THOMAS G. CORCORAN: THE PUBLIC SERVICE OF FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT'S 'TOMMY THE CORK'

Thomas G. Corcoran was born on December 29, 1900 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Classical Studies from Brown University. From Brown he went on to the Harvard Law School where he earned both the LLD and the SJD degrees, and for his scholarship was awarded a year's clerkship with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Following his year in the Capital, Corcoran moved to Wall Street where he practiced law in the prestigious firm of Cotton-Franklin and gained an intimate acquaintance with the workings of the stock market. In 1932 he was beckoned to Washington to join the Republican administration of Herbert Hoover. He served as legal counsel for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and remained in this position after the inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in March 1933.; Soon after the inauguration Corcoran was tapped by New Deal officials to assist in drafting legislation and executive orders to regulate the stock market and to facilitate the government's gold buying program, and from that time until his return to the private practice of law in 1941 he was closely associated with Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. His keen legal mind and quick Irish wit allowed him to assume varied roles as he moved into the President's closest circle of assistants and confidants. He was legal draftsman, administration lobbyist, politico, personnel manager, and official court jester. He worked closely with Senator Burton Wheeler and Representative Sam Rayburn on the passage of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act, was involved in controversy over the building of the Passamaquoddy Dam in Maine, and in 1936 emerged as one of the major speechwriters of the President's re-election campaign. By the time he reached the pinnacle of his power and influence in the Roosevelt administration he had also constructed an information network of strategically placed Harvard lawyers that canvassed almost the entire capital. During Roosevelt's second term he continued to serve as presidential assistant and to draft speeches for the President and other New Deal officials, but his involvement in the efforts to "pack" the Supreme Court and to purge unfaithful Democrats in the 1938 primary elections resulted in the unfavorable national press exposure which violated his "passion for anonymity" and threatened his position in the administration. Yet, it was to Corcoran that Roosevelt turned when looking for an able lieutenant to lay the groundwork for the Third Term drive.;Corcoran's story of success is the story of a public servant supremely loyal to his President. This loyalty is probably the key to Corcoran's long service in the Roosevelt administration at a time when more independent and more doctrinaire presidential advisors were frequently replaced. Corcoran, possibly the prototype for the Best and the Brightest young men who would appear on the Washington scene some twenty years later, was no ideologue. He had no theories to impart and no consistent philosophy to impose. He was neither wholly "planner" nor wholly "Brandeisian." He was an implementer rather than an advisor or originator. He carried out the President's orders and then returned for further instructions--a civil servant extraordinaire. He had a quick and perceptive legal mind, an engaging personality, an unrelenting drive to succeed, a ruthless intolerance of opposition, but always an unquestioning loyalty to his admired "Skipper," and these qualities made "Tommy the Cork" a central and often controversial official in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal administration.