The Democratic Party: My Third and Current Paradigm (Part 9)

Parts 1-8:
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Left, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, 19, in precursor of Princess Di's wedding gown; right, Lucy Page Mercer, at about age 23 (circa 1914)
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I should have mentioned Louis McHenry Howe earlier. Howe served as FDR's political advisor from 1909, likely when FDR was preparing for his first run for public office, until Howe's death in 1933, the first year of Roosevelt's Presidency. Like so many of that era, Howe's family had had "serious financial losses." First a reporter, Howe had become a Democratic political operative by way of Tammany Hall. (Given that, how real was FDR's supposed enmity to Tammany Hall?)

Always sickly, Howe never got taller than five feet. Nonetheless, his devotion to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and his role in their respective accomplishments were gigantic. Eleanor said he was one of the most important people in her life and Howe has been immortalized by many as the man behind FDR. Howe's contribution to FDR's political career is impossible to overestimate. Howe even worked in FDR's department while FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy--which, conveniently, is where this series last left FDR.

World War I ended on November 11, 1918. Also in 1918, while performing the then-common wifely task of unpacking her husband's suitcase, Eleanor Roosevelt found love letters to her husband from her social secretary, Lucy Page Mercer. (Did FDR want Eleanor to find them?) Mercer's father had ridden with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. He lost his money in the Bank Panic of 1893, became an alcoholic and separated from Mercer's mother. Eleanor's aunt, another Roosevelt by birth, had recommended Mercer to Eleanor while Mercer was a "shop girl." In Eleanor's eyes, Mercer was, by 1918, almost like a member of the family and so the betrayal was multi-faceted.

Reports date the start of the affair to 1916. (I never know how people think they know things so personal.) After finding the letters, Eleanor confronted FDR. He told her that he wanted to marry Mercer. Eleanor offered Franklin a divorce, telling him to consider carefully, especially the children. However, Howe convinced FDR that a divorce would be terrible for FDR's career. (By then, Franklin was likely eyeing the Oval Office.) Possibly even worse, FDR's mother, who subsidized FDR's and Eleanor's substantial combined monthly income, threatened to cut them off and disinherit him. (Different sources give different income figures.) Franklin decided that he wanted to remain married after all.

Eleanor, who once described sex to her daughter as something to be "endured," and said mothering did not come naturally to her, had already born six children (five surviving infancy). Her conditions for remaining married were (1) no more intimacy ever and (2) FDR had to promise never to see Mercer again. FDR promised, but lied: Indeed, it was Mercer who was with FDR when he died, not his wife. FDR also lied to Mercer, telling her that Eleanor would not give him a divorce. IMO, in his personal life, he was a bounder all around(not unlike his boss, President Wilson).

Out of a job, Mercer joined the Navy--and was assigned to FDR's office. (It's good to be even the Assistant to an assistant of the King.) This caused some scandal in Washington, D.C. Whether or not the gossip reached Eleanor, it's difficult to imagine that Eleanor was unaware of Mercer's new position.

At some point, Lucy left the Navy and became governess for the children of wealthy New York socialite, Winthrop Rutherford. FDR ceased to be Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1920. That same year, Lucy Mercer, married Rutherfurd, whose courtships had included the likes Consuela Vanderbilt, possibly the inspiration for Downton Abbey's Cora Grantham. (Consuela's mother had forced her to marry a Churchill.) Then again, Rutherfurd, twenty-nine years Lucy's senior, didn't need money. Mercer and Rutherford had a daughter, in addition to the children of his first marriage.

Meanwhile, back in the political world (Did we ever leave?), please recall (or pretend to) that I wrote in Part 8 that the papers that FDR kept during his years as Assistant Secretary included an entire carton relating to then Secretary of Agriculture Herbert Clark Hoover. While researching this Part 9, I learned that FDR wanted to run for Vice President in 1920 with said Hoover at the top of the Democratic ticket. See? As I reminded you in Part 8, "It's a big club and you ain't in it."

Having failed to convince Hoover, FDR ran for Vice President anyway, but with Democratic politician and wealthy media mogul, James Middleton Cox of Ohio, at the top of the ticket. (A century later, Cox Enterprises is enjoying billions in annual revenue.) Cox had been nominated on the forty-fourth ballot. In the worst-ever popular vote defeat of a U.S. Presidential candidate so far, Cox lost to fellow Ohioan, Republican Warren Gamaliel Harding. (Imagine Ohio during that campaign!) Cox, who had won the office of Governor, among others, never again ran for public office. However, he remained a supporter (and donor, I assume) of FDR until FDR died.

