New Era

Last week's seven days were long and anxious for U. S. politicos. They were waiting for a deadline--midnight Saturday, last moment when Franklin D. Roosevelt could withdraw his name from the Illinois preferential primary, April 9.

Tanned under his crumpled white hat, the President fished calmly in the Pacific. Far from calm was the Senate. As irritation mounted, Colorado's Johnson, Nevada's McCarran, Indiana's Van Nuys, South Carolina's Smith, Iowa's Gillette, Alabama's John Bankhead, issued statements ranging from plaintive pleading to desperate threats. Saturday Congress had stopped even pretending to keep its mind on its work, cocked an ear to Springfield, Ill., kept an eye on the ticker for a flash from the Panama Canal Zone.

None came. The deadline passed. A period in U. S. politics had ended, a new one had begun. To no one had Franklin Roosevelt yet confided his Term III plans. But now his silence had new meanings, now at last the U. S. realized that President No. 32 will delay his announcement until the last possible second--perhaps even until convention time. Meanwhile he will lift no finger to aid any other Democratic candidate, will quietly permit the Term III fuglemen to dust off any aspirant.

Said one jubilant Janizary: "We have bombed every airdrome and there's not a plane in the sky."

No one felt the force of this statement more than old "Cactus Jack" Garner. Wise in the ways of political treachery, the fluff-browed Texan was not surprised last week when many of his hangers-on, even some of his friends, began to avoid him. Still he held his little, well-heeled force together, still determined to fight Term III to the bitter end.

Confidently the Third Termites in each State oiled and honed a guillotine.

New Hampshire. Few weeks back, all of New England's 82 Democratic convention votes* were in Jim Farley's bag. Then the Third Termites got busy--and Mr. Farley was told bluntly that Massachusetts' 34 votes were pledged first to Franklin Roosevelt, to Jim Farley only second. Last week the same thing happened again --in New Hampshire, in Connecticut. The bosses had sniffed the wind, were hastening to "get right." Bland Mr. Farley, who would have nowhere to go if he took a walk, said nothing.

Illinois, Wisconsin. Janizariat strategy calls for rolling up a clearcut Roosevelt victory in the New Hampshire March 12 primary (no opposition). Next step: to roll the bandwagon through the Wisconsin primary (April 2), then through Illinois. Into both these primaries stubborn old Jack Garner has stuck his red neck. Janizariat belief is that, after these two elections, the Vice President will be politically as dead as a doornail. The Kelly-Nash-Horner machine in Illinois has been told to pile up an overwhelming majority.

Ohio. The Buckeye State is the domain of gum-chewing, teeth-sucking "Honest Vic" Donahey, only Senator in Washington who has never made a Senate-floor speech in his five-year career. "Honest Vic" is neither pro-nor anti-Term III, but pro-primary in which voters get an honest chance to name their preference. Term III jockeyings in Ohio left Veteran Donahey not only dizzy, but sick. Stoutly he refused to serve as Mr. Roosevelt's bagholder (Ohio election law requires a written statement of candidacy; the Janizariat wanted to avoid this statement by nominating a dummy). On Donahey's refusal, National Committeeman Charles Sawyer took the job.

Et Al. The political picture was beginning to take shape. Democratic Candidate Cordell Hull persisted in refusing to run. Candidates Burton Wheeler of Montana and Paul Vories McNutt of Indiana had wisely sworn not to enter any primary in which Mr. Roosevelt's name is listed. Others were nowhere. "Every airdrome bombed . . . not a plane in the sky."

By week's end many a pundit, many a politico, even some plain men, were beginning to feel as if they had been hit in the solar plexus. "Fine words!" snarled ordinarily mellow, liberal Raymond Clapper, referring to Mr. Roosevelt's 1937 Victory dinner speech (in which he outlined his "great ambition" to "turn over this desk and chair in the White House to my successor" on "Jan. 20, 1941" with "a nation intact, a nation at peace, a nation prosperous").

The payoff came from the Gallup Poll and from Seminole County, Ga. Pollster Gallup found 4 out of 5 Democrats now in favor of Term III, Secretary of State Hull up, Messrs. Garner & McNutt down. And from Donalsonville, Ga. came word of a mock Presidential primary: Roosevelt, 841 votes; Garner, 18; Hull, 3.

* Maine, 10; New Hampshire, 8; Vermont, 6; Massachusetts, 34; Rhode Island, 8; Connecticut, 16.

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