Details
ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Typed letter signed ("Franklin D. Roosevelt") to Stephen Demmon, New York, 18 July 1923. 1 page, 4to, Fidelity and Deposit Co. stationery.
RECOVERING FROM HIS POLIO, ROOSEVELT VOWS "I DO NOT WANT TO BE VICE PRESIDENT"
"It is very good of you," FDR writes, "but I do not want to be Vice President. To have to preside over the United States Senate, as at present constituted, for four whole years would be a thankless, disagreeable and perfectly futile task. If I undertook it I should probably get into such a violent row with Lodge and the other Reactionaries that I should be promptly impeached!" Spoken like a true Wilsonian Democrat, since Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was Wilson's nemesis. A year after this letter, FDR startled the audience at the Democratic National Convention by swinging his way to the podium on crutches to deliver a rousing address in support of Alfred E. Smith, the "Happy Warrior." That speech made Roosevelt, once again, a major figure in the Democratic Party.
RECOVERING FROM HIS POLIO, ROOSEVELT VOWS "I DO NOT WANT TO BE VICE PRESIDENT"
"It is very good of you," FDR writes, "but I do not want to be Vice President. To have to preside over the United States Senate, as at present constituted, for four whole years would be a thankless, disagreeable and perfectly futile task. If I undertook it I should probably get into such a violent row with Lodge and the other Reactionaries that I should be promptly impeached!" Spoken like a true Wilsonian Democrat, since Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was Wilson's nemesis. A year after this letter, FDR startled the audience at the Democratic National Convention by swinging his way to the podium on crutches to deliver a rousing address in support of Alfred E. Smith, the "Happy Warrior." That speech made Roosevelt, once again, a major figure in the Democratic Party.