THE END OF INNOCENCE

by Jonathan Daniels ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 1954

The son of Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, has drawn a warm and human and tender portrait of his father, Josephus Daniels, and of another man he loved, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the young Under Secretary and learned much of the ideal of democracy from his chief. This is largely a story of those years, when a man unfamiliar with the abysses of Washington politics was President; when a party long out of power had come in again; when problems that seemed born of those days read like today's problems again. This is an intimate and very personal closeup of the days of Woodrow Wilson's administration, as sensed by a boy growing up, and reseen through diaries and contemporary sources today. Forgotten-or half-forgotten- incidents and names and issues come alive in these pages,- the beginnings of progressive reform, the disputed wine mess situation, the education program of the new Navy, the personalities that were controversial, the mood and tempo of a Washington convinced they could stay out of war, the difficulties of neutrality, the splits within the party, naval oil reserves issue, and always two temperaments now working in double harness, now at odds, when Daniels' moderate and temperate procedure fired Roosevelt's impatience. There was the teapot tempest of the Navy League vs the Naval Auxiliary of the Red Cross (how important it seemed then). There was Billy Sunday -- and the question of prohibition -- the perils of unpreparedness- the issue of the Brandeis appointment- and the postwar debacle of the rejection of the League of Nations. The story draws to a close with the end of that era, and swift strokes sketch in the afteryears of the two men. Perhaps there is little new, but it is given a new face.

Pub Date: June 16, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION