SOME PERSONAL MEMORIES OF F. D. R.
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Some Personal Memories Of F.D.R. By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD I HAVE often been asked how it was that in 1909 I assigned a reporter to travel with a then unknown young man, a Harvard graduate of...
...Their temptation to be all things to all men was very great...
...There was a newspaper man named Louis Howe who was on the staff of the New York Herald during that campaign of 1909...
...Those in my own office, that of the New York Evening Post of which I was then the managing owner and the editorial director, who thought that 1 was wasting time and money in sending out that reporter with the unknown Franklin Roosevelt, came to a different point of view in the next year when Sen...
...That was not because we were snobs or wanted to have the legislature full only of men who figured in the Social Register and were graduates of our best universities, but because ¦we felt that most of them, especially those who had large private means, were shirking their civic responsibilities...
...All of that made me induce the City Club of New York to give a dinner in honor of his election and that of three other young men of a similarly fine type...
...Priority On Charm One such case I knew—of a group of clergymen who came to protest against his sending an American envoy to the Vatican...
...When the visitor left the White House at 10 :30, after a wonderful evening, the problem he came to discuss had never once been mentioned...
...One day after he was stricken Mrs...
...He boldly said to the President that the stories were delightful, but that the group had a message to give and that their time was nearly over...
...He alone can bring that about...
...he wanted my report...
...The President had held the conversation away from it all evening, doubtless with deliberation...
...Roosevelt to dine with her and the President to discuss a certain matter...
...To my wife and myself he said: "Why, I am much better off than Ambassador Elkus" [who had been stricken about the same time...
...It was Col...
...Roosevelt who stood behind the future President in his efforts to overcome the effects of his infantile paralysis...
...Those of us who saw Franklin Roosevelt in the early days after his illness, when he was allowed to see visitors, never forgot the courage that he displayed or his refusal to be condoled with...
...The President looked for a moment as if he were going to snap the interrupter's head off, and then he said: "All right, go ahead...
...It got later and later...
...We had applauded Theodore Roosevelt's efforts to put men of this type into public life, and so I felt duty bound to do what I could for his new candidate for political honors...
...One real service I rendered to Franklin Roosevelt about this time...
...This was one of his qualities that made him one of the most fascinating of men to be with...
...A group of New York journalists and social workers called upon him in the early days of the New Deal to offer him a social program...
...It was impossible to withhold complete admiration from Franklin Roosevelt, the man, and it was therefore harder to differ with him politically and on the war question in later years...
...The President at once began to tell some delightful stories which he had been telling to the Polish officers...
...One of the saddest examples of this was J. Ramsay MacDonald, the Labor Prime Minister of Great Britain...
...It is true that he had to the highest degree the politician's ability to adjust himself completely to the man who was with him and the latter's views—something that was also entirely true of Theodore Roosevelt...
...No more engaging, no more charming and fascinating President ever lived in the White House...
...He was remarkably handsome, had all the charm of conversation and personality which he never lost, and his devotion to the public welfare was not to be questioned...
...Roosevelt Louis Howe exercised the greatest influence over the President until Howe's lamented death...
...An Outstanding Quality 1 know of no greater heroism than Franklin Roosevelt displayed in going through the grinding exercises which brought him back...
...Louis Howe helped him on many days when his spirits and strength flagged, and egged him on constantly, frequently saying to him: "I am going to make you Governor of New York...
...My answer is that Franklin Roosevelt gave the greatest promise of becoming a useful state legislator and that he was precisely of the type that some of us who were engaged in trying to purify the state government and the legislature wished to see enter public life...
...asked Eleanor Roosevelt...
...Roosevelt responded by giving him his complete confidence...
...It was a brave performance because even then Franklin Roosevelt had farreaching political ambitions, as well he might have...
...Nonetheless, the keenness of Franklin Roosevelt's intelligence, the extraordinary range of his knowledge, his selflessness in conversation, the interest he displayed and the warmth with which he always spoke, all made a visit with him unforgettable, and this whether one achieved what one had desired on going to him or not...
