DEMOCRATS: No Ivory Tower

One day last week Edward Martin Jr., who is 17 and has trouble getting his scaf-foldy six-foot frame into a skimpy Western Union messenger uniform, got the thrill of his life. Summoned to the private railroad car of the President of the U. S., on a siding in Philadelphia, he was met by Secretary Stephen Early, who gave him a $10 bill, and a plain silver wrist watch, with instructions to get the crystal fixed. On its back was inscribed: “F. D. R., 1917.”

Through Philadelphia streets flew Edward with a police escort, sirens screaming. He told them to pull up at the store of Nick Smar, who took the watch, turned it over, almost dropped it in his excitement. Tremblingly Mr. Smar fixed the crystal, indignantly turned down the $10, wrote “With the compliments of Nick Smar” on the back of his business card. Back to the railroad car flew Edward, with watch, $10, and card. Mr. Early forgot to tip him.

Later that day, Philadelphia turned out to line the streets. The Rooseveltian teeth gleamed in a smile for all. Down Broad Street rolled the motorcade, carrying such big shots as bald-headed William Bullitt, resplendent Anthony Biddle, rugged Boss Jack Kelly. In narrow Walnut Street the parade passed under a gigantic banner which announced: “Willkie—The Hope Of Our Country.”

Republican Philadelphia enjoyed its gape at a U. S. President, but was not so excited over Candidate Franklin Roosevelt. Neither were the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania (see p. 43), whom he addressed in Convention Hall where Wendell Willkie had been nominated. Like Willkie’s, his applause came mostly from the galleries. But Mr. Roosevelt had come to address the nation, not the visible audience.

Not once did Franklin Roosevelt mention Willkie’s name or the name of either party. His method was the same oblique style he had used the previous week before the Teamsters’ Union.

He quoted President Eliot of Harvard, on the danger of confining the ballot to the “elite,” said solemnly: “I agree with him thoroughly in his estimate of the superior ability of the whole of the voters to pass upon political and social issues, as against the exclusive ability of a small group of individuals at the top of the social structure. . . .

“Even today in certain quarters there are, I regret to say, demands for a return of government to the control of those few, who, because of business ability or economic omniscience, are supposed to be just a touch above the average of our citizens.”

To the lower income classes and reliefers, whence comes his strength, Mr. Roosevelt said warmly: “Some well-meaning people have even suggested recently seriously that the right to vote be denied to American men and women who through no fault of their own had lost their jobs and in order to keep the family and the home going were working on works relief projects.”

Again he sliced out at big business. “Certain Government controls have become necessary to prevent a few financial and industrial groups from harming or cutting the throats of other groups smaller in size but much greater in number.” He saved for his conclusion his neatest thrust and parry, when in two sentences he coupled the major (but never mentioned) Roosevelt premise of indispensability with self-sacrifice. Said he: “This is no time for any man to withdraw into some ivory tower and proclaim the right to hold himself aloof from the problems and the agonies of society. The times call for bold belief that the world can be changed by man’s endeavor, and that this endeavor can lead to something new and better.”

No ivory tower held Candidate Franklin Roosevelt. He well knew that a candidacy should reach its crest on Election Day and not one moment before. But the Gallup poll (see p. 12), giving him a terrific majority, left him no option now but to go ahead and kill off Candidate Willkie, for any slip from that lead might still be fatal in a year as full of loose electricity as 1940.

He decided to go ahead, full steam. First step was to call in the dormant Janizaries. They came, but with an ultimatum. “Honest Harold” Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and hatchetman, and bouncing Irish-Catholic Thomas Corcoran, RFC special counsel and muscleman, have long had no use for retired James A. Farley—or for Farley’s friends.

Particular object of their anathema has always been oil-slick, dapper Lawrence Wood (“Chip”) Robert, secretary of the Democratic National Committee, and head of Robert & Co., Atlanta contractors who have received $26,859,081 of naval contracts under the Big Navy program. To the Ick and the Cork, the Chip has always been a short and ugly word which they have not bothered to confine to private expression. Debonair Mr. Robert paid no heed, went on smiling and pocketing naval contracts—$931,560 worth in the last few months (by negotiation, not by competitive bidding).

Robert must go, said Messrs. Corcoran and Ickes. Last week the President finally agreed. But a way was found to humor the President’s invariable reluctance to fire anybody: Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox telephoned Mr. Robert, told him that as long as he remained officially connected with the Democratic Party, his firm would be ineligible for further contracts. No breath of scandal must touch the defense program, etc. Mr. Robert saw the light, resigned. Next on the Janizaries’ little list was Oliver A. Quayle Jr., committee treasurer, last Farleyman left.

Then the President revealed to Janizaries Corcoran & Ickes a larger plan, involving the whole shape and scope of the Fourth New Deal. This week he prepared to announce a new National Committee of Independents for Roosevelt. This group—to carry out eventually the President’s 1936-38 plan for a wholly new Democratic party, from which conservatives would be wholly purged—was to be figure-headed by aged Senator George W. Norris, symbol of independence.

Actual working chief was to be a really vigorous independent, New York’s Mayor Fiorello H. (“The Little Flower”) La-Guardia, who wears no party’s collar. The choice of Fiorello LaGuardia was deliberately aimed at the Italian votes, now supposedly alienated by the President’s Charlottesville “stab-in-the-back” speech of last June. Under him were to be:

Irving Brant, contributing editor, St. Louis Star-Times; Herbert Agar, historian and editor, Louisville Courier-Journal; Morris Cooke, consulting engineer and onetime R. E. A. administrator; Charles A. Beard, historian; Barry Bingham, president and publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times; Dean Acheson, lawyer and former Undersecretary of the Treasury; Frank Graham, president of University of North Carolina, chairman, National Advisory Council on Social Security; Lloyd K. Garrison, dean of Wisconsin Law School and onetime National Labor Relations Board chairman; John G. Winant, director, International Labor Office.

Function of this committee was clear: in the Fourth New Deal, to follow Franklin Roosevelt’s election-day victory, this group would become the new, superDemocratic National Committee. One more thing was clear: Franklin Roosevelt had meant it when he promised to “preserve our social gains.” In the next New Deal there would be no turn to the right.