(See front cover) One midday last week a maple-&-aluminum elevator shot half a dozen well-known Democrats up to the 21st floor of Manhattan's Empire State Building. They stepped out into the comfortable quarters of the Empire State Club, were bowed into a private dining room overlooking 34th Street. Ranged around the luncheon table were James Aloysius Farley, the bald, boyish chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Harry Flood Byrd, Virginia's energetic little aristocrat; Charles Michelson, the party's elderly, tousle-headed pressagent; Frank Walker, the committee's treasurer; Arthur O'Brien, headquarters worker—and John Jacob Raskob.
As the food came & went, small Mr. Raskob thoughtfully eyed large Mr. Farley across the table. Four years ago Mr. Raskob had been where Mr. Farley was now, just rounding out a campaign to elect a Democratic President. In honest expectation of a Brown Derby victory Chairman Raskob had piled up a huge party deficit. After defeat he had refused to let his machine go to rusty scrap as was the Democratic custom between elections. Basing his organization at Washington, financing it largely out of his own pocket, he and Jouett Shouse had opened a drumfire on the Republicans which helped the Democrats win the House in 1930. When the spring of 1932 came, the party was $120,000 in Mr. Raskob's debt, but its national machine was intact.
Then had come the Chicago convention. Mr. Raskob had been shoved to one side as this good-natured, smiling man now sitting across the table from him strode out on the Democratic stage, captured the convention, nominated his man for President, took over the national chairmanship, scrapped the fine Raskob machine and set his own running as the official party organization. These events had left Mr. Raskob not bitter—John Raskob is a sportsman —but chagrinned, dismayed, hurt. Since June he had kept his distance from Chairman Farley and the Roosevelt bandwagon.
Money & More. When the meal was almost over and during a lull in Jim Farley's hearty storytelling, Mr. Raskob reached in his pocket and pulled out an oblong piece of paper. This he passed to the national chairman whose pale blue eyes blinked in happy surprise as they fell upon it. It was a check for $25,000—Mr. Raskob's personal contribution to the campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Chairman Farley wrung Mr. Raskob's hand, gushed his gratitude. The party certainly needed the money but the Raskob check meant more than money. It signified the return of financial support as important to the party as the popular support (estimated: 1,000,000 votes) signified by Al Smith's return. With his arm slung across the slight Raskob shoulders Chairman Farley confided: "We're running the cheapest winning campaign in history."