The Preparation of a President

• Date: 01 June 1948
• Published date: 01 June 1948
• Author: R.G. Tugwell
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294800100204
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE PREPARATION OF A PRESIDENT*
by
R. G. TUGWELL
University of Chicago
To follow the learning process of a man like Franklin D. Roosevelt,
to trace the sources of those actions which, when he is in full maturity, give
him character, is a task which has its difficulties; but make such a man
President, adding to the complexities of his nature those distortions and
intensities which are inevitably created by that office, and the task becomes
almost insuperable. It will be undertaken, for all that, many times in the
generations stretching out ahead of us until the vast plains of history raise
up taller leaders in even more exigent times; and perhaps even then an
interest in our lesser adventures may continue. We are too close for per-
spective but not too close for understanding. Mr. Roosevelt’s shadow will
grow longer and darker, at least as long as any of us now alive remain to
record our accounts as witnesses, in one way or another, of his develop-
ment. Any contribution may have its value. At least none ought to be
withheld without good reason.
Mr. Raymond Moley in his After Seven Years tells of leaving the old
Congress hotel in Chicago on a day in June of 1932. He was on his way
to the Convention Hall where Mr. Roosevelt was shortly to be nominated-
a fact which was not yet known, far from it, indeed, since that was the day
of fright for all Rooseveltians. He picked up a paper from a newstand, he
recalls, and read an attack on his candidate by Mr. Heywood Broun. He
does not say so, but I was with him; and I looked over his shoulder. We
read that piece of Mr. Broun’s together. The early summer heat of Chicago,
the noise of the streets, and the fumes of motors beat on our skins, our ears,
and our noses. We had not slept, to speak of, for nearly a week. And we
could have jerked off Mr. Broun’s toenails with pincers if we had had him
well tied down. For he said that our dear man was &dquo;the corkscrew candidate
of a convoluting convention,&dquo; meaning that he agreed with what was then
a common appraisal of weakness, of anything-for-advantage willingness to
be all things to all people. And had not Ray and I-along with others-
just put in three of the most gruelling months of our lives having part
of that candidate’s education dug out of our entrails? For we did not bring
*The Western Political Quarterly prints "The Preparation of a President" as an
illuminating historical document affording insight, psychological and otherwise,
into the American political scene and into the mental processes of those men
who, from time to time, stand at the center of public affairs.
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him much that he wanted; he had to mine for it in us and send us out to
get filled again. &dquo;Corkscrew candidate!&dquo; .... Ray says he boiled with indig-
nation, but that is poor language; we erupted, we stamped and cursed. And
we
swore that he’d show them. I think we can say that he did.
As a matter of strict fact, my attendance at a political convention was
the by-product of a refilling venture. For I had been sent West to discover
what I could about the latest plan for the relief of farmers. And to show
how close a margin we worked on, I may recall that what I learned from
Mr. M. L. Wilson, later Undersecretary of Agriculture; Mr. Henry Wallace,
later Secretary; Mr. Ezekiel, his adviser, and several others, was only
gathered together in the preceding week. It went to Albany by wire; and
it came back to Chicago by plane-incorporated in Mr. Roosevelt’s ac-
ceptance speech. Our candidate was quick enough; he did not have to
be hit with a brick; the gentlest exposure to facts touched off reactions
which might turn out to be disproportionate. But that depended on the
pattern he was working out-which was what made life miserable for those
of us who had patterns of our own. He knew what ours were. He should
have known: we had not yet ceased to be pedagogues; when we left the
Columbia campus and, a few hours later, climbed the long hill at Albany
toward the old executive mansion, we shed no teacher-like responsibility.
We told him too much, when it amused him to give us that kind of oppor-
tunity, all rounded out and trimmed down. He had to sift a good deal, I
can see now, to get what he wanted. He never told us anything-anything
much, that is, which would have guided us. He didn’t know how to do that.
He said a good deal; but all his words were for his own use. He was
thinking out loud. But the tying up, the systematizing, went on somewhere
below-or above-the levels on which he moved with us; and there also
the accommodations were worked out which tuned him to the people.
Mr. Roosevelt himself somewhat illuminated for me the art of life
he practised, by leading me, figuratively speaking, out into the open fields
as soon as he discovered my up-state origin. I recall, for example, how when
we were alone, one evening, we began to talk about forests, wild life, and
their conservation, and he sketched the outlines of what afterwards became
the Civilian Conservation Corps. From this we went on, even that early,
to the difficulties into which agriculture had fallen. We differed sharply
about remedies. Up to this time his policies had been those which a
governor needed. The experiment in the hills near Cornell of removing
sub-marginal land from production and returning it to grass and trees we
both thought a significant intimation of regeneration. But obviously if it
succeeded there were going to be a lot of rural people turned loose, just as
millions in the cities had been excluded from increasingly efficient factories.
He thought they might be taken care of on subsistence farms in nearby

