickbed and the fight was made for him by the late Col. Henry McHenry Howe. Colonel Howe who became secretary to the President when Mr. Roosevelt assumed office, was largely instrumental, through management of the pre-convention campaign activities, in obtaining for his chief the Presidential nomination in 1932. Colonel Howe died in 1935.

Leads Insurgent Group

Almost unknown outside the district, the young Democratic Senator from Dutchess went to Albany to take his seat soon after Jan. 1, 1911. Before many days he had attracted nation-wide attention by assuming the leadership of a group of insurgents in the Legislature which he had mustered and which revolted against Tammany Hall and its leader, Charles F. Murphy, then at the heyday of his power, over a Tammany proposal to send William F. (Blue-eyed Billy) Sheehan to the United States Senate.

It was the last time a United States Senator was elected in this State by joint ballot of the Legislature. The Republicans, in a minority, were pledged to the re-election of Chauncey M. Depew. At its beginning the fight started by young Roosevelt seemed a forlorn hope. The insurgent group was in a small minority and, with the caucus resorted to, the election of Mr. Sheehan seemed certain, despite a State-wide wave of protest against his election on the ground that he was too close to Mr. Murphy and, indeed, to the Tammany organization.

But prior to the caucus the nineteen Democratic legislators of the insurgent group bound themselves to oppose the election of Mr. Sheehan to the end. They held the balance of power on a joint ballot. They remained out of the caucus. Nothing that Mr. Murphy could do or say made any difference to Mr. Roosevelt and his insurgent flock. For sixty ballots and almost three months the conflict raged.

The insurgents had a candidate of their own, Edward M. Shepard. With Mr. Sheehan he was killed off in the contest, which ended in an honorable compromise with the election of James A. O'Gorman on the sixty-fourth ballot. From this period dated the first acquaintance of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alfred E. Smith, who was Democratic floor leader and later became speaker of the Assembly.

Fought Tammany as Senator

All through his service in the State Senate Franklin D. Roosevelt fought Tammany, then firmly in control of both branches of the Legislature. He voted for a direct primary bill, although it was but a half-way measure, grudgingly supported by Tammany. He opposed a number of Tammany grab bills.

Tammany Hall was opposed to the nomination of Woodrow Wilson for President and the delegation from this State was lined up for Champ Clark, then speaker of the House of Representatives. Anti-Tammany Democrats throughout the State, however, favored Mr. Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt took his stand with this group.

At Baltimore, where the 1912 Democratic National Convention was held, Mr. Roosevelt, although not a delegate, was active in behalf of Mr. Wilson, who was nominated and elected in that year of the Bull Moose exodus from the Republican party led by another Roosevelt. His reward, after Woodrow Wilson had taken office, was the appointment to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

The World War broke out in 1914, about fifteen months after Mr. Roosevelt had become Assistant Secretary of the Navy. But in advance of hostilities in Europe and the entry of the United States into the great conflict, the Wilson Democrats in this State had a score to settle with Tammany Hall.

He was the candidate of the anti-Tammany wing for the United States Senator in the Democratic primary, held Sept. 28, 1914, but was defeated by James W. Gerard, later Ambassador to Germany.

Sought to Sway Hoover

In Washington during the years that followed he was drawn into close and friendly relations with Herbert Hoover, who was to be an opponent in the 1932 fight over the Presidency. Mr. Roosevelt sought to prevail upon Mr. Hoover to become a Democrat with a view to grooming him for the Democratic nomination for President in 1924, and actually thought he had succeeded when Republicans of prominence managed to persuade Mr. Hoover that he would profit politically by becoming a Republican. The rest is history.

Came 1920 and another Presidential contest. The Democrats nominated Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio for the first place on their ticket. Mr. Roosevelt drew second place. The campaign that followed was fought on the Wilson record during his two administrations and on the League of Nations, the Republicans having taken their stand definitely against the United States joining the League.

A keen believer in the Wilson policies and the peace mission of the League, Mr. Roosevelt took up the party fight. He toured the country in a special train and kept up the fighting until the eve of the election. Friends of Mr. Roosevelt gave him credit for something like 1,000 speeches, short and long, in the course of his campaign for the Vice Presidency.

The Republican landslide marked Mr. Roosevelt's second defeat for public office. He had won two. With five children to rear, Mr. Roosevelt returned to the practice of law, resuming a partnership with the firm of Emmet, Marvin & amp; Roosevelt. He also accepted a position as vice president with the Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland. At about that time, too, he was elected an overseer at Harvard. He also undertook the task of reorganizing the Boy Scout organization in the country, and he became chairman of a committee created to raise funds for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Stricken by Paralysis

Then, in August, 1921, came his tragic illness of infantile paralysis, which at first threatened to end his career and possibly even his life, but which later came to be regarded as the turning point from which began his upward climb to the White House. With members of his family he was swimming near his summer home at Campobello, N.B., when he was stricken. The next day he felt a stiffness, as if a cold were coming on. On the second morning he could not get out of bed. His leg muscles were paralyzed.

The attack was serious. It was with extreme difficulty that he was brought back to New York, where he could receive the most skillful medical treatment obtainable. For months his life was despaired of, then the progress of the dread disease was arrested. After a truly epic fight for health he began to recover. The optimism which was a cardinal trait in his make-up, his patience and his courage were powerful allies in the battle. He was paralyzed from the waist down. It was almost a year before he could move about at all with the aid of crutches. But he never gave in. To a man in love with outdoor life, swimming, sailing, tennis and riding, the ordeal was doubly trying.

