THE PRESIDENCY: Victory

The night was warm for November, still and starless; on a flagpole above the portico the blue Presidential flag, with its shield, eagle and white stars, flapped listlessly. Hyde Park House was dark, the big green shutters swung snug to the front windows—from outside, not a crack of light showed from the library. Inside and out, the atmosphere was solemn, expectant, tense.

In station wagons and long shining limousines came people in evening clothes, neighbors and friends. Inside they assembled in the long, furniture-cluttered library, chatting quietly or sitting, hands in laps, listening to the radio chattering election returns.

Apart from his household, alone at the mahogany table in the family dining room, sat the master mathematician of U. S.

politics. Outside the room’s closed doors was expectant silence. Inside, Franklin Roosevelt worked calmly in the midst of the nerve-tattering, incessant clacking of three press tickers, loud in the empty room.

Before him were large tally sheets with the States listed alphabetically across the top; a long row of freshly pointed pencils.

His coat was off. His tie hung low under the unbuttoned collar of his soft shirt, but he had not rolled up his sleeves. His one companion was Marguerite (“Missy”) LeHand, who snatched the latest “takes” from the thumping tickers, put them before the President without a word, as fast as he finished charting the latest tally. Re enjoyed the job.

Occasionally, the doors slid softly open to admit Harry Hopkins or Judge Samuel I. Rosenman, but even the President’s wife and mother kept out of this political sanctum in this sacred hour.

On the tally sheets his statistical election picture quickly took shape. Willkie’s strength was inland, in the breadbasket States. Wherever land touched sea, Roosevelt was strong. The New England vote was a triumph for him: Maine went Republican only narrowly, and the President’s vote in New England was even larger than in 1936.

But in the nation as a whole it was a different story. Everywhere Willkie did far better than Landon had done: for a time Republicans had hopes of Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, all key States. But by 10 p. m. Roosevelt had 364 electoral votes, Willkie only 121, with the rest dubious.

By 11 p. m. the President had telephoned Democratic Boss Ed Flynn that he was “very confident” of reelection.

At midnight New York was coming in fast and close, but Franklin Roosevelt, with all other big States in his bag, was in.

At Hyde Park Harry Hopkins went out on the porch for a breath of air, happy to bursting point. The tension in the house had relaxed. Down the Albany Post Road tootled and whammed a fife, drum and bugle corps, behind them a straggling crowd of 500 villagers, carrying red railroad flares. Newsreelmen lit brilliant white flares, and Squire Roosevelt of Hyde Park, first third-term President of the U. S., came out on the stone porch to joke with his friends. All day he had been jovially confident. That morning after voting (No. 292) at the town hall, accompanied by Wife Eleanor and Mother Sara, he had wisecracked with persistent New York News Photographer Sammy Shuman. Shuman: “Will you wave at the trees, Mr. President?” Roosevelt: “Go climb a tree.” Shuman: “Please.” Roosevelt: “You know I never wave at trees unless they have leaves on them.” Now he said to the villagers: “I don’t need to tell you that we face difficult days in this country, but I think you will find me in the future just exactly the same Franklin Roosevelt that you have known for a great many years.” The big-shouldered man who faced his neighbors leaning on the arm of Son Franklin Jr. had won a third term. The vote had been sensationally large. If the election of 1940 had been a test of democracy, voters had met the test the only way they could: by voting 50,000,000 strong.

Such an outpouring of ballots had never been seen in U. S. history. In New York City 95%-plus of the registered voters had voted—an almost unbelievable turnout—a token of aroused feeling, of the bitterness of division among the electorate.

To every U. S. citizen the problem of national unity was just as serious as to the man jesting in the fizzling flare light on the Hyde Park porch. In the final count it appeared that there would be over 20,000,000 votes for Willkie and most of them were undoubtedly votes against Roosevelt. Besides a great victory Roosevelt also had the greatest vote of no confidence that any President ever received. On Franklin Roosevelt’s brow rested something heavier than the laurels of political victory: on his big bland forehead lay a responsibility greater than any President’s since Abraham Lincoln. Like Lincoln, he could and must quote Scripture: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Late returns Wednesday morning left the electoral vote of a few close States still in doubt. Willkie had, besides Maine (5) and Vermont (3), Michigan (19),

Iowa (11), South Dakota (4), Nebraska (7), Kansas (9), Colorado (6)—some of them by margins narrow enough to be reversed in the final count. Indiana (14), North Dakota (4) and Michigan (19) were in doubt. If Willkie got them all, he had 101 electoral votes. Franklin Roosevelt’s total (472 electoral votes in 1932, 523 in 1936) now hovered around 430.

But in terms of popular votes he appeared to have beaten Willkie by only about five votes to four.