ABSTRACT
Late one October afternoon in 1910, young Franklin D. Roosevelt found himself in one of those dozens of Dutchess County hamlets he had never seen before. The streets of London, the Grand Canal in Venice, were more familiar to him than these dusty, forgotten little places that lay back in the hills of his own Hudson Valley. Roosevelt agreed almost at once. Not having to worry about money, completely bored with the law, he was free to explore anything, especially when the fun lay in the same direction as his ambitions. Roosevelt's nomination for State Senator had been part of the League's mammoth drive to provide full Democratic tickets in all upstate counties and to enlist progressive young candidates. Roosevelt would especially need a vigorous campaign. Republicans tagged him at once as a "rich young man."
