Triumph

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Four years ago two Miltonias, orchids of ancient lineage, were bred together. Last week at the fall flower show of New York's Horticultural Society, the offspring of this union, a small, white, pansy-like orchid with a heart of deep maroon, was christened by John B. Lager, its flower godfather. Forty-eight hours earlier in the great library at Hyde Park, while two candles burned on a small improvised altar, Grandfather Franklin Roosevelt, seated in a great chair, had the joy of seeing a dark-haired baby girl, his eldest son's eight-month-old daughter, baptized. Henceforth child & orchid will bear the same name: Kate Roosevelt.*

It was a more than proud grandfather who, the next evening, went down in triumph to board his special train at Hyde Park station. Some 300 neighbors were there to bid him farewell with cheers and placards. Shrieked one, "Roosevelt--46 States Honor Him! Dutchess County?'' Shrieked another, "As Maine Goes--So Goes Vermont!''

Franklin Roosevelt, having a public taste of election triumph, pointed to that placard and cried: "That sign's all right, and it's all my fault. That's one time I didn't take Jim Farley's advice. He wanted me to go into Vermont and Maine. . . . Now I'm going back to Washington--to do what they call balance the Budget and fulfill the first promise of the campaign, and after a week or so with the Budget I'm going to get some sleep, and, because I can really sleep on a boat, I'm going on a boat to the Caribbean, and I'm going to lie in the sun and sleep, and perhaps catch a fish on the side. I'll get back to Washington toward Christmas time. While Congress is getting ready to convene I'll be using the joyous Christmas season to prepare gifts for the new Congress."

So saying, he disappeared into his private car and his train pulled out for Washington, leaving behind the first public declaration of what he intended to do with his great political triumph. Measured in the percentage of the voting public whom he had won to his support, his triumph was as great as that of Gamaliel Harding in 1920. Measured in electoral votes, it was overwhelming. Measured in moral effect it was greatest of all. For a time at least the terrific impact of his victory had knocked the wind out of all opposition. Alf Landon's personal friend William Allen White publicly proclaimed: "It was not an election which the country has just undergone but a political Johnstown flood." On its front page Frank Knox's Chicago News editorially crowned "The President of the whole people of the United States . . . entitled to the support of all citizens."

The last word in abnegation and crow-eating came from William Randolph Hearst who, in answer to his striking employes of Seattle's Newspaper Guild, wired: "I thought [when I was a great admirer of Mr. Roosevelt] that Mr. Roosevelt resembled Jackson. Perhaps I was more nearly right then than later. Perhaps Roosevelt, like Jackson, has given essential democracy a new lease of life and will establish it in power for a generation."

Mr. Hearst, whose campaign charges of Roosevelt Redness had almost matched the Chicago Tribune's in their choking anger, added this confused sentence to make his about-face sound complete: "The election has shown one final thing conclusively, and that is that no alien theory is necessary to realize the popular ideal in this country."

Columnist George Bertrand of the New York World-Telegram suggested that many a red-blooded citizen would have cheered if Alf Landon had wired Franklin Roosevelt: "Your re-election is the biggest calamity since the introduction of the Japanese corn-borer. All I hope is that it will hurt you as much as it does the country." And if the President had replied, "I am grateful to the Republican Party for setting up against me such a feeble candidate as you. You had better spend the rest of your ineffectual life out there on the prairies where you belong, brooding over the ignominy of your defeat. I hope you have another dust storm soon."

But the magnitude of the Roosevelt triumph was such that these things could not even be said in fun. Before leaving Hyde Park, Franklin Roosevelt called in the Press and reassured them in almost the same language which James A. Farley used on election night. Mr. Farley said: "I am sure that the President entertains no bitterness even to those who in the fury of political struggle so grossly assailed him. . . . No American need have any fear of the future. . . . No individual and no corporation that is on the level with the people has any cause to dread Mr. Roosevelt's second term. . . . Nobody on our side of the fence has any thought of reprisal or oppression."

One more measure of his triumph awaited Franklin Roosevelt when he reached Washington at 8:25 a. m. At the suggestion of Republican Eugene Meyer's Post, Washington turned out to greet him: 90,000 school children were given leave of absence from school; 106,000 union men were called to take part by the secretary of District of Columbia's Federation of Labor; District employes were excused from their offices and, although it was technically against the rules, it was tacitly understood that all 114,000 Federal workers would not be punished if they were late at their desks.

From the time that members of the Cabinet climbed the gangplank of the President's car until he reached the White House there was no letup in the demonstration. Some 100,000 people awaited him in the station plaza, another 100,000 along the line of march to the Capitol and around to the While House. The Army Band, the Navy Band, the Marine Band and eight other bands made music (Happy Days Are Here Again) at intervals the whole way. Not since a hero-worshipping rabble knocked trays from servants' hands and planted their muddy boots on White House furniture at Andrew Jackson's inaugural reception had Washington seen such a sight as the crowd which burst into the White House grounds, trampled the azaleas, climbed up on the north portico and covered the fresh white paint on the pillars with dirty finger marks (see pictures, p. 24).

The President and Mrs. Roosevelt (who had driven down the day before in her car) beamed at them, thanked them and went indoors. "We want Roosevelt," chanted the crowd. After a time Mrs. Roosevelt and Marvin Mclntyre came out, beamed some more, waved, retired. After a time Franklin Roosevelt came out on the arm of his son James, walked from side to side of the portico answering greetings. He had to make a second and a third appearance before the crowd would go away.

When President Roosevelt got down to work, there was a lot to do and only ten days to do it in. Next week, he announced, he would go to Charleston, board the fast cruiser Indianapolis and probably speed under forced draft all the way to Buenos Aires to make a speech at the opening session of the Pan-American Peace Conference. Meantime he saw his Cabinet, consulted Budget Director Bell, for a Budget has to be made up before Congress convenes on Jan. 5. To questions of newshawks about new Cabinet members, he answered by saying all that would have to wait. He found time, however, to dedicate a stone bench in Rock Creek Park as a memorial to late French Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand, to make a radio speech opening Community Chest drives throughout the U. S., to make another in favor of peace on the occasion of the sailing of Secretary of State Hull and the U. S. delegation for the conference at Buenos Aires, to send a message to the third National Conference on Labor Legislation, saying: "In 1934 and 1935 [you] formulated a program for the leveling upwards of labor standards which commands my wholehearted sympathy and approval. . . . I believe the country has this last week given a mandate in unmistakable terms to its legislators and executives to proceed along these lines. . . ."

* After the child's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Harvey Cushing.

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