taking part in the campaign of Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey for the Democratic nomination for president. Once again the young state senator was a member of a minority group among New York Democrats. When Wilson won at both the convention and the polls in 1912, his early supporters were rewarded, and Roosevelt became assistant secretary of the United States Navy. Roosevelt resigned his state senate seat and moved to Washington, D.C., to take over the position once occupied by his cousin Theodore Roosevelt.Franklin Roosevelts years as assistant secretary, from 1913 to 1920, taught him both how to get things accomplished and, just as important for an executive, how to avoid unnecessary trouble. He had the devoted assistance of Louis Howe, who came along to the nations capital as Roosevelts assistant. Roosevelts superior was Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, a North Carolina editor. Daniels was a close friend and devoted follower of Nebraska editor and former Representative William Jennings Bryan, three times the Democratic candidate for president and Wilsons secretary of state. Like Bryan, Daniels was concerned about agrarian issues and was a progressive reformer. He was also an isolationist (someone who believed that the United States should avoid alliances with other nations), who hated the idea of war. Young Roosevelt, an energetic supporter of a bigger navy and soon a warm friend of most of the leading admirals, inevitably had many disagreements with his chief, especially during Wilsons first term. Daniels had the confidence both of the president and of the most influential Democrats in the Congress of the United States; Roosevelt had neither of these. However, in time the two men came to have genuine respect for one anothers different talents, and they remained good friends.Personal tragedy struck Roosevelt in August 1921, when he contracted what was diagnosed, after an unfortunate delay, as poliomyelitis. He had been p...
