Columbia’s Rare Book Library has in its possession the Herbert Lehman Papers – hundreds of thousands of documents from the course of his career. Lehman was the governor of New York from 1933 to 1942 and a Senator from 1950 to 1957. In the late 1950s, he and Eleanor Roosevelt formed the Americans for Democrat Action – an organization that raised money for New York City’s political reform clubs. Because I’m researching Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.’s 1954 gubernatorial candidacy, I wanted to see if there were any materials within the Lehman Papers that related to the 1954 race, either directly or indirectly.
The online finding guide didn’t list boxes; it was more of an outline, with different categories and subcategories (e.g. “Special Subject Personal File – Humane Slaughter of Livestock” and “General Correspondence – 1932”). I wasn’t sure how to request individual boxes or files, so I called the library.
“We’re still working on improving the system,” the woman at the Rare Book Library told me. “You’ll have to e-mail one of the archivists what topics you’re looking to research, and she’ll pull the relevant boxes for you.”
I e-mailed her on a Monday, writing that I was interested in taking a look at boxes containing materials related to Eleanor Roosevelt’s feud with Cardinal Francis Spellman and the 1954 New York gubernatorial race.
Why was I interested in the Roosevelt-Spellman feud? Justin Feldman, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.’s congressional assistant, has an oral history at the Columbia Center for Oral History. At one point in the oral history, he recounts an incident from early September 1954, when Tammany boss Carmine De Sapio called Roosevelt, Jr. and Feldman to his headquarters at the Biltmore, where he informed them that he would be backing former ambassador W. Averell Harriman for the nomination. According to Feldman, Liberal Party chair Alex Rose, Mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., Bronx boss Charles Buckley, and Julius Edelstein, Senator Herbert Lehman’s assistant, were all in the room, and all supported De Sapio’s decision.
The reason, De Sapio explained, was that Cardinal Spellman, along with the state’s Catholic voters, were still upset with Eleanor Roosevelt, and “wouldn’t vote for a Roosevelt.”
For some background: in 1949, Eleanor Roosevelt had a public spat with Cardinal Francis Spellman. The Catholic Church had successfully banned The Nation from New York public school libraries after the liberal political magazine had published an article detailing the influence of the Catholic Church on American politics. Shortly thereafter, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a column condemning the Cardinal’s lobbying for federal aid for Catholic schools, calling it a violation of the First Amendment, an infringement on the separation of church and state. The resulting uproar — Spellman released a letter denouncing Eleanor, writing, “your record of anti-Catholicism stands for all to see…documents of discrimination unworthy of an American mother” — eventually required the intervention of Pope Pius XII.
I’ve always thought of De Sapio’s explanation as a weak excuse (Feldman and Roosevelt, Jr. certainly thought it was): the Roosevelt-Spellman feud had occurred five years prior, and Roosevelt, Jr. was never even involved. But if it was an excuse, why did Senator Lehman go along with De Sapio? After all, Lehman was a longtime confidant of FDR, and a close friend of Eleanor’s.
Five boxes were waiting for me when I arrived on Thursday (you need to give them at least 36 hours’ notice because the materials are stored off-site). One box contained drafts of a public letter of support for Eleanor Roosevelt that Lehman had written. It was eventually published in The New York Times. Also in this box were memos between Lehman and his assistant, Edelstein, and they reveal how conflicted Lehman had been about going public with his support for Eleanor. There is no doubt that he completely agreed with her position. But he was running for Senate that fall, and he wondered if he could withstand the backlash from the state’s Catholic voters. It seems that Lehman ultimately decided to publicly defend Eleanor because he believed it was the right thing to do. He took a risk to support a friend, and while it may have harmed his candidacy, it ultimately didn’t defeat him — he ended up winning the election.
Another box contained letters received from individuals and religious organizations throughout the country, from Maine to California. The Roosevelt-Spellman feud had, clearly, been national news. Though this didn’t directly relate to my narrative, I found the letters interesting nonetheless. Lehman had saved hundreds of them; the writers lauded him for his stand against Cardinal Spellman’s “vicious attack” on Eleanor Roosevelt. While many letters were simply supportive and congratulatory, others took Lehman’s denouncement of Spellman as an excuse to air anti-Catholic grievances (“I would as soon vote for a nigger as for a Roman Catholic,” a man from Florida wrote). I do think it’s indicative of the times: how suspicious individuals were of Papal influence, and how fearful they were of the power that religious institutions could wield over government.
(One other thing I learned: it can also be very, very difficult to read handwriting; I had a headache when I tied up that box).
In another box, there were clippings from Catholic newspapers (The Tablet and The Catholic News) that Lehman had saved. I found these significant because other than Spellman’s letter to Eleanor Roosevelt, I hadn’t come across anything that showed the “other side’s” point of view. I took photographs of the articles with my phone, since the papers were in such brittle condition that they couldn’t be photocopied or scanned.
The box given to me with materials from the 1954 gubernatorial campaign didn’t yield much. It was a series of prepared post-convention talks Lehman gave in support of Harriman, filled with the platitudes and obfuscation of political speeches. All the materials in this box were from after the September convention, so the contents only spanned the last month-and-a-half of the governor’s race. It did give insight into the campaign issues that were being debated that fall, but it wasn’t much different from what was being also reported in the papers.
However, the second half of this box (box 497) contained materials from 1955, which leads me to believe that there may be material from the convention or from the summer in other boxes. The next time I visit, I’m going to request to take a look at the two numbered boxes before this one (boxes 495 and 496), just in case they have material related to Roosevelt, Jr.’s candidacy.
What did I learn? Lehman was a principled man, and a loyal friend. Nationwide, anti-Catholic sentiment existed, but Catholics also possessed political clout, especially in New York. In Lehman’s decision to go along with De Sapio, Mayor Wagner, and Charles Buckley in endorsing Harriman, perhaps he had come to believe that Roosevelt, Jr. — given his mother’s feud with Spellman — would have a hard time wooing Catholic voters, who comprised a large swath of the electorate. Maybe, then, he truly did think that Harriman would give the Democrats the best shot to win. Lehman, more so than any of the others, had no reason to play politics in picking a gubernatorial candidate — no reason to settle a score. He was already a senator, an elder statesman of the party. In backing Harriman, he would also be upsetting his close friend, Eleanor Roosevelt.
I’m suspicious, however. I still find the reasoning De Sapio gave Roosevelt, Jr. (that his mother’s feud with Spellman would prevent him from winning) not entirely plausible. It seems to be more of an excuse than a deeply held conviction, and there must be more to it (after all, Lehman had angered the Catholic Church when he publicly backed Eleanor Roosevelt in 1949, and he still won his Senate race). And it’s not like Harriman was a political virtuoso; he was flawed candidate in a number of ways, too — he was uncharismatic and an unpolished campaigner who had, in fact, done very little campaigning throughout the summer.