Power of Silence

Down the gravel-covered driveway and through the East Gate of the White House grounds swung the long, black, open automobile that is known around the Executive offices as "the Queen Mary." In the back seat sat the President, wearing a seersucker suit, doffing his battered Panama hat when the crowds in the street recognized him. A crowd of Government workers gathered around the gate of the Washington Naval Yard, where the U. S. S. Potomac, White House yacht, was tied up to the dock awaiting President and party; the crowd gave a stifled cheer; the President's big right hand went up in the air and the big smile flashed in recognition. There was the usual 21-gun salute barked from the shore batteries as the President crossed the dock-level gangplank; there was the usual trilling of the bos'n's whistle piping the President over the side as eight boys stood at attention; the four-starred flag of the Commander in Chief of the Army & Navy was broken out at the mainmast; a bugle sounded, bluejackets scurried about the decks, the big gasoline motors began to roar, and the Potomac moved down the historic river toward the sea.

In any week but last week the cruise of the Potomac would have seemed a normal weekend rest. On board was Judge Samuel Irving Rosenman, old friend and political counselor who was with the President when he was nominated in 1932, traveled with him during the 1936 campaign, and was a White House guest for the week of the Democratic Convention in 1940. There were also the President's secretary Marguerite Le Hand and two friends. The President toyed with his stamp collection, as usual; talked long with Judge Rosenman, as usual; fished a little, as usual. As on other cruises, a Navy plane dropped from the skies, came alongside the Potomac, left the official mail and the Sunday papers. There were eels for dinner, eels that the President had caught and which make good eating when prepared by the Potomac's Filipino cook.

But no rigorous devotion to business as usual or relaxation as usual, no careful determination to act as if the Democratic Convention did not exist, could make last week usual. In Chicago the Convention was existing. To many an appalled observer it seemed to be doing little more than that. In his last pre-Convention press conference the President had put off question after question hurled at him by reporters attempting to draw him out about the Third Term. He was, he said, President of the United States, sticking close to the affairs of the nation, as his position dictated; he would not go to the Convention. But the uncertainty over what he intended to do, how he would react when he received the nomination that all observers agreed he would get, was a more powerful political force than any political action he could have taken, any political statement he could have made. And when Chicago observers looked over the scene--the other candidates stymied, the delegates supporting Roosevelt because they believed that only with him could they win in November, the uneasiness over the Third Term--they were prepared to give President Roosevelt a unique place in U. S. political history. Through all the wordy 37 Presidential campaigns in the U. S., his were the most powerful words that were never spoken.

The Potomac returned to the Navy Yard dock; the President returned to the White House. Washington headquarters of the Democratic National Committee shifted to the White House switchboard its private line to Chicago. The President called Jim Farley, extended his good wishes for the convention. "How are things going?" he asked. "Okay," said Jim Farley. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, preparing to leave for Havana, stopped to lunch with the President. Said White House Spokesman Steve Early: "Probably nobody will believe it, but they're going to talk about the Havana Conference."

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