Master of His Fate by James Tobin (free ebooks for android txt) 📗

able to walk, he might be challenging Smith for the nomination. But now Smith regarded FDR as safely and forever on the political sidelines.

FDR told Al yes, he would be delighted to chair the campaign. Al explained that his staff would do most of the day-to-day work. Roosevelt could hold meetings by phone and in his own home.

This much he could handle. And it would get him back in the game, at least in a small way.

Then Smith made a second request: Would FDR agree to give the main speech nominating Smith for president at the Democratic National Convention? It would be held at New York’s biggest arena, Madison Square Garden, in July. Thousands of Democrats from all over the country would be watching his every move and listening to his every word.

That was an entirely different matter.

Chapter 8“A WILDCAT IN YOUR FACE”

How could he possibly do it?

He had been terribly nervous about showing himself in public. Until recently he had refused even to get in or out of an automobile in daylight. Besides, steps and stairs made it all but impossible to move around in most buildings. Just a few weeks earlier, in January 1924, an old friend from Harvard had written to say he hoped FDR could attend their twentieth class reunion, which would be held in the summer of that year. Very unlikely, FDR replied. “The difficulty lies in the fact that I cannot get up steps with the braces, and therefore have to omit all kinds of functions—that is the only thing that may prevent me from getting on for the 20th anniversary. Even the Democratic Convention in New York will not keep me away as I could not attend the Convention anyway.”

Well, could he or not? To do so would mean taking an enormous risk.

He knew Madison Square Garden. He could picture the obstacles it presented to a man in his condition. First, there was the curb between the street and the sidewalk, then the stone step up to the outer doors, then the slippery tile floor in the big lobby. Beyond that were corridors that would be crowded with hurrying people, then the giant arena itself, with its long distances across the floor, and at the end of that trek, steep staircases to the raised platform where he would have to give the speech. And it wasn’t just the speech he had to worry about. It was days and nights of acting as Al Smith’s floor leader, the person who would have to meet hour after hour with Democratic delegates in closed rooms with armless chairs, or impromptu clutches in the aisles. Every other minute he would face a new chance of crashing to the floor. Of course, he could avoid all that by using a wheelchair, but that would only confirm the suspicion he was determined to quash—that he was still an invalid.

FDR had practiced walking with crutches often enough that he could make it across a room on his own power. But he had to keep LeRoy Jones or Eleanor or one of the boys right by his side, ready to steady him if he started to lose his balance.

What if that happened when he set off across the stage at Madison Square Garden? Every person in that huge arena would remember it forever, including all the reporters.

All that was on one side of his calculations. On the other was the great opportunity that Al Smith had handed him. As Frances Perkins put it, “Everybody had thought he was near to dead.” This was his chance to prove he was not only very much alive but still a man ready to play a role on the national scene, still a man to reckon with, perhaps even a man who, if only he might walk someday, still had a future in big-time politics.

How could he give that up? He had to say yes to Smith.

So he did.

But he would have to get ready.

He wanted to show he could walk on his own—with crutches, yes; that was unavoidable—but by himself.

He could not climb the stairs from the convention floor to the speaker’s platform by himself. He would have to be carried. No way around that, either.

Then: What would be the setup on the speaker’s platform, and how far would he have to walk? The answer, he learned, was about fifteen feet, the length of a large living room. That was the distance between the top of the stairs to the lectern where he would stand for the speech.

FDR chose his oldest son, Jimmy, to be his assistant. Jimmy was sixteen now, tall for his age and strong enough to do the job. It would be a nice touch for the convention delegates to see Roosevelt’s son by his side.

In the library of the Roosevelts’ townhouse, the boys moved furniture and measured off fifteen feet. Then FDR began to practice the distance with his crutches. From the door to the window, from the window to the door, back and forth he went, making sure with each step not to set either crutch too far in front or too far to the side, until he was too tired and sweaty to do it any longer.

Then again the next day. And the next.

It was not yet noon on June 27, 1924, but the cavernous hall of Madison Square Garden was already roasting. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Circus had just departed, so the powerful odors of elephants and lions still hung heavy in the damp air. FDR and Jimmy had arrived early, bringing the wheelchair so that FDR could move around and talk with the Democratic delegates gathering on the vast floor of the arena. Up in the galleries, thousands of raucous New Yorkers were starting to yell for their hero, Al Smith. Jimmy could see the beads of sweat rolling down his father’s neck.

With many people still milling in the aisles, few noticed when two strong men lifted