Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (166 page)

But the war
did
come, Roosevelt
did
run, and the Republicans were barred from the White House for another dozen years. By then Social Security had developed a huge constituency, one so great that Dwight Eisenhower remarked that any president or party would have to be crazy to tamper with the system Roosevelt had created. And so it remained untouchable, except to expand its coverage and increase its benefits—and extend its spirit to such derivative programs as Medicare and Medicaid—into the twenty-first century.

Partly through his own doing, partly through the dice roll of circumstances, Franklin Roosevelt radically altered the landscape of American expectations. The small-government world of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was banished forever. Americans demanded more of their government: more services, more safeguards, more security. They got them—along with more taxes, more red tape, more intrusiveness. At times some Americans would wonder whether the cost was worth the benefit. But the skeptics were never convinced enough or numerous enough to turn back the clock and unravel Roosevelt’s handiwork. He gave Americans what most of them agreed the country required during the emergency of the depression, and they sufficiently liked what they got that they retained it after prosperity returned. In the generations that followed, as the American economy continued to thrive and as the benefits of America’s material fortune rained down on the wealthy even more than on persons of moderate means, the objective and honest of those who had once denounced Roosevelt for class betrayal recognized that, in a decade rife with fascists, militarists, and communists abroad and irresponsible demagogues at home, he was the best thing that could have happened to them.

The transformation Roosevelt wrought in America’s world role was no less radical than the change he effected in domestic affairs. America had turned its back on the world during the 1920s, and the depression reinforced Americans’ reluctance to think that what happened in Europe and Asia had relevance for them. Roosevelt did little to challenge this view during his first term. But beginning in 1937 he gradually awakened Americans to the dangers of ignoring that wider world and to the necessity of engaging it, for their own sake and others’. So well did he succeed that Americans never seriously reconsidered the conclusions he impressed upon them. In some cases they seemed to have learned Roosevelt’s lesson too well, making minor distant troubles imprudently their own. But a lifetime after his death, America remained committed to the principle that had guided his foreign policy: that close involvement with the world was America’s responsibility and in America’s best interest.

H
ALF A MILLION
people greeted the presidential train in Washington and stood in silent tribute as the caisson rolled from Union Station to the White House. Twenty thousand gathered in front of the mansion and refused to go home long after the gates and doors closed behind the procession. A simple funeral service was held in the East Room. Of the boys only Elliott made it to Washington in time to take his place beside Eleanor and Anna. James was en route from the Philippines. He flew ten thousand miles but was delayed by bad weather on the final leg and missed the service by little more than an hour. Eleanor had asked that no flowers be sent, yet they arrived anyway, filling the entire ground floor of the White House and spilling out onto the terraces.

Shortly after the service the casket was returned to the train for an overnight trip to Hyde Park. President Truman, the cabinet secretaries, and the justices of the Supreme Court rode along; a second train carried members of Congress. For the last time Roosevelt ascended the hill from the Hyde Park train station, beside the Hudson, to the big house on the bluff. On a sunny morning with a cold wind he was laid to rest in the hedge-compassed garden between the house and the library he had built to accommodate his papers. A twenty-one-gun salute honored the fallen commander in chief; parade guards of soldiers, sailors, and marines lined the paths and lanes of the estate; warplanes flew in formation overhead; a bugler blew taps. As the body was lowered into the earth the group beside the grave sang “Now the Laborer’s Task Is O’er.”

But it wasn’t quite over yet. At the time Roosevelt died, he was preparing a message to be shared with the country on Jefferson Day. The White House published the message after his death, and it became his benediction and final bow.

“Americans are gathered together this evening in communities all over the country to pay tribute to the living memory of Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest of all democrats,” he said. “And I want to make it clear that I am spelling that word ‘democrats’ with a small d.” Readers imagined Roosevelt pausing to smile, even laugh, as he would have delivered that line. His tone then turned more serious. As important as Jefferson had been in establishing democracy in America, he was equally important in making American democracy a vital element in world affairs. He had purchased Louisiana, sent the navy to punish the Barbary pirates, and held democracy forth as a beacon for other peoples. His legacy of responsibility persisted.

Today this nation which Jefferson helped so greatly to build is playing a tremendous part in the battle for the rights of man all over the world. Today we are part of the vast Allied force—a force composed of flesh and blood and steel and spirit—which is today destroying the makers of war, the breeders of hatred, in Europe and in Asia…. Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility.

Roosevelt was proud that Americans had accepted their responsibility. And he was confident they would continue to shoulder it in the future. The Nazi regime was crumbling; the warlords of Japan would meet a similar fate.

But the mere conquest of our enemies is not enough. We must go on to do all in our power to conquer the doubts and the fears, the ignorance and the greed, which made this horror possible…. The work, my friends, is peace. More than an end of this war—an end to the beginnings of all wars. Yes, an end, forever, to this impractical, unrealistic settlement of the differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples.

Perhaps, in writing these words in his cottage at Warm Springs, he had had a premonition of his imminent death. Perhaps he simply chose to rework a line that had played well in the past. But in his final statement to the American people, Roosevelt echoed his first statement as their president.

To all Americans who dedicate themselves with us to the making of an abiding peace, I say: The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

W
INSTON
C
HURCHILL MISSED
the funeral. The demands of the war prevented a journey to America. But the prime minister had been bracing himself emotionally for the loss of his partner. At the close of the Casablanca conference, Roosevelt made ready to leave. Churchill stopped him. “You cannot go all this way to North Africa without seeing Marrakech,” he said. “Let us spend two days there. I must be with you when you see the sunset on the snows of the Atlas Mountains.” Roosevelt put off his departure, and he and Churchill drove the hundred and fifty miles across the desert together. They spoke of the war and politics and of the history of the region and the future of the world.

Marrakech was everything Churchill promised. Its lush gardens afforded a respite from the desert, its ancient souks a reminder that life continued amid the war. An American living in the city loaned her villa to the eminent tourists, who arrived just as the sun was setting. The villa had a tower with a view of the mountains and of the city. Churchill climbed the sixty steps; Roosevelt was carried up by strong young men. The two watched the sun go down and saw the dimming light paint the snowy peaks with shifting pastels. Churchill smoked a cigar, Roosevelt a cigarette. “It’s the most lovely spot in the whole world,” the prime minister sighed.

By now the city had begun to glow, as the lamps in the mosque towers came on. Roosevelt and Churchill descended to a dinner celebrating the successes their countries had shared and the greater victories they expected. The prime minister, the president, and the dozen members of their party ate, drank, and sang far into the night.

The next morning Roosevelt awoke at dawn to board his plane. Churchill refused to let the president drive to the airfield unaccompanied. He put on slippers and robe and the two rode together. They shook hands a final time on the tarmac, and Roosevelt entered the plane.

As the door of the aircraft closed, Churchill turned to the American vice consul, Kenneth Pendar. “Come, Pendar, let’s go home,” he said. “I don’t like to see them take off.” The car carrying the prime minister and the diplomat began to pull away. Pendar watched through the rear window as the president’s plane gained speed. Churchill couldn’t look. “Don’t tell me when they take off. It makes me far too nervous.” He touched Pendar’s arm. “If anything happened to that man, I couldn’t stand it. He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I’ve ever known.”

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank the many people who helped make this book possible, including especially Bob Clark and the archival staff at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Roger Scholl and Bill Thomas at Doubleday, and James D. Hornfischer of Hornfischer Literary Management. Hal Brands and Riley Brands asked impertinent questions and insisted on persuasive answers; my thanks to them, with love.