It does not matter when a book was written. If you have not
read it then when you do the contents will nourish, enlighten and entertain. Such is the case with That
Man, a memoir written in the early 1950s by Robert H. Jackson, one of
the giants of the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. Jackson was an intimate of
Roosevelt (they vacationed and fished together) and served as Solicitor
General, Attorney General, Supreme Court Justice and America’s chief prosecutor
at the Nuremberg trials of the top Nazis after World War II.
Jackson’s suffered a major heart attack in March 1954, and was
hospitalized. In May, he went directly from the hospital to the Supreme Court
where he joined the other eight justices in the unanimous decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, declaring
school segregation to be unconstitutional. He died in October 1954. He had been at work on the memoir prior to his major heart attack.
That Man was an epithet used by Roosevelt haters in the
thirties and early forties who could not bring themselves to even speak his
name. But by the mid-forties when Roosevelt ran successfully for a fourth term
it was obvious he had won the argument as to his worth.
After his death the manuscript came into the hands of
Jackson’s son, William, and when he died in 1999, the family found it a closet
and later turned it over to John Q, Barrett, a law professor at St. John’s
University in New York, who was at work on a biography of Justice Jackson.
Jackson wrote about FDR as he knew and observed him. The
manuscript is anecdotal, not researched in great detail. Think sitting around with
the family and telling stories about a favorite member who has died.
Reading in short spells over a period days I reflected on my
feelings about FDR, and how they changed in three phases over my lifetime. Growing
up damn poor during the depression I thought highly of the President and what
he did to help us. Later I listened to
his critics and thought maybe he, after all, was a socialist. He raised taxes, regulated businesses and gave us several social programs which exist to this day.
During the second half of the 20th Century being a socialist was
only one step from being a communist. As
the century came to an end and I had read more and more history and biographies
I thought FDR a remarkable man for the times.
Maybe someone could have been a better leader and President,
but no one else was able to capture the job and so we will never know. We are stuck
with our history and when you consider how the other three giants of the age, Hitler,
Stalin, and Mussolini, ruined their respective countries, That Man was a great man.This memoir enhances that view.
Oh, yes, there was one totally new - to me - tidbit. FDR and Eleanor
were married on St. Patrick’s Day in 1905. Joyce and I were married on St.
Patrick’s Day in 2013.
(E-mail comments to: arch@archibald99.com)
