In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Just like Roosevelt’s convention speeches and appearances in 1924 and 1928, the automobile campaign of 1928, the $500,000 life insurance policy of 1930, and the Earle Looker Liberty Magazine article of 1931, his dramatic flight of July 2, 1932, likely persuaded many of his fitness for elected office. But by no means did it persuade all. If anything, the whispering campaign moved to a sustained crescendo during the summer and fall of 1932. This situation should not surprise us, though, given that Herbert Hoover and many others in the Republican party openly hoped for a Roosevelt candidacy. Their position was that now the country would see the real Roosevelt, and the country had best be warned of what his condition really meant. “Millions of people are going to try to throw out the strong Herbert Hoover and put in his place a man who cannot arise from his chair unassisted and who can only shuffle and drag his feet instead of walk,” intoned James H. MacLafferty, three weeks after the Democratic National Convention. “They had better look out.”1 MacLafferty’s sentiments, of course, are those of a Hoover shill and can thus be taken accordingly. But his rather dismissive view of the candidate’s health was not the belief solely of the Republican party; many Democrats shared his concerns. Adding to their concerns was a plan, developed largely by Roosevelt himself, to actively show his body across the country via train. In an article penned by Louis Howe after the general election, he described how “a great majority of the Governor’s advisors were strongly opposed to his making a tour to the coast and back.” Out of presidential power now for twelve long years, key Democratic operatives did not want to gamble the party’s executive auspices away on an unnecessary and risky trip. “A delegation of men who were in real power in party counsels [sic] waited on him in Albany to persuade him from such a course,” Howe noted. This delegation feared “that the carefully disseminated propaganda as to the Governor ’s health must have some foundation, and that he would be unable to stand the rigors of a grueling campaign.” Howe claims further that such a fear “never entered the minds of the Governor’s intimate friends.”2 Jim 7 “A Satisfactory Embodiment” Farley’s recollection was different: “The newspapers, well wishers, friends, etc., all tried to dissuade Roosevelt from his determination to made [sic] that first trip West; but he insisted upon it.”3 Regardless of who was actually urging Roosevelt not to make the strenuous train trip, the three major campaign architects—Howe, Farley, and Moley—all agreed on Roosevelt’s motive. Said Farley, “He thought he should prove to the West that he was not a sick man and he emerged from that trip a stronger candidate than when he went on it.” Howe stated the matter even more succinctly: “The Governor realized that the best answer to the question as to his health was himself.”4 His body was simply the best proof that Roosevelt could muster—better than radio, better than press conferences,andcertainlybetterthananysurrogate.StayinghomeatHyde Park or Albany could be perceived as having something to hide, and thus a stay-at-home campaign strategy could potentially foment even more whispering . More than forty years after the campaign, Moley responded to the question of whether Roosevelt had taken the campaign tour of the West in order to prove his physical fitness for the presidency. Moley was emphatic: “Oh, yes, there is no doubt about that, although I don’t remember that it was specifically mentioned by him, but he wanted to show himself as being a man of vigor and vitality and wasn’t hampered in any way by his physical infirmity.”5 It is clear that those behind the scenes knew Roosevelt’s true motives for the trip and expressed that knowledge accordingly. Not so with the candidate ; raising the health issue in conversations about politics was very much verboten. Howe noted Roosevelt’s publicly petulant reason for heading west: “‘Gentlemen, I have listened carefully to your arguments, against my going to the coast and back or even as far as Chicago. . . . There is, however, one reason in favor of my going which has not been brought to your attention , and that reason is—I want to.’”6 It is true that Roosevelt genuinely loved campaigning, but those closest to him knew that after eleven years, he was...

Share