Mr. Farley Announces

THE PRESIDENCY Mr. Farley Announces

For the first time, Term III for Franklin Roosevelt last week began to look like a political impossibility. That thought, growing in the Capitol, spread down the green stretch of the Mall, into the tomblike buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue. Washington, dimly and by degrees, had a foretaste of the shock that will come to the country if Franklin Roosevelt removes himself from the political scene.

The man who gave the U. S. this shadowy shock was big Jim Farley. One night the little bells of the nation's news-tickers began to tinkle; clacking, wiry fingers tapped out under glass: "To clear up any misunderstanding, let me say that my name will be presented to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and that's that.

Tall, pink-faced Postmaster General Farley has been doggedly loyal to Franklin Roosevelt ever since pre-Albany days. He has never forgotten that without Franklin Roosevelt's good will he might yet be a saloonkeeper's son who was doing fairly well as a gypsum salesman. As the President's whipping-boy throughout the early New Deal years, Mr. Farley endured much, worked hard, remained financially in debt until he sold his memoirs to the American Magazine for $65,000.* His dream was simple and sublime: to succeed Mr. Roosevelt as President.

Everybody knew what Jim Farley thought of The Boss. But what Mr. Roosevelt thought of Big Jim all these years was clear to everybody but Jim. That began to clear up too one day last spring, when Big Jim. moving with the nervous alertness of a hurrying cat, strode into the White House to report to Mr. Roosevelt. Just back from a 13-State, 7,500-mile trip, surveying Democratic fences, Jim Farley had a lot to tell. One thing: nomination for Term III would be easy, election might be tough.

Though Mr. Farley grinned a flashbulb grin as he left the White House, he left behind a chilly Administration silence. Something had changed in the relationship of Handyman Farley and Boss Roosevelt. Thereafter Jim Farley's visits to the White House were infrequent. Last July he went to Hyde Park for a long afternoon's chat with his boss. No one knew exactly what was said, but again something had changed.

Fortnight ago came the break. In a front-page column in the Washington Post, Roosevelt-Biographer Ernest K. Lindley reported that in a conversation with a Democratic elder, Mr. Roosevelt said: 1) he would not run for Term III unless the Germans overran England; 2) Secretary of State Cordell Hull was his candidate, was safe, could be elected; 3) Jim Farley was unacceptable as a Vice-Presidential nominee because some people might think the Democrats "were using Cordell Hull as a stalking horse for the Pope" (TIME, March 11).

Next day, at his press conference, the President said he had not read the Lindley piece. He made no other direct statement on the subject. Eleven days later, when the President had still not refuted the story, Big Jim spoke up, said feelingly in a speech: "We must never permit the ideals of this republic to sink to a point where every American father and mother, regardless of race, color or creed, cannot look proudly into the cradle of their newborn babe and see a future President of the United States."

Three days later, still feverish with a lingering cold, the President left his sickbed, held a press conference. But no one asked him about Mr. Farley. At last White House Secretary Stephen T. Early tiptoed over to a correspondent who obligingly asked the question: ringingly the President hailed Jim Farley's remarks, insisted that he literally hadn't read the Lindley article before the March 5 press conference.

The President said the column was made up out of whole cloth, that no such interview had taken place. This reflection on Columnist Lindley's integrity was not taken too seriously by those who knew Mr. Lindley, and who also recalled that he had been for nine years the Roosevelt biographer,* is now a member of the Franklin Roosevelt Library committee.

The Presidential amends came too late. Next day Mr. Farley made his announcement.

GOPoliticos took fresh heart, quit scanning the skies for portents, redoubled their search for The Right Man. Republican leaders know the political inseparability of Messrs. Roosevelt & Farley. Neither, without the other, can win a national victory, they figured; and happily waited for Term III Managers Tommy Corcoran and Harold Ickes to find this out.

As Candidate Farley prepared for a ten-day, ten-State Southern trip--to start this week in Cordell Hull territory -- Third Termites were forced to face a strange new world. Only a month ago a Janizary had boasted: "We have bombed every airdrome and there's not a plane in the sky" (TIME, March 4). Now it appeared there could be no Term III nomination by acclamation. Last week the Janizaries were even heard to mention a New Deal comeback in 1944.

* BEHIND THE BALLOTS (Harcourt, Brace --$3). *Franklin D. Roosevelt--A Career in Progressive Democracy (1931), The Roosevelt Revolution--First Phase (1933), Half Way With Roosevelt (1936).

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