After the passage of the Navy Bill, FDR turned to the task of creating the Navy it authorized, only to discover that the raw materials to build and sustain such a mighty sea force were growing increasingly expensive and hard to find as the European powers chewed up billions of dollars worth of goods on an almost weekly basis. American mines and factories were working full tilt to supply the Allies, and Roosevelt and his staff had to search the world to find what they needed at reasonable prices. In 1916 alone, they purchased one and a half million pounds of shellac in Calcutta, a two-year supply of tin in Singapore, and another two-year supply of teak in Rangoon.
As the search for commodities expanded, Roosevelt discovered that there were times when he had to bend the rules to get what he wanted. Obtaining sodium nitrate was an example. Sodium nitrate was an important ingredient in the manufacture of explosives, but in the autumn of 1916 all the high-grade Chilean nitrate available in the United States was held by one company, which took advantage of its monopoly to jack up the price. Roosevelt protested angrily, but to no avail. So he sent Louis Howe, in an unofficial capacity, to look elsewhere. Howe soon discovered that the Chilean government had its own large supply of high-grade sodium nitrate, but to get it they were going to have to work under cover. Both Roosevelt and Howe were fully aware that there was a hard-and-fast rule that forbade any U.S. government agency from dealing with a foreign power except through the State Department, but Roosevelt decided to overlook such niceties. He sent Howe to the Chilean embassy with a direct appeal to purchase five million pounds of nitrates for the U.S. Navy. The Chileans recognized the unorthodox nature of the request but agreed to investigate the possibility. The request was, after all, coming from a senior American official, and it probably helped that his name happened to be Roosevelt, to boot.
A few days later, the Chilean diplomat met again with Howe, informing him that yes, his country would be pleased to furnish the requested nitrate. “But,” he cautioned, “your specifications are so elaborate, we cannot guarantee—”
Howe raised his hand. “We will waive all specifications,” he said gallantly. “This is not a matter for specifications, but of honor between two friendly countries. Just provide us with what you consider good nitrate.”
For weeks Roosevelt and Howe waited anxiously while the nitrate was mined and shipped to Antofagasta, where a Navy collier picked it up for transport to the United States. By then, the Navy’s top procurement officers had learned of the deal, and to a man they predicted disaster. The sodium nitrate, negotiated for by rank amateurs, would almost certainly prove either too volatile or too unstable, and in either case the Navy would have paid serious money for a useless commodity. When the cargo reached Norfolk, it was tested immediately, and the report was telephoned directly to Louis Howe’s desk. The nitrate, it turned out, “was the finest ever shipped to the United States.”
By November, many of the political questions relating to the presidential election that had been of concern at the beginning of 1916 had resolved themselves. Wilson, who had started out the year with little hope of gaining a second term, had been greatly helped by the Republican conservatives, who had once again turned down Theodore Roosevelt for the nomination, this time in favor of Charles Evans Hughes, a Supreme Court justice and one-time governor of New York, who was an eminently respectable but somewhat bland and colorless candidate. (Because Hughes was bearded, TR referred to him disparagingly as “Wilson with whiskers.”) The war in Europe continued to overshadow all other issues, and Wilson had benefited at the polls with his party’s rallying cry, “He kept us out of the war.” Privately, Wilson was uncomfortable with the slogan. “I can’t keep the country out of the war,” he complained to Daniels. “They talk of me as if I were a god. Any little German lieutenant can put us into the war at any time by some calculated outrage.”
On election night, the odds stood at 10-6 in favor of Hughes. Franklin joined other Democratic leaders at a large dinner party at the Biltmore Hotel in New York to await the results. The evening started off cheerfully enough, but as the returns came in it began to appear increasingly certain that Hughes was going to win decisively. Outside the Solid South, which always voted Democratic, Hughes had swept the entire Eastern seaboard with the possible exception of New Hampshire. The New York Times and the New York World, both of which newspapers had strongly supported Wilson, ceded the election to Hughes in huge headlines, calling it a “sweeping victory.”