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133
valleys where more intensified practices were possible. I followed him that
far; but when he suggested that this might be done for a lot of idle city
folk too, I balked. We argued back and forth and I thought I had made
my point that if they were to make a living they would add to the already
troublesome surpluses, and even if they only raised produce for home con-
sumption they were by that much reducing the market for commercial farm
products. As to his argument that small industries could be induced to move
to such colonies, it seemed to me that people had always had to move to
industries in the interest of efficiency and that less efficient operations
would not attract private enterprise.
He gave me up. But several times later on he returned to the argument.
I know now that he was reinforced by Mrs. Roosevelt and by Louis Howe.
They finally would have their way, too, and a brave trial would be made
at Arthurdale, Pine Mountain, Westmoreland and several other places. But
what is of interest here is that Mr. Roosevelt suggested in the course of the
argument, speaking with unconscious nostalgia, that country life had been
a favorite center of interest for another Roosevelt-&dquo;T. R.&dquo; he called him.
And by the way he spoke I realized that I had been shown a pattern within
which his mind and spirit felt at home with ambition. I followed it up
rather shamelessly. True, this was congenial to all I believed and hoped.
But its usefulness was in the entr6 it furnished. Again and again we explored
the delights of country life, detailed the possibilities of improvement, and
speculated about means for introducing rural virtues into cities. We talked
a good deal-or, rather, he talked-about conservation. He thought of him-
self as being in the direct line of descent in this and recalled with obvious
pride his many services to the cause. I had, myself, a slight acquaintance
with Mr. Gifford Pinchot and with other old-time forestry and wild life
people who had been through the early one-sided struggles against the
lumber barons and those near-sighted reclamationists who would have
drained all the marshes and polluted all the streams. And I was able to
meet him on ground which was foreign to the others of our group. Hugh
Johnson’s interest in farm relief came by way of pioneering experience in
Oklahoma, in cavalry life on the Texas plains, and in running a farm
implement business; Adolph Berle was a world citizen without obvious feel,
at least, for the rough texture of common country living; Ray Moley was
an artist whose senses responded better to words than to the sights and
sounds of October mornings afield; Sam Rosenman and Doc O’Connor
were incorrigibly citified. In our group only the Governor and I were
suited to cross-country adventures-and on occasion we left the others
silent as we indulged in a small talk which gave us secret pleasure.
It is surprising how many subjects open out from emotional paths of
this sort. It was not difficult to advance into a discussion of public works

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in this way: we could improve small town post offices, wild life refuges
could be constructed, any amount of work could be done in reforesting
land retired from production on a national scale. This last I came to
believe, myself, was one element of a program for agricultural relief which
had real possibilities; and another related one involved the resettlement,
under carefully determined individual plans, of the displaced families. I am
sure that these discussions not only helped to educate us both but led Mr.
Roosevelt to a most unlikely judgment, if considered politically, that I
should be useful in the Department of Agriculture; and it later led me to
think, in setting up my Resettlement Administration, that I might have
backing for a program which-together with the AAA-would set us far
ahead in the rehabilitation of country life.
I remembered also, and used...