eremony in New York City on March 17, 1905. Five of their six children grew to maturity: Anna, James, Elliott, Franklin, Jr., and John. The chief problem faced by the young couple during the early years of their marriage was Sara Roosevelts possessive attitude toward her son. Eleanors forbearance mitigated this situation, but the problem remained for many years.Roosevelt entered politics in 1910, when he became a candidate for the New York State Senate in a district composed of three upstate farming counties. Democratic leaders had approached young Roosevelt because of his name and local prominenceand because he might be expected to pay his own election expenses. The 28-year-old Roosevelt campaigned hard, stressing his deep personal interest in conservation and other issues of concern in an agricultural area and also his strong support of honest and efficient government. In the first good year for Democrats since the early 1890s he was narrowly elected. He was only the second Democrat to represent his district after the emergence of the Republican Party in 1856. In the state capitol at Albany, Roosevelt gained statewide publicity as the leader of a small group of upstate Democrats who refused to follow the leadership of Tammany Hall, also known as the Tammany Society, the Democratic Party organization of New York City. In particular, they refused to vote for the rich politician William F. Blue-Eyed Bill Sheehan for U.S. senator. Roosevelts group succeeded in blocking the election of Sheehan, which infuriated Tammany Hall. The dramatic struggle drew the attention of New York voters to the tall vigorous new state senator with the magic name of Roosevelt. He soon became a dedicated social and economic reformer, and a political independent. He was reelected in 1912, in spite of a case of typhoid fever that kept him from campaigning.Even before his reelection to the New York legislature, Roosevelt had entered the national political arena by ...
