"Ces Aimables Paroles"
"Ces Aimables Paroles"
After a bewhiskered fortnight in the nowhere off the Maine and Nova Scotia coasts, Franklin Roosevelt went ashore last week and once more climbed back on to the front page. His seagoing sideburns were gone before he showed himself in range of a camera. A few minutes after dark his chartered schooner Sewanna dropped anchor in Friar's Bay below the Roosevelt cottage on Campobello Island, N. B. Forty red-coated Canadian police drawn up on the dock snapped him a brisk salute as the sleepy President went in to supper and to bed.
Next morning he was up & around again as a man of affairs. With his house guest, Harry Hopkins, he talked over the future of the nearby Passamaquoddy tidal power project, now that Congress has definitely refused to authorize funds for its completion. Then, with his family, Premier Allison Dysart and several members of the New Brunswick Cabinet he went picnicking on a beach a mile from his home. There were only some 40 guests on the picnic, and Mrs. Roosevelt and the steward of the Presidential yacht Potomac succeeded in filling them adequately with roast beef, ham, salad and cake. On the sand, with a comfortable rock at his back, the President spent most of his time conversing with the New Brunswickian Premier and eating frankfurters, than which he likes only scrambled eggs better.
In a convivial state he held his first press conference in nearly three weeks, devoted it chiefly to expounding the desirability of the 'Quoddy project, based on his expectation of a 10% to 15% annual growth in electric power demand, new methods of transmission that would take 'Quoddy's output to areas where it could be used. That duty done, he settled back to watch his boys play baseball on the sand, a game which ended with members of the New Brunswick Cabinet taking on an all-U. S. team. Driving home as the fog began to roll in from the bay, the President held a reception on the porch of his red bungalow for his fellow-islanders and visitors from the U. S. mainland a mile away. Gifted with the art of making men hopeful, he told them:
"I believe in 'Quoddy, and I think you do, too. . . . 'Quoddy will be completed."
Next day, canceling plans to view the uncompleted 'Quoddy dams by sea from the Potomac, he took his mother in his car, ferried across to the mainland to visit Lubec, Eastport, and 'Quoddy Village, so that Maine men could not say, as they did three years ago, that he had failed to visit them when only a mile away. He saw the neat, clean, $1,500,000 'Quoddy Village erected for the dam builders, was engrossed by the bathtub model of the power project with its four-inch tides demonstrating how power will be made if the President has his way with Congress.
That evening he boarded a train at St. Andrews, N. B. His farewell to Lieut. Governor Murray MacLaren of New Brunswick: "I hope to come back next year even if it is in the role of a private citizen." Next morning in Quebec he was welcomed aboard his train as a visiting sovereign. John Buchan, first Baron Tweedsmuir, Governor General of Canada and the person of His Majesty the King in the Dominion, met the Presidential special, accompanied by Canadian Premier William Lyon Mackenzie King, Lieut. Governor Esioff Leon Patenaude of Quebec and U. S. Minister Norman Armour. With an escort of Royal Canadian Dragoons trotting beside him, President Roosevelt was driven up through the narrow streets of French Quebec to the heights of Dufferin Terrace.
There on the promenade, with the St. Lawrence spread out below and the green hills beyond, 5,000 Canadians burst into French and English cheers as the Presidential party appeared. From the heights of the Citadel boomed a 21-gun salute.
No trumped-up enthusiasm stirred this crowd, for Franklin Roosevelt's policies have been more uniformly admired abroad than at home, and many a Canadian especially wishes him well because he fears that, if Governor Landon is elected, the New Deal's reciprocal trade agreement with Canada may be ended. Under a pavilion erected on the grass above the broad boardwalk of the terrace Lord Tweedsmuir stepped forward, looking, for all his gold braid, his medals and his cocked hat, very much the dyspeptic man of letters he is, and began: "Mr. President, as the personal representative of His Majesty the King, I offer my most cordial greetings to the first citizen of the United States. Canada welcomes you, sir. . . ." Next greeter was Premier Mackenzie King, roundheaded little sociologist, one-time student at Harvard and resident of Chicago's Hull House, who wore a pale-grey morning coat and grey topper, and looked as if he were on his way to the races at Ascot. Said the Dominion's real No. 1 man: "Today we are indebted to your visit for yet another symbol of international peace, friendship and goodwill. In the three centuries and more of Canadian history, this ancient capital has known but two flags, the French and the British. Today, Mr. President, in your honor and in honor of our great and friendly neighbor, the flag of the United States is flying over the Citadel of old Quebec." When his turn came to show whether he could outdo his hosts in graciousness, President Roosevelt moved forward on the arm of Son James, warmed Canadian hearts by saying: "While I was on my cruise, I read in a newspaper that I was to be received with all the honors customarily rendered to a foreign ruler.
