PRESIDENCY: A Tradition Ends

Midnight. A few lights gleamed in the shadowy expanse of the White House.

President Roosevelt made his way to a dungeon-like room in the basement that was once used for diplomatic receptions and is now used for radio broadcasts. He sat at a table facing microphones and a small group of friends and White House employes. The night was hot, with the dull, moist heat of Washington midsummer that settles like a tangible weight on the city. The President took off his coat and in a 32-minute speech accepted the Democratic nomination for a Third Term.

His was a difficult task. On him lay the responsibility that no other President had faced—that of explaining why he believed it wise and necessary to break a tradition that had lasted through 151 turbulent years of U. S. political life. The step that Washington had refused to take he was at the point of taking; the rejection of the Third Term that Jefferson had elevated into a principle of government he was now prepared to challenge. His task was to answer the historic objections to the Third Term—the tenet of democracy which holds that the great reservoir of democratically trained citizens can always yield new leaders; that one danger of democracy is that an ambitious Executive may use the power of his office to keep himself in power. As he sat in the silent White House room, his words carrying to a silent meeting of the Democratic Convention in Chicago, his task was also to make it clear, if clear he could make it. why these beliefs were no longer valid, why these dangers were no longer real, and why the objections that had been made to the Third Term for other Presidents did not apply to him.

With these great questions there were minor ones:

Silence. Years ago Washington correspondents began pressing President Roosevelt about his Third Term intentions, were put off with answers that were sometimes jovial, often sarcastic. The President had told his questioners to put on the dunce cap, to stand in the corner, to cease speculating, to drop sophomoric queries, that his intentions would be revealed at a time and place of his own choosing.

Last week, as the Democratic Convention got under way, veteran, grey-haired Correspondent Merwin Browne asked at a press conference. “I would like to ask Mr. President, in all honesty and sincerity, why you have refrained from making known your position on the Third Term issue.” Correspondent Browne had written and rewritten his question so that it would not provoke a wisecracking answer; had memorized it so that he would not fumble the asking. Replied the President: let the newspapermen listen to the Convention broadcast; they would hear Senator Barkley make an announcement for the President when the Convention’s permanent organization was completed. He broke into loud laughter as they rushed off with the sensational news that the secret was out.

But the Presidential message that night merely said the President was not asking for the office: “The President never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the Convention for that office.”

Confusion. If he could answer the people, answer the correspondents, there remained the small but important problem of answering the Democratic National

Convention. National Defense and international affairs kept him in Washington but he was not too busy to follow the Convention day & night by radio. Even in his office he kept a gadget pocket radio open on his desk. When the Convention sank into confusion after its spiritless opening, he talked long with Harry Hopkins in Chicago, used the direct wire from the White House to confer long with Senators Byrnes and Barkley. When Alabama’s Lister Hill, with lamenting tremolos and quaverollos in his voice, placed the name of Franklin Roosevelt in nomination, no sign or word betrayed Franklin Roosevelt’s emotion. But Steve Early, an accurate barometer of the President’s political feelings, groaned.

While the candidacies of Jim Farley, Jack Garner and Millard Tydings ran their brief, unhappy course, while the anti-Third Term resolution was booed to the flag-draped rafters, while delegation after delegation said its say for Franklin Roosevelt, the President played host to a radio party of friends and trusted helpers. In the historic study that is saturated with the memories of critical scenes and critical decisions, he sat attentive beneath a painting of John Paul Jones.

When, on the first ballot, he was for the third time nominated for President, he sent word to the silent, suspicious reporters that he would have nothing to say. Not, added Steve Early, “until he has received official notification of his nomination; that is customary and he would like to adhere to custom.” It was 2:15 a.m.; the President went to bed.

Delay. If he could answer the people, the press, the Convention, there remained the problem of answering the Democratic Party that was going into a campaign in which it would be unseemly for the President to take an active part. From a dimly lighted, peach-colored telephone booth in the reception room of Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel, Senator James Byrnes called the White House, formally informed President Roosevelt that he was the Democratic nominee. All day in Washington the White House remained silent except for a statement that the President would address the Convention after a Vice-Presidential nominee had been selected. But as the night session grew bitter, as boos greeted Henry Wallace as the President’s choice for a running mate, as balloting dragged on toward midnight, another word was given—that the speech would be canceled or postponed if Wallace lost the first ballot.

At eight minutes after midnight Wallace was nominated; the lights went out in the Chicago Stadium except for the spotlights glaring on a grisly, grey painting of President Roosevelt; at 12:20 a.m. C.D.S.T. the President began to speak. Vice-Presidential revolt had cut his audience—it was 1:20 E. D. S. T. in New York; 10:20 in Denver; 9:20 in the Pacific Coast cities. It was the nocturnal life of the U. S. that caught his words and their intonation—the taxi drivers, the sleepless passengers in deluxe trains, the patrons of bars and restaurants—most workmen and farmers were long since asleep.