At midnight, with the first inconclusive votes from the Midwest beginning to filter in, Roosevelt and his friend, Interior Secretary Franklin K. Lane, left the Biltmore to catch the last train for Washington. Both men were aware they were likely to be out of a job in the very near future. Wilson felt strongly that the international situation was simply too volatile to safely accommodate the four-month interregnum between the election and inauguration of the new president, as called for by the Constitution. It was widely rumored that if Hughes were to win, Wilson planned to immediately name him secretary of state and then arrange for the resignations of both the president and the vice president. Under the rules of succession then in force, Hughes could then immediately assume the position of president and take control of the government. If the rumors were true, it meant that FDR might be out of a job within days. All of this would have been on his mind as he climbed into his Pullman berth that night.
What might his next steps be? If he planned to stay in politics, it meant returning to his roots in New York, where Tammany still reigned supreme. Was he willing to make peace with boss Charles F. Murphy and, if so, at what price? Or should he be thinking not of politics but of the military? As war seemed increasingly inevitable, should he be making plans to secure a commission and, if so, in what service and in what capacity? And of course, there was always the law. Should he form a new partnership, perhaps with State Department counselor Frank Polk, his Groton and Harvard colleague who would also be looking for employment outside the administration? And if it was to be the law, where would he practice? New York? Washington? Ironically, he and his family had just moved into a commodious new home at 2131 R Street NW. Would they now just as abruptly move out?
The one question that Roosevelt apparently did not consider as he surveyed his future that night was: what if Wilson won the election? But by the time his train pulled into Washington the next morning, that was the question all America was asking. As if by magic, and quite literally overnight, Hughes’s commanding lead had shrunk to a much narrower majority, and as the votes continued to come in from the West, even that lead grew increasingly tenuous. “The most extraordinary day of my life,” Franklin wrote excitedly to Eleanor, who was at Hyde Park. “Wilson may be elected after all. It looks hopeful at noon. The reaction from yesterday is great. All well here.…”
By the next day, Thursday, Wilson had moved into the lead, and FDR’s next gleeful letter to Eleanor bubbled over with the statistics. “Another day of the most wild uncertainty. Returns, after conflicting,have been coming in every hour from Cal., N.M., N.D., Minn., and N.H. Without any of these Wilson seems to have 251 [electoral] votes safe, 266 necessary to choice. This P.M. it appears we have N. Dakota 5 votes safe and in California (13) we are well ahead, though there are still 200 districts to hear from. Minn. (12) looks less favorable, also N. Mexico (3), but N. Hamp. (4) is getting better and we may carry it.… It is warm today, real Indian Summer. I have any amount of work to do and J.D. is too damn slow for words—his failure to decide the few big things holds me up all down the line.”
On Friday, when the final votes were in, it was the thirteen electoral votes of California that provided the margin of victory, and Wilson won by 277 to 254. With the election over, Wilson’s focus quickly returned to the war in Europe and his self-appointed role as peacemaker. On December 18, he sent a note to all the belligerents requesting them to “state their views as to the terms on which the war might be concluded … in order that we may learn how near the haven of peace may be,” but his attempts at mediation met a cool reception in the capitals of Europe.
Roosevelt, with his instinct for getting at the heart of the matter, now saw that the only hope of an Allied victory depended on America coming into the war. As the year ended, he found himself moving from a support of military preparedness to a position favoring military intervention. “We’ve got to get into this war!” became his new mantra. “I sincerely hope not!” Daniels would respond with feeling.
Nineteen-sixteen saw one other significant event in Franklin Roosevelt’s life—perhaps one of the most important: the beginning of his love affair with Lucy Mercer.
