Monday, January 8th, 2007...7:25 am
Happy Days Are Here Again
I just finished up Steve Neal’s Happy Days Are Here Again: The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR - and How America Was Changed Forever. The book was published in 2004, shortly after Neal’s death.
One of the things that people don’t realize about that convention was that Franklin D. Roosevelt nearly wasn’t the nominee. He swept all but two of the primaries he entered and secured a majority of the delegates that were attending the convention. However, the Democratic party had a 2/3 rule, first put in place by Andrew Jackson. As many of the figures in the book constantly liked to note, both Champ Clark and William McAdoo walked into their conventions with majorities.
I think the fact that most of you haven’t heard of either Clark or McAdoo gives you a clue. Suffice it to say, the 2/3 rule saved us from being led into World War I by a president named “Champ.” Roosevelt and his allies ditched the 2/3 rule shortly after he became president.
The objections to Roosevelt were many. Supporters of Al Smith, a sentimental favorite of Catholics, wanted him to have another shot at the presidency. The city bosses, especially those in his own state, disliked him. Conservatives in the party, who had a lot of sway because of the 2/3 rule, distrusted him as a radical. But one that came up over and over again was Roosevelt’s health. The history that we all know is that the press kept his disability a secret, but most party leaders were well aware of the state of his health.
The irony, noted by Neal in the epilogue, is that Roosevelt outlived just about every one of the rivals from that convention. Two of them, former Secretary of War Newton Baker and Maryland Governor Albert Ritchie, didn’t even live through Roosevelt’s first term.
The convention was dominated by many larger than life figures of the era: House Speaker “Cactus Jack” Garner, Louisiana Gov. Huey Long, New York Mayor and lover of chorus girls Jimmy Walker and Will Rogers as well as some colorful characters that have largely been forgotten, like the cigar chomping populist Oklahoma Governor “Alfafa Bill” Murray.
The book captures the drama of the old conventions and a little bit of why the current stage managed conventions are no fun to watch anymore. Granted, there was a lot of shenanigans that we just probably wouldn’t put up with anymore, such as Boston Mayor James Curley’s heading up a pro-Roosevelt sham Puerto Rico delegation (in a glaring oversight, Neal never explains how this came to be) after Roosevelt was crushed by Smith in the Massachusetts primary. In another bit of chicanery, Anton Cermak, Mayor of the host city, Chicago, arranged to have McAdoo’s limosine run out of gas while he was on the way to a crucial vote. These sorts of things don’t happen any more because they really wouldn’t effect the outcome.
The outcome is determined by the primaries now, in fact, largely determined by the time that voters in less than a half-dozen states have made their voices heard. For all of the trouble with the “smoke filled rooms” and arcane procedural fights, I wonder sometimes if the current process is all that much more democratic. It certainly has been rendered less fun.
5 Comments
January 8th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Wow. Greenskeeper, soldier, weatherman, ghostbuster, ocean explorer and now Oklahoma governor? Is there any doubt that Bill Murray is the America’s greatest treasure?
January 8th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Glad to see you blog about the FDR Democrats. Some who read and post to your blog could use some schooling about the people and demographics that built and ensure our majority.
January 8th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
A few years back, Bob Schieffer delivered an excellent rant about the virtues of the old smoke filled room days. Everybody should check it out:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/08/20/politics/main226365.shtml
January 8th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Tom, the window I am using does not show the entire link. Can you HTML it?
And I liked that book…I also liked the Bonus Army, stuff that is not well known such as the nomination of FDR (who was the first candidate to fly to his nomination and accept in person) or what happened to the Bonus Marchers of the 1930s AFTER the First Lady visited. Especially the part about the pressure to not deficit spend on FDR by himself and others.
January 8th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Steve Neal wrote a semi-weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Nobody covered politics better than he did, and the Sun-Times was my first read in the morning in the hopes that his column appeared.
His death really caught everyone off guard, and the writing of this book was blamed (in part) for aggravating his depression. I still miss reading him.
Leave a Reply