Roosevelt

by James Macgregor Burns

  Finally the room quieted. There was an air of expectancy. All had heard the rumors of Roosevelt’s illness—the pictures from San Diego, the sound of his voice from Bremerton, the long delay while Dewey had campaigned across the nation. Did the old campaigner still have it? During dinner, at a table of Roosevelt’s family and friends, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger leaned over and asked Rosenman: “Do you think that Pa will put it over?…If the delivery isn’t just right, it’ll be an awful flop.”

  Roosevelt began to talk. Then a surprise—he was still sitting down. The first words seemed to come strangely, as though the President were mouthing them.

  “Well, here we are—here we are again—after four years—and what years they have been! You know, I am actually four years older, which is a fact that seems to an-noy some people. In fact, in the mathematical field there are millions of Americans who are mo-o-o-re than eleven years older than when we started to clear up”—now his words quickened and sharpened—“the mess that was dumped into our laps in 1933.”

  A burst of clapping, shouting, table pounding. Roosevelt proceeded to deride those who attacked labor for three and a half years in a row and then suddenly discovered they really loved labor and wanted to protect it from its friends. The Republicans who approved New Deal laws in their Chicago platform, he taunted, would not recognize those progressive laws if they met them in broad daylight.

  “Now, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery—but I am afraid—I am afraid—that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud.

  “Of course, it is perfectly true that there are enlightened, liberal elements in the Republican Party, and they have fought hard and honorably to bring the Party up to date and to get it in step with the forward march of American progress. But these liberal elements were not able to drive the Old Guard Republicans from their entrenched positions.

  “Can the Old Guard pass itself off as the New Deal?

  “I think not.

  “We have all seen many marvellous stunts in the circus but no performing elephant could turn a hand-spring without falling flat on its back.”

  The President reviewed labor’s record, and his own. It was his old New Deal pitch given a new wartime sheen. He recited the statistics of progress, poked fun at the Republicans for trying to play general, denounced labor baiters, and stated that the occasional strikes that had occurred had been condemned by all responsible labor leaders but one. “And that one labor leader, incidentally, is certainly not conspicuous among my supporters.”

  Roosevelt was in full stride now. Raising and lowering his voice, drawing out his words and sentences, chuckling over some of the more incredible charges of the opposition, he derided Republicans for hating to see workers give a dollar to “any wicked political party” while monopolists gave tens of thousands; chastised them for making it hard for soldiers and sailors overseas and for merchant seamen to vote; reminded his audience of the “Hoovervilles” of 1933; and accused his foes of imitating Hitler’s technique of the big lie—especially in the allegation that it was not a Republican but a Democratic depression from which the nation had been saved in 1933.

  “Now, there is an old and somewhat lugubrious adage which says: ‘Never speak of rope in the house of a man who has been hanged.’ In the same way, if I were a Republican leader speaking to a mixed audience, the last word in the whole dictionary that I think I would use is that word ‘depression.’ ”

  By now his listeners in the ballroom were not merely cheering—they were laughing. Anna’s fears were stilled. Not only were Roosevelt’s lines funny, but he was delivering them with such inflection, emphasis, alternation of deadpan innocence and rolled-up eyes of mock amazement, biting ridicule, and gentle sarcasm that the clapping was drowned in uncontrollable belly laughter.

  Then the dagger thrust, planned by Roosevelt long before, the blade lovingly fashioned and honed, now delivered with a mock-serious face and in a quiet, sad tone of voice, rising briefly to indignation.

  “These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks—on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but”—a pause, and then quickly—“Fala does resent them.

  “You know—you know—Fala’s Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on an Aleutian Island and had sent a destroyer back to find him—at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars—his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself—such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself”—he chuckled—“as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libellous statements about my dog.”

  October 24, 1944, Eric Godal, PM, reprinted by courtesy of Field Enterprises, Inc.

  The President went on for a bit, but he had already answered the big question in the minds of his listeners. In 1940 Roosevelt had said, “I am an old campaigner and I love a good fight.” Clearly four years later he still did. This was not one of those speeches that took on importance only in later perspective. It had immediate impact. Reporters traveling on Dewey’s campaign train in California heard the speech in the press car and instantly recognized its importance. Dewey felt that the “snide” speech was designed to anger him, and it did. He decided to campaign more aggressively.

  After his opening strike the President returned to a stance of nonpartisan Chief Executive for four weeks. His only political speech was a fireside chat urging people to vote and rebutting charges that his administration was Communist-dominated. Meantime his political aides readied final plans. Roosevelt’s basic strategy had long been set. As in the past he would appeal to liberal and internationalist Republicans, accuse Dewey of being controlled by his congressional party, and seek to hold the support of his own congressional party, especially in the South, while mobilizing voting power in the big cities.

