Mr. Democrat: Jim Farley, the New Deal and the Making of Modern American Politics

2. Reawakening the “Rip Van Winkle Upstate Democracy”

2 Reawakening the “Rip Van Winkle Upstate Democracy” Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker once declared, “Up-State Democrats ! Up-State Democrats! I didn’t know there was any up-State Democrats.” That was in the 1880s, when Croker and Tammany Hall were in rude health. In those days, there was little incentive for a New York City boss to concern himself with upstate affairs. Croker died in 1922 and never met Jim Farley, but we can assume that if he had, he would have been mightily surprised: not only was Farley living proof that there was at least one upstate Democrat, he was also the man who would show that, given the right candidate, conducive circumstances, effective campaigning, and a lot of hard work, suf‹cient upstate Democrats could be found—or made—to sweep the upstate counties, thus utterly transforming the politics of New York State.1 Farley’s role in the revival of the upstate party in the 1920s has been mentioned by historians and biographers of the Roosevelt era, notably Frank Freidel and James MacGregor Burns. But it has not been explored in any great depth. This chapter examines the organizational drive conducted by Farley, Roosevelt, and his advisors—its rationale, impact, and consequences—with a view to clarifying Farley’s role in the emergence of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a genuine presidential contender.2 By the late 1920s, Roosevelt had been talked about as a presidential possibility for a long time. He had picked up experience as Woodrow Wilson’s secretary for the navy, a post that his cousin Theodore had also occupied on his way to the White House; he had gained national exposure as a vice presidential candidate in 1920; he had been an active 29 Democrat through the mid-1920s, maintaining a high pro‹le even as he struggled to come to terms with polio; and after 1928, he had exercised executive authority as governor of New York. But it was the manner of Roosevelt’s reelection as governor of New York in 1930, winning by a 725,001 margin and taking forty-two of the ‹fty-seven upstate counties, that thrust him to the head of the pack in the race for the 1932 presidential nomination. This second gubernatorial victory helped make Roosevelt ’s already famous name, but it made Farley’s name, too. Roosevelt ’s 1930 gubernatorial victory cemented Farley’s reputation as a coming force in national politics. It established one of the most effective political partnerships in American political history, one that ranks alongside those of William McKinley and Mark Hanna, Woodrow Wilson and Joseph Tumulty, George W. Bush and Karl Rove. To understand the scale of Farley and Roosevelt’s achievements in New York State politics, it is necessary to grasp just how formidable were the barriers—political, cultural, and historical—that stood in their way. The outstanding feature of the politics of New York State is the prominence of the division between upstate and downstate, a split running, in the words of one writer, “like a massive geological fault” between the two sections. The legendary Tammany sachem George Washington Plunkitt was exaggerating when he claimed that “the feeling between the city and the hayseeds . . . is every bit as bitter as the feelin’ between the North and South before the [Civil] war,” but there were deep political divisions between the sections. Upstate New York has been overwhelmingly Republican since 1856, while New York City has been strongly Democratic since 1800.3 Democrats had dif‹culty making major inroads into the Republican vote even at the best of times. In 1932, for example, with New York’s Democrats on the crest of a wave on the eve of Roosevelt’s emphatic presidential election victory, 53.8 percent of New York’s enrolled voters were Democrats, and 44.9 percent were Republicans; but these ‹gures masked wide disparities in sectional allegiances. In New York City, 77.2 percent of enrolled voters were Democrats, and 21 percent were Republicans ; outside of New York City, however, only 32.4 percent were Democrats, and 66.6 percent were Republicans.4 30 Mr. Democrat When Farley came into politics, the two major parties in his home state were fairly evenly split. Ernest Cuneo, the New Deal labor lawyer and journalist who, in the 1970s, wrote a manuscript based partly on face-to-face meetings and partly on Farley’s daily memoranda, noted...