February 27, 1933
At Hyde Park, FDR seated himself before a small card table in the glow of an evening fire, prepared to tackle the inauguration address, which he would deliver on March 4. The previous day, Moley had presented a typed draft of the speech for his review, and FDR had spent the day going over it line by line. Now, he told Moley, by way of an editing process, he wanted to copy the draft in longhand, making edits as he went along.
He carefully copied the draft on a legal pad, rewriting sentences and discussing each phrase with Moley. It was a laborious process that went on late into the night—somewhat baffling to Moley, but he didn’t object. Once the fully recopied and edited draft was completed, Moley rose and tossed his typewritten version into the fire. “This is your speech now,” he declared.
Indeed, FDR’s handwritten copy became the official version. To this day, it remains at the FDR Library in Hyde Park, with a note from Roosevelt attached: “The Inaugural Address as written at Hyde Park on Monday, February 27, 1933. I started it about 9:00 P.M. and ended at 1:30 A.M. A number of minor changes were made in subsequent drafts but the final draft is substantially the same as this original.” (Decades later, JFK was said to have used a similar technique of copying his speechwriter’s draft of his inauguration address in longhand so it would appear to be entirely his own. Perhaps he got the idea from FDR!)
Moley, who would grow disillusioned with the Roosevelt administration early on, later defended his authorship of the original, which he’d set alight. He resented the omission of his role in its creation so much that he wrote a second memoir in 1966 to set the record straight. “Some historians accept the note as an indication that on the night of February 27 Roosevelt sat down all alone in his library at Hyde Park and dashed off the draft,” he wrote. “. . . The omission of the fact that I was present with him that night, that I had put before him a draft that I had prepared after much consideration and many conferences with him seems strange . . .”
But although it might have been poor form for FDR to create a public record that was not exactly truthful, it was equally poor form for Moley to claim authorship. As Dwight Eisenhower’s speechwriter Malcolm Moos would later note, “Presidential speechwriters know that presidents have ownership of their speeches by virtue of the fact that they deliver the words and are held to account for them.” He was describing the collaborative process employed by many presidents and one that FDR employed—never a lone man’s work and the drafts laden with the principal’s pencil marks, until no one could say for sure who made which contribution.
Notably, the original handwritten version did not have the speech’s most famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” in the first paragraph. Instead, it read:
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels. This is no occasion of soft speaking or the raising of false hopes.
FDR continued to work on the speech for the rest of the week, and when the final version was typed, it contained a revised first paragraph:
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our nation impels.
This is preëminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.
So first of all let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
It has never been entirely clear where the new first paragraph came from. Rosenman investigated the matter and finally decided that the words were FDR’s own, although Moley insists the paragraph was written by Howe. Whatever their origin, they had the desired impact. To this day, we can listen to the scratchy audio of FDR’s voice coming over the wireless, the timbre breaking through. Millions of Americans heard the speech on their radios, and the line about fear stayed with them. Many decades later, people still consider it a rallying cry for the era.
Was the phrase a bit of magical thinking? The nation was in the height of a catastrophic economic depression. Surely, there was plenty to fear: poverty, hunger, violence, the collapse of the social fabric. FDR’s words were not a denial of the brutal realities but a call to transcend them. He’d experienced in his own life the emotionally paralyzing effects of fear when he had first discovered he could not use his legs. He was calling on the nation’s citizens to be fearless, to rise above their circumstances.
Roosevelt loved speech writing, speech making, and simply speaking, as he did in his fireside chats. His emotionally loaded words were calls to action, to courage, and to renewal. He gave hundreds of speeches, many of them memorable, during his twelve-plus years in office. Yet he would not have an official speech-writing force in the White House, as later presidents did. Rather, he relied on a collection of trusted aides and former supporters—people who knew his thinking and could capture his intention. Chief among them early on were Rosenman and Moley.
The two men didn’t always get along, as they had very different styles and approaches. Rosenman thought that Moley could be smug and was overly deferential to people of importance. But each served FDR in his own way, with the ever-gloomy Howe wringing his hands in the background.
Once in the White House, Roosevelt would prioritize the speech-writing shop. At least several evenings a month, he would call in various aides and advisers, including Rosenman, mix them drinks, order up a tray of sandwiches, and settle in for a speech-writing session. He insisted on being closely involved in the process, and when he finally took his leave, the others would remain behind, sometimes long into the night, perfecting the text and submitting draft after draft to the stenographer’s pool to type.
FDR was an inveterate editor, constantly rereading and reshaping his speeches, adding words and changing the order of paragraphs. The process helped him memorize the speeches so he could speak more intimately to his audiences.
Rosenman described Roosevelt’s speeches as tools of invention. Most of his big ideas were without precedent, as were his greatest challenges. He was writing the script for the hard task at hand, but when he spoke plain words they sometimes sounded like poetry.
FDR was extremely sensitive to the perception that his speeches were not of his own making. He set the record straight in his official papers:
In preparing a speech I usually take the various drafts and suggestions which have been submitted to me and also the material which has been accumulated in the speech file on various subjects, read them carefully, lay them aside, and then dictate my own draft, usually to Miss Tully. Naturally, the final speech will contain some of the thoughts and even some of the sentences which appeared in some of the drafts or suggestions submitted.
I suppose it is human that two or three of the many persons with whom I have consulted in the preparation of speeches should seek to give the impression that they have been responsible for the writing of the speeches, and that one or two of them should claim authorship or should state that some other individual was the author. Such assertions, however, are not accurate.
