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Roosevelt: the Party Leader, 1932-1945 University of Kentucky UKnowledge United States History History 1991 Roosevelt: The Party Leader, 1932-1945 Sean J. Savage St. Mary's College Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Savage, Sean J., "Roosevelt: The Party Leader, 1932-1945" (1991). United States History. 99. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/99 ROOSEVELT The Party Leader ROOSEVELT The Party Leader 1932-1945 SEAN J. SAVAGE THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1991 by the University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Savage, Sean J., 1964- Roosevelt the party leader 1932-1945 / Sean J. Savage. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-1755-0 (alk. paper) 1. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945. 2. Political leadership—United States—History—20th century. 3. Democratic Party (U.S.)—History—20th century. 4. United States—Politics and government—1933-1945. I. Title. E807.S28 1991 973.917'092—dc20 Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The Master Party-Builder 1 1 The Development of a Party-Building Strategy 4 2 A Foundation for Party-Building 17 3 Roosevelt and the Machine Bosses 48 4 Roosevelt and the Democratic National Committee 80 5 The Formation of an Electoral Coalition, 1932-1936 103 6 The Purge Campaigns of 1938 129 7 The Struggle to Maintain a Liberal Party, 1940-1944 159 Epilogue: FDR's Legacy in the Democratic Party 183 Notes 188 Index 226 Acknowledgments As with any scholarly endeavor, the writing of this book benefited from the intellectual inspiration, counsel, and assistance of many people. Roosevelt The Party Leader, 1932-1945 is an expanded, revised version of my doctoral dissertation on Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership of the Democratic party. I am greatly indebted to Professor Marc Landy of Boston College, my dissertation chairman, for his indispensable guidance during my research and writing. Pro- fessors Robert Faulkner of Boston College and Sidney Milkis of Brandeis University, two other members of my dissertation committee, provided valuable advice during my research and writing. I was greatly honored to have the page proofs re- viewed by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., William E. Leuchten- burg, Frank Freidel, Robert Kuttner, Frank Sorauf, Everett C. Ladd, Sidney Milkis, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Charles D. Hadley. The diligence of Nicole M. DeMatteis, my student assis- tant, enabled me to complete the index of this book. I would like to also thank my colleagues at Saint Mary's College for their patient understanding as I combined the preparation of this book for publication with a busy teaching schedule. During the entire process of creating this book, Joseph J. Dinneen, a great friend and political analyst, was always available for discussing ideas about the book's content. Finally, but foremost, I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, Mrs. Irene M. Schollard. vn INTRODUCTION The Master Party-Builder Much has been written about the life and presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. His biographers include such dis- tinguished historians and political scientists as James MacGregor Burns, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., William E. Leuchtenburg, and Frank Freidel. Roosevelt is generally praised by scholars for his inspiring and successful lead- ership during the major crises of the Depression and World War II. He is also widely perceived as the founder of the modern presidency characterized by its elaborate bureauc- racy devoted to serving presidential leadership, high public expectations of presidential performance, and constant media attention to presidential behavior. Despite extensive research and publishing about Franklin D. Roosevelt's life and presidency, no book has ever focused exclusively on his leadership of the Democratic party. Major biographies and histories of his presidency do provide discus- sions of his relationship with the Party and prominent Demo- cratic politicians. No book, however, entirely devotes its content to explaining and analyzing Roosevelt's perception of, plans for, and relationships within the Party. In order to understand Roosevelt's political behavior, both before and during his presidency, one must recognize two goals that he wanted to achieve for the Party that extended beyond his own political ambition for public office. First, he wanted the Democratic party to become an elec- torally successful, enduring majority party in national pol- itics and public policy. This was no small task. From 1860 until 1932, the Democrats had elected only two presidents and usually held a minority of seats in both houses of Con- gress. Other than southern whites and Irish Catholics, few voters felt a strong, visceral identification with the Party. Second, Roosevelt wanted to transform the Party into a 2 Roosevelt the Party Leader distinctly liberal party in its ideology and policy agenda. His own liberalism was a product of his mentor relationships with Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Endicott Peabody, his prep school headmaster, and his experiences in New York state politics. Except for a brief period when progressive legislation was promoted by the Wilson administration and enacted by a Democratic Congress, the party was not widely perceived as the liberal party within the American two-party system—until Roosevelt's presidency. He hoped that liber- alism would unite the conflicting northern and southern wings of the Party behind an ideology and policy agenda that would seek to address commonly-held economic grievances through federal intervention. He also believed that trans- forming the Party into a distinctly liberal one would expand its electoral base by attracting non-Irish urban ethnics and liberally-inclined Republicans, independents, and third- party members. By assessing Roosevelt's actions and decisions in intra- party affairs according to his pursuit of these two goals, we can understand why Roosevelt occasionally and consciously threatened his own political career. For example, Roosevelt's ideological commitment to the liberal transformation of the Party motivated him to clash with John Raskob, the powerful, conservative chairman of the Democratic National Com- mittee from 1928 to 1932, who vindictively sought to deny Roosevelt the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. Likewise, he launched a courageous yet quixotic attempt to defeat well-entrenched southern conservative senators in the Democratic primaries of 1938. This approach to studying Roosevelt's party leadership enables us to understand that Roosevelt did not merely intend to manipulate the Party as a personal vehicle for his presidential candidacies. More impor- tantly, this perspective helps to explain why the fulfillment of his party-building objectives for the Party endured long after his presidency. Because existing biographies provide thorough explana- tions of his pre-presidential life and his career in the New York state senate and the Wilson administration, this book begins with an explanation of the development of Roosevelt's Introduction 3 party-building strategy during the 1920s. Roosevelt's efforts to end the conservative domination of the Democratic Na- tional Committee and to make the New York state Demo- cratic party more attractive to traditionally Republican upstate voters are significant as harbingers of his party- building tactics as president. If this book began with an analysis of Roosevelt's 1932 campaign, it would overlook the importance of the 1920s as a period in which Roosevelt formu- lated the party-building objectives that he wanted to achieve for the Democratic party. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a masterful party leader having few, if any, equals among American presidents. He operated within the American political system in which the separation of powers, federalism, and primary nominations discourage the type of strong, centralized party leadership that a prime minister can exercise in a unitary, parliamentary system. Still, he emerges as an unusually successful presidential party leader. Several presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Woodrow Wilson, were able to unite and mobilize the Democratic party enough to win federal elec- tions and achieve major legislative victories during their administrations. Roosevelt not only accomplished these polit- ical goals during his presidency, but also developed an endur- ing coalition of voting blocs and interest groups, a vibrant party structure responsive to them, and an ideology and policy agenda which dominated electoral politics and public policy for over twenty years after his death. This book chron- icles Franklin D. Roosevelt's unparalleled accomplishment of presidential party leadership.
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