Was there the usual speculation that some other Democrat(s) would run for the nomination that got flabbergasted by FDR’s announcement? Was there speculation that FDR would go for three for years before 1940? Was it any one event–like Poland getting invaded in 1939–that made up FDR’s mind? Was it a close decision for him? (“Oh, shit, I thought was out of it, too.”) Was he thinking about it from the start of his first term? Who were the other popular potential candidates? Were they pissed that FDR had blown them out of the water? Did any of them consider a run against him for the nomination? Were Americans generally astonished that he was running for a third term?
The real question should be: was there ever a time when Roosevelt didn’t consider running for a third term? Given the time and the circumstances I’d say the answer was no.
You have to look at the entire second term. After the super blow-out in 1936, Roosevelt had a rough four years. There was the humiliation of the court-packing scheme. He bowed to conservative, i.e. conventional economic wisdom and started cutting spending, which of course sent the country reeling backward. The 1938 midterm elections were a fiasco, with the Republicans picking up 80+ House seats, 9 Senate seats, and 13 governorships. The European war was piling it on; he alone of the major politicians wanted to throw the U.S. entirely behind Britain and he felt more strongly about it than any of his usual positions.
There wasn’t any real opposition. You can always make a case for a variety of other names for the nomination, but Roosevelt had the huge advantage over every one of them. He dropped misleading hints to various people, like James Farley, about stepping down, but he did that with every position to everyone all the time.
By spring of 1940 the only way Roosevelt would leave office was death. And the vast majority of his supporters preferred it that way. There weren’t primaries or challenges in those days. By summer 1940 Roosevelt had indicated that was staying on and that was that. The Republicans had a shit fit but he won the popular vote by 10 percentage points and the electoral college in a landslide.
When the Democratic National Convention assembled in 1940, there was still tremendous uncertainty as to whether Roosevelt would accept a nomination for a third term. Other candidates had been lining up delegate support–especially Vice President John Nance Garner (who had broken with FDR over court packing and by 1940 opposed FDR) and Postmaster General James A. Farley. However both men recognized that they had no chance if FDR indicated he would accept a third term.
Roosevelt never made a formal declaration of candidacy. This was typical for that era. Instead he had the convention chairman read a statement to the delegates:
This was so ambiguous that the delegates were unsure how to react. Then the “voice from the sewers” began bellowing over the PA system, “We want Roosevelt! The world wants Roosevelt” and the delegates recognized the statement as an announcement that FDR would in fact accept renomination.
Garner and Farley did not drop out after the announcement, but they had no chance. The roll call vote was FDR 946.43, Farley 72.9, Garner 61, Millard Tydings 9.5, Cordell Hull 5.67, and 4.5 not voting.
Fascinating stuff - thanks, Freddy.
I’m a little curious as to the basis of that roll call, with fractions and adding up to 1100. Is there something I’m missing about US convention voting? I’d expect the roll call to be described either in terms of actual delegate counts (thus no decimals) or percentages.
Fractional votes were common at conventions. States would appoint x number of people to cast y delegate votes, with x>y, and allow each person y/x votes. This was either done deliberately, to allow more people to participate, or as a way of resolving credentials disputes, which were frequent in that era.