Master of His Fate James Tobin (free e books to read online .txt) 📖

sending the letter and filed it away, but he said later the incident had left him so shaken that he had been more vulnerable to the poliovirus.

It happened again in 1925, in the wake of an otherwise forgettable event at Madison Square Garden.

FDR was leading a fundraising campaign for the enormous Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the mother church of the Episcopal diocese of New York and one of the world’s largest houses of worship. So when a mass meeting was scheduled to launch the cathedral’s new fund drive, naturally he was expected to attend. On the night of the meeting, FDR, with help, returned to the speaker’s platform where he had performed so brilliantly a few months earlier at the Democratic National Convention. Once again, using crutches, he walked to the microphone. He introduced the Reverend William Thomas Manning, Episcopal bishop of New York, then returned to his chair and—with help—sat down.

What happened next caught the gathering by surprise. Bishop Manning said a message of support had been sent by telegram from President Calvin Coolidge, who had acceded to the White House when Warren G. Harding died of a cerebral hemorrhage two years earlier. The president’s telegram had been received by Justice Edward R. Finch of New York.

The audience was invited to stand as Judge Finch read Coolidge’s brief message, and they did—all except FDR, who could not stand up at a moment’s notice. So he remained in his chair.

It was a trivial incident, and FDR probably would have forgotten it but for a poison-pen letter he received a day or two later. It came from a New York businessman named D. Lawson Corbett. Apparently Corbett had read a report of the meeting in the New York Times, which noted that “the vast audience arose and remained standing in respectful attention” for Coolidge’s message.

Corbett asked FDR: “I am wondering if you, among the vast audience, rose to your feet when Justice Finch, before reading a telegram from our Beloved President, Coolidge, said: ‘It gives me great pleasure to read to you the telegram which I have received from the man who more than anyone else has called us back to the faith of our fathers and reminded us that the well-being of our country, ourselves and our children must rest upon morality and religion.’”

Corbett was asking this question, he explained, because during the 1924 presidential campaign he had read a news report that said FDR had declared, “If you want to encourage crime, vote for Coolidge.”

Corbett wrote: “Until that time I had always held you in very high esteem.” But he believed FDR’s remark about crime was so unfair that it must have turned votes to Coolidge.

It’s clear that Corbett was aware of FDR’s paralysis, since he finished his letter by saying, “I am happy to know that you are recovering, and hope that you will be entirely restored to health.”

This time FDR put his blistering response in the mail.

He began by saying he had never made such a remark about Coolidge and crime. Then, in crystal-clear language, he let Corbett know just how vicious his question had been:

“In regard to the mass meeting in Madison Square Garden I regret to say that I was unable to rise with the rest of the audience either during the hymns or the benediction or on the occasion of the reading of the president’s telegram; as I wear steel braces on both legs and use crutches it is impossible for me to rise or sit down without the help of two people. After presiding at the opening of the meeting and turning it over to Bishop Manning I returned to my seat, sat down and remained seated during the rest of the evening. This is, of course, not exactly pleasant for me to have to remain seated during the playing of the National Anthem and on other occasions when the audiences rise, but I am presented with the alternative of doing that or of not taking part in any community enterprises whatsoever.”

It was a rare expression of his inner rage at the disease that had stolen his ability to stand up and walk on his own, and at anyone who failed to see he was no less a man than he had ever been.

That deep anger rose once more in the spring of 1932, in the midst of Roosevelt’s race for the presidential nomination, and this time it was more consequential.

FDR and Herbert Hoover had been casually friendly back in World War I, when both were based in Washington. FDR had even suggested that Hoover, who had not yet declared himself a Republican, might one day run for president. Lately, watching his old acquaintance in the White House, FDR thought him a failure as a leader, but he bore the president no ill will—not until the evening when Hoover hosted a dinner for the nation’s governors and their wives at the White House.

FDR and Eleanor arrived a little early, knowing they would have to walk slowly into position as the governors lined up to stand and greet the Hoovers. They reached their place in line, Eleanor remembered, “and then we stood and waited. Twenty minutes passed and the president and Mrs. Hoover did not appear. Every kind of rumor flew about the room. It was said we were waiting for some of the governors, two of whom never appeared. My husband was twice offered a chair, but he evidently thought that if he showed any weakness someone might make an adverse political story out of it, so he refused each time. It seemed as though he were being deliberately put through an endurance test, but he stood the whole evening very well, though the one-half hour before President and Mrs. Hoover appeared was an ordeal. This idea may seem preposterous but in political life you grow suspicious.”

In situations, certainly, and in others when he was not simply angry but resolute, Roosevelt would say “my Dutch is up,” a proud reference to