THE PRESIDENCY: Master piece

Masterpiece

Early election morning, while most voters were still asleep, election officials at Watertown, Wis., rubbed their sleepy eyes. Into the polls waddled 215-lb. Arthur E. (“Turkey”) Gehrke to cast his vote for “the winner” so that next day he could with an easy conscience go to bed as usual for the winter. But there was neither sleep nor astonishment in the eyes of election officials at Hyde Park, N. Y. at 11 a. m. when they handed out ballot No. 312 et seq. to Franklin D. Roosevelt & family. In succession the President, his mother, his wife, his daughter, his son-in-law disappeared into the voting machines and quickly did their duty. Franklin Jr., 21 in August, slipped hastily around the corner to Hyde Park High School to take a literacy test. No one had been able to find his Groton School diploma, but it did not matter. He passed the test with flying colors.

That day Father Franklin passed a far harder examination and won the undoubted right to call himself the ablest master of U. S. politics in a century. He got the highest mark awarded in the Electoral College in 116 years, a popular acclaim utterly dwarfing even the mob idolatry enjoyed by Andrew Jackson, whose fox-&-hound watch chain Franklin Roosevelt now wears.*

Instead of going to Democratic National Headquarters in Manhattan’s Biltmore Hotel, where four years ago he received the congratulations of Al Smith and mobs of supporters, Franklin Roosevelt spent election evening with family and friends at Hyde Park. In the smoking room were installed teletype machines which chattered out bulletins of the election. In the library a long table was laden with sandwiches, pie, doughnuts, coffee, pitchers of new cider pressed that day. In the dining room the table was covered with charts and tables showing the trend of the voting. From room to room wandered intimates of the Roosevelt family: his former law partner, Basil O’Connor; his preacher publicist, Stanley High; his Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr.; his frequent campaign companions, Judge & Mrs. Samuel I. Rosenman; his yachting friend, Vincent Astor; his uncle, Frederic A. Delano; his bright young Brain Trust lawyer, Tom Corcoran, with a broad Irish smile, who made the evening so gay with his accordion that Basso Marvin Mclntyre burst into song. Among them circulated Mrs. Roosevelt in a white satin evening gown and Mother Sarah Delano Roosevelt, thoroughly enjoying the sweet cider.

In midevening, Hyde Park Democrats paraded onto the lawn before the house and Franklin Roosevelt went out on the terrace to greet them. He had carried his district by 336 votes to Landon’s 307, but again lost the village as a whole by nearly 200 votes. “From the returns now it looks as though this sweep has carried every single section of the country,” laughed the President.

“How about 1940?” shouted voices in the crowd.

He got a throatful of smoke from the flares of red fire that were burning on the driveway and excused himself. Back to the dining room he went with his sons Franklin Jr. and John, to enjoy the job of tabulating his masterpiece.

He was winning Pennsylvania, the first Democratic President to do so since James Buchanan 80 years ago.

Vote by vote he was actually pulling ahead of Alf Landon in Kansas.

In Illinois he was not only sweeping Democratic Chicago but downstate as well.

All the “doubtful” States—West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wyoming, South Dakota, New Jersey, Iowa were his by handsome majorities.

Most of “safely Republican” New England was safely in his column.

In New York where Governor Herbert Lehman was drafted to run to strengthen the Roosevelt ticket, Roosevelt was winning 3-to-2 and dragging Lehman to victory.

Almost everywhere the Roosevelt landslide was carrying Democratic Congressmen and Governors to victory.

And down in the jubilant Democratic headquarters in Manhattan Franklin Roosevelt’s political right arm, Jim Farley, was having the greatest triumph of his career, not over the Republicans but over his own staff. In a pool on Roosevelt’s electoral vote he had bet on 523, 20 votes more than the next biggest optimist, and so doing had won $200.

At 2 a. m. Franklin Roosevelt went to bed a contented man.

A few minutes later arrived one of hundreds of congratulatory telegrams which had deluged Hyde Park that night: THE NATION HAS SPOKEN. EVERY AMERICAN WILL ACCEPT THE VERDICT AND WORK FOR THE COMMON CAUSE OF THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY. THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY. YOU HAVE MY SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS.

ALF M. LANDON.

Marvin Mclntyre wrote and dispatched an answer:

I AM GRATEFUL TO YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS TELEGRAM AND I AM CONFIDENT THAT ALL OF US AMERICANS WILL NOW PULL TOGETHER FOR THE COMMON GOOD. I SEND YOU EVERY GOOD WISH.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT.

*Of the first 31,275,348 major party ballots tabulated by Associated Press, 19,334,959 or 61.83% were for Roosevelt. This proved that the most accurate of all pre-election straw polls was the survey conducted by FORTUNE. In its October issue, FORTUNE indicated that Roosevelt would have 61.73% of the popular vote.