It was at this time that he "discovered" Warm Springs, Ga., and the health-giving qualities of its waters in cases such as his. He went to Warm Springs and spent much time swimming in the pool. Gradually he regained in part the use of his legs. He discarded his crutches and was able to move about with the aid of canes and steel braces which had been fitted to his lower limbs. The process of recovery, however, took years.

Rise To Presidency Followed Illness

Political Activities Maintained Through Convalescence--Pioneered for Smith

The foundations of his political career were laid by Franklin Delano Roosevelt while he convalesced from infantile paralysis and in the three years he was absent from the public scene, from 1921 to 1924, he maintained close contact with the key figures in the Democratic party.

Among the first to advance the name of Alfred E. Smith as a Presidential possibility, Mr. Roosevelt seconded his nomination in 1920 at the Democratic convention in San Francisco, and four years later he was carried into MadisonSquareGarden to bring his name before that convention. His polished and telling speeches and his appealing manner brought Mr. Roosevelt thunderous ovations. In 1928, when Mr. Smith finally won the Democratic nomination at Houston, it again was Mr. Roosevelt who placed his name before the delegates.

After the Houston convention Mr. Roosevelt spent some time over important work at the eastern headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in New York, but in September he went to Warm Springs for rest and to promote recovery. He was there when the Democratic State Convention was held. There were a number of aspirants for the Governorship nomination. On one ground or another they were all found wanting and in turn eliminated.

The name of Franklin D. Roosevelt had been in the minds of all the party leaders but he had made it known to them that he would not under any circumstances enter the field. Finally Alfred E. Smith got on the long-distance telephone and, on the plea that his candidacy would greatly strengthen the national ticket, wrung from him a reluctant consent to run for Governor.

Elected Governor of New York

Mr. Roosevelt was nominated. He did not permit his physical handicap to stand in the way of vigorous campaigning. He toured the State from end to end, by train and by automobile. On Election Day he carried the State by a plurality of a little more than 25,000, while Governor Smith lost his own State to Hoover by an adverse plurality of more than 103,000.

When he took office as Governor Mr. Roosevelt found himself, as had Governor Smith before him, with a Republican Legislature on his hands. A Republican Legislature had proved a foil and a great help to Governor Smith in advancing his political fortunes. It was destined to be of equal service to Governor Roosevelt.

Much of his legislative program during his first term in office consisted of unfinished business from the three preceding Smith administrations. But he initiated many measures of importance and some of these he forced, through the Legislature.

He submitted in a revamped form to the Legislature, the Smith proposal for development and operation under State auspices of a water power plan on the St. Lawrence River and before his first term was over had received legislative sanction for a commission of his own choice to investigate the subject and recommend a plan. This was followed during his second term with a further concession which made possible the creation of the St. Lawrence Power Authority, which, before Mr. Roosevelt left Albany to step into the Presidency, already was engaged in preliminary negotiations and other labors for the realization of the huge State power project. This was a victory which his resourceful predecessor had not been able to wrest from a hostile Republican Legislature.

Mr. Roosevelt had not been long in office before he demonstrated his huge capacity for work and his consummate skill as a politician. He set himself at once to the upbuilding of the Democratic party in the State, outside the City of New York, a field that Mr. Smith, astute politician that he was, had refused to cultivate, preferring to depend upon his huge vote in the cities for successive victories.

Mr. Roosevelt wooed the farmer, backbone of the Republican political strength in the State, by an extensive program for farm relief. He reaped a rich reward in votes when he ran for Governor the second time in 1930, receiving a huge plurality of 725,000 votes, of which almost 175,000 was supplied by voters outside of New York City, an unparalleled feat.

Mr. Roosevelt's greatest triumph during his two terms as Governor undoubtedly was his victory in the long drawn out controversy over water power. In many of the reforms he recommended he was blocked by hostile Legislatures. But a long list of measures to his credit made his service in the Governor's office one of notable achievement, although it left a big hole in the State treasury. His successor, Gov. Herbert H. Lehman, was called upon to wipe out an inherited deficit of more than $100,000,000 when he took office in 1933.

Mr. Roosevelt faced a delicate situation as Governor in connection with disclosures of corruption the New York City government, dominated by Tammany Hall, which were made in the winter of 1931. The Republicans in the Legislature by concurrent resolution created an investigating committee, of which Senator Samuel H. Hofstadter, New York City Republican, became chairman and Samuel Seabury, former judge of the Court of Appeals and an anti-Tammany Democrat, became counsel.

In the face of an insistent clamor for action by reform elements and the press, Mr. Roosevelt for a time remained silent and inactive. But when charges of official dereliction were presented to him against Thomas C. T. Crain, the Tammany-sponsored District Attorney of New York Country, he appointed ex-Judge Seabury to sit as a commissioner, review the evidence and make a report. This did not recommend the removal from office of Mr. Crain, although it censured his administration of the prosecutor's office.
And when as the result of disclosures by the Hofstadter committee a demand was made for the removal of Sheriff Thomas M. Farley, another Tammany office holder, and finally of Mayor James J. Walker, Governor Roosevelt himself sat and heard the evidence, ordering the removal of the Sheriff, while Mayor Walker anticipated an adverse decision from the Governor by resigning his office.