Stirring and politically significant TLS, two pages, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, December 4, 1924. Roosevelt writes to Teresa Graham, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Idaho in 1924, outlining in detail his plan for strengthening the Democratic Party. Roosevelt, having then only recently returned to political prominence after being struck down with polio in 1921, delivered the nominating speech for Alfred Smith at the Democratic convention a few months earlier. A month after the election, in which the Democratic candidate, John Davis, garnered a dismal twenty-nine percent of the popular vote to Coolidge’s fifty-four percent, the plain-speaking Roosevelt lays out a mandate for turning the party around. In part: “In recent years and in many States we have succeeded in electing Democratic governors. Yet these same States we fail to carry for our presidential candidates.... The Party organization is far weaker nationally than locally.” He continues with a list of what he terms “fundamental truths.” “1. That the National Committee, or its executive machinery should function every day in every year and not merely in Presidential election years. 2. That the National Committee should be brought into far closer touch with the state organizations. 3. That the executive machinery for year in and year out work should be put on a continuing and business like financial basis. 4. That publicity for party policy and for the dissemination of current information should be greatly extended. 5. That party leaders from all sections should meet more frequently in order to exchange views and plan for united party action.” Roosevelt then expresses his conviction that the Democrats must act quickly and decisively: “Something must be done, and done now to bring home to the voting population the true basis and sound reasons why the Democratic Party is entitled to national confidence as a governing party. There is room for but two parties. The Republican leadership has stood and still stands for conservatism, for the control of the social and economic structure of the nation by a small minority of hand picked associates. The Democratic party organization … is made up in chief part by men and women who are unwilling to stand still but who often differ as to the methods and lines of progress. Yet we are unequivocally the party of progress and liberal thought.” He concludes: “Only by uniting can we win. If in the next three years we stop wasting time in booming or opposing this man or that for a nomination four years away, and devote ourselves instead to organizing for party principles, for the taking advantage of our opponents errors and omissions … we shall gain the confidence of the country.” The Democrats evidently failed to heed Roosevelt’s advice in time for the 1928 election, in which Herbert Hoover was swept into the White House in another Republican juggernaut. Four years later, as America suffered from the worst economic depression in its history, FDR was finally able to put his plan into action by taking the reins himself, becoming the first (and only) president elected to four terms—and writing his name across history like few who held the office ever had. In fine condition, with straight pin to upper left corner of first page, staple holes to second page, faint corner creases, and mounting remnants to corners of reverse. COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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