Fully appreciating that the reading copies of FDR’s speeches and fireside chats were historical documents, Tully made sure they were returned to her for safekeeping after FDR delivered each speech or broadcast.
MARCH 3, 1933, THE day before the inauguration, the Roosevelts and their son James visited the White House for a traditional social call. As they entered, FDR was greeted enthusiastically by an usher who had been there since TR’s days. Ushered into the Green Room on the first floor, they were made to wait. Mrs. Hoover entered after a few minutes, but there was no sign of the president for half an hour—the second time he’d kept FDR waiting for a noticeably long time. When Hoover finally arrived, FDR was surprised to see that he was accompanied by Ogden Mills. Clearly Hoover once again intended to turn their social call into a policy meeting.
James recalled the tense moment. “I sat there fascinated as Father gave me one of my earliest lessons in how to avoid political booby traps.” When Hoover said he’d invited Mills, thinking he might be helpful to their discussion, FDR swiftly replied that he would not presume to bring up any serious discussion on a purely social occasion, and in any case, he’d want his own advisers present for such a meeting. His response stopped Hoover, but the conversation after that was barely civil.
Finally the visit came to an end. “Mr. President,” Roosevelt said in an attempt to be gracious, “as you know, it is rather difficult for me to move in a hurry. It takes me a little while to get up, and I know how busy you must be, sir, so please don’t wait for me.”
Hoover rose and gave Roosevelt a cold look. “Mr. Roosevelt, after you have been president for a while, you will learn that the President of the United States waits for no one.” He walked out without another word, leaving his embarrassed wife behind to say her flustered good-byes. James was enraged by the rudeness, but his father shrugged it off. He understood Hoover. He knew what it felt like to lose an election. He also accepted that the president was angry at him for not collaborating with him during the transition.
The next morning, Saturday, March 4, the skies were overcast but the temperature was mild as FDR and his family attended services at St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House, beginning a tradition other presidents-elect would follow. The now-elderly Reverend Endicott Peabody, Roosevelt’s former schoolmaster, led the service. Afterward, the president-elect returned to his hotel before emerging again for the short trip to the White House’s north entrance. He did not go inside but waited for Hoover in the car, which would be followed by one carrying First Lady Lou Hoover and Eleanor.
During what must have seemed an interminable thirty-minute ride to the Capitol, Hoover and FDR sat mostly in silence. FDR tried a couple of times to make conversation and received no response.
Large crowds lined the roadway, cheering loudly. Roosevelt glanced at Hoover, who was staring straight ahead, his hands in his lap. He felt the crowds deserved acknowledgment—a smile and a wave—but he did not want to overstep if the president made no move. Hoover knew the cheers were not for him, and he refused to do anything. Finally, FDR threw caution to the wind, removed his top hat, and began to wave it in the air, to the delight of the crowds.
Observing Hoover’s pinched face and drooping shoulders, Eleanor felt some sympathy for the defeated president, calling him a victim of circumstances and of his own belief system. “He had served the country well during World War I, and there is no question but that during his term of office he wanted to do what was best for the country,” she wrote.
When it was time to take the oath (Vice President Garner having done so privately in the Senate chamber), FDR rose. Before a crowd of 150,000 people, as the Marine Band played “Hail to the Chief,” he gripped James’s reliable arm and made his way the 146-foot distance to the podium on the East Portico of the Capitol building. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes stood to deliver the oath of office. FDR laid his hand on the heirloom family Dutch Bible, which was opened to First Corinthians 13:13: “And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity.” He repeated the oath, then swiveled at the podium to face the crowd as a twenty-one-gun salute rang out. Then he began to speak, forcefully delivering his well-worked opening and then going on for another twelve minutes, with both bracing prose and hard truths, knowing that millions of Americans were tuned in to their radios, breathlessly seeking some modicum of hope. His manner was certain, his demeanor almost cheerful, his words decisive:
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems. . . .
The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
As the crowd roared, the new president grabbed his son’s arm and slowly made his way off the stage. Hoover rose and quickly exited. Like every president being replaced, he knew he was no longer the story of the day. “Democracy is not a kind employer,” he wrote of his ouster. “The only way out of elective office is to get sick or die or get kicked out.” Even so, in the coming days he would begin to feel a tremendous sense of relief, no longer waking to the fearful circumstances that were his to resolve. Now the fate of the nation was in another man’s hands.
Roosevelt had always loved parades, and the inauguration parade was a marvel, with forty marching bands and representatives from all the states. General MacArthur was the grand marshal. FDR stayed to watch until the end, and when he entered the White House for the first time as president, he found a mobbed reception of two thousand people, organized by his wife, under way. He slipped past the crowds and went upstairs to the Lincoln Study for a mass swearing in of his cabinet. They’d all been rapidly confirmed that day, without objection, as a rare nod to the urgency of the times.
After dinner with a large gathering of the Roosevelt clan, including the Oyster Bay contingent, which had not often supported him (and many of whom had likely voted for Hoover), Eleanor left with family members for the inaugural ball, while Roosevelt retired to the Lincoln Study with Howe. They sat and talked late into the evening. For twenty-two years they’d been a team, Howe believing in FDR even when he could not summon the faith to believe in himself. Unsentimental, irascible, and single-minded, Howe was as responsible as anyone for putting FDR into the White House, which is why the president was so forgiving of his churlish, sulking behavior, his fractious relationships with everyone around him, and his sense of entitlement. Howe would continue to call the president “Franklin,” a proof of intimacy that no one could take away.