Roosevelt (86 page)

⁸
On this matter, in addition to works cited above, see Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills,
Character and Social Structure
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953); Theodore M. Newcomb,
Social Psychology
(New York: Dryden Press, 1950);
The Social Sciences in Historical Study,
a report of the Committee on Historiography of the Social Science Research Council (Bulletin 64), 1954; and Muzafer Sherif and Hadley Cantril,
The Psychology of Ego-Involvements
(New York: Wiley, 1947).

⁹
It is conceivable, of course, that some leadership might be so purely ceremonial or symbolic that the impact on the environment would be almost negligible, but this would be the exceptional case.

¹⁰
One of the best treatments on a comparative basis of several of the more important studies of interrelationships within primary groups is George C. Homans,
The Human Group
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950).

¹¹
Lester G. Seligman, “The Study of Political Leadership,”
The American Political Science Review,
Vol. XLIV, No. 4, December 1950, pp. 908-909. This is a first-rate summary of recent progress in the study of leadership, of certain implications of the new emphasis on the situationist approach, with some suggestions for further research.

¹²
On this point see Bogardus,
op. cit.,
p. 11. “A new kind of autobiography is needed—one that will present the social situation, the social process, and the attitudes of all concerned.” An early and pioneering study of the more general problem involved is John Dollard,
Criteria for the Life History
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935), in which the author emphasizes that the social situation must be carefully and continuously specified as a factor.

¹³
Roosevelt might seem to be an exception to this generalization because hundreds of his early letters have been preserved, and there are extensive memoirs of his mother and of others who knew him during the early years. On the other hand, a study of these documents suggests their limitations as much as their possibilities for the explanation of personality development.

¹⁴
Cf.
The Social Sciences in Historical Study,
cited above, p. 154.

¹⁵
Op. cit.,
p. 523.

¹⁶
See Newcomb,
op. cit.,
pp. 654 ff.

¹⁷
See T. N. Whitehead,
Leadership in a Free Society
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), in which the author argues that the executive (the leader of a bureaucracy) not only leads his human material—he organizes it. Whereas the primitive leader tried only to promote the integration of his group, the modern executive may be willing to risk endangering the integration of his followers in trying to improve their position. The essence of my estimate of Roosevelt as a political leader is that he failed to exercise creative leadership in this sense.

¹⁸
Op. cit.,
p. 419.

¹⁹
The general problem is well developed in Sidney Hook,
The Hero in History
(New York: John Day, 1943), subtitled “a study in limitation and possibility.” See especially his interesting distinction between the “eventful” man and the “event-making” man; I would classify Roosevelt as the former. An excellent development of the problem can be found in Elmer E. Cornwell, Jr., “Lloyd George: A Study in Political Leadership” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1954), in which the author examines the possibilities of creative leadership in the British context as compared with the American.

²⁰
For a recent warning on this score, see Allan Nevins, “Is History Made by Heroes?”
The Saturday Review,
November 5, 1955, pp. 9 ff.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and his father, 1883

Mother and son, 1893

Young Franklin (center, dark sailor suit) with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, Newburgh, N. Y., July 13, 1890
(photo by R. E. Atkinson)

‘A secure world’

Three-year-old Franklin and his dog preparing for a ride at Hyde Park

Fourth-string football player at Groton (lower left, white sweater), 1899

Cousin Eleanor (fifth cousin once removed) in 1906, one year after their marriage

Cousin Jean Delano, sailing at Campobello, around 1910

Franklin Roosevelt with his wife, his mother, and his daughter, Anna, on Daisy, the pony, 1911

The family in Washington, 1916—Elliott, at left; James, center, behind Franklin Jr.; John on his mother’s lap, Anna Eleanor, at right
(photo by Harold L. Ritch)