Franklin D. Roosevelt's tenure as the 44th Governor of New York
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|
Governorship of Franklin D. Roosevelt
January 1, 1929 ? December 31, 1932
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| Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Party
| Democratic
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Election
| 1928
,
1930
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Seat
| Executive Mansion
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← Al Smith
Herbert H. Lehman →
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Seal of the Governor
(since 2013)
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
was elected
governor of New York
in 1928 and served from January 1, 1929, until shortly after his election as
President of the United States
in 1932. His term as governor provided him with a high-visibility position in which to prove himself as well as provide a major base from which to launch a bid for the presidency.
After several years out of politics following his defeat for vice president in the
1920 presidential election
, by 1928, Roosevelt believed he had recovered sufficiently to resume his political career. He had been careful to maintain his contacts in the Democratic Party. In 1924, he had attended the
1924 Democratic National Convention
and made a presidential nomination speech for the then-governor of
New York
,
Al Smith
. Although Smith was not nominated, he ran again in 1928, and Roosevelt again supported him. This time, he became the Democratic candidate, and he urged Roosevelt to run for governor of New York.
Election
[
edit
]
Governor
Alfred E. Smith
had unsuccessfully contended for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924.
[1]
With Smith appearing likely win to reelection in 1926, and to obtain the presidential nomination in 1928, New York state's Democratic leaders began consideration in early 1926 of potential candidates to succeed Smith.
The first choice was
William Stormont Hackett
, the
Mayor of Albany
, who informed supporters that he planned to make the 1928 race.
After Hackett died in a March 1926 accident, party leaders next considered
Edwin Corning
, the
state Democratic Party
chairman, who ran successfully for
lieutenant governor
in 1926.
Corning declined the 1928 race because he was in increasingly poor health, and retired from business and political life after leaving the lieutenant governor's office in December 1928.
In mid-1928,
Peter G. Ten Eyck
,
Townsend Scudder
, and
George R. Lunn
were also considered, but did not attract wide support.
[3]
With one month before the November 1928 election, Democrats had not yet chosen anyone to replace Smith, who needed a strong gubernatorial candidate to help him win the state's 47 electoral votes, and Smith decided to support Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt was the ideal complement to Smith as a prominent rural, upstate Protestant without strong views on
Prohibition
who had supported
Woodrow Wilson
, he was very reluctant to run. Roosevelt was not sure he would win, and wished to continue his physical therapy at
Warm Springs
. Close aide
Louis Howe
urged him to wait; as
Herbert Hoover
would surely defeat Smith and likely serve two terms as president, being elected governor in 1932 would be better timing for the
1936 presidential election
. After failing to persuade Roosevelt through many phone calls and telegrams from late September, on October 2, Smith finally got him to agree to run if nominated; the state convention did so the next day.
[4]
Roosevelt had to make his peace with
Tammany Hall
to obtain its support, which he did with some reluctance. In the November election, Smith was heavily defeated nationwide by Republican candidate
Herbert Hoover
, and narrowly lost New York, but Roosevelt was elected governor by a margin of 25,608 votes out of more than 4 million votes cast,
[5]
defeating Republican candidate
Albert Ottinger
.
First term (1929?1931)
[
edit
]
Roosevelt came to office in 1929 as a reform Democrat, but with no overall plan. He tackled official corruption by dismissing Smith's cronies and renamed the
New York Public Service Commission
. He addressed New York's growing need for power through the development of
hydroelectricity
on the
St. Lawrence River
. He reformed the state's prison administration and built a new state prison at
Attica
. He had a long feud with
Robert Moses
, the state's most powerful public servant, whom he removed as Secretary of State but kept on as Parks Commissioner and head of
urban planning
. Moses was replaced with the Bronx's Democratic Boss
Edward J. Flynn
. When the
Wall Street crash
in October 1929 ushered in the
Great Depression
, Roosevelt started a relief system that later became the model for the New Deal's
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
(FERA). Roosevelt followed President
Herbert Hoover
's advice and asked the state legislature for $20 million in relief funds, which he spent mainly on public works in the hope of stimulating demand and providing employment. Aid to the unemployed, he said, "must be extended by Government, not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of social duty." In his first term, Roosevelt famously said, "The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written." He was referring to the belief he had that the Federal government would need to use more power in order to bring the country out of the Depression.
Tammany Hall and second term (1931?1932)
[
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]
The main weakness of the Roosevelt administration was the blatant corruption of the
Tammany Hall
machine in
New York City
, where the mayor,
Jimmy Walker
, was the puppet of Tammany boss John F. Curry, and where corruption of all kinds was rife.
[6]
Roosevelt had made his name as an opponent of Tammany, but he needed the machine's goodwill to be re-elected in 1930 and for a possible future presidential bid. In response to various allegations of public corruption among the judiciary, police force, the city government, and organized crime, Roosevelt began the
Seabury Commission
investigations in 1930. Many public officials were removed from office.
[7]
On September 28, 1930, the Republican state convention nominated former U.S. Attorney
Charles H. Tuttle
for the governorship and State Senator
Caleb H. Baumes
for lieutenant governor. With Tuttle losing Republican support because he was regarded as insufficiently "dry" on the Prohibition question (he favored prohibiting the sale and transportation of alcohol but thought it was a state issue, not federal), and the electoral tide turning towards Democrats as voters largely blamed Republicans for the
Great Depression
, Roosevelt and Lieutenant Governor
Herbert H. Lehman
won landslide reelections in November, leaving Roosevelt well-positioned to run for president in 1932.
Roosevelt's second term in Albany was focused on measures to counter the effects of the Depression, including the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration to provide public works employment, as well as legislation on unemployment compensation, banking reform, and reforestation of marginal farmland. In August 1932, Roosevelt forced Tammany's hand on the corruption issue by convening a public hearing on the question of removing Walker as mayor. Walker resigned on September 1, following a State Supreme Court ruling upholding the governor's authority to remove him for cause.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Grondahl, Paul (2007).
Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma
. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. pp. 64?65.
ISBN
978-0-7914-7294-1
.
- ^
Suydam, Henry (October 1, 1928).
"Governor Holds to a Faint Hope for Roosevelt"
.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
. Brooklyn, NY. p. 2 – via
Newspapers.com
.
- ^
Gunther, John (1950).
Roosevelt in Retrospect
. Harper & Brothers. pp. 251?253.
- ^
Jean Edward Smith,
FDR
(2007), p.228
- ^
Pietrusza, David (2016).
1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR
. Guilford, CT: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 212.
ISBN
978-1-4930-1805-5
– via
Google Books
.
- ^
Allen, Oliver E. (1993).
The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall
. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. pp.
233-250
.
ISBN
0-201-62463-X
.