Chester Alan Arthur was the first member of the Century Association to become President of the United States. One admirer described him as “the greatest social lion we have had in many years” but historians generally give mediocre marks to his abbreviated presidency. Succeeding to the White House in 1881 upon the assassination of President James Garfield, Arthur, an ardent New Yorker, read this appraisal of himself in the New York Times: “Arthur is about the last man who would be considered eligible to that position, did the choice depend on the voice of either a majority of his own party or of a majority of the people of the United States.” Of course, the Admissions Committee of the Century may have had a different attitude. I have been unable to find any surviving letters proposing and supporting his membership but his reputation as a gracious, tactful man with a political talent for pacifying grand egos must have made him welcome at the Long Table. Altogether, eight Centurions have been President of our country. Chester Alan Arthur was the first, Grover Cleveland the second, and Dwight D. Eisenhower the last. In between, the greatest political leaders of the 20th century gave stature to our Association – Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover – and my subject for the evening, who probably is, as most historians describe him, the greatest President of the century but who is certainly and truly a man of the Century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On February 14, 1921, C.C. Burlingham, perhaps the leading lawyer and municipal reformer of his time, wrote as follows to a fellow lawyer with a nearby office at 52 Wall Street:

“My dear Roosevelt:
Now that you are back in private life and in a suburb of your own home town, I want you to join the Century. Tell me who will propose and who will second you, and I will write them and tell them to do it.

W.C. Brownell, the literary critic of Scribner’s, was in an elevator at the New York Athletic Club and he heard one man say to another:
“Did you ever hear of the Century Club?
“Yes, it’s down in 43rd Street.
“What sort of a club is it?
“It’s a club of eminent men.
“Ain’t that a hell of a club!”
Sincerely yours,
C.C. Burlingham”

The next day, FDR wrote Mr. Burlingham that he accepted the invitation to be proposed as a member of the Association, writing that he felt “very highly honored… for in spite of the remark of the man in the elevator, there is only one Century Club in the world.” On February 16, Burlingham sent FDR the Club book so he could mark those members he knew well, leaving it then to CCB to ask a proposer and seconder to do their duty. Among those FDR marked as known friends were George Blagden, William Chadbourne, Frederic Coudert, Augustus Hand, Thomas Lamont, George Putnam and Robert Grier Monroe whom Mr. Burlingham chose as FDR’s proposer. John G. Milburn, a senior partner of the law firm where FDR had served his legal apprenticeship [Carter, Ledyard and Milburn] agreed to be his seconder “because I know him well and am very fond of him.” It was in Milburn’s home in Buffalo, New York that President McKinley died and Theodore Roosevelt had taken the oath of office twenty years before. FDR was certainly familiar with the Century before he became a member. In May 1921, for example, he was a guest of Edward Bok, the creative and business genius of the Saturday Evening Post and the Curtis Publishing Company – whose grandson, Derek Bok, later became President of Harvard University. Edward Bok, who gloried in his success having come to the United States as a 14 year old immigrant from Holland, used that meeting at the Century to found the Netherland-America Foundation with the purpose of advancing mutual understanding and active exchange between the two countries. Because the Netherlands was neutral in World War I and because Queen Wilhelmina gave reluctant sanctuary to the defeated Kaiser, the normally warm and cordial American feelings for the Dutch were under pressure. The Roosevelts – all of them—were directly descended from Claes Martenson van Rosevelt who had come in 1648 to New Amsterdam from the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. FDR always took pride in his Dutch forebears. At the Century meeting, he agreed to be an officer of the Foundation. Franklin Roosevelt was elected as a Centurion on January 14, 1922 at the monthly meeting of the Association. Elected at the same time as a non-resident member was Hiram Bingham, the Yale professor who discovered Machu Picchu, the ancient Inca kingdom in Peru, and served eight years as U.S. Senator from Connecticut. At this point, FDR was 39 years old. He had been married for 16 years. When Franklin married Eleanor in 1905, the President of the United States – Theodore Roosevelt, gave the bride away and dominated the event by his presence. There was probably no one whom FDR admired more than Theodore Roosevelt. The extraordinary parallel of their careers was