Answer. In a melancholy, persuasive voice that sometimes grew emotional, Franklin Roosevelt told of his reasons for accepting the nomination: “It is with a very full heart that I speak tonight. . . .

“When, in 1936, I was chosen by trie voters for a second time as President, it was my firm intention to turn over the responsibilities of government to other hands at the end of my term. That conviction remained with me. . . .

“During the spring of 1939 world events made it clear . . . that a great war in Europe had become … a probability. . . .

“When the conflict first broke out last September it was still my intention to announce clearly and simply . . that under no conditions would I accept reelection. . . .

“It soon became evident, however, that such a public statement on my part would be unwise from the point of view of sheer public interest. . . .

“It was also my obvious duty to maintain to the utmost the influence of this mighty nation in our effort to prevent the spread of war, and to sustain, by all legal means, those governments threatened by other governments which had rejected the principles of democracy. . . .

“The normal conditions under which I would have made public declaration of my personal desires were gone.

“Thinking solely of the national good and of the international scene, I came to the reluctant conclusion that such declaration should not be made before the National Convention. It was accordingly made to you within an hour after the permanent organization of the Convention.”

But, said the President, the real reason he had accepted was that the country needed every citizen: now it was up to the electorate to say whether or not he had made the right choice. “During the past few months, with due congressional approval, we have been taking steps to implement the total defense of America. I cannot forget that in carrying out this program I have drafted into the service of the nation many men and women . . . calling them suddenly from their homes and their businesses. . . . Regardless of party, regardless of personal convenience, they came — they answered the call. Every single one of them, with one exception* has come to Washington to serve.

“. . . But they alone could not be enough to meet the needs of the times. . . .

“. . . Some form of selection by draft is as necessary and as fair today as it was in 1917 and 1918. …

“Lying awake, as I have on many nights, I have asked myself whether I have the right, as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, to call on men and women to serve their country or to train themselves to serve and, at the same time, decline to serve my country in my own personal capacity if I am called upon to do so by the people of my country.” Thus President Roosevelt gave his rea son both for accepting and for having kept silent as to whether he would or would not accept. The melancholy that had pervaded his words about his desire to return to private life turned into sternness as he spoke of the issues of the conflict: “It is a revolution imposed by force of arms which threatens all men everywhere. It is a revolution which proposes not to set men free, but to reduce them to slavery. … In the face of the danger which confronts our time, no individual retains, or can hope to retain, the right of personal choice which free men enjoy in times of peace.” Only the people, said the President, can draft a President—”If such a draft should be made upon me, I say, in the utmost simplicity, I will, with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and with the fullness of my strength.” On the grounds that an answer was necessary to the world the President based his case. He blasted at appeasers (“I do not recant the sentiments of sympathy with all free peoples resisting such aggression.”). He gave the Convention a promise about his personal help in the campaign: “I shall not have the time or the inclination to engage in purely political debate.

But I shall never be loath to call the attention of the nation to … falsifications of fact which are sometimes made by political candidates.” He gave the Democratic Party a talking point: “If our own Government passes to other hands next January—untried hands, inexperienced hands—we can merely hope and pray that they will not substitute appeasement. . . .” But he spoke most clearly and firmly in his denunciations of tyranny and of the issue facing the U. S. in a world at war: “We face one of the great choices of history. … It is the continuance of civilization as we knew it versus the ultimate destruction of all we have held dear —religion against Godlessness; the ideal of justice against the practice of force, moral decency versus the firing squad. . . .” So the 32nd President scrapped the Third Term tradition. Few who heard his acceptance speech did not believe that before doing so he had convinced himself that his decision was for the best interests of the nation. If in the coming campaign, voters are also convinced, the tradition will be scrapped for good; if not, it will be Franklin Roosevelt who is scrapped.

Last week the President also: ^ Signed the Two-Ocean Navy Bill authorizing $4,000,000,000 for warships and planes.

> Signed the Hatch Bill, prohibiting political activity to State and municipal employes who are paid with Federal funds, a prohibition reportedly violated in Chicago.

> Asked Congress, as the Havana Conference opened, to increase the capital and lending power of the Export-Import Bank by $500,000,000 for loans to Latin-American countries.

> After a 36-hour cruise on the Potomac, set out for a three-day rest at Hyde Park.

* Presumably AH Landon, who was reported to have refused a Cabinet post unless the President rejected the Third Term.