Happy Days Are Here Again: The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR--and How America Was Changed Forever by Steve Neal

Author:Steve Neal [Neal, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, National, History, Political Ideologies, Political Parties, Political Science, Political Process, American Government, State, General
ISBN: 9780062015419
Google: 3hILWuZPjd8C
Goodreads: 8890441
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2004-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

17

RAINBOW

JAMES HAMILTON LEWIS, the only sitting U.S. senator to seek the presidency in 1932, rolled up a larger vote in the primaries than Al Smith or John Nance Garner and headed into the convention fourth in the delegate count with fifty-eight pledged votes from his home state of Illinois. If Lewis endorsed Roosevelt and released these delegates, Farley believed that FDR had a good chance to win on the first ballot. Lewis had no chance of winning the nomination and he was more openly sympathetic to Roosevelt than any of the favorite sons.1

“J. Ham,” as he was known, had long been the most elegant dresser in American politics, wearing perfectly tailored London suits with wing collar, billowing cravat, silk handkerchief, and gloves. When he was named by the Democratic caucus in 1913 as the first party whip in the history of the Senate, Lewis dressed for the occasion in top hat, formal black cutaway coat, and white vest. He often carried a walking stick, wore beribboned glasses, and introduced spats to North America. As a young lawyer in Seattle, he grew the Vandyke beard and dressed in bright colors to attract business. The starchy Thomas B. Reed of Maine, who was House Speaker when Lewis was a young congressman from the state of Washington, dismissed him as “that garrulous rainbow.” A later House Speaker, Champ Clark, asserted that Lewis was “the greatest dude in America.” Others nicknamed him “The Aurora Borealis of Illinois,” “Jim the Whisk,” and “Pink Whiskers.” By 1932, his beard and mustache made him look like a throwback to the days of McKinley. But they also set him apart. Later in the decade, when the new Life magazine needed a distinctive face for the cover story about the Senate, its editors chose Margaret Bourke-White’s unforgettable portrait of the old dandy.

“He’s a strange combination of shrewdness, political, oratorical and legal ability, foppishness, and affectation. In the few months of his present term,” Rodney Dutcher reported from Washington, “he has been more remarked for his habit of using and mixing the rainbow’s colors than for any special legislative activity.”

A shameless flirt, he once stopped an attractive young woman in front of the Senate Office Building, raised his hat, and asked: “My dear, can you direct me to the Senate Office Building?”

“Yes, I can,” she replied. “And I can tell you that the number of your suite is 111, Senator.”2

Lewis had a background even more colorful than his wardrobe. A native of Virginia, he was born in 1863 just after his father, a major in the Confederate Army, fell wounded in the Civil War. By the time he was a senator, Lewis was deceptive about his age. Lewis spent most of his youth in Augusta, Georgia, then studied briefly at the University of Virginia. On leaving Charlottesville, he headed for Savannah to read for the law and was admitted to the bar in 1882. Seeking to make his fortune on the Pacific Coast, he landed in San Francisco and took a job as a newspaper reporter before moving to Seattle and working as a longshoreman.

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