undoubtedly influenced greatly by that admiration. Those parallels include the following: both TR and FDR, separated by a generation in time, were elected to the New York State legislature (TR at 23, FDR at 28); both were appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy (TR at 39, FDR at 31); both were Vice Presidential candidates (TR at 41, FDR at 38); both knew political defeat, TR as a candidate for Mayor of New York (1886) and in his Bull Moose campaign for President (1912), FDR in the Democratic primary campaign for the United States Senate (1914) and as the running mate of James Cox in the 1920 presidential election; both married at a young age, TR at 22, FDR at 23, and both had four sons as brave participants in the two world wars. Both were Harvard graduates and, most significantly, both were members of the Century Association. On September 7, 1923, FDR as a new Centurion agreed to write a letter in support of the nomination of Minot Simons, the pastor of All Souls Unitarian Church, the church where FDR’s parents were married in 1880. But then, on December 15, 1923, Franklin Roosevelt writes the Board of the Century an abrupt and clearly painful letter. He feels obliged to resign. “I am doing this only because I am spending most of my time in the country at present and feel that I cannot avail myself of the privileges of the Association for some time to come.” FDR’s life had been transformed by debilitating illness. In August 1921, at the age of 39, Franklin Roosevelt had been stricken by infantile paralysis. It was an ordeal that many believe gave him the courage and character to become a great president but the path to recovery was a tortured one with many crises of despair and anguish. He suffered acute pain for many weeks. There was considerable question whether he would ever be able to sit up again. In 1923 he chartered a houseboat and spent weeks cruising in Florida, swimming in the warm water that relieved pain and gave him hope for his weakened legs. The expenses and the strain of the extended convalescence mounted. He was confident that he could learn to walk again. It became the focus of his life. His forays into public places were carefully planned. The magnificent deception had begun that kept his significant disability a personal, private matter. Two-thirds of his personal fortune went into establishing the Warm Springs Foundation in Georgia. He transformed it into a major treatment center for polio victims. He created an enterprise that is today one of the most successful rehabilitation centers in the country. In 1924, Governor Alfred E. Smith asked FDR to nominate him for president at the Democratic national convention in New York City. On the arm of his son FDR, with his legs firm in locked braces, holding a cane in his other hand, advanced slowly without crutches to the podium in Madison Square Garden. It was a moment that no one who saw it would ever forget. His palpable courage, his lyrical eloquence, his magnificent voice, brought the delegates to their feet – and at that moment Franklin Roosevelt resumed a national political career. Seven years after his polio attack Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York. As Frank Freidel, one of the important Roosevelt biographers has written, Roosevelt had perfected so effective an illusion of his strength and wellbeing that most Americans never realized until after his death that he was, in fact, a paraplegic. On December 17, 1923, in response to FDR’s letter of resignation, the Secretary of the Century, A.D. Noyes, wrote him a personal note expressing the hope that he would reconsider his action. He obviously did reconsider because on June 5, 1924, with Elihu Root, Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of War and Secretary of State, presiding, the Board of Management passed the motion acceding to Franklin Roosevelt’s request “for transfer from the resident to the non-resident list…” And so the squire of Hyde Park, the farmer from Dutchess County, and, of course, the future Governor of the State of New York and President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt continued as a non-resident member of the Century Association. Before the Board of Management had acted, FDR had been asked to write a supporting letter for the candidacy of George Martin who had been nominated by Mr. Burlingham. In a reply, written from his houseboat in Florida on March 17, 1924, FDR indicated that he had resigned from the Club and therefore should not and could not write such a letter. Once he was secure in his status as a non-resident member, however, and especially when he became Governor of New York in 1929, FDR was frequently asked to write letters supporting proposed candidates. A gentleman named H. Morton Merriman, a neighbor of FDR’s on Campobello Island, was such a candidate. Archibald Douglas wrote FDR asking for the supporting letter saying that “I know that such a letter will go very far toward insuring Mr. Merriman’s