"Your Excellency, I am grateful for the honors; but something within me rebelled at that word 'foreign.' I say this because when I have been in Canada I have never heard a Canadian refer to an American as a 'foreigner.' He is just an 'American.' and, in the same way, in the United States, Canadians are not 'foreigners'; they are 'Canadians.' " But President Roosevelt had not yet done his best. He referred to the late George V as "a great King and a great gentleman." He added: "It has also been my privilege to know His Majesty King Edward." And then as the supreme evidence of his ability as a statesman, President Roosevelt turned without warning to Premier Joseph Adelard Godbout of Quebec Province and Mayor Gregoire of Quebec City and said: "Monsieur le Premier Ministre de Quebec, Monsieur le Maire: "Ces aimables paroles que vous venez de m'adresser au nom de votre grande Province et de votre belle ville, et que vous adressez, par moi, au peuple des Etats Unis, me touchent projondement et je vous prie de croire que je suis tres sensible `a la chaleur de votre accueil.
"Que de scenes de valeur et d'heroisme ce nom de Quebec evoque en nous, et que de noms illustres s'associent `a ce noble roc. . . ." Loud and ecstatic were the French Canadian cheers* as he finished, dropping into English once more to invite Premier King and Lord Tweedsmuir to the White House. Then the official party adjourned for luncheon to the Governor-General's summer home in the Citadel. Afterwards there were private conferences on public problems common to the two countries, a sightseeing tour through showers, a formal tea and a departure by train via Montreal for Vermont.
At nine o'clock next morning President Roosevelt detrained at Waterbury, Vt., to be received by Vermont's Governor Charles M. Smith, Senators Varren R. Austin and Ernest W. Gibson, Republicans all. To such political foreigners the President did not find it necessary to show his diplomatic side. He drove to Little River Dam near Waterbury, to Wrightsville Dam on the Winooski near Montpelier, thence through one of last spring's Connecticut River flood regions to Hanover, N. H., where he was met by Republican Governor H. Styles Bridges. At Little River Dam, where 1,300 CCC boys were working, he said, "This is a great sight!" at Wrightsville Dam he called reporters to his car, told them that the dam which held back the flood last spring, had in one season saved more money than it cost. "It is a very excellent illustration of co-operation in boondoggling of the Federal and State Governments. Put that down Geoffrey," he added, turning to Geoffrey Parsons Jr., correspondent of the Republican Boston Globe, son of Chief Editorial Writer Geoffrey Parsons of the Republican New York Herald Tribune. Along the route the President complained that Vermont and New Hampshire had not done the upstream reforestation to prevent floods which they should have, that only 51% of Vermont's and 35% of New Hampshire's PWA labor had been taken from the relief rolls. He declared the Federal Government would hereafter be "hardboiled"' in advancing its 45% of the cost of PWA projects.
From Hanover, N. H., the President went by train to Springfield, Mass, to confer with Democratic Governor Curley and urge co-operation in a four-State compact to spend $6,000,000 to complete a chain of ten dams to save the Connecticut Valley from all future floods. Little more than 48 hours after he had left New Brunswick Franklin Roosevelt was back on his home grounds at Hyde Park.
There he promptly plunged into politics. On Sunday he took his wife to church in candidatorial style, summoned his campaign henchmen: Generalissimo Farley; Moneymen Frank Walker and W. Forbes Morgan; Pressagent Charles Michelson; Farm-pacifiers Secretary Wallace and Chester Davis; Church-pacifier Stanley High; Woman-pacifier Mary Dewson; Secretary Lawrence Wood ("Chip") Robert Jr. of his National Committee.
After an hour the meeting adjourned, but Advisers Wallace and Davis remained to confer on Drought. The President made no public statement. Adviser Farley had ten minutes to wait for his train, told newshawks: "I reported to the President that headquarters were practically set up and ready to go. ... We are prepared now to conduct an aggressive campaign. ... It will cost about $2,000,000."
*About two-thirds of Quebec's citizens are French-speaking.
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