Sold – Resigning the State Senate to Serve Wilson, FDR Advises Successor on Pending Legislation

In 1910, Roosevelt ran for the New York State Senate from the district around Hyde Park in Dutchess County, which had not elected a Democrat since 1884. He entered the Roosevelt name, with its associated wealth, prestige and influence in the Hudson Valley, and the Democratic landslide that year carried him to the state capital of Albany. Roosevelt entered the state house on January 1, 1911. He became a leader of a group of reformers who opposed Manhattan’s Tammany Hall machine which dominated the state Democratic Party. He was reelected for a second term November 5, 1912.

FDR was always interested in the prosperity of agriculture and became chairman of the State Senate Agriculture Committee. He introduced bills developed in coordination with the Grange and agricultural experts giving state government backing to farm cooperatives, and allowing agricultural credit banks to lend money for farm improvements. However, his important work on these bills, and indeed his state senate career, was cut short when newly-inaugurated President Woodrow Wilson named him Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He resigned from the New York State Senate on March 17, 1913 to accept that appointment. There was still unfinshed business in Albany, however, and FDR tried to smooth the transition for his successor as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Sen. Clayton Wheeler.

Typed Letter Signed on his Assistant Secretary of the Navy letterhead, Washington, March 28, 1913, to Wheeler, advising him on how to deal with the important pending legislation. “I am very glad to have your letter telling me about the progress of the agricultural bills. Of course I realized that the Commission Merchant Bill could not get through in its original form, but as long as the Grange and other agricultural interests are satisfied I feel that we shall have taken a real step in the right direction and that in future years we shall be able to strengthen the law. I hope you have taken a poll of the Senate and are feeling confident that the bill will pass.  In regard to the bill providing for cooperative agricultural banks, I think that you had better get Mr. Bruce to have a talk with Senator Pollock about the whole subject, as Senator Pollock has introduced a general bill providing for cooperative banks not only in the country but in the cities. The object of the banks in the two localities is of course somewhat different, but perhaps either my bill or the Pollock bill can be so amended as to provide for a cooperative banking system which will be satisfactory both in farming and in city communities…I do not need to tell you how glad I am that you have succeeded me as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture…” He then adds in his hand the information that “H.V. Bruce is at 2 Rector Street, N.Y. City.” Bruce was an activist and reformer working for better conditions in the city. Sen. Henry W. Pollock was interested in banking legislation, and here Roosevelt advises that, for progress to me made, Bruce and Pollock would need to get together on a mutually-acceptable version.

This is a politically significant early FDR letter.