election.” For unstated reasons Merriman’s name was held up by the Admissions Committee. Governor Roosevelt had written a letter in his support but it was a pro forma letter, still unconvincing as one reads it these many years later. Archibald Douglas asked him to write again for fear that Merriman would be passed over. Roosevelt did write a more extensive letter, leaving out his earlier point that Mr. Merriman was head of an important silk company, concentrating instead on his interest in African exploration, his extensive knowledge of public affairs, and his voluntary work as Secretary of the Memorial Cancer Hospital. Mr. Merriman was elected a member in 1931. On April 5, 1929, supporting the candidacy that had been seconded by Colonel Edward House, Woodrow Wilson’s confidant, of Judge Robert Worth Bingham of Louisville, Kentucky, FDR wrote that the Judge was an old friend of his and “I should be very glad to see him elected to the Century Association.” After his election to the presidency, Judge Bingham was FDR’s choice to be Ambassador to the Court of St. James and, of course, his newspapers and the Bingham family became synonymous with great journalism. Poultney Bigelow wrote the newly elected Governor asking him to support the nomination of Dr. F.F. Day, the newly appointed president of Union College, citing the fact that FDR’s father had graduated from Union College in 1847 as a reason that might cause him to show sentimental interest. As a postscript to a second letter to the Governor asking if he had written, Mr. Bigelow passed on some gossip which must have indicated that FDR had an interest in the subject to the effect that Prince Louis Ferdinand, the grandson of the Kaiser, was working for Henry Ford and that he was not engaged to anyone – “least of all to a movie star” and that the Prince’s grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had cabled Mr. Bigelow to like effect. Other letters of support were written by Governor Roosevelt for Francis B. Riggs, who had been proposed by Dr. Endicott Peabody who reminded FDR that Mr. Riggs was a graduate of Groton. He supported Maunsell Crosby, an amateur ornithologist who was a Dutchess County neighbor. In June 1932 he wrote on behalf of Professor Robert M. Hague of Barnard College. Mr. Copley Amory, Jr. to whom FDR referred to as his cousin was also the beneficiary of a supporting letter that year from the Governor. Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated for the first of his four terms as President on March 4, 1933. Whether it was the careful filing system of his devoted secretaries, Missy LeHand and Grace Tully, or his own predilection as a collector to save what others might find valueless, there are a considerable number of notices from the Century Association that are part of the records kept at the Presidential Library at Hyde Park. A fascinating profile of our cherished Century Club emerges from these documents. For example, in a notice of the monthly meeting for November 1, 1934, it is reported that 142 breakfasts were served in September. When we combine that information with a Club notice of April 28, 1936, we have echoes of a contemporary debate. The notice of that date told members that the Columbia University Club had extended room privileges to all members of the Century. The Columbia University Club was across the street, now a Moonie dormitory and hotel. Let the Board of Managers take note. Rooms with bath were available at $3.00 a day or $60.00 monthly. Suites were more expensive – $5 a day or $100 a month. But single rooms could be obtained, presumably without baths, for $2 a day or $36 a month. There was an exhibit of Italian paintings of the Renaissance, including works by Piero della Francesco, Botticelli and Bartolommeo in March 1935. There are notices of memorable names being elected to membership such as Tom Finletter in 1934, George Wharton Pepper in 1936, as well as Archibald MacLeish, Lord Lothian (later British Ambassador to the United States) and Lewis Douglas (later Harry Truman’s Ambassador to Great Britain). The Club celebrated the 75th birthday anniversary of Dr. Walter Damrosch in 1937 and in that same year had a memorial service for Elihu Root who had been a member for 51 years and president of the Century for nine of those years. Nelson Rockefeller was elected in May 1937. Also in that year Dean Acheson, Alan Dulles and Arthur Hays Sulzberger were made members – Mr. Sulzberger having been nominated by Admiral Richard Byrd and seconded by the sitting Chief Justice of the United States, Charles Evans Hughes. In 1938 a reception was given to honor Mr. Justice van Devanter, a recently retired member of the Supreme Court of the United States. Honoring Justice van Devanter was undoubtedly a means of showing the disdain of many Centurions, including Charles Burlingham, for President Roosevelt’s Supreme Court reform proposals. There is reason to believe that the prevailing sentiment of the Century