Professor Hamilton's Diary: Nov. 10, 1935

A friend discusses his Armistice Day speech; FDR visits his ailing chief of staff

The Hamilton children stayed with a babysitter today so their parents could go to church. In the afternoon, Professor Hamilton’s colleague David Fields stopped by to “talk over with me his speech at the Armistice Day meeting tomorrow.” They joined friends for supper and came home to a quiet evening of radio music and reading.

President Roosevelt’s political guru and chief of staff, Louis McHenry Howe, was at the naval hospital in Bethesda, Maryland being treated for lung and heart disease. Paid subscribers can read on about this grumpy but brilliant man who sometimes answered his office phone with the ominous words, “Medieval gnome.”

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The photo of FDR and Howe, taken in early 1932, is part of the collection of the National Archives, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.