THE PRESIDENCY: God Willing

Thousands on thousands of times, in the crisp airs of 30 autumns,Franklin D. Roosevelt had flung up a long right arm, waving his hand or his hat, to the cheers of voters. In 30 years he has mastered every trick: the engaging, nonchalant hand waggle, the last artful inflection of voice, how to hit headlines in both afternoon and morning newspapers.

In happier times campaigning had been a pleasure keener than stamp collecting. But last week there was a difference. Some things had changed. To politick is to try to win. And Franklin Roosevelt had said, in all but words, that he was trying to win a position not yet official, but certainly more real every day: Presidency of the Western Hemisphere. A month ago it had looked like a Roosevelt landslide, last week it no longer looked that way.

The President went out to campaign. Democrats no longer talked about his being drafted.* He had opened a door no other President had ever opened, and prepared to walk through.

At a press conference a reporter asked about a Roosevelt reference to “the next four years”:

“Does this mean that, if reelected, you will, God willing, serve the full four-year term?”

“Of course,” said the President. “You can quote me if you want.” He looked down at his desk for a moment, lifted his head, said quietly: “I’m glad you put in ‘God willing.’ ”

Old Campaigner. Once he had taken the field. Franklin Roosevelt went campaigning almost as if 1940 were any year, as if the race were any race. His train moved with the exact precision that years of organization and the power of the Presidency command. Every Democratic precinct chief knew exactly when the President would pass, knew just when to have his crowd assembled. First stop was Wilmington, Del., where four years ago the President tipped over the Republicans for the first time in 24 years. The train stopped. A huge station crowd roared expectantly. As always, the President let them wait a few minutes. At last the door opened; the crowd bellowed. Out came a grinning porter to polish the brass-work. Another minute, and the President made a carefully timed appearance, got off a little speech timed for the afternoon papers: a quotation of Lincoln’s definition of liberty (in effect: liberty for the sheep is not liberty for the shepherd, nor for the wolf).

After a smooth endorsement of the stronger of two Delaware Democratic tickets, Shepherd Roosevelt left the sheep, went after the Republican wolf.

The trip around Philadelphia and Camden was a political masterpiece. Everywhere the itinerary avoided conservative or Republican districts; everywhere sought out factory areas, Democratic strongholds. Crowds were thick, enthusiastic.

He motored past City Hall, past signs, “Welcome Champ,” “Roosevelt For a 3rd, 4th, 5th Term,” past thousands of faces that know Roosevelt and light up when he passes. “If there’s any anti-third term sentiment in America, it isn’t in the faces of the crowds,” said Correspondent Alfred Stedman of the anti-Roosevelt St. Paul Pioneer Press.

“I Love a Fight.” That night the President took his case to the nation over the radio. Tickets to Convention Hall had been carefully allotted to 14,500 of the faithful; actually 18,000 people jammed in; thousands more stood outside. When the President arrived on the stage at 9:12 p.m., the audience went mad as only good Democrats can, whistling, shouting, stamping.

Politically the speech was masterly. Thirty-two times the President accused his opposition (never mentioning Willkie by name) of deliberate falsification of fact. The burden of the address was prosperity: 1940’$ business figures contrasted with 1932’s, 1929’s.

One assurance he gave with all the power he could command: “I give you this most solemn assurance: there is no secret treaty, no secret obligation, no secret commitment, no secret understanding in any shape or form, direct or indirect … to involve this nation in any war or for any other purpose.

“I repeat again that I stand on the plat form of our party: ‘We will not partici pate in foreign wars and we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas ex cept in case of attack.’ “It is for peace I have labored; and it is for peace I shall labor all the days of my life.” But most of the speech was on domestic issues, and here the old campaigner really went to town. He was sarcastic, sly, arch, tough, ironic, intimate, confidential. He ad libbed, he laughed, rolled his head sidewise, lifted his eyes in mock horror. The audience ate it up. Newsman Ted Alford, of the anti-Roosevelt Kansas City Star, said: “He’s all the Barrymores rolled into one.”

Still, there was something lacking. Said the arch-Republican New York Herald Tribune: “The President cried ‘Liar!’ thirty-two times, and never mentioned the third term once.”

Madison Square. A weekend of conferences on foreign affairs preceded the President’s second campaign trip; and as his train went north, Italians were moving southeast into Greece, and Turkey was arming. Except for a half-hour’s delay for White House reports, the President kept on, parading through each of New York City’s five boroughs on his way to his second major speech, at Madison Square Garden.

The President was really campaigning now—seven little speeches, one big one, a 14-hour day. Observers differed on how he was doing: some thought the crowds indicated Roosevelt victory; others were certain the turnout was not only far below 1936, but less than on off-year visits since. But if his audience had fallen off, Franklin Roosevelt had not. Only television could have shown the nation the relish, the skill of his performance before 22,000 screaming Democrats in the Garden, while 25,000 struggled for standing room in the streets outside. Again his best bits were the comic passages: he ridiculed the Republican leadership for opposing many defense measures before World War II began, for saying “There will be no war”—and for claiming now that he had failed to build up national defense. He said, scorn sharpening his voice: “Today they complain that this Administration has starved our armed forces, that our Navy is anemic, our Army puny, our air force piteously weak. This is a remarkable somersault.”

One indirect reference he made to Wendell Willkie, in noting that the men who came to Washington to help in the defense program did not include “holding company lawyers or executives.” To point his sarcasm on Republican Congressional opposition he twice rhythmically referred to “Congressmen Martin, Barton and Fish,” to the cLlighted boos of the crowd.

But to many in the audience, more important than any words he spoke was the fact that big Jim Farley came on to the platform beside the President—Farley, Democratic Party symbol of opposition to the Third Term.

Last week the President:

> Dispatched to Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, head of France’s Vichy Government, a note believed to contain a warning that French territories in this hemisphere would be taken under U. S. protectorship if Vichy and Germany moved against the status quo of those territories.

> Addressed the New York Herald Tribune’s Forum, quoting Lincoln’s warning against fear-mongers and calamity-howlers—”appeasers” of that day, said the President.

> Had a lemon and an onion tossed at him on Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue by two Brooklyn Italian girls, Mary & Italia D’Arte.

* Except such old impertisans as Al Smith, who growled like a political Jimmy Durante: “So the convention drafted the third term candidate! Drafted, hey? Kuh-h-h-loney!”