Club did not favor the New Deal. On June 8, 1938, Bice Clemow, a Centurion with admiration for the President, wrote him a letter which included this refreshing insight: “Yesterday in the Century Club I eavesdropped on two greybeards who were gleefully, but you can bet damn furtively, reassuring themselves that “Roosevelt’s got ‘em on the run now” and exchanging pleasure over your chin-up spirit and continued excellent health.” Mr. Clemow’s letter continues: “The circumspect Century trembled, I’m almost certain, down to the frayed magnifying glass which hangs from the telephone book. There must be black sheep in even the most august, woolly flock.” Roosevelt delighted at the report. In the most controversial legislation of his presidency, FDR proposed that when a federal judge, including those on the Supreme Court, reached the age of 70 and chose not to retire, that the President could add a new Justice to the Bench. By the winter of 1935, the Supreme Court had become the last hope of those who were committed to blocking the New Deal. FDR’s concept of the constitutional powers of the President and the Congress to cope with the Great Depression was much closer to Theodore Roosevelt’s but very different from that of FDR’s Republican predecessors who had appointed the dominant majority of the Supreme Court. The anti-New Deal forces literally started thousands of legal actions to stop the fulfillment of programs which the President had initiated, that Congress had legislated, and the people in landslide elections had approved. The Court invalidated the Railroad Retirement Act. It then overturned the National Recovery Act as well as the Mortgage Moratorium legislation. In 1936 it ruled the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional. Harlan Fiske Stone, appointed by Calvin Coolidge, wrote a dissent accusing his colleagues of deciding on the basis of their own economic theories rather than fair constitutional interpretation. The Court proceeded to overturn legislation designed to bring order and safety to the desperate coal mining industry; it overturned the Municipal Bankruptcy Act created to save local governments across the country in financial distress; and then it ruled unconstitutional the New York State law establishing minimum wages, outlawing child labor and regulating the hours and labor conditions affecting women. Even the opponents of the New Deal were embarrassed. FDR awaited the election returns of 1936 before acting. He was re-elected in an overwhelming landslide. The Court was about the decide the constitutionality of the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act establishing collective bargaining and protecting the right of labor to organize, and the minimum age and employment laws. It was a dramatic moment in our history. Would the economic and social revolution enacted by the elected representatives of the people be defeated – not at the polls but by a Court whose majority philosophy the people had decisively repudiated? Would it now return the demand for change to the anarchy and violence of the streets? The conservative/radical justices who dominated the Court, though aged and in declining health, were determined to stay in office as long as Roosevelt was President in order to frustrate his programs. President Roosevelt took comfort in reading these words from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural: The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal… Roosevelt had enormous respect for the constitutional framework of the balance of power and for the integrity of the Supreme Court as an independent branch of our government. But he stood with Lincoln in rejecting the concept that the Constitution was a rigid, inflexible instrument that could prevent the government from responding to crises that threatened to destroy the nation. FDR presented his reorganization proposal to Congress on February 5, 1937. Within weeks, under pressure from Chief Justice Hughes, another Centurion, the Court reversed its course, upholding the Wagner Act and the Social Security legislation and even the State Minimum Wage laws it had ruled unconstitutional just months before. Most of the reorganization proposals were adopted by the Congress including the provision that obliges federal judges, other than those on the Supreme Court, to take senior status at the age of 70 so that the President can appoint new justices to the bench on which they serve. Wendell Willkie, elected to the Century on December 5, 1936, having been nominated by John W. Davis, wrote: “Mr. Roosevelt has won. The Court is now his… Mr. Roosevelt has accomplished exactly what he would have accomplished if Congress had approved his proposal…” As World War II approached, the Century Association reflected the profound division between those who believed that America’s national security and its values as a nation required it to support the democracies in the battle against the totalitarian forces besieging the