Right hand man
Without his pal Louis Howe, FDR wouldn’t have become our 32nd president
ON Aug. 10, 1921, Franklin Delano Roosevelt went to bed an athletic 39-year-old preparing to run for president in three years’ time.
When he woke up, he felt numbness in his left leg. He soon learned that he had polio and would likely never walk again.
Roosevelt was emotionally shattered, his presidential destiny having seemingly melted away. “His confidence was gone,” K. Ward Cummings, author of the new book “Partner to Power: The Secret World of Presidents and their Most Trusted Advisors” (Prometheus Books) tells The Post. “He was a naturally positive person, but he lost some of his faith and thought that if he was seen to be paralyzed, people wouldn’t vote for him.”
Luckily, Roosevelt’s friend and longtime chief of staff, Louis Howe, had a different idea.
Howe was a journalist who had segued into a career as a political operative. He met Roosevelt, who had just won a seat in the New York state Senate, in 1911, and the two became fast friends, with Howe managing Roosevelt’s 1912 re-election campaign then serving as his chief of staff when he became assistant secretary of the Navy.
When Roosevelt fell ill, Howe knew the public couldn’t see a future leader in such a state. While FDR spent the next several years building his upperbody strength so he could support his weight on crutches, Howe took over his political operations, making sure the candidate stayed in the news while greatly downplaying the severity of his illness.
FDR’s health status was kept vague, and the media didn’t report or dig further. In the meantime, Howe attended every Democratic Party event he could and wrote letters on Roosevelt’s behalf to members of the party, signing them with FDR’s signature. He also ghostwrote “news articles, op-eds and letters to the editor” under Roosevelt’s byline.
Since Roosevelt wasn’t speaking publicly, Howe decided his wife, Eleanor, should make speeches in his stead.
At the time, though, Eleanor was a “painfully awkward public speaker.” Her voice trailed off in mid-sentence, and “speaking even to a handful of people terrified her.”
But Howe saw her potential and “pushed her to improve,” analyzing her speeches and helping correct her shortcomings.
Howe worked with her on controlling her voice and her physical presence and keeping her speeches on a single track. They developed a series of hand signals so Howe could indicate to her to slow down, for instance, or to talk louder. When she wasn’t delivering speeches in public, she was practicing in the evenings by delivering speeches just to him. The Roosevelts’ son James later said that “she must have made a hundred speeches in the living room of their Manhattan home to an audience of only one — Howe.”
After staying out of the public eye for the better part of three years, FDR could finally get around on crutches, and Howe decided the 1924 Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden would be a great place for his comeback.
The party’s presumptive nominee, New York governor Al Smith, needed someone to give his nominating speech, which would be broadcast live on the radio. While Roosevelt was afraid he might slip and fall before a crowd of thousands, Howe saw it as the perfect opportunity.
FDR “approximated the appearance of walking by balancing himself over his crutches and rocking back and forth, from one side to the next, as he leaned on each stiffly braced leg and swung the other leg forward,” writes Cummings. But while “short trips were relatively easy, a walk of any duration required forethought.”
Howe calculated the distance from where Franklin would be sitting to the podium. He recruited James, then 16, to escort his father, and they practiced the walk so he wouldn’t appear to be bearing his father’s full weight.
The day of the speech, June 26, Roosevelt arrived early so he could be seated before anyone saw him. When the time came, James led him down the aisle toward the podium. James later wrote about that day, “I was afraid and I know he was too. As we walked — struggled, really — down the aisle to the rear of the platform, he leaned heavily on my arm, gripping me so hard it hurt.”
Then, “for the final step, Franklin leaned his powerful torso forward and let his body fall gently toward the podium.” Gripping it tightly to hold his weight, he thanked the crowd and then gave a speech that earned a standing ovation of over an hour, resurrecting his political career.
After winning the 1928 race for governor of New York and serving one term, Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932, remaining in the White House until his death in office in 1945.
Howe served as secretary to the president — the equivalent of today’s chief of staff — until his death in 1936, after several years of failing health due to numerous causes including severe asthma.
But during his life, his hard work and loyalty helped Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt cement their place as two of the most respected political figures in American history.
“Howe’s influence on the political lives of Eleanor and Franklin cannot be overstated,” Cummings writes. “Were it not for his guidance and pestering, Eleanor might never have developed into the global figure she became and Franklin might never have regained the confidence necessary to continue pursuing his dream of becoming president.”