One of hopefuls from whom Harding had wrested the Republican nomination was, yes, Hoover, then forty-six. (Sometimes, putting Presidential ideas into the head of someone whom you think might make a good candidate is a mistake: Just ask Harry S. Truman about Dwight David Eisenhower.)

The 1920 election marked the first public political participation of Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Howe had convinced to take a more of a role. He had also coached her in public speaking. (Was this solely for Eleanor's sake, or did Howe want her more visible to counteract the relatively recent Mercer scandal?) Despite the loss, FDR believed that his 1920 run and the contacts that he made then helped him greatly when he ran for President.

In 1916, this song charted to #2. (I didn't know songs charted then!)

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Bollox Ref's picture

I worked for, way back when, wrote a Warren Harding biography.

Both were unpleasant men.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

@Bollox Ref

Harding looks unpleasant.

When Harding's son was only 35, the son died of TB and alcoholism. (When someone who has TB dies of TB, I wonder how they determined that he had also died of alcoholism? Maybe he was just an alcoholic who died of TB? O.K., enough rambling.)

Point is, having an alcoholic son who, at an early age, became a dead alcoholic son, may have made Harding unpleasant.

As you no doubt know from the bio, President Harding died before finishing his first term. I don't know much about Harding, other than the Teapot Dome Scandal, his desire to pass an anti-lynching law and something good about women (suffrage, maybe?). Unless something happens to spark my interest in him, the above will likely constitute my knowledge about Harding when I die because I don't plan to study him. Then again, never say "never."

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Alligator Ed's picture

@HenryAWallace I will try to help you with a seeming medical mystery. Elementary, dear Henry!

(When someone who has TB dies of TB, I wonder how they determined that he had also died of alcoholism? Maybe he was just an alcoholic who died of TB?

The following comment will be written in dense medicalese. Upon special request and interest, translations may be provided.*

HIPAA warning does not apply.

Two things in life are really good at doing a couple of things really well. Like TB which the body can arm wrestle into submission but immunologically never release its grasp on TB for life. Another really pleasant chemotherapeutic disrupter of the immune system is booze. It just knocks down them immune cells just as well as Nancy Pelosi says Trump.

The Booze and the tuberculosis get together in a symbiotic process during which attributes pertaining to cellular DNA and tuberculosis version of steroid rage.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAlaFlrbVxw]

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@Alligator Ed @Alligator Ed

I think we shall all be able to pass whatever final test doctors take, thanks to your generous efforts to educate us using language that we can grok. But your efforts may be wasted on the likes of me. I still don't understand why he didn't die of TB, a disease that his alcoholism rendered him less able to subdue/battle. Maybe it's only semantics? According to a friend, I "can be awfully literal"--and I often agree with her about that (and little else).

The rest of this post is because you wondered about my ADD "diagnosis." Going from why President Harding may have been unpleasant to the wondering about how coroners or whomever know that someone died of tuberculosis AND alcoholism is a very small example of my strain of ADD.

Had I not caught myself early on, I may have jumped from one topic to another endlessly, until I was going on about Chinese food or flooring and, then (of course), Aladdin, then Scheherazade and then maybe to our own Shah. Then, I might realize that I was at Caucus99percent. By then, I would have been exhausted and ended with something like, "I can't remember why I started all this. Oh, well, have a great day anyway, everyone."

Of course, it's worse during conversation because I have no written record to look back to. The only one I don't confuse is friend who is a therapist by profession. He always remembers where the conversation started, probably because he is a professional listener (among his other skills).

My Mexican jumping bean brain can be fun and educational, too--if I have nothing else I need to get done and can spend all the time I want with a search engine. Otherwise, I have to do my best to keep my ADDled brain on a tight leash. And, as you know, the flip side is getting so hyper-focused on something that I forget I haven't eaten in ten hours.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@HenryAWallace I wish you had a translucent cranium so I could see your gyri gyrate (oooh, horrible but fun pun).

Remember, medical translations are available from Alligator University Department of Medicine.

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@Alligator Ed

Hmmmm?

My ADDled brain, including the gyri, wore the poor thing down to almost nothing from the inside.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@HenryAWallace induced by the frictional contact between your spinning cerebrum and the inner part of your calvarium. Thus producing the persisting occurrence of your toasted brain and its associated malfunctions.

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@Alligator Ed

with whom I want to trade brains. (-:

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