Franklin D. Roosevelt: Typed Letter Signed as New York Senator....

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A very historic and extremely rare typed letter signed "Franklin D. Roosevelt," March 1, 1911, on The Senate of the State of New York, Albany/ Franklin D. Roosevelt, 26th District letterhead. FDR writes to Mr. T. A. Malloy of the Springfield Republican newspaper, Springfield, Massachusetts: "Dear Sir:-/ I have your letter of February 25 and am sorry that I cannot send you a photograph for the purpose of having a cut made, but must confess that I have none. I shall only speak very briefly on March 10 and will probably not know until the last minute what I am going to say, but if I write out anything I will let you have it when I get there./ Yours very truly,/ Franklin D. Roosevelt." In his second month as New York State Senator, elected to his very first political office less than four months before this letter was written, FDR was actively attempting to endear himself to reformers by daring to oppose the Tammany Democratic political machine. The first major political fight of his nascent career involved the Democratic nomination for United States Senator from New York. The Tammany boss, Charles Francis Murphy (1858-1924), who ruled Tammany from 1901 until his death in 1924, supported William F. ("Blue Eyed Billy") Sheehan. However, FDR and about twenty other Democrats–dubbed the "insurgents" –refused to give Sheehan their votes. The rebels held out until March 31, when Tammany bowed, withdrawing Sheehan and substituting Judge James A. O'Gorman, who quickly won the election. FDR later allied himself firmly with reform elements in the Democratic Party by his vigorous campaign for Woodrow Wilson in the election of 1912, which led to his later appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, providing for FDR his first national political forum. It was also during this early political battle in 1911 that FDR first met Louis McHenry Howe, barely a month before this letter was written. Howe interviewed Roosevelt about the Sheehan uprising for the New York Herald. The newspaperman left the interview with a story, and with a sense of FDR's political potential. Howe, it seemed, impressed Roosevelt as well. The men became friends, and the rest, as they say, is history. There is an interesting element of political naivete in this early letter from FDR, especially when he references his forthcoming political speech by saying that he "will probably not know until the last minute what I am going to say, but if I write out anything I will let you have it when I get there." Obviously, the political imbroglio in which FDR was at the center, having been identified as the leader of the Democratic "insurgents," was causing the young politician to become noticed in the media, even outside of New York, in neighboring Massachusetts. This is an extremely early and rare FDR letter of immense significance given that it was written within two months of FDR first becoming a New York State Senator, and in the midst of his first major political battle, a contest that would have lasting impact on his name, his emerging political reputation, and the course of his future political activities.