  This strategy was standard and time-tested; more serious was the operational problem. Early in the year, Louis H. Bean, a statistician and political buff, had given to Hopkins, Hannegan, and Hillman a long analysis of voting turnout in relation to Democratic gains and losses. He found that Democratic setbacks in 1942 and 1943 were due not to Republican popularity but to a fall-off in participation. Almost invariably the Democratic percentage shrank with lower participation. This was true in big cities; it was true in less urban areas such as Roosevelt’s own Dutchess County. Bean’s verdict was conclusive: “Participation…is of crucial importance for the Democratic Party in 1944.”

  The trouble was that the very people who tended to vote Democratic—low-income groups, young people, Negroes, women, ethnic elements—tended also to show the poorest turnout. If the year had been 1936 the President might wage a rousing and militant campaign that would draw at least some of the apathetic to the polls. But in 1944 many people, no matter how concerned, could not vote because they had crossed state lines and were not registered, or were in the service, or were working long hours in remote army bases and war plants. And Roosevelt had no thought of waging an inflammatory campaign during war.

  The alternative was to rely on organization, and here, too, the President faced a dilemma. Except in Albany and Chicago and a few other cities the Democratic party was fragmented, locally oriented, or even moribund. By far the strongest national political machine in the summer of 1944 was Sidney Hillman’s CIO Political Action Committee. The PAC was organized nationally and regionally and down to ward and precinct committees; it had gifted leadership in Hillman, political and propaganda talent, considerable money, ideas, energy, and conviction.

  It was also the main target for Republican attack. Following the Democratic convention—where Roosevelt was said to have had Truman’s nomination checked out with the labor leader—“Clear It
With Sidney” had become a Republican war cry. CLEAR EVERYTHING WITH SIDNEY was placarded across the nation. “Sidney Hillman and Earl Browder’s Communists have registered,” voters were told. “Have you?”

  The big open Packard, its canvas top down despite the drizzle, drove out onto Ebbets Field and up a ramp. The President of the United States was helped out of the car. Locked in his braces, he stood before a small crowd, doffed his old gray campaign hat, let his blue-black Navy cape fall from his shoulders. He had never seen the Dodgers play, he told the crowd, but he had rooted for them. The rain plastered down his hair and splattered on his pince-nez. He paid a tribute to Senator Bob Wagner—“we were together in the legislature—I would hate to say how long ago”—and asked that he be returned to the Senate. It was pouring by the time he was eased back into the car. He was given a rubdown and dry clothes at a nearby Coast Guard motor pool. Then the ordeal resumed.

  Its top still down by the President’s order, the limousine led a long cavalcade through Queens to the Bronx, then to Harlem and mid-Manhattan and down Broadway. La Guardia and Wagner sat on jump seats in front of the President; Eleanor Roosevelt was in the procession behind. The cold rain came down relentlessly, drenching the President’s upflung arm and sleeve, rolling off his fedora, circling the lines of the grin on his face, seeping into his coat and shirt. Sidecar motorcycles flanked the Packard; guards stood on its running boards; three limousines packed with Secret Service men followed. Hour after hour the procession continued in the downpour. People waited under umbrellas and soggy newspapers to catch a glimpse of the big smile. At his wife’s apartment in Washington Square he changed again and rested.

  That evening the President spoke to the Foreign Policy Association in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue. It was a long catchall speech in which he again attacked the congressional Republicans for their isolationist voting, extolled liberal and internationalist Republicans—especially Henry Stimson, who was sitting on the dais—and warned that the likes of Joe Martin and Ham Fish would have controlling power in Congress if the Republicans won. But toward the end he took a stand on the crucial issue of the peace-keeping of the new United Nations.

  “Peace, like war, can succeed only where there is a will to enforce it, and where there is available power to enforce it.

  “The Council of the United Nations must have the power to act quickly and decisively to keep the peace by force, if necessary. A policeman would not be a very effective policeman if, when he saw a felon break into a house, he had to go to the Town Hall and call a town meeting to issue a warrant before the felon could be arrested.

  “So to my simple mind it is clear that, if the world organization is to have any reality at all, our American representative must be endowed in advance by the people themselves, by constitutional means through their representatives in the Congress, with authority to act.

  “If we do not catch the international felon when we have our hands on him, if we let him get away with his loot because the Town Council has not passed an ordinance authorizing his arrest, then we are not doing our share to prevent another world war….”

  The day in New York was a double triumph for the President. His four-hour, fifty-mile drive through the city was his answer to charges of loss of health and stamina. To be sure, anti-Roosevelt newspapers, including the Daily News, could run pictures showing him looking tired and worn, with sallow, lined face, but perhaps two million people had seen that uplifted arm and radiant smile. And in his speech that evening he outflanked Dewey on the issue of peace-keeping. Republican Senator Joe Ball, protégé of Harold Stassen, who was still serving in the South Pacific, promptly endorsed Roosevelt on the ground that while Dewey had evaded the issue, Roosevelt had met squarely and unequivocally the central question on which the isolationists had kept America out of the League of Nations.

