Southwestern Swing

With a ten-gallon hat stowed away in the luggage on his special train, President Roosevelt rolled out of Washington one midnight last week for a 4,000-mile swing through the Southwest. With him were Senator Joe Robinson, RFChairman Jesse Jones, Senator Hattie Caraway. Mrs. Roosevelt was to board the train at Memphis. Announced purpose of this "nonpolitical" trip was to attend and make speeches at three historical celebrations--Arkansas' Century of Statehood at Little Rock, the Texas Centennial at Dallas, the dedication of a memorial to George Rogers Clark at Vincennes, Ind.

Arkansas had proclaimed a state-wide "President's Day" to celebrate the only visit, except one by Roosevelt I, which it ever had from a U. S. President. The President alighted at Hot Springs, shook hands with Governor J. Marion Futrell and a delegation of distinguished citizens who promptly took him to visit one of the city's hot-bath houses. After a two-hour luncheon at Utilitarian Harvey Crowley Couch's luxurious summer home on an island in Lake Catherine, driving back in a summer shower, the tourists stopped at an old log church, watched 30 pious folk dressed as pioneers, Indians and soldiers put on an oldtime camp meeting.

Arriving in Little Rock at 5:30 p. m., the President was motored directly to its unfinished Centennial Stadium, found it pack-jammed with 25,000 people. Facing microphones which carried his voice over the same nationwide hookups which were to broadcast the words of Herbert Hoover at Cleveland an hour later, Franklin Roosevelt delivered the first of a series of set speeches using the events of long-dead history as parables on current politics.

For Joe Robinson, who faces a fight for reelection, the President said: ". . . No man deserves greater credit for loyal devotion to a great cause than my old friend and associate. . . ." Afterward Franklin Roosevelt broke the rule that a President never dines out with an individual host, went to dinner at Joe Robinson's home.

Next day the President gave to the heroes and history which Texas is advertising in its six-month Centennial (TIME, June 8). After a drive through Houston, he rode on a yacht down Houston Ship Channel to the battlefield at San Jacinto where General Sam Houston wiped out Santa Anna's army, won Texas' freedom in 20 minutes. There President Roosevelt praised Liberty and Peace, called on his 20,000 listeners to enlist in a "national war for the cause of humanity without shedding blood." Nor did he forget to mention ''my old friend" Texas' Senator Morris Sheppard, also up for re-election this year.

Proud was the historically-minded President to shake the hand of Sam Houston's 90-year-old son Andrew Jackson Houston, recall that their fathers had been acquainted.* Said the President: "He [my father] was ushered into a huge, high-ceilinged room in one of the capital's balconied hotels on Pennsylvania Avenue. There, propped up in a great bed, nightgown and nightcap, though it was past the noon hour, lay that splendid old man . . . holding a levee, transacting public and private business, and preparing for the session of the Senate, which, in those days, did not commence until the late afternoon. His office and his home was his hotel room. It would seem that the manners and customs of the Senators of the United States, like other manners and customs, have undergone a great change."

In the midst of his San Jacinto speech, Secretary Steve Early tapped the President's arm, whispered: "Landon on the first ballot."

"Thank you," said the President, and went on talking.

In San Antonio, the President laid a wreath at the Alamo Chapel, called for a "fight for truth against falsehood, for freedom of the individual against license by the few," spoke a good word for the re-election of Representative Maury Maverick.

In Austin, where Jack Garner began his political career as a state legislator, Franklin Roosevelt paid tribute to "one whom I proudly and affectionately call my helpmate--the Vice President of the United States."

In Dallas' big Cotton Bowl next day, he delivered his second historical parable. Afterward there was a jolly luncheon at which Louisiana's fat young Governor Richard Leche (pronounced Lesh) appeared to make a public pledge of loyalty to the New Deal from Huey Long's heirs. Tigua Indians made the Great White Father an honorary chieftain of their tribe, gave him a peacock-feathered headdress, deerskin moccasins.

After he had helped dedicate a statue of Robert E. Lee, the President motored over to Fort Worth in the rain, accepted another ten-gallon hat from the Mayor but refused to wear it, drove out with Governor Allred and Amon Carter to look over the Frontier Centennial show which Broadway's Billy Rose is building to rival Dallas' official Exposition. Then he went for dinner and a good night's sleep at the home of Son Elliott, who is currently manager of the Southwest radio stations of William Randolph Hearst.

From Fort Worth, the President swung northeast toward home. Standing by the banks of the Wabash at Vincennes, Ind., where George Rogers Clark took Fort Sackville from the British in 1779, President Roosevelt gave his third historical parable to the world. Last stop of the tour was at Hodgenville, Ky. for a look at Abraham Lincoln's log-cabin birthplace. Finding a source of New Deal inspiration in the life of the first Republican President, Franklin Roosevelt issued a statement before he entrained for Washington: "I have taken from this cabin a renewed confidence that the spirit of America is not dead, that men and means will be found to explore and conquer the problems of a new time with no less humanity and no less fortitude than his."

*In the current screen release of The March of Time, marveling at the struggle between Dallas and Fort Worth to steal the spotlight of the Texas Centennial with rival armies of beauteous girls, Andrew Jackson Houston declares: "I don't know whether they're celebrating the birth of the Republic of Texas or the birth of musical comedy."

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