THE PRESIDENCY: Roosevelt Rainbow

Dr. Ross T. Mclntyre, the White House physician, last week pronounced President Roosevelt physically “in the pink” after his 4,000-mile Drought tour. That his spirits were also tiptop appeared when White House correspondents filed into their first press conference after his return, primed to josh him about his “nonpolitical” campaign.

Would his speech at New York’s Democratic State Convention later this month be “political,” asked one?

Franklin Roosevelt threw up his hands, widened his eyes in mock horror. “Oh, no!” cried he.

Well, then, persisted a questioner when President and newshawks had stopped guffawing, when would he start making political speeches?

The President arched an eyebrow. “About Jan. 4,” said he, naming the date when Congress convenes.

On the President’s desk lay three books by a favorite Roosevelt author, Engineer David Cushman Coyle (TIME, Sept. 14). Recommending them to the newshawks, he picked up Waste, offered some samples. “Money comes,” read he, “not only out of doing more business; money comes also out of not suffering losses.” That statement, observed the President, was a gem.

Wasn’t Author Coyle, he was asked, one of the New Dealers at the famed Red dinner reported by Dr. William A. Wirt? (TIME, April 23, 1934).

The President wrinkled his brow. Who, he asked, was Dr. Wirt? Again the great Roosevelt laugh boomed out above the newshawks’ giggles.

What did he think of Alf Landon?

This time the President looked really puzzled, was reminded that Nominee Landon had declared him a “very fine, charming gentleman” after their Des Moines meeting.

“I reciprocate,” said Franklin Roosevelt.

That night, having rested less than three days from his Drought trip, the President entrained for the South. To counteract Gene Talmadge’s anti-Roosevelt convention of “Goober Democrats” at Macon last winter, Southern New Dealers had for months been planning to demonstrate their loyalty at a “Green Pastures” rally in Charlotte, N. C. On his way to address it with a “nonpolitical” speech, President Roosevelt left his train at Knoxville, climbed into an open automobile and headed a caravan of Democratic Governors and Congressmen up a new 140-mile highway through Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Its woodsy peaks and valleys “thrilled and delighted” him. Caught in a thunder shower at lunch time, he wriggled into a slicker, washed down fried chicken and caviar sandwiches with a bottle of beer. At a Cherokee Indian Reservation near Sylva, N. C., Chief Standing Deer (Jerry Blythe) capped the President with a headdress of eagle feathers, mumbled some Cherokee which made him the tribe’s Chief White Eagle. White Eagle got his feathers off before photographers could snap.

After a night at Asheville, the President & party motored off toward Charlotte. Soon after luncheon it began to rain again and the top of the Presidential car was put up. But in the textile towns along the way, where mills and schools had been closed for the occasion, drenched Democrats by thousands huddled beside the road to cheer their hero’s passage. Outside Gastonia the rain stopped and Secret Service men began to put the President’s top back down. Before they were through, fresh drops were splattering in the car.

“Leave it down,” ordered the President.

Near Charlotte, the shower became a pelting storm. The Presidential top stayed down. ” ‘Atta boy! You can take it!” yelled Charlotte crowds as they saw their President, his blue suit soaked, his collar and tie limp, pass by them smiling in the rain.

It was still pouring when North Carolina’s Governor Ehringhaus rose in Charlotte’s stadium before 35,000 soggy New Dealers to present “to a grateful and gracious people, the Gideon of Democracy.” But it was not as Gideon but as Noah that Franklin Roosevelt appeared before his people. As the President, whose passage through parched Drought lands has twice been accompanied by providential rains, got up to speak on the nation’s peace and plenty after the catastrophe of Depression, the rain stopped, the sun broke through the clouds and in the sky appeared the token of God’s covenant with Noah that the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

“I notice,” cried the world’s luckiest politician, “that the rainbow shines in the sky!” “Y-E-A-A-A!” Roared 35,000 awe-struck listeners, and the President began his address: “My friends. . . . Green pastures— what a memory those words call forth! . . . He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still -waters.” Easily Franklin Roosevelt, past-master of symbol and simile, brought his listeners to the green pastures and still waters of 12¢ cotton, increased farm values, higher wages and mounting prosperity into which the New Deal had led the nation.*; From Charlotte the President sped back to Washington to speak at the World Power Conference, take an overnight cruise down the Potomac, settle down for a quiet week at his White House desk before proceeding to Cambridge late this week to speak at Harvard’s Tercentenary.

*Commented the arch-Republican New York Sun: “The Twenty-third Psalm has a meaning to many men and women which will cause them to regard its use as a campaign document with deep regret and the identification of the New Deal with Him that leadeth us is a breach of good taste not soon to be forgotten.”