world and those who were part of the America First movement who devoutly believed that involvement in European wars could only endanger democracy in America itself. As the Nazi conquest of France in June 1940 shook the world, FDR decided to run for a third term. Now his opponent was another Centurion, Wendell Willkie. In 1912, three Centurions ran against each other for the presidency (Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson), and in 1932 FDR had run against Centurion Herbert Hoover. Political balances were shattered when still another Centurion, Henry Stimson, Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, accepted FDR’s offer to be Secretary of War. But partisan politics were set aside as Centurions with strong beliefs about our international obligations determined how best to influence the course of action being determined by their non-resident colleague and present Commander-in-Chief. A memorandum by Bethuel Webster is in our archives detailing luncheon meetings at the Century beginning in May 1940 which resulted in the organization of the Office of Scientific Research and Development led by Centurions Vannevar Bush and James Conant, then president of Harvard University. Centurion Robert Sherwood has written of frequent meetings at the Century in the summer of 1940 with a group that became known as the Fight For Freedom Committee which advocated interventionist policies. The Committee to Defend America by aiding the Allies had a strong Centurion identification, beginning with its chairman, William Allen White, a non-resident member who was editor of the Emporia Gazette of Kansas. Our beloved colleague, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., has described these momentous days in a cogent, eloquent address now in the Century archives. Francis Pickens Miller, a noted Virginian and Centurion, writes in his memoir* that his association with the Century Group in 1940 gave him a chance to do what was probably the most useful work that he had ever done, in addition to having made possible the most satisfying experience in his life. He describes the events of that fateful summer and what it meant to be an American and have some part in turning the tide against tyranny. Mr. Miller’s role along with Lewis Douglas, Herbert Agar, Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin, Whitney Shepardson, and Henry van Dusen and others was to affect the political climate that enabled President Roosevelt to carry out the desperately needed transaction which gave the British fifty over-aged destroyers in return for long-term leases on military bases in the western hemisphere. Some of these Centurions were for their colleague Wendell Willkie. Some were for FDR. But they were all deeply conscious of the fact that there were national and international interests that transcended the partisan interests of the day. FDR was, of course, a consummate political leader. In one situation, a group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it. He understood that a President does not rule by fiat and unilateral commands to a nation. He must build the political support that makes his decisions acceptable to our countrymen. He read the public opinion polls not to define who he was but to determine where the country was – and then to strategize how he could move the country to the objectives he thought had to be carried out. The summer of 1940 was a presidential campaign. The President needed the support of Republicans and Democrats before he could carry out the destroyer transaction. He needed also to be assured that Wendell Willkie would not use it as a political issue against him. The Century Group decided that the most effective spokesman for their point of view would be General John J. Pershing, the revered commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe in World War I. Reaching the aged General and then convincing him to make a radio address to the nation was a challenge with hair-raising episodes and frequently bizarre circumstances. But the Centurions succeeded and on August 4, 1940 General Pershing made a national broadcast (written by another Centurion, Walter Lippman) supporting the destroyer transfer to Great Britain. That speech was regarded as a turning point in the effort to create the public support for the President. It was followed by radio broadcasts from other members of the Century Group which included Admiral Standley, Colonel “Wild” Bill Donovan, and Robert Sherwood. The all-important question of the constitutional powers of the President to carry out the transaction had to be answered. A brilliant memorandum was prepared by FDR’s assistant, Ben Cohen, who asked several of the country’s most eminent, respected lawyers to examine it as a basis of a letter for the New York Times. The letter, a decisive intervention in the public debate, was published in the New York Times on August 11, 1940 and signed by four Centurions: Dean Acheson, Charles Burlingham, Thomas