"Nor Would I Accept It"

General Douglas MacArthur put a firm end to all the talk. He said:

"... I have had brought to my attention a widespread public opinion that it is detrimental to our war effort to have an officer in high position on active service at the front considered for nomination for the office of President.

"I have on several occasions announced I was not a candidate for the position. ... To make my position unequivocal ... I do not covet it, nor would I accept it."

While not so forceful as General William Tecumseh Sherman's famed renunciation, this seemed equally binding. Two weeks before, General MacArthur had said only that "I have not sought the office nor do I seek it," which presumably still left him free to accept a Presidential draft. Perhaps after the unauthorized publication of the General's letters to Nebraska's New Deal-hating Congressman Arthur Lewis Miller (TIME, April 24), his Presidential boomlet had collapsed irreparably.

But none could deny that he had now spoken up with soldierly candor. Once more his own substantial claims to military glory, and his efforts to obtain bigger military allotments for his command, could be judged on their merits alone.

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