...Roosevelt...
...So fallible is my memory that if I had been asked before this quotation appeared in the New York Times whether I had ever said it, I should have denied it...
...One always felt when with him, even in his most informal moments, that one was talking with the Prime Minister...
...They were kept waiting because some Polish generals, unexpectedly in Washington, had been put in before them...
...Once a man who is known to everybody was asked by Mrs...
...Few men who have carried the weight of great office have failed to wear, as one friend of mine put it, "the frock coat of statesmanship" and to place "the right hand of oratory in the bosom of that coat," even when in private conversation...
...Howe abandoned his family to the extent of moving into the White House and living there as a member of the family, as did Harry Hopkins after Louis Howe died...
...Will you tell him that...
...Howe, as he came to be known, and Mrs...
...In due course he did, and he never asked any reward for devoting his life to Franklin Roosevelt, except the privilege of being constantly with him...
...He went into the President's bedroom and told the invalid what he had just said to Mrs...
...He showed broadmindedness, too, in being tolerant and remaining friendly when our paths diverged...
...Roosevelt asked the physician whether her husband would be able to resume his career...
...We were alone together for over an hour, lunching in his office...
...Then he changed the subject...
...He entertained them delightfully, but when he bowed them out after their half hour he had talked so much to them on other matters that they had never been able to bring up the protest which occasioned their visit...
...Historians and journalists will differ always as to the merits and demerits of the Roosevelt Administration, but on one thing there can be no difference of opinion...
...It was close to the lunch hour when the group was admitted...
...That," said the doctor, "depends only upon himself...
...His standing out then against the influence of Tammany Hall and the Democratic state machine is surely in marked contrast to his surrender to the Tammany forces, his support of Boss Hague in Jersey City and of Boss Kelly of Chicago in his last years...
...Next to Mrs...
...Introducing Louis Howe Franklin Roosevelt never yielded to the intense pressure upon him for one moment, and so close was the vote that to him was frequently attributed the defeat of Sheehan...
...What he asked of me was to tell him what had been happening politically while he was so ill: "You newspaper men know everything...
...He came to me after the election and asked me if 1 would give him a line of introduction to Franklin Roosevelt, he had been so interested and stirred by the young Senator's campaign...
...Of course I gave him the letter, and from then on the 2 were inseparable...
...Finally, this journalist took a big chance...
...To me perhaps the most outstanding quality in Franklin Roosevelt was his absolute simplicity, his total lack of what the British call "side," and his failure to assume any of the manners and airs that usually distinguish men in high office...
...In 1910 Franklin Roosevelt seemed like the ideal reformer...
...many years after, a Brooklyn clergyman in a lecture at Princeton University brought out a fact that 1 had completely forgotten —that I introduced Franklin Roosevelt as the young man who in my judgment had the greatest political future before him of any one of his generation...
...It was very rare that people left him with ruffled feathers...
...It was my unwilling duty to preside...
...By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD I HAVE often been asked how it was that in 1909 I assigned a reporter to travel with a then unknown young man, a Harvard graduate of excellent family standing, and to report his candidacy for the Senate of the State of New York from Dutchess County...
...I have often said since that if any visitor from Mars not knowing who we were had listened to the conversation he never would have suspected that one of the men held the greatest office in the world...
...She promised that there would be no one else present so that the subject in question could be brought up...
...But never with Franklin Roosevelt...
...My last interview with him was in 1940, some weeks after my return from 3 months in Europe...
...The young man looked at him for a minute and then replied: "Tell me what to do," and then added, "When do we begin...
...Yes," answered the doctor...
...Roosevelt fought manfully to defeat the election by the New York legislature to the United States Senate of a particularly unfit candidate known everywhere as "Blue-eyed Billy" Sheehan...
...Never was anyone more faithful or devoted than he to Franklin Roosevelt whom he worshipped...
...When he became President Col...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 18