Thacher and George Rublee. One final step had to be taken. There had to be an assurance from Wendell Willkie that he would not attack President Roosevelt for carrying out the destroyer transaction. The political stakes were very high. The Republicans could have energized the isolationist voters who were already discouraged by Willkie’s internationalism. The chairman of the Century Group, Lewis Douglas, was one of Willkie’s most ardent supporters and trusted advisers. A telephone call was arranged between Centurion Archibald MacLeish and Russell Davenport of Fortune Magazine, a leader of Willkie’s campaign. Davenport gave the needed assurance from Willkie. President Roosevelt announced the destroyer transaction on September 3. It was an historic moment, publicly turning the tide in the United States from isolationism to active participation in the struggle by democracies against the forces of tyranny. Sherwood’s Fight for Freedom Committee continued the effort by supporting the Lend Lease legislation which the Congress passed in the following March. In 1940 – with Europe under Hitler’s boot – U.S. military strength ranked as 17th in the world – behind Portugal. Isolationist sentiment remained powerful and was fully reflected in the Congress. The destroyer deal helped save Britain’s lifeline from the unremitting attacks of German submarines. Hitler called it a belligerent act. It was. President Roosevelt proposed Lend Lease. He announced the Four Freedoms as the goal that would justify the terrible sacrifices that lay ahead. He met with Winston Churchill. They announced the Atlantic Charter, the blueprint for the survival of democracy, and together they created the partnership that we hail today as the most important alliance of the troubled 20th century. All this – and America was not yet at war, but America’s isolationists could no longer prevail. FDR’s third term victory decided the direction of the nation. On March 28, 1941, less than five months after the election, FDR’s noble and notable opponent, Wendell Willkie, spoke at a meeting at the Century Club. A Centurion friend (Bice Clemow) wrote President Roosevelt describing the Willkie speech as “one of the most unusual occasions in all the annals of the Century.” Wendell Willkie’s plea for a common front behind the President’s foreign policy brought ringing applause from his audience. Willkie told his fellow Centurions that he was doing everything he could to help build strong public sentiment behind the country’s foreign policy so that the man who beat him for the presidency “would become the most famous occupant of the office from George Washington on.” The packed library trembled with cheers and applause. Willkie became FDR’s emissary to Winston Churchill. He toured the globe and wrote his immensely successful book, One World. But for his untimely death on October 1944, Wendell Willkie may well have worked out a political partnership with Franklin Roosevelt that would have realigned the political forces of the country in a way that would have given a solid, continuing base to the internationalist liberal values that both men advocated. Franklin Roosevelt’s last known communication with the Century Club was on June 10, 1944. Herbert Houston had asked him to write a supporting letter for Edward Stettinius, then Undersecretary of State. Roosevelt instead chose to ask Mr. Houston to transmit a message for him to the Committee on Admissions that Stettinius was a good man who would add greatly to the values that the Century Association cherished. Eric Larrabee, while president of the Century Association, wrote a majestic book about Franklin Roosevelt entitled Commander-in-Chief.* In it he tells the story of Roosevelt and Churchill being together for the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. As the conference ended, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt to go with him to Marrakech “to watch the sun go down on the Atlas Mountains,” a favorite sight of Churchill’s. Finally the time came for Roosevelt’s departure from Marrakech. At 7:30 in the morning, a ghastly time for the Prime Minister, he came to the airfield wearing his black velvet slippers, his blue flannel coverall, and his dressing gown, topped off by the hat of a Field Marshal of the Royal Airforce. Churchill said goodbye to Roosevelt and then turned to Kenneth Pendar, the American Vice Consul, and said: “Come Pendar, let’s go home. I don’t like to see them take off.” The sun was breaking through the ground mist and the outline of the mountains was beginning to appear. Eric Larrabee writes that the aircraft, though large by the standards of the time, must have seemed tiny in all that vastness. In the car Churchill put his hand on Pendar’s arm. “If anything happened to that man,” he said, “I couldn’t stand it. He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I have ever known.” How proud we can be that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a man of the Century.