"As A Good Soldier . . ."

"If the convention should . . . nominate me for the Presidency, I shall accept. If the people elect me, I will serve. . . .

"I would accept and serve but I would not run, in the usual partisan, political sense. But if the people command me to continue in this office and in this war I have as little right to withdraw as the soldier has to leave his post in the line. ., .

"For myself I do not want to run. By next spring, I shall have been President and Commander in Chief of the armed forces for twelve years. . . . All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River. . . .

"Reluctantly, but as a good soldier, I repeat that I will accept and serve in this office, if I am so ordered by the Commander in Chief of us all--the sovereign people of the United States."

So wrote Franklin Roosevelt in a letter to Democratic Chairman Robert Hannegan last week.

No one was surprised over this news. Franklin Roosevelt had long since withered any & all budding successors within his party. All Democrats knew that, as far as their party was concerned, Franklin Roosevelt was the indispensable 1944 candidate.

The Term IV strategy was now fairly plain. The President, occupied with the problems of the whole teeming world, would seem to be too busy to engage in the "usual partisan" politics. Further, he would appear more & more in his self-emphasized role as Commander in Chief. Both attitudes were aimed at making Republican campaigning seem partisan and maliciously domestic.

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