Jonathan Darman - Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President

Prologue: Destinies June
(1920 and June 1936)

Part I: The Invaders
(August 1921)

Part II: Ascent
(Spring 1919)

Part III: Origins
(18821919)

Part IV: A Public Life
(June 1919August 1921)

Part V: The Forgotten Man
(September 1921November 1922)

Part VI: Try Something
(January 1924October 1928)

Part VIII: Out of Every Crisis
(July 1932March 1933)

Epilogue: The Spirit of Warm Springs
(November 1933 and November 1941)

F ranklin Roosevelt could see it right in front of him. His chance. It was a late-June afternoon in San Francisco, the opening day of the Democratic Partys 1920 convention. Only a few paces away from him, a couple of overfed party functionaries were guarding the standard of New York State. It was nothing special to look at, a wooden sign dangling above the convention floor. But to Franklin it would have been irresistible: Here is greatness. Come and get it.

Franklin was thirty-eight years old but looked younger. Handsome, well connected, and eager, hed spent the better part of the last decade holding high officesa term in New Yorks State Senate followed by seven years in Washington as Woodrow Wilsons assistant secretary of the Navy. Hed devoted much of his adult life to dreaming of an even higher officethe presidencyand studying the things that savvy politicians did to win it. A convention, he knew, was a kind of game, often a physical one. Playing it well, and looking good while playing, an ambitious young man could prove he had the stuff of a future presidentquick wits, a hint of eros, oceans of charm.

Franklin fancied himself that sort of man, and New Yorks hanging wooden sign offered a means of proving it. Whenever the convention-floor game got heated, states standards became prized possessions, a signal that that state was lining up behind a cause, a platform, or a candidate. Holding the standard of New York, the most populous state in the country, was a chance to show off power. Stealing New Yorks standard in a moment of tense drama was a chance to captivate the room. That was what he now intended to do: grab the standard and everyones attention. To get hold of it, he would use his long, lean frame and his quick, elegant stride, the same things that distinguished him on the golf course and tennis court, places where he spent much of his time. And he was also prepared to use his fists.

The trouble had started a few minutes earlier, with the unveiling of the presidents portrait. Woodrow Wilson, the current inhabitant of the Oval Office, had been badly debilitated by a stroke the previous autumn and had not made the trip to San Francisco for the gathering. In his place, the conventions organizer had hung a giant likeness of the president, the only Democrat to win two consecutive terms in the White House since the Civil War. Shortly after the convention opened, they had pulled back a seven-story American flag to reveal the portrait. State after state had thrown its standard in the air and joined a bandwagon parade in Wilsons honor.

But New York had not joined the celebration. The states delegation was controlled by Tammany Hall, the eternally powerful, endlessly corrupt New York City Democratic machine. Tammanys boss, Charles Murphy, loathed Wilson and the partys preening, moralistic Wilsonian wing. When the Wilsonian parade had started, Murphys delegation made sure to stay put.

Franklin had watched Murphys intransigence from the middle of the New York delegation with a striking expression of outrage on his face. Just how real was this outrage was subject to interpretation. There were limits on Franklins devotion to any politician not named Franklin Roosevelt, and during Franklins seven years serving in the Wilson administration, the president had thwarted his ambitions for greatness as often as hed helped them along.

But, Franklin, a privileged son of New Yorks Hudson Valley, was no Tammany loyalist. Indeed, as a young state legislator in Albany, hed made a name for himself as a noisy opponent of the Hall. A flashy convention-floor display of defiance against Tammanys authority could serve him well with Democrats from outside New York State. From his place in the middle of the New York delegation, he had loudly demanded that the state join the pro-Wilson parade. And when cries yielded no response, he had set his sights on the states standard.

The sign was guarded by a pair of Tammany regulars. If Franklin wanted it, it would mean a fight, one that would almost certainly catch the rooms attention. A fight was a chance to become a surprise star of the convention. And then, perhaps, something more.

For two decades, Franklin had been looking for chances like this. In his college years, he had idolized his distant cousin Teddy Roosevelt, then the sitting president of the United States. He had spent many hours studying Teddys path: provocative young politician, then wartime hero, then political phenomenon, then president of the United States. All of it appeared effortless, as if it had been destined from on high.