Time Well Spent

Roosevelt “used his time on the train [in 1932] to nurture his network of supporters, picking up local Democratic leaders and officials at one stop, chatting with them, then dropping them off at a later stop,” recalled Scott Martelle in 1932.

An FDR aide “estimated hundreds of people hopped on and off the trains, including ‘governors, senators, mayors, obscure county politicians, farmers, miners, mine owners, tradespeople, local bankers, newspaper owners, reporters, manufacturers, welfare workers.’ Roosevelt ‘never stopped having a wonderful time,’” according to Martelle.

Source: Scott Martelle, 1932: FDR, Hoover, and the Dawn of a New America (New York: Citadel Press, 2023), 226