III.

The Beginning of Roosevelt's Political Career

Franklin Roosevelt's political career began with his election to the New York State Senate as a Democrat in 1910. He quickly gained attention as the leader of an upstate coalition that fought the influence of New York's Democratic machine (the Tammany Society). His support of Woodrow Wilson's candidacy as the Democratic presidential nominee in 1912 resulted in his appointment to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, which he held during World War I. James M. Cox of Ohio, the party's 1920 nominee for the presidency, chose Roosevelt as his running mate because of his family name, but the Cox-Roosevelt ticket proved to be no match for the Republicans under Warren G. Harding.

Roosevelt faced the greatest personal crisis of his life when he was stricken by poliomyelitis at his Canadian summer home on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, in 1921. He veiled his deep physical agony with a cheerful demeanour and rejected his mother's advice that he abandon politics and become a country squire at Hyde Park. Encouraged by Eleanor and his dedicated political mentor, Louis McHenry Howe, he resumed his career by nominating Alfred E. Smith for the presidency at the Democratic convention in 1924 and again in 1928, when Smith won the party's nomination. The Democratic party of the 1920s was deeply divided between Protestant, rural voters, who favoured Prohibition, and urban Roman Catholics, who opposed it. Anxious to win the New York State electoral vote, Smith persuaded Roosevelt to campaign for the governorship, given the latter's strong upstate appeal. Roosevelt, deeply in debt and disabled by polio, won a narrow victory, while Smith was defeated by Herbert Hoover.