Last week many a famed citizen got in one last word just before the ballots flew:
Alfred M. London: “I suppose, as far as Mr. Roosevelt’s record is concerned, I might be accused of a certain amount of prejudice.”
Jack Dempsey: “As for Joe Louis [who came out for Willkie]. … He should remember he was a poor man himself. He used to pick cotton.” Joseph W. Martin Jr.: “I do not choose to enter the Cabinet.” Chicago’s Mayor Kelly: “We have no voice or control over the ballots as they are marked by the voters.” Van Wyck Brooks: “Although I am a Socialist I am voting for President Roosevelt this year because I do not feel that Norman Thomas is realistic regarding the present world crisis.” Norman Thomas: “It’s a phony campaign. . . .” General Hugh S. Johnson: “Mayor LaGuardia says that if he [Wendell Willkie] is a businessman, Fiorello is an eagle. . . .
Duck maybe—eagle never.” Fannie Hurst (pro-Roosevelt): “This is the end of an era, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and don’t you forget it.” John Llewellyn Lewis: “I assert again that the re-election of President Roosevelt will result in the nation’s involvement in war.” Frank R. Kent: “. . . Support of Mr.
Roosevelt is wholly emotional and not in the least rational.” Tony Galento: “Roosevelt will beat this Willkie just as bad as I’ll beat Joe Louis the next time I catch up with the bum.” William S. Knudsen (when asked whom he would vote for): “Go jump in the lake.” Edna St. Vincent Millay (in an anti-Roosevelt “poem”):
“Who’s going to note against a rocking chair and jam?
I said, ‘I am.’ ”
Robert H. Jackson: “Anyone who intends to vote for Willkie had better ask himself what kind of man Willkie would be on the cold morning after the honeymoon of election promises is over.”
Yosuke Matsuoka (Japan’s Foreign Minister): “I am not concerned as to who will be the next President of the United States.”
Roger Babson (Presidential Candidate of the National Prohibition Party): “. . . The country is headed toward a great new era.”
Alfred E. Smith: “Given four years more, the third-term candidate will lead you over the hills to the poorhouse and the government handout.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. (to Harlem voters): “Now that the old man is not here I can confess I like some of your nightclubs.”
Earl Browder (to Republicans & Democrats): “We will use our votes to undermine and defeat both of you.”
Mayor Frank Hague: “Yes, I’ve been in politics, but I’ve been very sincere.”
John Nance Garner: “No comment.”
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