  Six days later Roosevelt carried his campaign to Philadelphia. Once again he toured city blocks for hours in an open car and once again it rained. In the city of brotherly love he talked of war—of his efforts to rebuild the Navy before Pearl Harbor, of the obstruction of the Republicans, of the people who laughed at his call for 50,000 planes a year, of the strategy he had followed in the war, of war supply and logistics and personnel. For once he mentioned his four sons at war: “I can speak as one who knows something of the feelings of a parent with sons who are in the battle line overseas.” He promised categorically—in response to charges by Dewey—that servicemen would be returned to their homes promptly after the war—“And there are no strings attached to that pledge.”

  Two years before, the successful invasion of Africa had not been launched until after the congressional elections. Now Roosevelt’s luck returned. On October 21 MacArthur had landed with his troops on Leyte, in the central Philippines, announced on the beach, “I have returned,” and asked Filipinos to rally to him and to “follow in His name to the Holy Grail of righteous victory.” Roosevelt could not let the opportunity pass. “I think it is a remarkable achievement,” he told the throng in Shibe Park, “that within less than five months we have been able to carry out major offensive operations in both Europe and the Philippines—thirteen thousand miles apart from each other.

  “And speaking of the glorious operations in the Philippines—I wonder—whatever became of the suggestion made a few weeks ago, that I had failed for political reasons to send enough forces or supplies to General MacArthur?”

  He quoted a “prominent Republican orator” as calling “your present Administration” the “most spectacular collection of incompetent people who ever held public office.” “Well,” said the President, “you know, that is pretty serious, because the only conclusion to be drawn from that is that we are losing this war. If so, that will be news to most of us—and it will certainly be news to the Nazis and the Japs.”

  The following night Roosevelt spoke from his car in Soldier Field in Chicago. Nobody there that night would ever forget it, Rosenman said later. Over 100,000 people packed the stadium; another 100,000 or more waited outside. A cold wind was blowing in from the lake; Roosevelt’s words bounced off the far sides of the stadium and back; but somehow he held the crowd.

  It was the strangest campaign he had ever seen, the President said. He quoted the Republicans as saying that the “incompetent blunderers and bunglers in Washington” had passed excellent laws for economic progress; that the “quarrelsome, tired old men” had built the greatest military machine the world had ever known—that none of this would be changed—and “Therefore it is time for a change.”

  “They also say in effect, ‘Those inefficient and worn-out crackpots have really begun to lay the foundations of a lasting world peace. If you elect us, we will not change any of that, either.’ ‘But,’ they whisper, ‘we’ll do it in such a way that we won’t lose the support even of Gerald Nye or Gerald Smith—and this is very important—we won’t lose the support of any isolationist campaign contributor. Why, we will be able to satisfy even the Chicago Tribune.’ ”

  The President spoke mainly about the economic past and future. He recited the entire economic bill of rights of the previous January. He promised “close to” sixty million productive jobs. He talked about homes, hospitals, highways, parkways, of thousands of new airports, of new cheap automobiles, new health clinics. He proposed that Congress make the FEPC permanent; that foreign trade be trebled after the war; that small business be aided; that the TVA principle be extended to the Missouri, Arkansas, and Columbia River basins. He expressed his belief in free enterprise and the profit system—in “exceptional rewards for innovation, skill, and risk-taking in business.”

  For Dewey, too, it was a strange campaign. Like his predecessors Willkie and Landon and especially Hoover, he found it impossible to come to grips with his adversary. He had plenty of hard evidence for his charges of mismanagement and red tape and expediency—but words meant little in the face of MacArthur’s and Eisenhower’s triumphs abroad. He was infuriated by Roosevel
t’s bringing up the question of enforcing the peace—a question he had understood to be barred from the campaign in the interest of bipartisan unity. He had occasional strokes of luck, such as Selective Service Director Hershey’s remark that the government could keep people in the Army about as cheaply as it could create an agency for them when they came out. But Roosevelt was quick to have Stimson shush up Hershey and to make clear his own plans for rapid demobilization.

  Dewey’s actual position on policy was directly in the presidential Republican tradition—moderate liberalism, moderate internationalism—but the President attacked not the Dewey Republicans but the Taft, Martin, and Fish Republicans. In one speech Roosevelt even turned topsy-turvy one of the oldest and proudest GOP war cries—its stand for stable currency—when he asserted that the “Democratic Party in this war has been the party of sound money,” and the Republican party of unsound. To Dewey, as to Hoover, Roosevelt seemed a political chameleon.

  FOR YOU ARE THE MAN FOR US

  With the polls predicting a close election but with Roosevelt in the lead, Dewey acted more and more like a prosecutor trying to put the President in the dock. And he gravitated more and more toward Communism as the issue. In the final days of the campaign he charged in Boston that to perpetuate himself in office for sixteen years his opponent had put his party on the auction block, for sale to the highest bidder. The highest bidders were the PAC and the Communist party. Roosevelt had pardoned Earl Browder, he said, in time to organize the fourth-term election. “Now the Communists are seizing control of the New Deal, through which they aim to control the Government of the United States.” By now Democratic leaders were telling Rosenman and Sherwood that the President must answer the charges—the voters feared Communism more than Nazism or fascism.