Elliott Roosevelt, Franklin’s oldest son, has left us a striking verbal portrait of his father at this period in his life. “Men and women alike were impressed by the sheer physical magnetism of Father. On meeting anyone, the first impression he gave was of abounding energy and virility. He would leap over a rail rather than open a gate, run rather than walk. The coach at the early-morning exercise classes which Father attended with a young group of other government officials said he was muscled like an athlete. Old ladies maneuvered to have him take them to dinner. Young women sensed the innate sexuality of the self-confident assistant secretary, who liked to work at his desk in shirt sleeves.”
Such a man would by his nature seek ways to employ his energies both at work and play. He golfed and sailed and played poker late into the night when the opportunity arose. And because he was tied up all summer working on the naval appropriations bill, and was only able to manage a brief trip to Campobello in early August, it meant that he was alone in Washington for the better part of three months that summer. And because Washington is built on a swamp and in the summer could be unbearably hot and uncomfortable in an age long before air conditioning, it was something of a godsend to own an open car that one could drive off into the surrounding countryside in search of a cool breeze or even a cooler beach.
And then there was Lucy Mercer, someone closely involved with the Roosevelt family, a familiar figure, equally alone in the sweltering city. Well-bred, charming, very attractive, with a warm sense of humor, ready to laugh at Franklin’s jokes, and impressed, as most people were, by his intelligence and drive.
When did the two fall in love? They were careful to leave no clues, so there is only conjecture, but for those who have looked longest and hardest at the question, the consensus seems to be that their romance first flowered in the summer of 1916.
Lucy had been hired by Eleanor in the late fall of 1913, and in those early days we can assume that Franklin originally saw her as a member of the household staff—someone on a par with a governess or nurse, perhaps. His perception of her would have changed considerably when, in addition to her secretarial duties, she was asked on occasion to become a guest at the Roosevelt dinner table when an extra female was needed. At such times she was a de facto equal, and an equal she remained when she once again reverted to her role as Eleanor’s social secretary.
Each would have sensed the growing attraction, and we can safely assume that each would have suppressed any desire to encourage it. They were both principled people, mindful of propriety, and intelligent enough to recognize the potentially dangerous path that might lie ahead. But history, and daily newspapers and family trees, are filled with accounts of prudent, principled lovers who have flouted the conventional mores in order to fulfill their needs, and Franklin and Lucy were among the number who joined their ranks that summer.
Ever since the story of their love affair began to emerge after Franklin’s death, the question has inevitably arisen as to its nature. Was it platonic? Conjugal? The most obvious answer is that the question is irrelevant. They lived during an age, and within a society, in which their romance, had it become public, would have been scandalous, even had it been platonic. Joseph Alsop, the prominent journalist and a distant relative of FDR who came from precisely the same social environment, stated unequivocally that in his opinion the affair could not possibly have been intimate. But it is probably naïve to think the two lovers would have been able to limit their relationship to the platonic. As we know from copious evidence, both of them recognized the romance as the great love of their lives. Franklin’s strong libido, his determination to have what he wanted, the compelling urgency of his nature, all make the assumption of a platonic relationship difficult to sustain. Corinne Robinson, Eleanor’s cousin, who was aware of the affair, thought it had a “profound effect on Franklin. It is difficult to describe, but to me it seemed to release something in him.… Up to the time that Lucy Mercer came into Franklin’s life, he seemed to look at human relationships coolly, calmly and without depth. He viewed his family dispassionately and enjoyed them, but he had in my opinion a loveless quality as if he were incapable of emotion.”
Was Franklin Roosevelt expressing a greater sense of self-confidence by engaging in a love affair with Lucy Mercer, or was it the other way around, and the love affair was an expression of his growing self-confidence that had been generated by other causes? Whatever the case, Corinne Robinson’s thoughtful observation of Roosevelt’s deepening character shows clearly that he was continuing to grow away from the shallow, awkward state senator-elect at the Gramercy Park tea dance, and toward the deeply thoughtful and compassionate leader who would lead his country, and then the world, out of the twin nightmares of the Great Depression and World War II.