"and Franklin D. Roosevelt" Federal Justice, with a tripartite mid-1930s Roosevelt Administration association, inscribed by the co-author, Homer Cummings, FDR's longest-serving Attorney General, to FDR's indispensible aide, confidante, and de facto chief of staff, Marguerite "Missy" LeHand, and further signed by FDR himself.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. First edition. Hardcover. This double-signed and inscribed first edition presentation copy features a tripartite mid-1930s Roosevelt Administration association, including FDR himself, his Attorney General Homer Cummings, and FDR’s indispensable aide and de facto chief of staff “Missy” LeHand. Cummings, the book’s co-author, inscribed this copy to LeHand in black in six lines on the front free endpaper recto: “To | Missy, | With the appreciation | and friendship of | Homer Cummings, | Jan. 18/37.” Rendering this presentation copy truly extraordinary, directly below Cumming’s inscription and signature, the president added his own signature “and Franklin D. Roosevelt”.
This history and examination of the U.S. Attorney General position was co-authored by FDR’s longest-serving Attorney General and published at the height of his and FDR’s attempt to “pack” the U.S. Supreme Court with additional justices following FDR’s landslide 1936 re-election victory. Condition is very good plus. The bright red cloth binding is square, clean, and tight, the spine lightly toned, the lower rear corner bumped, the other three corners gently bruised. The contents are exceptionally clean, with no markings, spotting, or soiling, light age-toning to the untrimmed fore edges and mild shelf dust to the top edges.
Marguerite Alice “Missy” LeHand (1894-1944) was FDR’s private secretary for more than two decades. By the time this book was published, LeHand’s role as advisor and gatekeeper had grown, making her among the most powerful figures in FDR’s Administration and rendering her FDR’s de facto Chief of Staff. “Missy” (so-called because one of the Roosevelt children had trouble pronouncing “Miss”) was engaged by FDR at Eleanor Roosevelt’s suggestion, initially handling his 1920 campaign schedule. Thereafter she spent all but her final, impaired years (following a collapse and subsequent debilitating stroke in mid-1941) as his essential aide and confidante, calling him “EffDee”. A statistic speaks to how swiftly and intimately LeHand became essential to FDR. “From 1925 to 1928, Roosevelt spent 116 of 208 weeks away from home, trying to regain full use of his limbs. Eleanor was with him for four of those weeks… Missy LeHand for 110.” (Black, Roosevelt, p.158)
Attorney and Democratic Party leader Homer Cummings (1870-1956) was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first and longest-serving Attorney General. “In 1932, with the country mired in economic depression and President Hoover stumbling toward defeat, Cummings backed a winner: Franklin Roosevelt, the governor of New York... Cummings helped manage Roosevelt’s delegate search at the Chicago convention and delivered a seconding speech on his behalf.” On the eve of FDR’s inauguration, his first choice for attorney general died suddenly and FDR offered the job to Cummings.
Particularly given the scope and legal controversy of New Deal legislation, Cumming’s tenure was a busy and momentous time for the Department of Justice. In the wake of FDR’s overwhelming 1936 re-election win, it was Cummings who drafted the fateful Judicial Reorganization Act – the Administration’s attempt to pack the U.S. Supreme Court, which had thwarted many New Deal initiatives, with extra, Administration-friendly judges. This plan was pushed by Cummings and FDR “even in the face of substantial opposition from Democrats in Congress, more tolerant Supreme Court decisions upholding New Deal measures, and the retirement of at least one justice who had consistently opposed the president’s programs.” The plan was killed in the Senate, but not before it fractured FDR’s own party and “emboldened his enemies, who blocked additional New Deal reforms and attacked existing ones.”
Cummings’s co-author, Carl McFarland (1904-1979) was selected in the fall of 1933 by Cummings “to serve as vice-chair of a secret project initiated at the direction of the President to investigate ways to curb the power of the judiciary.” Anticipating that the Supreme Court might declare much New Deal legislation unconstitutional, “McFarland and others researched ways to limit or eliminate the Court’s authority to declare statutes unconstitutional. McFarland “reputedly played the key role” in formulating Cummings’s and FDR’s court-packing plan. “During this time, McFarland co-wrote Federal Justice, a history and examination of the Attorney General position, with then-Attorney General Cummings.”
Of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) requires little introduction and no mere biographical sketch will suffice. “Even those critical of his achievements recognize their magnitude” (ANB). America’s only crippled president and the only president ever elected to four terms in office was the indispensable leader of his country during its greatest economic crisis and its greatest foreign war. By any reasonable assessment, Roosevelt fundamentally reshaped social, political, and geopolitical expectations and realities not just of his nation, but of large parts of the world. FDR, as he became widely known, served as thirty-second president of the United States for twelve years, from 1933-1945, dying in office on 12 April 1945, only months after the beginning of his fourth term and less than a month before VE Day.
Sources: ANB; DOJ; Roosevelt, Conrad Black. Item #008376
Price: $4,000.00