Reviews for Harry H. Woodring: A Political Biography of FDR's Controversial Secretary of War

The average rating for Harry H. Woodring: A Political Biography of FDR's Controversial Secretary of War based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-08-10 00:00:00 Martin Guggisberg Harry Woodring was a cabinet member who fell out of step with his chief at a critical moment. His chief who was FDR also needed his cabinet job to create a coalition government in case of war which was inevitable. So Harry got the heave ho and this book by Keith McFarland tells of that and the rest of Woodring's story. IN 1887 Woodring was born in Kansas and other than service in World War I which enabled to be elected a commander of the American Legion he made a respectable career in the banking business right up to 1928. Kansas then as now was one of the premier Republican states and Democrats only occasionally broke through. Woodring broke through during the height of the Great Depression and won a three way race against GOP candidate Frank Hauck and a write in campaign for Dr. John Brinkley who claimed he could cure all kinds of ills with goat gland secretions. A lot of his write-ins were disallowed and Woodring became governor. It was only for a single two year term. But in that time Woodring met and supported New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt for president. Woodring lost his own re-election to Alf Landon. But he did enough work for FDR to rate a subcabinet post. He was made Assistant Secretary of War. Woodring wound up running the show as Secretary George Dern a fellow Democratic Governor of Utah was ill a lot and died in 1936. In these years the two military departments war and navy didn't count for much. Woodring was acting Secretary and after his fashion FDR nominated him to fill Dern's vacancy. Woodring who was a bachelor coming to Washington married one Helen Coolidge the daughter of Senator Marcus Coolidge of Massachusetts. He made the society pages at least. Woodring did a good job administering the War Department and did a quite a bit in rearming and building up the army strength. Good thing too because of what was going on in Europe and Asia. Sadly Woodring was an isolationist at heart. Possibly service in the 1st World War pushed him in that direction. He opposed FDR in the question of aid to Great Britain believing that would weaken the USA unnecessarily. In early 1940 Woodring and Navy Secretary Charles Edison were removed and FDR appointed Republicans Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox to those jobs. His move in making a possible entrance in the war a bipartisan policy something that Woodrow Wilson didn't do during World War 1. It was all anti-climatic after that. Woodring made a couple of attempts at getting back in office in Kansas and came up short. He died in 1967. An interesting story of one of those second line figures of whom you can learn more about an era studying them.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-05-06 00:00:00 Joe Alan This book was interesting. I wish that Emma had left behind some journals so that we could see and her side of the story. I would not want to be in her shoes and have to have gone through all of the hard trials that she went through. Wish this wasn't such a one-sided story.